Tuesday, September 7, 2010

From Christian to Atheist Pt. 9

The one thing I can say about my Christian experience was that at the time I wholeheartedly believed everything I learned and preached about, I was one hundred percent honest and sure of my convictions as a believer. Towards the last year of my ministry it seemed that almost every time I met a so called prophet of the Lord whether it was at a church gathering or while visiting another church of the same denomination they would always tell me that God wanted me to start praying for the sick. I was asked repeatably by many about why I was holding back since it was obvious that God had given me the gift of divine healing. I at times would go to church and when they would pray for me at the altar they would anoint my hands with oil and time and again proclaim that I had the gift of healing. People that have heard me preach at my home church and at other churches I had preached at would claim healings to which I never had any evidence of. Even as a believer I was very skeptical when it came to the topic of faith healing.

It was ironic that this was going on in my life because when I would be at home late at night in the solitude of my room, I would be on bended knee praying to God and telling him that I was willing to do anything for him including die if need be. But the one thing I would not and could not do in good conscience was involve myself in faith healing and implementing that into my ministry. You might say I was being rebellious but the truth is that I did not want to be associated with the many charlatans in the field of faith healing, I did not want to be counted among the scam artists out there such as Benny Hinn, R.W. Shambach, Robert Tilton, Morris Cerullo, and the list goes on and on. I was serious about my service to the Lord, my ministry for the Lord meant everything to me.

I was not one to jump for joy when someone I did not know would climb the altar to testify how God had healed him/ her from Aids or some other mortal disease or ailment and I felt I was right by doing so. In fact I had the bible scripture to back me up regarding this matter: 18And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.19Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. Mark 5:18,19 This tale tells of a man possessed of a legion of demons who lived in the tombs and would constantly hurt himself and run around howling and acting like a mad man, but when he saw Jesus he approached him and the Lord cast the demons out of him. Notice when he was healed he wanted to follow Jesus but instead Jesus told him to go to home and to his friends for the sole purpose of them seeing what God had done for him.

Simply put, if I did not know you your testimony was worthless to me unless you had adequate evidence that you were in fact at the advance stages of Aids. Evidence to me in those days would have been detailed medical records of your diagnosis from beginning to end, maybe some pics of yourself with all the tell tale signs of the disease such as purple spots and being extremely skinny and ill. But as far as your word goes it meant squat to me, since I knew that there were so many out there trying to make a name for themselves in the church with the ultimate goal being to use that as an impetus to prosperity.

I actually knew a man in our church who died from a hernia!! He was afraid to get surgery for it and so it ballooned out of proportion and popped, the whole time when he was asked about it he claimed that he knew God would heal him. As a result of his illness he did not smell to good either, but all in all he was a good man. He made a living selling hot dogs and lived alone. Many have died awaiting a miracle or believing that they have received one from some charlatan preacher telling them that they were healed.My own step father almost died from angina a couple of years earlier because my ministry partner prayed for him and told him to throw away his heart medication that God had healed him. Luckily for him my mother held onto his meds, he only lasted three days before he had to take them again. Faith healing should be labeled faith killing and now as then I despise the practice of it and pity those that fall prey to its lies that may lead to even death.

54 comments:

  1. Chatpilot you really should get over it.

    Sure you had a bad experience by joining churches that lacked scholarship and credibility. So you ended up associating with people who were at best well meaning but, ill equipped enthusiastic amateurs or at worst charlatans.

    Sure you got disillusioned with the churches you were in – you should have been a bit more discerning about what you signed up to
    ... but that is history
    ... AND you were smart enough to see that everything about the God they preached was not real.

    Now this is where I struggle ... then it seems you also took their easy path of poor scholarship and threw the baby out with the bath water.

    Nowhere on your blog have I read a single rational credible reason for you not believing in God. You must have one – after all you made a conscious choice to stop believing!

    I can understand your disillusionment with the churches – but is that a rational basis to decide there is no God?

    I have challenged you in a number of places to produce your rational for drawing the conclusion that there is no God – after all your blog is titled “God is a myth” – yet you fail to produce anything to back it up!

    How are you different from the preachers you criticise? They preached about their God from an imperfect knowledge base - you preach about there being no God based on what?

    Sala kahle -peace

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  2. akakiwibear we've been through this already, what I consider evidence you refuse to accept. The fact that the tale of Christ as narrated in the bible is nothing more than a conglomeration of plagiarized pre-christian myths was enough to demonstrate to me that God did not exist. My particular experiences had nothing really to do with my not believing in God. I was not willing to trade one religion for another.

    After having read the bible I became convinced that it was surely not god inspired, and then after realizing that: I had lost my need for a religious belief in any deity. The bible itself was the main motivating factor that led me to my atheism. I judged the biblical god from the standpoint of what I deemed to be right and wrong and could not, try as I may justify the many atrocities perpetrated by God upon mankind in the scriptures.

    The problem of evil for instance is a huge problem that apologists have been wrestling with for years. But when you eliminate God from the equation you learn to accept evil as natural occurrences and a part of life. The random events that happen in the world are more rational without the introduction of a god, and spares the believers constantly trying to defend their god for his apparent acts of cruelty.

    Regarding Jesus in pagan mythology here is a great link that will help you study it further in depth with plenty of source evidence. http://www.pocm.info/

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  3. I really appreciate your forthright honesty in these posts.


    "But when you eliminate God from the equation you learn to accept evil as natural occurrences and a part of life."

    Also if you will imagine all people removed from the face of the earth, god, jesus, satan, allah, mohammad, all religious beliefs suddenly disappear, this imagined hypothesis has no effect on any other animals.

