The Tension of Faith

A major problem with so many of the Old Testament miracles is that if they actually happened then the God responsible for the miracle must be totally dishonest and untrustworthy as well.Change leaves evidence. Yet for all of the really big miracles all the evidence that must be there is simply missing. If the God really did cause the miracle then the God also destroyed all the evidence that the miracle ever happened.One big time miracle is the claim of making the sun stand still in the sky. Since the sun doesn't really move the only way to make it appear to stand still is to stop the earth from rotating. But if you do that then folk wouldn't have to worry about some silly battle cause every single person, horse, chariot, cow, rock, pebble, piece of wood, house, body of water would simply streak off at about a thousand miles an hour until they met some solid object like a mountain.Yet there is absolutely no evidence that happened and the story goes on as though no body noticed that everyone got not just killed but destroyed. Had that actually happened there would not be a single human left living anywhere on the planet. Yet there are people alive today.Then there are the two flood myths but again, absolutely no evidence of any worldwide flood and positive evidence of societies living through the period of the imaginary flood and never even noticing.Or the miracles in the Exodus fable. Again, if a Pharaoh and his army got killed there has to be evidence. Lost supplies and horses and armor and chariots and weaponry all need to be replaced and the nation would be left undefended while that goes on. Yet none of the other nations, most in conflict or alliance with Egypt, seemed to notice.Of course the God character in the Exodus fable is also portrayed as a really nasty dishonest character anyway.If the miracles really happened then the God also destroyed all the evidence of the miracles including wiping out the memory that the event even happened from the minds of almost every person on Earth except the author that recorded the story.Such a God simply can not be trusted and so should be ignored.

Faith, no one has said that the author of John as well as other New Testament authors do not make such claims. That is not the issue.The issue is that in the accounts of Jesus supposedly preforming miracles he does not take credit or make the claim it is to show his divinity.Yes, the author of John, whoever that was as well as other unknown folk marketing Christianity do make such claims.

By now, this should really not be a surprise.A 'miracle' is something that breaks physical laws - it's super natural. It is NOT confined only to the works of the Christian god. Miracles are present in most god mythologies.'Supernatural' is not confined to the Christian god either and it DOES include spooks, demons, ghouls, ghosts, angels, devils, spectres, apparitions, phantoms, wraiths and all things woo.If you want to stop being surprised by us, you need use words in the same way as those of us outside your personal bubble.

Yes, I already pointed out that Jesus did His miracles out of compassion and kindness, which distinguishes them from the only two miracles you could find as a supposed equivalent to the Biblical miracles, the miracle of the split moon (in the Koran?) which as far as you revealed had no particular purpose at all, and the expanding cobra that shaded the Buddha. Jesus did His miracles for others, not for Himself.But you are wrong. Jesus does specifically identify Himself as deity through His "works," which of course means His miracles: John is obviously in accord with Jesus' own understanding of the purpose of His miracles. Also, John is probably identified in more ways than any of the other writers of the New Testament except Paul and maybe Luke. It's ridiculous to keep saying he's "unknown." Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The kinds of miracles done by God in the OT and Jesus in the NT are not anything like the "miracles" done by the demonic "gods" of Hinduism or other religions.

LOLFirst, I did not mention the split moon.Second, the two miracles I mentioned was the cobra shading the Buddha and the Buddha as a child freeing the elephant from his shackle. No, you claim that it means his miracles but that is just another unsupported claim that runs counter to the vast body of stories attributed to Jesus.In the changing water to wine he never tells anyone he did it and in fact they all assume the host just kept the best for last.In the loaves and fishes again he takes no credit for the miracle and in fact those being fed don't have a clue anything wondrous happened.The same pattern can be seen in other miracles where he cures someone then tells them not to tell anyone, when he sends the plaintiff home to find all is well.AbE: Yet the truth is that the author of the Gospel of John is unknown.Sorry Faith but once again, reality says you are wrong.Edited by jar, : see AbE:

What other works did Jesus do that would prove He is in the Father and the Father in Him?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh sure the miracles of the Christian god are somehow super-supernatural; better than any other god's miracles.Here's a 5 second google explaining that Hindu gods are more miraculous than the Christian god. For a start there's more of them. Everybody's belief is better than every other belief. Weird how that works - almost like it's been made up.

quote:

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Hindus are the only race in the world to categorise the miracles and gave examples for every kind of miracle in the mythologies or in the life of hundreds of saints.

