Miracle Of The Sun & Other Musings

This is a place where PRC(Messenjah Of One) can share his musings. If you had your way around here, every "religious nutter" would be censored and this place would be drier than the Sahara Desert! Thank God religion has not yet vanished or been censored from the planet and from the schools! You science minded atheists will get us into hell a lot quicker than we will.

I read it. Im not scared to look at evidence. I am wary, however, of accepting beliefs which I most definitely don't agree with. If I accept jars beliefs that all (yes...all ) such sightings are made up and that God Himself must conform to logic, reason, and objective reality as verified by science, I feel as if I am strangling my own parameters of belief. I have no problem with a God who can impact human senses. I also know that such a God, though powerful enough to create the entire universe likely would not suspend the laws of physics simply for a group of believers seeking an apparition or sign. What I wont do, however, is rule out any possibility that He can if need be.The God whom I worship is not restrained by human logic.

I never said that I believed it. All that I said is that God can suspend the laws of physics if He so wanted. For you to limit your beliefs to exclude such a possibility is one reason why you have no idea how you can believe in logic, reason, and reality and know God. You steered around this fact by constructing your own belief. Newsflash: You can't find evidence for God. At best you will find plenty of evidence for human behavior.You need to ask yourself why you feel so strongly negative toward apologists. Logically, you should simply ignore them and go about your life instead of expressing so much animosity towards them. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

We all know about lying signs and wonders. There is One Holy Spirit (of creativity) and numerous imitators. One clue as to which "spirit" influences you at the moment can be surmised through your public cussing. If you were simply and calmly defending science rather than attacking believers, no such behavior would be evident coming from you. I'm not accusing you...i'm simply bringing up a point to think about. Ask yourself what it is about belief in general that you find so distasteful and threatening.As an edit, I might also point out that human magicians seek to trick people. There is no indication that a Deity would have any need to do so. Edited by Phat, : comment

So you are essentially defining what God can do? Oh I get it...God is limited by science. God can move the sun any way shape or form that he so chooses. The only thing God cannot force to move is jars will and perceived intelligence. Thats the real sticking point here. In summation, many things could explain that day. God may have only sought to impress upon the minds of the desperate believers the fact that He was present. The sun may not have actually moved, but was perceived to have done so. On the other hand, the God I worship could turn the sun into a giant pumpkin had He so wanted...and have been equally capable of suspending any physical consequences to the billions of humans here on earth.Too many of you limit God, even if God existed...you seek to define His limitations. Which is why He is unevidenced and unimpressive to you. Quite simply He is not real within your minds. You can factually state and defend that premise. What you cannot do is limit His capabilities nor remove Him from my mind.Now granted it appears logical that the sun did not actually dance. You are correct in that the whole world would have seen it. My point is that you cant limit God and what He can hypothetically do with any of the laws of science that you know.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

To start with, I never claimed that the sun actually danced in the sky. The RCC were the ones who granted the reported incident as justifiably miraculous, and I suspect that the incident was a popular word-of-mouth event of that day and so the church sanctioned it to drum up business. I can readily accept that any given church or religious organization is imperfect and do not buy into Papal infallibility any more than I do my own or any other sanctioned leader in any church. I will say that John Paul II was darn close...he did more for the planet than any other Pope of the last 100 years!My point is that the God I worship is quite capable of suspending or even overriding natural law if there was a need to do so. I am not a creationist except in the initial Cosmological sense. I see no reason why God would seek to trick science. And I see no special significance to Mary, though some Catholics see her as very nearly a 4th member of the Trinity. I think that this is what sets me apart from Roman Catholicism, though I do believe that there are many Catholics within the RCC itself whom are saved.(In full Communion with God Himself. ) I do not believe that any member of any particular Club: Christian is automatically "woke" as it were. Some people follow science to the exclusion of belief, whereas others let their intuition override logic, reason, and perceived reality if they feel led to do so.I feel that we will know them by their fruits. If they are simply an armchair critic who claims to believe yet has no good works and transformation in their prayer life and personal integrity, (such as was Faith) then I think that they are no closer to God or to His plan than anyone else. If they are a good humanist socialist such as ringo, I feel that they are at least worthy of consideration by God if there comes a time for sheep to be separated from goats. Faith without works is dead. Works without Faith is simply humanistic altruism.In this, I believe that the messenger(Jesus Christ) is every bit as integral as the message(feeding, clothing, encouraging others) I believe that through Jesus Christ all things were created.

