What makes you unbelieve Crash ?

Someone thought you were suspicious Brad? Really? Nah...couldnt be.What did THEY suspect you of? What pray tell did you do to make them think that? Just curious.

Did you miss the part where I said enemy?
Yes, God created the worm, and yes - God can take the worm away. In this book we call the bible, it says the enemy is satan. Christ did not come to cast out God. No illness is given us by God - it in no way glorifies him. It is clever that satan should escape your thoughts so craftily. Please Sir, do not attempt to put words in my mouth at this stage of the game. God is the antithesis of unfair, Again the enemy escapes you - he has been very succesful with you. Seemingly bad things in nature, can be easily explained biblically. The "ground is cursed for your sake". If satan is also on the ground aswell as sin........maybe Brad understands.

But the patterns we see in nature are in large parts *dependant* on such things. Why would this Satan have such an incredibly large influence on our lives and the world around us? Is this really a scenario where God is in control?

"Speech is just conditioned behavior." Francis CrickMike,I'm with Lam. I don't think it's worth it to continue this, since we're obviously not on the same wavelength. Blame your Bible-thumping for your inability to get through to us. Adults use logic and reason to connect with others, Miguel, but you just spit out borrowed rhetoric and expect us to accept it. You mistake being able to explain something with being able to rationalize anything. We've heard it all before.regards,
Esteban Hambre

I'm saying you don't even remember when prayers aren't answered because you have a considerable interest in being right about this. You forget the significance of prayers that aren't answered and magnify the significance of the ones that are. But many, many more are not. The prayer studies show that there's no effect to prayer in terms of healing more people than heal normally, without prayer.But, of course, you have the bulletproof explanation - God knows when he's being put to the test, and refuses to play. A perfectly unfalsifiable explanation - there's no way to prove God exists if he's content to act like he doesn't exist.Well, I'm not convinced. I'm not about to believe in a God that doesn't even have the decency to take action in a meaningful way.

Well, I didn't expect to get through to you anyway. I made this topic out of interest in Crash's position and also for those who are unbelievers who think we should think in a similar way to themselves concerning answered prayer. Obviously you and Lam are on a different level, maybe you are higher evolved and cannot possibly discuss this further with the likes of me. Thats okay.I like the way Lam was honest about his position.

Ofcourse, he may well see it as unacceptable for humans to treat him like an experiment because of unbelief. Isn't it a better thing if he simply heals and deals with those who need him rather than act for a "show" to satisfy unbelievers. I know you are not convinced. I like to see "unfalsifiable" as equal to logically sound. Why do you need to falsify it? You are again making this out to be some kind of scientific endeavour. Belief is the key. I could also say that they show no belief. Christ says the problem is unbelief. It doesn't matter what prayer studies show. However, I watched a study on TV which did not conclude "no effect". Therefore, some studies might show effect some might not. The one I watched shown "some" effect. I still do not think God would volunteer for such things. On the program, one man was asked to pray and took offense because he was a hardened atheist. Do you really think God would have answered his prayer? Maybe you forget what it says about prayer in the bible. It vehemently insists in belief. I severly doubt that that man's forced prayer meant anything to God as he obviously doesn't believe in God.

But the test is people who genuinely need healing. They're not setting up fake cancer patients or burn victims or something - they're taking real patients with real needs, splitting them into two groups, and having people (unbeknownst to the patient) having a believer pray for them. They they keep track of recuperation rates.So what you're saying is that God refuses to help people who need it because somebody's keeping track. That seems petty to me. Because if it can't be falsified, there's no way to know if it's true or not. Falsifiability is the condition where it's possible to distinguish between a hypothesis being true and being false. If you can't do that then there's no way to know that it's true.When we say that something is falsifiable, we simply mean that it's possible to know if it's wrong or not. The people who are praying are believers, so that's clearly not the issue here. It's just that their prayers have no more effect on the patient than doing nothing at all, which is what you would expect if God doesn't exist.

MikeCould you clarify the following for me please.1. When you pray and have 100% "hits", is there a limit on what you can pray for. Can you pray for god to cure say 2 million people just as easily as you could for him to cure 2 people. So could you and would you pray to cure the millions of HIV and AIDS sufferers in Africa ?2.In one of your earlier posts, you said that " no illness is given us by god". Now the parasite Plasmodium is a creature that lives in human bodies and causes malaria. Malaria has killed millions of people. Doesn't the bible say that god creatured all creatures ?
So presumably he created Plasmodium ? True ?Your opponents on this forum are saying that they cannot accept the existence of god without what they consider reasonable, scientific-like evidence. As god is supernatural, they cannot get such direct proof of the existence of god. And therefore they cannot assume that he exists. Neither can they conclude that he does not exist.Your interpretation of your feelings and what you see as being evidence of god is all very well. But surely you cannot expect to present such subjective "evidence" as undeniable proof of god's existence? Lets assume your admiration of the beautiful things in nature are evidence of creation by a supernatural being. Now why would that being have to be a god ( any god ). Why would it have to be your "god of the bible" ?

Neil, if a human was eaten by a lion, would that mean God is the doer of that evil thing? Or would you just see it as an unfortunate occurence?I myself would not blame God for creating the lion. This is a common mistake amongst unbelievers. You see, if you catch tapeworm from eating pork you must first realize this:God said do not eat swine in the Old Testament, and
God created the tapeworm - yes! But did he intend it for humans? - No. Did he intend the lions to eat humans - No. Does it kill the host? When the host is dead, does it die?The question is - is the parasite designed to LIVE IN humans or does it HAPPEN to live in them! "and thorns began to grow from the tree" ---> "the ground shall be cursed for your sake"The parasite might be designed yes, but it is not designed to inhabit humans - it is satan who would use it. Christ CAST OUT all manner of disease, as surely as he would Malaria.God does not cast out God, Christ came to cast out illnesses and satan. I noticed as soon as I gave satan the blame - mrHambre left the debate, and also Lam. I wonder.....why they leave when I mention satan, I mean, Christ always spoke of satan as the enemy and yet you expect me to blame God for illnesses when he heals us,Lol.

- Malaria definitely kills people in extremely large numbers.- Several types of the organisms that causes Malaria specifically requires humans as their hosts.- The organisms are able to reproduce and most likely spread further before the infected person has died. The organism can reproduce and spread faster if it totally disregards the well being of the host. The long term effects are not very significant due to the very large amount of new hosts available.

Invoking satan is akin to invoking god, neither are falsifiable ideas. Even then, if god created teh angels, and satan was one of them to began with, is he still not responsible for the creation of evil? Of course, to me, it is irrelevants since I don't see any evidence for either, and conclude that based on the given evidence, neither probably exists.

quote:

---

God said do not eat swine in the Old Testament, and
God created the tapeworm - yes! But did he intend it for humans? - No. Did he intend the lions to eat humans - No.

---

Uh... pork isn't the only way you can get tapeworm.

You see "skeptic sand" in the new topic proposal just highlighted something in green that is CONTRARY to eveything I have ever said here on EvC but it will take the dicerning WRITER to read this drunk under the runk that silly putty is not a slinky it might have been. I can read the empirics of that post AS a creationist evidence. That in and of itself is why i am useful here. Alas, the topic is still to green to dead thread the head of...

Ahahahaha...Keep riding that tapeworm Brad! {'_'}I thought silly putty was a pinky for your slinky only when harvested twinkies are slightly dinky and the chunky chicken taster pasters are contrary in my prairy?