Help with probability

Lol, Modulous is right about imperfection, where the hell the word, "slavery" came from I have no idea, for a while there I was thinking, "what the hell is DR A on about slavery for, I didn't mention slavery!"I guess it's because as I was typing, usually when someone says, "the abolition of........." naturally we would fill in the blank with, "slavery", so that word must have popped in my head.See, you can refute mike!As regards malaria, I would say, (as an imperfect mikey) that it leads to a genuine slippery slope, that is sound.For example, if you had an accident and you had twenty severe cuts, would it make sense for the doctor to come and treat one cut and leave the other nineteen?In light of this reasoning, if we asked God to rid malaria, it wouldn't then make sense as to why He would not also rid cancer, aids, diabetes, etc....In other words, if you ask for one, it only makes sense to ask for them all. And so I would say that if I was to pray for all of them to go, given He is omnipotent, what I would really be requesting is the following; "Lord, your kingdom come!"To which I would reply - I certainly have prayed for that before, but it would be a bit silly to expect God to break His own will, and grant it, when He has created a set time that He knows will come, for it says, "nobody knows the day or hour".So I can reason, but that's about all it seems. And the maths of probability are confusing me , I hoped I would be cleverer at the thing. Ho hum, such is life.

As arguments go, this is too good for its own good, since it would work as an argument against pretty much all prayers for anything whatsoever. Why pray for one sick member of the congregation? Why not instead of that, pray for every sick person in the world? Well, if that, why not just pray "Thy kingdom come"? Or again, instead of praying to God to assist you in a few pieces of bibliomancy, why not pray that you should have the wisdom of Solomon? But then why not pray for everyone to have the wisdom of Solomon? But then why not just pray "Thy kingdom come"? If you ask God to bless your family, why not all families? And orphans and bachelors, and, you know, everyone ...It's not just when you're praying for the abolition of malaria that you're on a slippery slope. If you're praying for anything, you might as well pray "Let everything in the world be absolutely perfect". And yet that doesn't usually stop you.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Bibliomancy - WikipediaI don't recall EVER stating that I am using Bibliomancy. Reading this definition, it's certainly not something I've ever done. New Christians might use the number-from-a-hat technique in their immaturity, of course. Well, we pray that His Kingdom comes, given the world would then be restored. But there is a set time for that.In regards to the Problem Of Evil and Suffering., I actually do understand the points you make, I am not against you making them, we all struggle to understand that famous problem. In one of my blogs in 2010, I stated, "the problem of evil and suffering is the single best argument against Theism."We struggle to understand it but ultimately we have chosen to trust God. It's a hard one because we also suffer, but we choose to have the courage to accept that it is part of this present world, and pray God gives us the strength to get through whatever we have to face.Getting irate with me isn't going to change a lifetime of faith, DR.A, I am not believing in God to irritate you.

Then what were you doing? The problem of evil, like the abolition of slavery, is one of those things I didn't mention. I'm not irate, I'm just pointing out some oddities in your thinking and practice.And your habits of prayer are not uncommon among Christians: they pray just in those cases where either chance or their own efforts might supply them with a false positive. When someone has pneumonia, for example, Christians pray for his recovery, which might well happen on its own without any praying. If, on the other hand, someone loses both his legs, no-one prays for them to grow back. No, then you pray for him to have the fortitude to cope with his disability, something that might happen anyway. Christians will pray for rain in a drought, but not for the reassembly of houses after an earthquake. They ask God to make a sunny day for the church fete, which might happen anyway, but not that God should make the day longer as he did for Joshua, which wouldn't. They ask God to help them overcome smoking, which atheists can do, but not to overcome gravity, which nobody can do.Now, there's no scriptural basis for hedging your bets like this. In the Bible, God is always publicly doing the impossible; and Jesus said "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." And yet instead all Christians seem to pray for is the sort of thing that might happen anyway. "Lord, let it be sunny on the day of the church fete, which we scheduled in June"; "Lord, let me find the car keys that I'm actively looking for"; "Lord, let this man recover from this disease that people frequently recover from, and for which he is receiving medical treatment"; "Lord, please let me get the job I applied for and for which I'm well qualified". No-one's trying to move mountains, even when the metaphorical moving of a mountain would be the best thing that could happen.Which leads one to wonder how sincerely they believe.

Of course all you're doing is defining the actual occurrences in nature, as ALL "none-God" or, "none-miraculous", and all the things that don't happen, as "miraculous".The problem is that logically it's a rigged game. To win the argument all I have to do is say that you can't have a sunny day without God creating a sun and a day, and a universe. The miraculous is not confined to the supernatural, if everything that exists, exists because God made it.Checkmate.

