Hi everyone. I have been out of the church for a few years. Went on a mission to NJ in 2002-2004. I am in a rare debate with my family about the the church. It started with me asking why the priesthood leaders don't go to children's hospitals and heal them. Also, why aren't amputees ever healed?

I was told it is because that would go against the purpose of life which is to be tested by faith. If everyone saw such miracles they would all join the church.

I brought up the story of Elijah who did a competition with the priests of Baal to prove who worshipped the real god. The people of Israel had turned to worshipping Baal, and even their king Ahab worshipped Baal. This test was done in front of a crowd who didn't know which god to worship. Elijah was able to do a miracle and Baal's prophets weren't so the crowd then chose to worship Jehovah.

I asked why the crowd got the privilege of seeing proof of God and didn't need to be tested by faith. I was told that when God does miracles it's typically to reinforce those who already have faith (reinforcement learning), or to course correct when things are too far lost like in Elijah's story which prevents the loss of his people while creating a learning experience that later generations can take on faith.

I don't have an answer for this. However, I remember hearing someone give advice to atheists that they shouldn't debate the consistency of religious beliefs in this way because it is too easy for a theist to pull an excuse out of thin air as to why a seeming theological inconsistency is actually consistent. Any thoughts? Thank you.

Ah yes, one of my favorite passages in scripture.

When the priests of Baal cannot get their deity to come down and start a fire, "Elijah mocked them, saying, 'Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.'”

Yes, Elijah said that Baal might be enjoying a nice bowel movement. . .

Having such a way with words, I've often wondered if Elijah is related to elderolddog.

Erikdelfrie

That is quite correct if an atheist wants to debate in this way, that person better know how to swim or they will get sucked out with the tide.

The whole LDS thing approach to the Bible is what creates inconsistencies. They are not the same God being talked about.

Mormons worship a different Christ than most of Christianity which they will happily admit if the admission can be made in a way to make them feel superior in any way. They feel that this is because they are honored by the presence of living prophets.

An LDS prophet either is or he is not - there is no sustained as such grey area to be mealy mouthed. Either they are ashamed of the gospel of Christ and an unprofitable servant or they are not. And if they are not they better darn well start acting like prophets we read about in the Bible.

This is whole reason why mormons try to excuse away the clear displays of power in the Bible. It is to justify the lack of similarities between ancient prophets in the Bible and their measly, mealy mouthed, corporate Christ representatives. Mormon prophets are in very deed much like the prophets of Baal - they try to pretend they have power by deceptive means. They make prophecies/policy statements that they themselves have the power to fulfill. This is why they make prophecy on number of temples in world and they can easily spend money to build those temples... it so. This is why church membership has continually risen and never gone back down not once. When they control the numbers, with no audit not paid for by the church ... it is so.

I would start approaching it from that standpoint - just point out how the prophets have failed at everything a prophet is supposed to do and how they are ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
It is easy to prove by their own beliefs and harder to deny these days. 100 Billion reasons and counting why the church is false.

"Faith" is nothing more than an excuse designed to paper over the absence of evidence. Even the BOM says that knowledge is superior to faith (Alma 32 IIRC, plus Jared's bro). They can't actually show you anything, so they drum up the "faith" angle and try to guilt-shame you if you don't swallow their line. Then they work to conflate "faith" with "knowledge" when they bear their stupid testimonies. Completely dishonest, but completely predictable.


"If everyone saw such miracles they would all join the church."

Yeah, can't have that now, can we? Truth is, if the Q15 could do anything to make conversion and retention (and tithing receipts) rocket through the roof, they'd do it in a heartbeat. But the fact is they can't, so they have to come up with BS lines like that to cover it.

Besides, they have cartoon counter-examples like Laman & Lemuel who saw miracles and still complained, so the church can always fall back on those. When church leaders talk out of both sides of their mouths, one of those sides can always fit the narrative they want to tell at the moment.

