Why won't God heal amputees - Page 4

On March 19 2009 20:05 Pioneer wrote:
Did I say once in there that I was afraid of oblivion or going to hell? There's a good chance that my actions may lead me to hell and there is strong reasoning behind the belief that there is no god/afterlife. I'm not afraid of the atheist belief, I'd rather it not be that way but can anyone say that they'd prefer nothingness and ceasing to exist over the chance at eternal happiness?

(I said chance because assuming you believe in the christian religion there is a chance at eternal hellfire.)

On March 19 2009 20:01 HamerD wrote:
And by the way, all of this crap about using logic to prove or disprove God is the stuff of retarded college dropouts and dumb 1st year philosophy students.

On March 19 2009 20:01 HamerD wrote:
The most important arguments relating to religion are:

1) Will we go to hell if we don't worship God?

2) Can God do anything on this earth?

3) Does God exist?

In that order.

On March 19 2009 18:24 esla_sol wrote:

Why should you try and change their mind? Because they are wrong, dead wrong.

And it is these wrong people that turn up to the polls and vote. If religion was a non-issue, gays would not have been stripped of their basic human rights with the passing of prop 8.

And yet, even with millions of people praying, nothing will happen. (I mean, if you're gonna 'test' God, at least play by the rules. According to the scriptures quoted in the very article we're discussing, you actually have to have faith that it will surely happen. Bummer eh?)

No matter how many people pray. No matter how sincere those people are. No matter how much they believe. No matter how devout and deserving the recipient. Nothing will happen. The legs will not regenerate. (You mean just like not a single case of rabies was healed, EVER, without vaccine?) Prayer does not restore the severed limbs of amputees.(It doesn't heal rabies either, right?) You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously.(Same with rabies, right?) And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us. If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day.

On March 19 2009 20:12 Lucktar wrote:
Why does taking Pascal's Wager make someone intellectually inferior, Idra? I mean, you can debate the sincerity of such a belief all you want, but it's hardly an irrational point of view. I don't think there's anything intellectually dishonest about believing in god just to avoid the possibility (no matter how small) of eternal hell. In fact, that sounds a whole lot more honest to me than most Christians.

On March 19 2009 20:08 IdrA wrote:

then why does he 'miraculously cure' cancer and rabies and whatnot?

On March 19 2009 20:08 IdrA wrote:

the verses from the bible quoted in the op do kind of script him as that. "ask and ye shall receive" and whatnot.

On March 19 2009 20:23 kefkalives wrote:
No matter what, a believer will be able to supercede any argument of an atheist with the "god dosent require logic blah blah blah". They make an argument they can't lose.

On March 19 2009 20:19 Jibba wrote:

It's spiritually dishonest and it makes several rash assumptions, such as being a good person (without being Christian) isn't enough to get you into Heaven. Assuming you're a Christian, that obviously wasn't the case for Jesus, and someone from another religion could just as easily put the same dilemma on you for their cause.

On March 19 2009 20:15 GoodWill wrote:


You just wrote off a huge portion of humanity to the college dropouts. The "real" philosophers don't approach this subject with logic. Wow man you are really gud.

On March 19 2009 20:15 GoodWill wrote:


And then you enlightened us by listing THE definitive three most important ... ... arguments?

How can I be as educated as you? How can I survive college now that I have tried to use logic to determine the existence of god?

On March 19 2009 18:16 Jibba wrote:
I find most undeveloped atheist/agnostic thought to be just as idiotic as any other undeveloped religious beliefs. This thread probably falls into that category.

On March 19 2009 20:31 Lucktar wrote:

Well, the point that it's spiritually dishonest is questionable, but I understand where you're coming from. At the foundations, though, the carrot and the stick are what motivates people in perhaps not all, but nearly all situations. You can couch your belief in all the correct language about loving god and accepting forgiveness and so on and so forth, but you're still just after 2 things: the carrot, or heaven, and safety from the stick, or hell.

