"And what proof do you have?" Not, "Look at all this info that makes me believe and you're blind if you disagree."
Proof. Bearing in mind that I don't confirm or deny God's existence. I just want proof of your claims.
Now, I don't wanna come across as pessimistic here, becase I am very sure your father-in-law was cured of a disease by walking around a bit with a few random pedestrians (seriously, who needs doctors when we can go for a stroll?), but...that's....well, that's bullshit isn't it?
How many AIDS rallys have you been to? Paedophilia? Murder victims? Because if God is as prominent of a rally viewer as it would seem, then AIDS would be gone, kids wouldn't be molested and the dead would be walking the Earth with their families who are still asking "Why is my Dad/Mum/Sister/Brother etc gone?"
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Impacting nations and generations
He wasn't just walking around a crowd bumping into people who are Christians.
It was a Benny Hinn preaching service, at a baseball coloseum, with thousands in attendance.
The pastor called for those to come forward with problems (health or otherwise) and said he would pray for them.
No promises were made mind you, just an invite to prayed for.
My father-in-law WAS in fact cured of his Hepatitus C, and it was confirmed by his doctor a few days afterward.
You don't have to believe it, and it's kinda off the subject of evolution v.s. creation anyway, but thousands of people are healed every year by faith-based miracles, be they large or small.
It shouldn't surprise you or anybody else that people like that, or people who can see them and talk to them, will believe in God, that his Bible is true, and that he created the world.
Again, especially when the alternative is the laughable theory that we and our human bodies fuctions, and the world and all its support systems (rain cycle, bees polinating flowers, etc...) are all some giant mistake, a fart of the cosmos, a cum-shot of the galaxy, that has about 0.01% probability of happening in the way that life has.
I'd say our side has as much "real physical proof" of God's existence as yours does of the "Big Bang" starting the world, and it all evolving from there.
Would this be before or after "God" imbued the doctor with the mysterious power (because it wasn't all the studying and practicing) to help your father-in-law?
I wouldn't go calling you blind, dumb or stupid for not adhering to my beliefs though.
You must accept that you chose to believe in God and that's all it is. A belief. God exists in your head and you've got no proof that he exists anywhere else.
Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, The Boogeyman et al are all other famous figures that exist in people's heads.
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Impacting nations and generations
All the doctor did was confirm that the disease was gone from Clay (my father-in-law) 's body.
It was the power of God, through the prayers of the believers that healed him.
The doctor himself said that there wasn't much to do. Just take some treatments to delay it, but that he would die of it eventually.
5 years later he's still healthy, with no traces of Hepatitus C.
Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, The Boogeyman are all fictional, and are certainly not credited by thousands of people with healing them, and changing their hearts, minds, and lives.
They also haven't been recorded in history as being real, had the timeline based off of them, or done anything to save my life.
They are a little out of God's league as far as a comparison goes.
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Impacting nations and generations
Well you got it right.
Its option 2.
He had a high viral/blood count (something like 2,000) that was under treatment, but not cured.
Funny that he would return to 150-200 (the normal levels) a mere TWO DAYS after he was prayed over by the preacher and says that he felt the prescence of the Lord on him that night, and that he instantly felt better.
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Impacting nations and generations
Answered in a PM, but for everyone else:
The likelyhood of his viral/blood count going from 2,000 to 150-200 (normal levels) a mere TWO DAYS after being prayed over, praying himself, and saying that he felt a real, physical change inside,.....ACTUALLY being an AMAZING, improbable coincidence is not likely.
Far less likely, in fact, than him being healed by a group of people, including himself, who were actively TRYING to have him healed.
All the doctor could say was, as usual, "Your disease is gone. I don't know how exactly, I can't really explain it."
It happens all the time.
Thousands of people recieve faith-based healing each year, and some (not all) are documented.
The same thing always happens.
The doctors can only say "medically, you are healed. Your body's illness is gone."
They have no other info.
Such cases are usually chalked up to coincidence.
I have no proof of God, he was not physcially seen, like in a green cloud of smoke or something going into Clay (my father-in-law) 's body, nor was a Matrix-like "code" seen inside of the virus being destroyed.
You can see the effects of God, but not actual physical God.
It takes faith.
(But all the people who attest to His presence in their lives, of His healing, saving power, .... certainly helps.)
Alot more-so than an improbable theory that we are all here due to the cosmos having a wet dream, a knee-jerk reaction that caused our whole system of life, from the amazing human body and all its fucntions that work together, or the earth itself with all its inter-dependant systems that support each other.
( a possiblity that most educated staticians agree has 0.001% chance of happening.)
Seeing what I've seen, and hearing what I've heard, I like God's odds better.
Until you have proof he exists, you need to accept that God exists nowhere besides in your head. Because you have no real world evidence to suggest otherwise. Only many people who follow the same unproven faith.
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Impacting nations and generations
Faith+prayer= Results.
Seeing that in action in real life is enough for me.
I'll concede that it isn't scientific proof against evolution however, more of a plain truth about the whole world, and life itself.
I'm not conceding the point, but as I have no scientific data (i.e, a video of God snapping his fingers to make the world) I'll stay out of this thread.
Just stop to think sometime that there may be more to this world than what you see on the surface, as many people have experienced it in very REAL ways.
A study recently showed that people who knew they were being prayed for after surgery, actually had worse recoveries than those who knew they would not be prayed for. Also ironically those who were prayed for but were not told did the same as those were were not prayed for and were not told such.
