"Why Won't God Heal Amputees?"

[greg]

lol, i bet this could go on forever

[Wanderer]

I have actually read most of the NT in the original.

Την Καινή Διαθήκη; Which edition?

[mn dave]

lol, i bet this could go on forever

You bet right.

[karlhenning]

Την Καινή Διαθήκη; Which edition?

Perhaps he meant the original German?

[Catison]

Perhaps he meant the original German?

I am often reminded of the former governor of Texas, "Ma" Ferguson, "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for Texas schoolchildren".

Although wikiquote says its misattributed. 

[Catison]

I am often reminded of the former governor of Texas, "Ma" Ferguson, "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for Texas schoolchildren".

Although wikiquote says its misattributed. 

Its even more unlikely she said it.  Check out: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003084.html

[adamdavid80]

I am often reminded of the former governor of Texas, "Ma" Ferguson, "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for Texas schoolchildren".

Although wikiquote says its misattributed. 

Yikes!  I've always heard this story as an ultra-rightwing Washngton Congressman saying it on the senate floor, in his support for an amendment to make english the national language!  cool find!

[PerfectWagnerite]

Yikes!  I've always heard this story as an ultra-rightwing Washngton Congressman saying it on the senate floor, in his support for an amendment to make english the national language!  cool find!

I have no problem with making English the national language. You want to be a citizen of this country, learn the language. It is a joke that driver license and other tests are given in different languages.

[adamdavid80]

I have no problem with making English the national language. You want to be a citizen of this country, learn the language. It is a joke that driver license and other tests are given in different languages.

That's whole different conversation.  This thread is concerned with God reassembling lost limbs!   

[Guido]

Because if it did provide the answer, there would not be any logical reason why it would not be accepted by every sane person in the world. It is not like (all) the atheists have something against God and that they all bury their heads to what is obvious. As long as there are atheists around, it should be accepted that the religious answer is not all-encompassing. Just like the other way around. As long as religion is alive it also means that positive science has not answered the questions objectively and once and for all.
Also, I think saying "God created us" takes its credit from nothing else other than the only source that claims its existence.

To me, religion is like saying "Look, we are curious about a lot of things, but we can not answer them. However, if there was this entity called 'God' it would all make perfect sense."
This is a plausible way of thinking, no contest. But it does not provide an answer as much as it shows a way out. But that way out does not lead anywhere. And we are still curious about "how" he did it, but are given that we cannot know it, for he works in ways that we can never understand.

Great post! (all of it not just the excerpted bit). Just felt people hadn't given it sufficient praise or attention!

[mn dave]

Why don't amputees heal God?

[Catison]

In my last link, I found the most interesting analysis of this cartoon.



For some reason I felt compelled to post it. 

[Guido]

Yes that's a classic! 

[MDL]

In my last link, I found the most interesting analysis of this cartoon.



For some reason I felt compelled to post it. 

Excellent! Well, we've all been there, haven't we?

[Catison]

Great post! (all of it not just the excerpted bit). Just felt people hadn't given it sufficient praise or attention!

I totally agree.  It was a very well argued post.

However, a statement like this: "As long as religion is alive it also means that positive science has not answered the questions objectively and once and for all." implies that religion could go away if only we knew everything.  But I think we might all agree that science has not told us our purpose, nor will it try.

[Al Moritz]

Yes, it was well-argued.

I am not saying either that God is all-obvious to everyone. However, if atheists would concede that believers can, in fact, be just as rational as they are, their position might deserve far more respect than with the current average attitude.

And I agree with Catison's last post: science cannot answer all the questions, and the atheist argumentation should not make itself depending on the pretense that one day, in principle it will be able to (I have recently pointed out that this is a fallacy).

[karlhenning]

I totally agree.  It was a very well argued post.

However, a statement like this: "As long as religion is alive it also means that positive science has not answered the questions objectively and once and for all." implies that religion could go away if only we knew everything.  But I think we might all agree that science has not told us our purpose, nor will it try.

Right; the point has been made repeatedly in the past, that religion and science investigate different areas.

(And that the idea that science is fit to investigate all areas of life, is itself a faith-based initiative  0:) )

[Catison]

However, a statement like this: "As long as religion is alive it also means that positive science has not answered the questions objectively and once and for all." implies that religion could go away if only we knew everything.  But I think we might all agree that science has not told us our purpose, nor will it try.

There is also the common Atheist argument, "Who says there is a purpose?".  This argument attempts to undermine religion's claim to understand purpose by denying it exists.  But that clouds the issue.  If a purpose doesn't exist, then science can still not tell us about it, by definition.  It will always remain a thing of philosophy.

[M forever]

Την Καινή Διαθήκη; Which edition?

Aland.

[Guido]

Yes, I do not believe in purpose beyond that of the social context in which we live (or perhaps the darwinian bioligical context) and do believe that religion creates the 'problem of purpose' and then solves it instantly - this to me is an artificiality and not inherrent to the human condition - it's just very ingrained because so many generations have been educated to believe that there is one. The same could be said of morality. While I find darwinian explanations of morality convincing (and perhaps Al will too given his naturalistic beliefs with regards to the evolution of humans), I find any discussion of the so called 'truth' of that morality bizarre... morality here is reduced to a (admittedly complex) survival mechanism, and social phenomenon, not a metaphysical, philosophical one. When philosophers start making claims like 'in all likelyhood, humans have the wrong morality, because it arose by natural selection and is as such the morality which most encourages survival and reproduction in human populations', this vexes me, as it presuposes that there is in fact a true morality. I find all these questions completely besides the point, whether philosophers think that our morality contains degrees of truth or not - when asked why they think a 'true morality' exists, and how it could (metaphysically) I have never been able to find anything beyond 'just an intuition' that there is. This to me screams out that this is a cultural (educational) phenomenon... Hmm I've wandered slightly ff track, but that has stopped anyone on religion threads before!