As far as making rash assumptions, the whole point of Pascal's Wager is to assume the worst case scenario. God might exist, he might hate people who don't believe in him, and he might send people to hell for said lack of belief. So if just being a good person is enough to get me into heaven, great. If not, though, I'm fucked. Therefore, Pascal's Wager.

On March 19 2009 20:12 Lucktar wrote:
Why does taking Pascal's Wager make someone intellectually inferior, Idra? I mean, you can debate the sincerity of such a belief all you want, but it's hardly an irrational point of view. I don't think there's anything intellectually dishonest about believing in god just to avoid the possibility (no matter how small) of eternal hell. In fact, that sounds a whole lot more honest to me than most Christians.

On March 19 2009 20:16 Jibba wrote:
I bet this strategy works with all your girl friends.
Religion isn't a non-issue, but it's not the source of problems either. Either way, there's a difference between religion and faith. and the original post isn't questioning religious institutions. It's questioning faith in a benevolent God, who by all indications does some pretty terrible things. Like someone else said, it's a modified form of the problem of evil argument and it would be answered by religious people the exact same way.

On March 19 2009 20:10 IdrA wrote:

did you not read the op or something?
this is addressed to people who believe in the 'power of prayer' to literally heal sick people. if you dont believe that then yes you are free to ignore it. but there are plenty of people who do believe it.

On March 19 2009 20:26 HamerD wrote:


That doesn't contradict what I said. God might, for example, feel like showing his presence from time to time to his most devoted followers, through miracles or apparitions; or to huge circles of people who aren't necessarily *expecting* anything other than their lord to make a judgement.

There is a difference between healing once in awhile and being a medipack on tap.

The bible is a ridiculous source in my opinion. AFAIK it's been ripped apart, adulterated and amended to high hell. It was supposed to be something like 3 times the length, and it was a pretty shoddy translation through the centuries from the original texts, apparently. Picking individual arguments against a text which is full of confusion and mistranslation is as pointless as believing everything in the bible is the unadulterated word of God.

Extremism is present in both religion AND atheism.

On March 19 2009 20:34 HamerD wrote:


Cas en point. Look, guy, re-read what I put. Using logic to prove or disprove God is RETARDED.

LOGIC NEVER PROVES ANYTHING. Logic can give you reason to find proof for something, but it is the means to the end. The end is finding ACTUAL EVIDENCE. Theories do not prove facts, it's the OTHER FUCKING WAY AROUND.

I wish you could see how much my eyes are rolling at your insanely lame defense of lazy college dropout pseudo-intellectuals.

On March 19 2009 20:34 HamerD wrote:

Again, for those less intellectually endowed than a baboon, let me repeat. Logic is not the prover of arguments. Logic is necessary to create valid arguments and make theories, but it does not PROVE anything.

Logic is something that has to proven in ITSELF. Logic is our understanding of causal nature. It is nothing more than a translation of causality into an applicable theoretical concept. Proof comes before logic, because logic bends around proof to accommodate it. Encore cas en point, quantum physics.

On March 19 2009 20:01 HamerD wrote:
And by the way, all of this crap about using logic to prove or disprove God is the stuff of retarded college dropouts and dumb 1st year philosophy students.

On March 19 2009 20:48 Jibba wrote:

It's just picking on a form of extremism, which is easy to do for anything. They could go any number of routes in response to you, no different than any other evil argument. Plus, even if the person got better, you would just claim that it was a placebo effect of their healthy consciousness.

The main point is that you shouldn't castrate someone's religion for praying for other's good health. That's just wicked, and certainly not in line with humanism.

On March 19 2009 20:47 IdrA wrote:

how exactly is religion not a source of problems?
you can say muslims would be angry with or without the qur'an to gode them on, but the fact remains that it is there and it does inspire them and we dont seem to see the same actions in other people who arent promised 72 virgins in return for martrydom