For days now I have been trying to get one single Jesus believer to explain why there hasn't been one single verifiable miracle according to MY DEFINITION OF MIRACLE.

My definition is simple and effective, because it prevents people from describing miracles that can be easily explained.

PLEASE DONT INSULT ME BY BEING NON-RESPONSIVE!!!

Why hasn't one single veteran, bombing victim, etc, ever had a limb restored???

Jesus raised Lazarus from the DEAD - a little trickier than replacing a mere limb.

PLEASE DONT INSULT ME BY SUGGESTING THAT NOT ONE HAD ENOUGH FAITH

Well, as I explained to my 8 year old temper-tantrum throwing students today, "What you want is not a concern to me."

What I will say is that modern surgeons pull patients back from death every freaking day. Granted, they have to do it within a certain time frame, otherwise things start to get stinky. But they can do it. Who is to say that people didn't on occasion escape the clutches of death a couple of millennia ago as well?

*rolls eyes*

Have fun, Rjd.

No one owes you an explanation of what they believe. You are demanding and not in a particularly respectful way.Shocking that no one is giving you an answer



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2017 06:12AM by bona dea.

Not sure why you weighed in given that Jesus is more of a prophet, teacher, etc, rather than the Son of God, in your view.

I am looking for a serious answer from a serious believer.

Is that too much to ask??? Don't bummer me out Summer:)

Enlightened being. See the Buddha for reference. Not really a Christian concept.

Can't we get anyone to respond? You have lots of buds.

You get the answer you get. If you don't like it, tough shit.

I don't have anything to say about this thread. I just wanted to point out that it's incredibly demanding and arrogant of you to ask your question, and then have specific confines in which people are allowed to answer your question, allowing absolutely no room for any meaningful discussion of the topic. I also wonder if you suspect that someone is going to slip up and say "you're right James Dean, there are no Miracles! I guess my religion is a crock!" Which is never going to happen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2017 12:06AM by midwestanon.

I don't give a fuck how anyone answers.

If someone can't explain why there hasn't been a single verifiable modern miracle, then don't answer my question.

If someone can't answer why, and chooses to still believe, more power to them.

It wasn't arrogant at all, the question was narrowly tailored to avoid bullshit responses like yours.

tell how you really feel!

So the purpose of this thread was to provide a forum for this kind of productive repartee? Because I didn't respond to your question, yet you deemed it 'bullshit'; how you came to that that conclusion I don't know.

Well good job slick, for creating a thread about jack shit, cause you're never gonna get the response you "want".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2017 12:55AM by midwestanon.

Reread my response to your assault one more time.

"I don't give a fuck how anyone answers".

The only response I want is an honest one, nothing less and nothing more.

Is that too much to ask?

Honest answer....

Summer = Strike One

Rebeljamesdean = Strike 2 and 3, your out, game over. If this is how you start a pick up game, you won't get many players.

And since you don't give a F@*# about how anyone answers, my post shouldn't bother you in the least.

Lamest post I've seen in quite sometime.....honestly :)

No worries - you may have misunderstood what I meant by saying "I don't give a fuck how anyone answers".

I meant that I am not trying to control an answer, or that I am seeking an answer that I want.

I just wanted an honest answer and will always respect the answer.

Who's going to want to respond to you if you're going to be argumentative and dismissive? You were the one who narrowly defined the stakes for a legitimate miracle. To me, it sounds like a deliberate excuse to get into arguments with people when they provide examples that are not up to scratch in your eyes.

I don't mind threads with the intention of having a debate, but that's different than having threads with the intention of being argumentative. You're premise is hostile-sounding, what with insisting that people prescribe to your definition of a miracle.


I've said my peace, and I could be wrong about your intentions. I don't really care that much about the thread because I don't really care about miracles because I don't really believe in them. If you find someone willing to submit a miracle that meets your conditions, all the more power to you, but I doubt it's going to happen.

No worries Midwest.

You are wrong about my intentions.

Read any of my prior Posts.

Civility is very important to me, but so is intellectually honesty.

In Part 1 of my Post, no one answered my central question.

This is why I narrowly tailored my question the second time.

I apologize if I responded too forcefully to what I perceived as an attack against me. I value your considerable contributions to this Board and your responses to my threads as well as many others.

First of all, it seems that some folks get offended by the mere Topic Line. In this case, "Why does anyone believe in the actuality of biblical miracles"? I generally try and write a Topic Line to generate interest and responses - not to engender ill will.

I am interested in thoughtful debate and have no desire to be argumentative. Apologies if it came across that way.

James, in the previous thread, I gave you several answers, a few of them long, and (I tried) honest and thoughtful. But you keep coming back, saying, "Give me an answer!" (several times).

I realize the subject of "Dispensational Theology" is awfully dry, and may not be persuasive, but I hope it is satisfactory as an honest answer. I hold that miracles were common in certain Biblical times, less common in others, and rare today. Complicating things today is that in modern times, what authentic miracles there may be are mixed in with fraud, exaggerated and misdiagnosed healings, sensationalism, and (worst of all) faith affirming legends.* All this, James, overlaps the larger issue of faith in God.

