Jesus's motives for performing miracles.

Now that would have saved the world six thousand years of suffering and an eternity of torment. OK 4500 years of suffering. Zero suffering - no eternal tormentAll these seem like better plans to me, however since God ways are higher than mine and He obviously loves suffering and torment, who am I to complain.Anyway back to the topic
You stated So how much evidence do you need to have faith?
If for instance I believe something for which I have very very very little evidence, is that faith?Edited by honda33, : No reason given.

What I am getting at is your understanding of faith. I think we both agree that faith is believing something. But what makes a belief faith or "non-faith". Based on what you said before, a belief without evidence is not faith. So are there any other "non-faith" beliefs? How about a belief with conclusive evidence?
In addition what makes a faith greater than another?

Not in the exact words, but I believe it's implicit in this quote -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OK OK So let me see if I am with you
Faith requires(1) I am presented with the evidence.
(2) I believe the evidence.
(3) My belief leads to trust to the point of acting on it.
(4) My faith is in GodNow if these are the requirements for faith, I can certainly see Jesus motivation for performing miracles. I believe that the mindset of the people is what determined Jesus' choice of miracles. Those people living in bible times were very stiff-necked and highly skeptical. You could not initiate faith with substandard evidence. With all the high profile miracles Jesus performed, they still cried "crucify him". Even after His death a three hour solar eclipse did not even stir these skeptics. Resurrected saints walking all around Jerusalem did not elicit a "I wonder if He was really the telling the truth, let me ask one of the saints". They instead chose to believe those lying Pharisees story of how the disciples stole the body.Now fast forward 2000 years. Why we do not need that level of miracles today? Simple, we are people of faith, we read the Book, we hear the preacher, we see Benny Hinn and we believe. We don't need to see the Man(Jesus), we certainly don't need no resurrected saints.
Only a handful of people living today (who I believe are direct descendants of those first century Jews) called atheists require a sign. Need I remind them of what Jesus said?

We know the disciples didn't believe. Yet they were the ones who lived with God and saw all the miracles He did. He told them He will be killed and be resurrected in 3 days. When He did die the earth shook violently, the sky darkened for three hours, and the saints were resurrected. These things do not accompanied the death of a mere mortals, yet the disciples did not get the "HINTS". Where the hell did Jesus find these fellas. And Thomas... God help him.... Now you'd think that Jesus post-resurrected appearances would have sown some mustard seeds faith in these dim-witted fishermen, but no, there they soon back to their nets and their old skeptical ways. Jesus (looking down the corridor of time and seeing the easy successes of Benny Hinn and Pat Robertson) must have thrown His hands in the air and scream " O God why me, what more can I do". God response was " I'll send the Holy Spirit, they need a supernatural gift". Exactly, so Jesus miracles were meant to validate that statement. All the miracles produced no faith in the disciples, it only at Pentecost when they received the "supernatural gift" that they were really given faith.Edited by honda33, : No reason given.Edited by honda33, : No reason given.

I guess you are not counted among millions of us who send
him a dollar every day. Edited by honda33, : No reason given.Edited by honda33, : No reason given.Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

Amazing is it?Lets see what was two and two for the disciplesThey saw water turned into wine
They saw a man walking on water
They saw a man calmed Katrina by simply asking her to be still
They saw five thousand fed by five loaves and two fishes
The saw even saw Moses and Elijah on the hill
They saw the raising of Lazarus
The witnessed countless healing.
Jesus told His disciples that His enemies will kill Him. They did. His death was followed by a number of out of this world events. He was resurrected 3 days after, just as He said. They say Him and He showed them the nail holes in His hands. None of these events produced any faith in the disciples.The point I am making is that to believe that this story is remotely plausible, that the disciples could not easily put two and two together, requires faith beyond the natural.
Further, since this unmatched level of evidence produced no faith in the disciples, one can conclude that the purpose of these miracles was not to generate faith but show conclusively that faith is a supernatural gift. That's not true, most of us are not that way. We never question the Bible or what the our pastors tell us. We need no miracles to produce faith. The disciples on the the other hand are another breed, they make the skeptics here at EVC look like a gullible lot.

What the the disciples had that no other cult has is the real Mccoy. This is no Benny Hinn, Jim Jones or David Koresh. This is the the creator of the universe performing miracles that only the creator can. The point is that people latch on and believe every word that falls from these cult leaders lying lips. These quacks obviously could not perform any miracles, yet if Benny Hinn tells his followers that the government is going to kill him, they will believe him. If he tells them he will rise on the third day they all be there waiting for him. They need no earthquake, no 3 hour eclipse, and no resurrected saints. So why didn't these spectacular events impressed the disciples?Lets go back in time. On that first Good Friday . The disciples got the news that their beloved leader is going to be crucified. The disciples are hiding like scared chicken yet none remembered the 37 plus spectacular miracles Jesus performed. A couple of Roman soldiers could be no match for the Son of God. Jesus could just do one of His disappearing acts. Jesus was crucified - but this was no ordinary crucifixion - OK the earthquake could have been a coincidence, but the three hour eclipse!. Then to top it off we had resurrected saints! Now this is not something you see every day. Yet no disciple believed what Jesus told them He was going to Jerusalem to do. This is an unbelievable story that requires supernatural faith to believe.I will say that the miracles were not for the people who saw them. They were meant for the people who didn't.

That's the answer I was expecting from the Fundies.. If the miracles stories were actually true they would validate that particular statement. The eyewitnesses to these events seemed less convinced than people reading the stories 2000 years later.Edited by honda33, : No reason given.