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Though we hear about miracles done by other religious leaders, Hindus divided them into eight crystal clear types. They took this branch of science more seriously than others.

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Siddhar is one who attained Siddhi i.e. special psychic and supernatural powers, which has been defined to be eight fold in the science of yoga.

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1.Anima : power of becoming the size of an atom and entering into smaalest life.

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2.Mahima : power of becoming mighty and co-extensive with the universe.

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3.Laghima : capacity to be light, though big in size

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4.Garima : capacity to be heavy though seeming small in size

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5.Prapthi : capacity to enter all the worlds from Brahmaloka to Pathalam

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6.Prakasyam : power of disembodying and entering into other bodies and going to heaven and enjoying whatever one wants from one place

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7.Isithvam : having the creative power of God and control over the sun, the moon and the elements

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8.Vasithvam : power of control over kings and Gods.

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If you'd actually bothered to read any of the discussion you'd know exactly how the miracles in the Old and New Testaments are nothing like the others, those manipulations of physical qualities the Hindu demon gods do. Hindu gurus and adepts can also control their bodies so that they can walk on hot coals and lie on beds of nails and whirl around so fast you'd think they could take flight, appear in two locations at once, levitate and that sort of petty little trick. That's a pretty pathetic comparison with the miracles in the Bible, and pretty pathetically purposeless too. Why on earth do you even consider such nonsense?.If anyone has "control over the sun, moon and stars" who isn't God, how often is this control displayed and is there any documentation of it?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That's a question I am increasingly asking myself.Am I supposed to take seriously anyone claiming that their god is better at miracles than any other? The angels on a pin head stuff died long ago surely? Apparently not in your bubble.Of course if you could invite all the gods to a football field we could have a god-off. It would be pretty televisual and we'd get a result one way or another. But until then I think the point is moot.

That is an invention made after Jesus death. What he did do is try to teach and just as with the Buddha it is that teaching that is important. It is Jesus life that shows he was holy just as with the Buddha. It was that holiness, that sanctity that even the cobra noticed and the reason the cobra changed its nature, shading the Buddha rather than striking him. Jesus life and attempted teaching is the message.AbE:Remember faith, Jesus was certainly not the only person in the Bible that performed miracles and Jesus miracles were pretty much the same as others. Miracles might show that God is working through someone but cannot show deity.Edited by jar, : see AbE

If we had such an event, the true God of this world would show its colors...green. The god of this world is money.

Oh right, I should have guessed. Whatever you don't like in the Bible has to be an invention made afterward. Of course. No matter that such ideas never entered the minds of anybody who followed Jesus until recent times when unbelieving "scholars" got their hands on it, no matter that the Church and all Christendom took it as written, believed it as written, wrote scads of commentaries on that understanding. That's true of the Buddha; it is not true of Christ. What Christ taught is important and we are commanded to obey, but what He came to do is die to pay for the sins of His people. That's what He was prophesied to do from Eden onward, and that's what the Church has always understood He came to do. Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life and that is a crucial fact too, because He was perfect and only a perfect man was qualified to pay for the sins of others. That was the whole point of the commandments that the sacrifices had to be "unblemished" that Israel was to perform, since they were to represent the ultimate Sacrifice for sin. Jesus is not just holy, He is God as well as absolutely sinless Man, and it's always been understood that His deity is not only declared by Him in many ways in the scriptures, but was demonstrated by His miracles that could only be done by the one true Creator God. Buddha was no perfectly sinless man because of course he was fallen like all the rest of the human race, and subject to judgment for his sins, which is why he sought release through meditation, and as I understand it his meditations supposedly erased his karmic debt in the end. But there are very few who can do that through meditation and that leaves them all to die with sins on their conscience and facing judgment. In Jesus' case they show His deity, that has always been understood by people who know what they are talking about. And He passed on His power for miracles to His followers who did them in His name.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sorry Faith but those prophe4sies are als made up after the fact and totally unsupportable.And the Jesus you market is pretty much worthless and led a meaningless life. Except that is NOT what the Bible stories say. In the stories Jesus is not perfect, using communal funds for himself, losing his temper, having to he chided into doing miracles by his mothers...Have you ever actually read the Bible Faith? And yes, those trying to sell Christianity made that claim but have never offered any evidence to support that claim.

My my, seems you'll stop at nothing to denigrate the Bible and even Jesus Himself.