So much of it comes down to faith, and faith, by its very nature, resists absolute empirical validation.

I invite you to reread my posts in the other thread. They're honest and, I hope, rational, answers, even if they're not the precise answer(s) you want.

*To remind you, as an ex-Christian Scientist I tend to be highly skeptical of reports of the miraculous. Paradoxically, I believe miracles do occur, albeit rarely.

I appreciate your thoughtful responses to my questions.

I understand your Dispensational Theology theory.

I simply want to know "why" you believe they don't happen today?

The current dispensation, James, is "the Church age." God makes His presence and will known primarily by the Bible, now available in all but the most remote of language groups, the Holy Spirit, and the testimony and work of Christians (like me--somewhat effective, hopefully).

It's a bit of a generalization, dear friend, but Biblical miracles (especially in Jesus's ministry) was not really to do something (heal, feed, control Nature), but to sort of amplify a teaching or spiritual point. Example: Jesus healed a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, which pissed off the legalistic Pharisees. Healing the man was NOT the primary point. Rather, it was to teach the Pharisees that acts of goodness were more important than obeying the Sabbath laws, and that Jesus had the divine authority to forgive sins.

Wandering off topic a bit here, see if you can get hold of a book, "The Beautiful Side of Evil," by Joanna Michaelson. She was a gifted "healer," and was apprenticed to a Mexican shaman who (with her eyes closed!) performed major surgery with non-sterile knives, and without anesthesia--UNDER THE OBSERVATION OF TRAINED AMERICAN DOCTORS! It's a very easy, fascinating read. Michaelson came to the conclusions that miracles ain't necessarily what you think they are. I'm sure you'd be intrigued.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2017 02:00AM by caffiend.

You make an interesting point which I appreciate.

As far as Dispensational Theology, it seems like that is another way of saying that God works in mysterious ways.

If God/Jesus exists, he/she can certainly operate differently in bible times than in modern times.

But that raises questions for me. Since I don't see the kind and type of bible miracles in our time, it is natural to then question the Bible miracles.

That is really what I am trying to discuss and you have given me an interesting answer.

caffiend said:

"Wandering off topic a bit here, see if you can get hold of a book, "The Beautiful Side of Evil," by Joanna Michaelson. She was a gifted "healer," and was apprenticed to a Mexican shaman who (with her eyes closed!) performed major surgery with non-sterile knives, and without anesthesia--UNDER THE OBSERVATION OF TRAINED AMERICAN DOCTORS!"


If you have any inclination to take caffiend's suggestion, also be sure to research "psychic surgery." You can start with Wikipedia:

"Psychic surgery, a pseudoscience constituting medical fraud, is when a practitioner creates the illusion of performing surgery with his or her bare hands[*] and uses trickery, fake blood, and animal parts to convince the patient that the diseased lesions were removed and that the incision spontaneously healed.[1][2][3]

"It has been denounced by the US Federal Trade Commission as a 'total hoax',[2] and the American Cancer Society maintains that psychic surgery may cause needless death by keeping the ill away from life-saving medical care.[3] Medical professionals and skeptics classify it as sleight of hand and any positive results as a placebo effect.[4][5][6][7]"
...
[*]"Most cases do not involve actual surgery although some practitioners make real incisions.[9]"



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_surgery

Thx for the article - very interesting.

"PLEASE DONT INSULT ME BY BEING NON-RESPONSIVE!!!"

I say that to my cat all the time, with mixed results.

So okay, about miracles they're pretty commonplace. It's not like they stopped 2000 years ago. Limb regeneration would be an interesting trick. Probably doesn't happen because it's too much to get your head around. I suspect the right tech could do limb regeneration, once we get there.

I'm a little weird about miracles. To be, nothing happens in life that isn't a miracle.

RJD, it just occurred to me--you posted one question, but you wrangle a different one in the threads. Noticing that, perhaps I can provide a bit of clarity.

#1: "Why does anyone believe in the actuality of Biblical miracles?" I think I've answered that, for myself, and (I think) for a lot of believing Christians: it's a matter of faith. Not blind, irrational, emotion-intense faith, but an acceptance that somethings have happened in the past which cannot be explained by naturalistic means.

#2: "Why don't miracles occur nowadays, and/or can you prove one--just one--to me?" My answer is Dispensational Theology, and no, I can't provide one for you. Even if I did, two problems (at least!) arise. 1) Validation will be problematic, because you (and me, too) would probably not accept it as real, and 2) We have to take God on God's terms, not ours: "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test..." (Deut. 6.16a). This runs contrary to our humanistic temperament, but God tests us, not the other way around.

Check your library and used bookstores for "The Beautiful Side of Evil." It's a fast read, and will make you consider all this in a different light.

I have one that could possibly fall under it, but considering how others were treated in their statements, I don't feel it is something I might want to share here.

I will, but with some trepidations.

I was paralyzed from the waist down earlier in life. The doctors said I would never walk again. I was blessed, though the change didn't occur immediately. It took time, I had to learn how to walk again. Today, despite what it looked like at the time, I WALK.