OK I will go with the collective fantasy.I do not dismiss Gods capability to act on anyone individually and miraculously, but I will allow that your argument is sensible...that if God were to do it for some, He would do it for all. Thus if we do end up having a major miracle such as the Rapture of the Church, which I find an incredulous yet plausible belief, the whole world will see it. It wont be some secret although some say that the critters left behind will be evil enough to try and explain it away some other method. God owes it to nobody to take everyone, however. We are responsible for the decisions we make and what we do.

I have always believed that God has allowed certain men to be in certain positions of power and influence to achieve His divine plan. Asd an example, take King Saul. Saul was far from a righteous man and yet was indirectly placed in power by God Himself.Same with President Trump.Now in regards to Pope Francis, many critics say that he is far too socialist and even Leftist for their liking. I notice that you respect his positional authority and will also not therefore attack him based on the accusations of Left Wing ideology. He was duly appointed as Pope and is in that position for a reason that only God knows for times such as these. I have some Catholic friends who disagree with his political ideology yet who usually don't openly criticize their Pope. So in essence I have two questions for you.
1) What do you think about the Prophecy allegedly through Malachi?2) Being a political conservative, do you see any conflicts within the Catholic Church regarding Pope Francis or do you, like my other Catholic friends, refrain from public criticism of the Pope?Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Well I did notice that many commentators thought it was fake. Im just curious what PRC thinks about it.

Since when is absolute truth arrived at through consensus? All that consensus (amongst humans) does it give us a compromise that we can live with.You may argue that the serpant told the truth in that we would not die and that we have as a species in fact flourished to this very day. I might point out, however, that the serpant may have told only a half truth. Yes, we would be *like God* yet we never have and never will *be God.* Nor will the fallen angel.Hint: The way to win this argument is to ridicule me for my beliefs and throw me in a pile with all of the apologists while at the same time pointing out what the evidence shows regarding your interpretations and how the evidence shows that GOD is not interactive among humans and that the entirety of responsibility falls on us.

My bad. I was thinking of the other argument in the Freewill vs Omniscience thread that I dredged up from you. Message 118I brought it up here by mistake.

I'm not disagreeing except to say that the story is not at that point complete. We became liberated humans in that we could decide our destiny for ourselves, but the rest of the story is that we also have the freedom to accept Jesus Christ and that too many people downplay that option and prefer to be "like gods" rather than willfully submit to God and reunite again, undoing the snakes dastardly scheme.Too many people are ok with the snakes liberation it gave us from authority, little realizing that we need that authority. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

OK, I will admit that. The reason that I and the apologists essentially invent a story that ties the Bible together as a cohesive message from Genesis to Revelation is not simply so that we can lie to the people and market our own made up story. It is because we believe that God is alive through Jesus Christ and that we have insight into what the Bible actually teaches. I note that among you, ringo and jar, all agree on a plain reading of the Bible with no interpretation being connected to other parts of the Bible and that of the 3 of you only jar claims to even be a believer.And I think that this is an important point. jar despises the message of the apologists because he sees snake oil and carny hucksterism all over it. ringo is a leftist hippie who sees value in the message yet who does not believe that the characters exist outside the book itself. And you? I don't really know too much about your personal beliefs or why you are an atheist. You certainly seem to know your way around the Bible quite well and have never expressed contempt for the apologists as the other two do.

Thats about as absolute as it gets. Feel free to dismiss the redactors, but they had no ulterior motive. They were in my opinion divinely inspired to report the absolute truth.

If Jesus were simply human, no truth is involved. But note what Jesus said to Pilate: See, you kinda get the message and you kinda dont. You have claimed before that Jesus was a failed Messiah. You have said that Christianity is about what we do. What we are charged to do, among other things, is to know the truth. Do you disagree with this? Hint: You wont find the truth in a secular class taught by Socratic Masters urging you to study human history and comparative religions and forming a consensus of beliefs which seem logical. The apologists teach that Jesus is the only way. Not Allah. Not the spaghetti monster. and certainly not Loki.You mention that you essentially follow logic, reason, and reality. To that list you need to add truth. Truth is a person.