Then there is the flip side of this:
Posted on 12/25/2022 3:02:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
[EXCERPT ONLY]
In 2009, on a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the Browns flew to Mozambique to investigate the healing claims of Global Awakening and Iris Global, two ministries focused on healing and revival. They brought audiometry equipment and eye charts to test people who requested prayer for deafness and blindness. The sample size was small — they tested 24 people — but they found statistically significant improvement beyond placebo effects and hypnosis.
“I was standing right there next to this woman who could not tell how many fingers were held up when you were a foot in front of her,” Candy Brown told me. “Then five minutes later, she’s reading an eye chart with a smile on her face.” She and her colleagues published the results in The Southern Medical Journal — not a prestigious publication but a respectable one with peer review — and she drew on the research for her 2012 book, “Testing Prayer.”
Skeptics complained about the Browns’ methods and field conditions. They pointed out that the hearing tests were in a noisy setting, there was no control group and test subjects would naturally want to please those who prayed for them by showing results. “That simple trick explains why both hearing and sight appears to have dramatically improved among these poor, superstitious villagers,” one critic declared. (The study explained in detail how the researchers did their best to weed out false data.)
If you want to evaluate people’s experiences at a revival in rural Africa, you probably need to give up on double-blind studies in a perfectly controlled environment. But let’s imagine for a moment that researchers could meet such standards (and that an all-powerful deity humors us and submits to this scrutiny). They might persuade skeptics that something strange happened. But is there any evidence that would persuade a nonbeliever that God was behind it — that we do not live in a closed system in which all causation is a matter of natural laws?
The term "miracle" is used loosely, usually to describe what more accurately are "providential acts," even "Church Explosion Spares Choir When a Nebraska church exploded in 1950, no one was injured because every single member of the choir was coincidentally late in arriving for practice that evening versus acts which are contrary to the known laws of nature, or at least defy chance.
Of course, for the hardened atheist (like Dawkins), acts - from the multitude of video testimonies such as here to the even the miracles (plural) of Moses - can be rationalized as possible via nature, meaning faith in it. After all, that is what is required to reject a supreme powerful intelligence as being the uncaused Cause for the effects we call our universe. See post 57
So many hardened atheists are doing so in rejecting (at least) a creator God despite the degree of evidential warrant for one. but honestly seeking evidence of God is not what that command is about, but that of insolently requiring a miracle or act of God after He has already made His reality and will evident:
And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord [who had abundantly overtly supernaturally manifested His care for them already]? (Exodus 17:1-2)
And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? (Exodus 17:1-2)
Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah. (Deuteronomy 6:16)
or acting presumptuously, doing something that is contrary to His known will and expecting God to delivery you:
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. (Matthew 4:5-7)or impudently committing sin when knowing better, mocking God as if He was not a judge of such:
Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. (Acts 5:9)
I am on that. See posts above.
Glory to God! Of course, there are other explanations as anti-theists will tell you, yet it is not simply the answer to prayer (and she must continue as a true believer) which is offered as a testimony to the reality of God, but collectively that of basically radically changed lives. Those who take a step of faith in the risen Lord Jesus to save them as contrite sinners, on His account, become born spiritually and realize profound basic changes in heart and life. Which correspond to the claims of Scripture. Likewise promised negative effects to disobedience can also be seen, along with God’s mercy and grace.
While other religions can offer the same to a degree, in a evangelical church- at least outside the "Bible belt" with generational cultural members - then this is the norm as the reason for membership, and which are overall not simply religious conversions. The literal thousands upon thousands of classic (versus much CCM commercialized) Christian hymns testifying to the personal reality of Christ and His Truth in their lives is part of what exceeds mere religion in scope and depth.
Asking a evangelical pastor for people he would recommend as sold Christians to interview, and examining them and witnesses to their lives before and after conversion, then you can find effects - relative to their obedience - that overall go beyond what can rationally be attributed to nature. One profound example: Testimony - Raul Ries - Calvary Chapel Golden Springs Even the negative aspects of disobedience are also a testimony.
I doubt one could be ‘proven’ to a ‘believer’!
They can’t ALL be right; can they??
Perhaps his life experiences have told him that this is a safe way to bet.
Now you’ve made me want to launch into a parody of an Elvis song...
...are you sober or tight,
are you sorry she’s left you for good?
What?
the inability to re-CREATE anything using the formula(s) put forward by those who have simplistic theories.
And we 'know' this how?
It is STILL valid:
Which came first - the chicken or the egg?
...(insert cartoon of Step two needs a bit more explanation here)
Then some ORGANic material appears and mixes together and ignores entropy and POOF! life appears.
Then we are off to the races: RIGHT?
I've always wondered why LIFE, when it climbed out of the goo, it waswn't ETERNAL?
How many times did LIFE had to be created from goo before it decides that "This is getting old. I'd better learn how to propagate on the next go-a-round."
Then there is the flip side of this:
"...place your fingers here."
Come on guys; it’s CHRISTMAS!!
Let’s rejoice with Simeon...
Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
And inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”
And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”
- Luke 2:25–35, RSV-2CE
...to do for him according to the custom of the law...
HMMMmmm...
You restated the question I asked but again didn’t answer it. The probability is small - “therefore” Intelligent Design? The probability may be small or large — but we really can’t say given our limited knowledge. I’m not opposed to religious belief, I’m saying it gives a name and narrative to what we cannot prove and that’s OK with me.
Happy New Year!
When your faith healers start prowling hospitals and graveyards, healing the sick and raising the dead, let me know.
What we see in the Bible is that miracles occur frequently for a short time, then are rare for hundreds of years.
BTW - how many dead men have YOU raised to life Jim W N?
I am one of the few people who is aware of the forgetfulness. However, I was not close enough to any of the miracles to draw conclusions as to their origins.
For example, in Phoenix, there were two young children, a Mexican-American boy and an Anglo girl. Living on the same block, they grew up together and were the best of friends.
Still in elementary school, the girl developed a life threatening heart condition and was hospitalized. For his part, he told everyone he knew that he wished he could die so that she could get his heart.
Her condition worsening in the hospital, the boy’s mother was driving him on some unrelated shopping trip, and right in front of the hospital he had a stroke and died. She took him to the ER where they quickly discovered he was unrecoverable. And she had the presence of mind to ask for a type and match with the girl.
They were a match, so soon his heart was beating in her chest.
At the time, there was great awe at the miracle, but within a week it had been mostly forgotten. I never knew the story behind the story, if there was faith beyond the love of the two children. But it is an illustration of the miraculous nonetheless.
Gee, I loved that episode of "The Twilight Zone!"
Seriously, when someone (on the Internet, no less!) offers a story that they "once heard," all credibility instantly ceases.
Read my tag-line!
Regards,
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