I’m of the “Not by bread alone” crowd.

“If everyone saw such miracles they would all join the church”

Not really. People who don’t believe in miracles will not be fazed by a miracle. Instead, they become even less believing because now they are invested in their denial. What happened after Jesus fed the multitude with the loaves and fishes? They all went home.

Some Mormons believe in miracles, but most don’t. I’m sure the leaders don’t. Otherwise, why are they driven around in bulletproof cars? Why do they have armed bodyguards? If that’s not a demonstration of their lack of faith in their God, I don’t know what is.

Maybe there was a time when things were different, but I find today’s church distasteful and banal. It will always be a shit sandwich. You can try nibbling around the bread but that won’t get you very far. So I suppose bread alone might not be so bad.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/2020 06:28AM by bradley.

The Elijah vs. the Baalites story isn't worth arguing about because for all we know it never happened, and was just a story made up to bolster the Yahweh faith from that of competitors like Baal. Or maybe some sort of confrontation between Elijah and some Baal priests took place and Elijah may or may not have convinced or converted the onlookers to take up the Yahweh faith, either with or without a miracle, or just a good sermon, or even some trickery. Who knows at this date?

Healing is another thing. Maybe offering a blessing or doing something similar can stimulate some people's brains/bodies to jumpstart the healing process in some cases. Psychosomatic diseases, and psychosomatic healing, is not uncommon. The attention given to the person by the healers could sometimes affect the natural healing process. The successful efforts get remembered and talked about and passed on, the failures get forgotten.

The reason that "faith" healing might be an extension of ordinary, natural healing processes is probably why we don't see amputees regrowing limbs, because it seems to never happen naturally in humans. Obviously some creatures can re-grow limbs, and technically you would think it's not impossible, but for some reason it doesn't work with mammals like humans.

So faith healing can't go that far, but it might take away the pain felt from a damaged limb, or cause a disease to go into remission, in some cases. It probably has at least as much to do with the faith (even subconscious) of the one receiving the blessing as the one providing it.

You can't win this argument because they have every angle covered. Their rules about faith are slippery and fit any situation.

If someone gets healed, faith and God get the credit. If someone doesn't get healed, it was because it was a test, not enough faith, not interfering in God's plan or whatever. Isn't "God's will" wonderful? God always gets the credit and never the blame. Faith always gets the credit and never the responsibility to be reliable or consistent.

They use results of faith as a sign all the time yet criticize anyone who asks for a sign that the faith has any influence whatsoever.

This is religious "have it both ways" thinking so they can justify anything, let alone the contradictions in the examples they teach.

The Mormons. They have and answer for everything. And, like all religions they smugly pull out the faith card when reason and fact aren't their friend--their version of the "Get Out of Jail Free Card."

Faith. Believing the unbelievable. Believing that which is not seen, heard, or even smelled. Faith is the answer to everything because you can't prove it is not.

My mother knows all the holes in her religion but that just gives her the opportunity to show and even greater faith than ever before.

The goal is faith. My family is competing in the faith contest and they are in it to win it. Running like champions!

The whole reason why they have the "if they person wasn't healed it wasn't God's will" thing is to hide the fact they have no real power when they can't take credit for something that was already going to happen. This was always apparent to me and I struggled hard with cognitive dissonance to put an LDS faith spin on it.

What is so amusing about this is ready admission of members of the current Q15 and members of the Umpteen Quorums of the Seventy Year Olds who could no longer hide this fact so state it as part of their faith based fairytale. Listening to them, they say they pronounced a blessing the person would be healed and die the very next day. Now why would this happen? They had the fail to healed (lol don't get me started on that scam) but in this case they did and they were told they would be healed but they weren't? Religion false? Nope. God's will they died. The representative that they spoke to all this time who was acting in their name and said you would be healed was vetoed. The Mormon God is a God of Vanity and likes to show who is more endowed from on high.