See subsequent posts of mine for explanationEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Bibliomancy seems to be a strange occultic type dark-arts, practice. Modulous mentioned it for clever reasons, DR.A mentioned it through folly because he hadn't paid attention to the specifics of my posts.It takes the bible, God's word, which gives us faith, "faith comes by hearing."Break it down, rationally.1. God created the bible, it's His word.
2. His people hear from God and learn of Him through His word, and He can speak to our spirit through what we read, in whatever way He chooses.
3. Someone comes along and perverts it.Logically, is it then perverted, to read the words God gave to us? Is it divination to ask Him to give us a certain scripture because we have a genuine burden of the heart? Now He may or may not want to do that, and to turn that into a practice by which we test God, is certainly wrong, those "events" I mentioned to you, were basically a one-off, Faith.I think you're letting religious-fear of false-sin here. Moses cast down His staff and it became a snake, but the enemy done the same by divination, dark forces, apparently, so then, did Moses sin?No, because all dark-practices are called counterfeit. (Google the definition) A counterfeit must take an idea already existing, it is a derivation of something genuine, such as a banknote.A counterfeit takes something genuine, and makes a perversion, or twists something genuinely good.To fear God speaking to us in His word, is religious-fear, Faith. My faith has matured to the point where I no longer have guilt-fear. I advise you heed these words in this post, and think upon them.All the best.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

I'm removing my messages from this thread because I had no intention of causing Mike any distress by them but that is what seems to have been the result.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Of course I could be an evil bibliomantist of some sort. If bizarre practices and satan hearing my prayers and answering them to encourage my faith is true, then forget it, I'd rather be an agnostic and believe nothing, because that makes no sense, it's baloney.I can't believe in a god that is an author of confusion. God does not mislead us in this strange way, and I wouldn't practice things that people with an IQ of 12 would practice. You need to re-read what I and Modulous mentioned concerning the silliness of over-valuing coincidental scriptures. I would never open the bible point my finger and say, "this is what God says", I'm sorry but anyone who does that is mentally challenged because what if it would say, "I never knew you". Or if you hit two, and they said, "Judas hanged himself", THEN, "now go and do likewise".If that's how small folk think my brain is then I am amazed at how unobservant people can be.

Since Mike has apparently misunderstood my intent in my posts on this thread I've decided to remove them.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This is whacky. If I am not opening the bible to see what it says, what am I opening it for?If we come across a scripture by accident, and it encourages us, and says, "God is with you" it is okay, but if I hoped to see that scripture, and came across it, if I asked, "God are you with me" or just kind of vaguely half-hoped, and I open and it happens to say He is with me - then that is divination?I think you've let your occult-past frighten you, into almost putting up garlic to ward off vampire-mikeys. How do I come upon one by accident then? I still have to turn the pages, right? Or is turning the pages of the bible some sort of sin if I turn them quickly rather than slowly? I think you need to re-read the definition of bibliomancy from the link I gave, Faith, often Christians get some rather strange religious, "fears" they seem to indulge, as though if I looked at a pumpkin on Halloween, I might turn into one.I think more wisdom is needed here, more prudence in learning why a counterfeit is counterfeit. The use is the same.Example;I use a genuine banknote,
I use a counterfeit banknote.Does it follow that I can't use a genuine banknote because counterfeits exist?Example:I use the bible as a Christian, I read from it, to hear from God.
Bibliomantists abuse the bible, using it in a strange way.Does it follow that if I now use the bible, I can't? THINK! The counterfeit is copying the genuine, the genuine is not copying the counterfeit.X is genuine, X2 is not, so if I do something similar to X2, as X, I am copying X2?Non sequitur! X2 is copying X. It's the counterfeit that is divination, not the original.God always intended to talk to us through His word, Faith, when He does this, and when we hear, we are not copying a counterfeit, as we always did this, bibliomancy came AFTER, they are copying us.The copy is the counterfeit. They SUCCEED, if they stop you hearing the word by faith.It's the same with any counterfeit.Think about it now, if a new occult practice came in, where they also used the bible, to state that Jesus is the son of God. Would we as Christians then be copying them if we were to say that Jesus is the son of God? Should we fear saying that He is?What about wood. They use wood to make wands. If I use wood, does that mean I am now a divinist? I thought God made trees BEFORE witches made wands? Perhaps I am losing my mind but have we entered the twilight zone, here?Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

Mike has apparently misunderstand my intent here so I'm removing my comments.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh come on Mike, the context is clear enough: I mean opening it to get a specific answer to a specific question, not just opening it to see what it says.

Faith, aw shuckss I just don't know if I can give it up, after all I do tend to howl at the moon with a great big hard-on while flipping through those scriptures! Pray fer me gal, I'm clearly lost! All that talk about loving my neighbour, is firing me up big time to go kill again!!(Faith, go and calm down or something, and re-read my posts, especially those parts about counterfeit. It's not nice to falsely accuse someone that has the Holy Spirit, of partaking in practices they don't partake in. I should think such a false accusation is something that should be far more worrysome to you, right about this time now. Are you so going to judge me because you have tangled yourself up in all these thoughts?)

Read what I said about counterfeits, in message #41, at the bottom.You've put some ingredient into an oven, hoping to get a cake, and came out with a pie! You've jumped to conclusions about my faith, based on ignorance.I forgive you for this, but I would like you to just settle down, make a cup of tea and read message #41 in a calm manner.