Can you cite counter-examples? I.e., people who devoutly believed and prayed and yet were not cured?
I would expect that there are quite a few such cases.
Further, can you cite examples of people belonging to other confessions (Buddhist, Hindu, etc.) who prayed to their deity and were miraculously healed?
Again: I would expect that there are quite a few such cases.
What does that tell us?
Regards,
"Can you cite counter-examples? I.e., people who devoutly believed and prayed and yet were not cured? I would expect that there are quite a few such cases."
Certainly, so what kind of argument against the supernatural is that? Somewhere it seems that you read my response as claiming that all such seeking results in a miracle, or that it must, but in which case you are arguing against someone other than the God of the Bible.
Perhaps you want to argue that a uniquely omniscient and omnipotent being, who sees all the effects of even the time it took you to eat today, for this life and for eternity, and can make all things work out for that which is good, just as well as merciful and gracious, must prevent or counteract all the direct and indirect negative effects of our disobedience and misuse of what He gave us? Just what is your argument?
"Further, can you cite examples of people belonging to other confessions (Buddhist, Hindu, etc.) who prayed to their deity and were miraculously healed? Again: I would expect that there are quite a few such cases. What does that tell us?"
It tells you just what I argued against, that there is a supernatural realm, as Scripture states (Moses himself faced some real professional competition, yet overcame them), yet testimony to supernatural effects in heart and in life abound far more in scope and dept among those of Christian faith than any other, from the vast number of hymns to documented accounts. Once one discards the atheistic faith-fantasy that all such can be naturally explained (not just that such could occur via natural forces, which God often used, but all that must occur for such events) then they can deal with who is the ultimate source of the universe and powers that be.
The typical atheistic argument that you left out was that fabrications abound in claims of the supernatural, which is certainly true, as well as that (the few) controlled experiments failed to conclusively prove the supernatural, yet such are based upon a faulty premise, as far more factors are involved in life. Christ Himself did not operate in a controlled laboratory type setting. Yet every effect has a cause, and examination of such does attest to both fraud, imagination as well as what cannot be explained by natural means. However, the lost are willing to believe that an infinitely vast, irreducibly complex yet ordered universe and all that is in it came to be by unguided natural means, and for the hardened atheist nothing can be allowed to disabuse them of their faith in nature, chance and time, like Dawkins, who basically admitted nothing could be allowed to change his desired anti-theist position,