Some may say the original doctors got it wrong (I don't think they did, it matched what the x-rays and showed, and multiple doctors agreed it was pretty clear cut). Some may say that because I didn't get up immediately and walk it does not count (and I didn't get up immediately, in fact, didn't even stand for a long time, but by all diagnosis, I would NEVER stand or walk again, nor have kids most likely for that matter). It took a lot of pain, effort, and desire to overcome that, but I WAS able to.

Point blank, medically I was never going to walk on my own again.

It took a LOOONG time, but today, I walk just fine. I have had children. I consider that a miracle.

It's possible you might not (then again, I trust what the doctors told me originally FAR more than someone who probably is NOT a doctor), but for me, THAT counts as a miracle. It was aided by effort on my part and on medical doctors (and there was a LOT of effort on their part in helping me be where I am at today, but medical expertise was not as great when I was a teen as it is in today's world).

So, if you want someone who believe in the actuality of miracles, you can count me as one.

On the otherhand, whether you believe it or not, I don't really care (actually I should have a great desire for you to be Saved...but it's not really something that I think I would affect one way or the other). Faith isn't a matter of evidence, but a matter of Faith. What I believe and think is probably not for you nor to affect what you have faith in. You cannot have faith built upon someone else's belief, it is something each of us has to develop (for those who believe in Christianity) for each individual if we wish to be personally saved (Southern Baptist belief).

I have no issue with your experience and I think your recovery is fantastic and I appreciate you sharing it.

But now, I hear you cry, “If miracles were ever wrought, why should they not be wrought now?” Because there are enough wrought to convince any rational candid man, who really wishes to know the truth; and when God has done enough, he is too wise to do anything more. You might as well say, “If the world ever were created, why is it not created again?” But even a child will tell you, that, having been once created, it neither requires nor admits a second creation. If miracles were made common, they would cease to be miracles, and to answer their end.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF IMPOSTURE IN THE MIRACLES OF SCRIPTURE: A LECTURE ON THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCES OF DIVINE REVELATION: DELIVERED AT SILVER STREET CHAPEL, THURSDAY, FEB. 17, 1831. By James Bennett, D.D.

Your central claim appears to be that "this thing you claim happened in the past can no longer be duplicated, therefore, it must never have happened in the first place." This is manifestly false, and there is no branch of science that would ever suggest such a thing.

It is not a particularly clever argument. It's something an ideologue would like to apply to religious claims, but would never for a moment consider applying to more relevant things such as the source of all the matter in the universe or the mysterious emergence of living matter from inert lifeless elements.

You seek duplication of regrown limbs as you wake each morning in the midst of a universe that is created from a force you cannot comprehend and is ruled by immutable laws that are necessary for your continued existence. And the source of your consciousness, and spark of life are completely unknown to you.

Why not just say you prayed to win the lottery, and you didn't, so there must be no God?

>"...you wake each morning in the midst of a universe that is created from a force you cannot comprehend and is ruled by immutable laws that are necessary for your continued existence. And the source of your consciousness, and spark of life are completely unknown to you."

So, argument from personal ignorance. "I don't understand how something works, therefor God did it." You know that doesn't work, it's been pointed out all over the place. You might as well say, "There was a flash in the sky followed by a loud boom, I don't know how that could happen, so it must be God!"

And before you go saying that there are things that humans don't understand, therefore God, that's arguing for the "God of the Gaps". Essentially looking for places where human understanding hasn't come up with a complete picture yet and shoving God in there. The problem is that as human understanding grows, there's fewer and fewer places to shove God... See the lightening example above.

>"Why not just say you prayed to win the lottery, and you didn't, so there must be no God?"

I agree that the OP's statements are over the top, trying to force people to answer the way he'd like is silly and certainly seems to be designed to force opponents into a corner so he can "win". However, you're basically stating that, because someone wins the lottery, it's not because that's how lotteries work, but because you don't understand lotteries, God made that person a winner.

Thx for your Post.

I wasn't trying to put anyone in a corner.

I was creating a hypothetical which is a common teaching technique.

Apologies if anyone took offense.

Translated: If you don't get it, that means God did it.

Talk about diving in at the shallow end.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2017 03:35AM by steve benson.

Thank you for your response. I hope I have made myself clear. I can only repeat things so many times. I have asked a question, not made a claim.

"I've had miracles in my life. I feel sorry for you."

If that doesn't sew it up with no need of further discussion, nothing does.

Has anyone ever noticed that religions **never** define exactly what constitutes a miracle?

I don't know that that's true. I don't have time to look it up at the moment but I'm pretty sure at least Catholic's have a definition for Miracle because it's an important part of canonizing someone.

The definition may be vague and open to interpretation, but I thought they had something.

https://www.google.com/search?q=images&client=safari&channel=iphone_bm&prmd=ivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjM-uDikMTTAhVplFQKHT9mCmYQ_AUICSgB&biw=375&bih=559#channel=iphone_bm&tbm=isch&q=miracle+whip+bottle+label+ingredients&imgrc=xSKl8oHshgBmPM:



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2017 03:44AM by steve benson.

LOL@SB! Oh great! Now I want a deviled egg!