Once infected with a virus, it remains in the body forever. For this reason, viral infections are never "cured," they are managed or they go into remission.
Your father-in-law still has Hepatitis C, his viral load has simply dropped from 2,000 copies of Hepatitis C viral RNA per ML (which is already considered to be low), to 150-200 copies of Hepatitis C viral RNA per ML (which is considered to be remission).
Interestingly, you note that he was receiving inteferon treatment around the time of his recovery, but instead, you attribute his recovery to prayer and God.
No. Praying for likely results + Those likely results occuring = A christian giving, literally, the glory to God.
You have got NO results, fact. You haven't got any. None. At all. Furthermore, why are you bullshitting these people? You told me that you've never seen it happen and you wasn't even there.
You cannot prove that God exists anywhere besides your head. You believe he exists with no factual proof. Why do you think it's proof enough for you and not for people like me? I'm a smart guy, I'm not even here to say God doesn't exist. So why do you think I'm not satisfied with "healings"? Because it's not proof, is why. There is absolutely no reason or proof that God exists. You believe he does, blindly (not in a negative sense, just literally without seeing).
You believe that millions and millions of people with faith equates to truth. It doesn't. It's just millions and millions of people believing in something that they hope is real and throwing in a little wishful thinking so that they can suspend their own beliefs. Until there is proof, God will only ever exist in imagination.
I'm a very spiritual person and it's for that very reason that I am agnostic. I can't prove God doesn't exist, but for me to say "Yes, God exists", I need proof. Actual proof. Not just an occurance that can be labelled as the work of God with a little "faith".
As much as I dislike human beings as a race, I would never retract credit from the great humans who do great things by saying that it wasn't them, it was- essentially- an invisible man. When my life was saved as a child, via an operation, that was the work of doctors and nurses who stayed working through gruelling hours, unselfishly, to tend to other humans. It wasn't God.
If humans, as a race, started realising that we have what it takes to make things right in a lot of areas, and that we don't need a god or deity to do it, things might get better. It's not going to happen with you waiting for an invisible man, who has yet to make an appearance, to do it for us.
__________________ "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
-Voltaire
"That includes ruining Halloween because someone swallowed a Bible."
"I just thought you were a guy."
"... Most guys do."
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Impacting nations and generations
Yeah, he was just starting treatment for something that was ravaging his body, and got prayer, got healed, got NO EXPLANATION from his doctor as to why it was SUDDENLY, completely in remission, but yeah....
It was the treatment.
2 days after having a 2,000+ viral blood count it went into a remission of 150.
2 days of the doctors magic pills.
Or....
2 days after the prayer rally, his doctor told him what he already knew,....
Healed by the power of God.
I feel bad for you people.
You have nothing but this life. The first 10 years are spent in education, the last 10 in debilitation, and about 50 good years of life.
No meaning to it, just an accident.
Just evolved from nothing, from dirt, and from monkeys.
Emotions, wisdom, love, all just accidental by-products.
People's lives, dreams, and children don't mean anything to you, (at least they shouldn't) since its all about you.
This is it, your only life, get all you can get while the getting is good.
Its all a cosmic accident anyways, right?
And Jesus, he was a fraud.
A real nut-job. A good teacher sure, like Ghandi or Buddha, but nothing more.
(which is stupid, he's either the son of God or a loony.... you can't say that he was a good man and a good teacher becuase of "love your neighbor", "do unto others," and etc.. because he also claimed that he could take away peoples sins, save them, give them eternal life, and that he was in fact the son of God. That makes him insane, and not a good teacher at all.)
So if he was an insane lunatic, who only ministered to people for 3 out of his 33 years, why did he have such an impact?
Why is this planets very history of events measured by his life time?
(B.C. before Christ... A.D. latin for "In the year of our Lord.")
I guess all the people who believed that, who set Christ, the Bible, and God as the utlimate authority just weren't as up on things as we are.
In the last 100 years, we've grown so smart, with our Starbucks and our lap-tops, we really know better than all of the people who have come before us.
While we're at it, (since there is no God) stop blaming him for famine in Africa, and etc....
That was man's selfish promotion of one type of society/goverment over another for 100's of years that created the situations we have in this world.
Not God's fault for not doing anything. (funny how there is a God when people wanna b*tch about something.)
I'm sick of this crap.
We apparently came from dirt and monkeys to have sex whenver we want, with whoever we want, to make as much money as we can, to due whatever is pleasurable RIGHT NOW, this second, to get over on other people, to kill the babies and the old and save the whales and the trees, and to promote anything other than there being a God who created us. (including homosexuality, which flies in the face of both evolution AND biology.)
That's the world-view that I get from you people.
It's all for nothing, so anything goes.
Really very sickening.
Keep fighting the good fight.
(Just as a child who won't acknowlege his parents would, fighting to play with the toys he likes.)
Last July, I had been infected with viral pnemonia. Tests revealed that the number of copies of viral RNA per ML in my blood was in the thousands. After one treatment of anti-viral medication, the number of copies of viral RNA per ML in my blood dropped to 180.
It must not have been the "doctor's magic pills," but the prayer rally I did not attend that is responsible for my recovery.
Though I do not agree with everything you say sith, mainly why christianity has to be the right religion, I like it better when you just use god, either way I believe in evolution but I do admire your faith, keep it up(no sarcasm intended to take away any confusion).
Registered: Nov 2004
Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
Damn, and I feel really, really bad for you, since all that applies to you as well, and one day you'll wake up and be dead and feel really cheated cause there's no afterlife.
May 10th, 2006 01:11 AM