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  4. Just a couple of observations:

    "lacked scholarship and credibility" - name a single church/religious organization that has either. And by this I mean has shown through verifiable evidence or credible historical research that their god exists and the bible is true. The burden is on the believer not the atheist.

    "you also took their easy path of poor scholarship and threw the baby out with the bath water" - by poor scholarship you mean that there is no significant evidence to justify any of the claims made by the 30,000 different sects of christianity (doesn't even include the other deist religions and beliefs like buddhism). The old atheist saw: "once you understand why you reject the gods of other religions, you will understand why I reject yours."

    "your disillusionment with the churches, but is that a rational basis to decide there is no God?" - it is one of many good reasons. What you are suggesting here is that each person should have what their own concept of what god is. This is not truth, it is justifying your own personal beliefs as being from a higher power - feels good when god is always on your side.

    Your last couple of paragraphs go into the same false logical argument that is commonly made. Chatpilot, you keep saying there are no leprechauns - yet you refuse to provide any evidence they don't exist - how can you do this!?

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  5. As stated by Dennis Keane the onus of proving the existence of God is on the believer, for some reason they don't seem to get this simple concept. They are the ones that are making claims of "facts" and "truth" based on faith. Besides any philosopher will tell you that it is impossible to prove a negative.

    I try not to get into useless discussions that eventually turn into nothing more than an exercise in futility and circular reasoning. I use reasoning with a grain of salt since Christians can't seem to know what reasoning is. It seems that the words evidence and reason mean something completely different to what we secular non believers understand the terms to signify.

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  6. I understand your frustration associated in trying to explain logic to the 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 crowd, but without our ability to reason we might as well be Ray Comfort.

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  7. Hi Dennis, you say by this I mean has shown through verifiable evidence or credible historical research that their god exists and the bible is true

    You give a dual test god exists and the bible is true now you may have thought this a smart trap to set, or it just reflects on your own scholarship because mainstream Christianity does not claim the bible to be true as in literal and inerrant, so your double test will always fail.

    Sala kahle -peace

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  8. Dennis you really should read what I asked Chatpilot for before you rant.
    Both you & Chatpilot respond with the onus of proving the existence of God is on the believer and that is a fair enough statement but has nothing to do with what I asked.

    All I have asked Chatpilot to do is present a rational argument to the support the decision he has made:
    Chatpilot decided there was no God – this is not a passive action.
    Chatpilot claims to have reviewed the evidence – he has presented no credible evidence. Come on Chatpilot you describe the POCM site as in depth with plenty of source evidence really? The standard of reasoning there would be laughed out of a philosophy 101 class.
    Chatpilot claims to be rational and that this was a rational decision - So all I am asking for is to demonstrate that rationality.

    I can accept if you say you decided there is no God because you felt like doing so, an emotive decision – your call. But Chatpilot, you claim to have reached a logical conclusion.

    So far the only evidence you have presented is that you were right to be disillusioned with the church you went to. You said I use reasoning with a grain of salt yes I see that. I can accept that disillusionment with a church can lead to atheism, but that is not a rational logical decision making process – it is emotive.

    You say The bible itself was the main motivating factor that led me to my atheism. I judged the biblical god from the standpoint of what I deemed to be right and wrong and could not, try as I may justify the many atrocities perpetrated by God upon mankind in the scriptures.

    I won’t re-iterate that the bible needs to be understood in its context not as standalone, literal and inerrant – but you have not addressed this point.

    You also have not addressed my point that you cannot simultaneously claim the bible to be untrue and use it as evidence for not believing in God.

    If you choose to base your choice on a flawed understanding of the bible it does not lend your position much credibility. Can you argue your view from a position of mainstream biblical scholarship?

    You have made a giant leap of faith into atheism - admit it was purely emotive and not rational - I can accept that, but don't insult your readers with a claim of rationality you can't back up.

    Sala kahle - peace

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  9. Steven I did not want to ignore you but your this imagined hypothesis has no effect on any other animals showed you don't really think things through unless you disregard the impact of humanity on say turkeys or the environment ...

    Chatpilot's But when you eliminate God from the equation you learn to accept evil as natural occurrences and a part of life. is one of the arguments refuting the problem of evil, not supporting it!

    sala kahle -peace

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  10. a-bear, You can't be serious? There is no evidence of a god beyond the minds of human beings, with the notion of gods put there by guess who? Other human beings.

    If there were evidence of a god outside of a humans mind, then it would be evident to all animals and species, and they would respond in some way to this being, in acknowledgement.

    Animals are not brain dead, they do have a level of intelligence instead of what most humans give them little credit as having very little at all intelligence and find most animals as collateral worthless creatures.

    Whether you want to admit it or not humans are in fact animals, whom learned to communicate to each other although some animals and insect species communicate to each other, not all humans can communicate to each other, without translation.

    So that being said, imagine all humans gone from the face of the earth, suddenly there are no more gods, nor religions, where did the gods and religions go?? It's a very simple concept, for which you have no answer for! You reject my hypothesis because it proves in an instant that your concept of a god is only held within the minds of human beings and cannot be proved by you any further.

    You, nor any other human can prove a god exists, because no man has the ability to probe the universe, your bible was written from a viewpoint of a single planet at the center of the universe, the nearest galaxy is approx. 2.2 million light years away, now go tell me you know all about the Andromeda because you've been there and you have examined every planet in search for your god jesus but yet you haven't found them, why not??

    Because you think you already know all there is to know, because all knowledge that is available to man is in the buybull, that's your problem, you know too much, yet your ignorance is showing through like a thin skirt.

    ciao

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  11. akakiwibear if you want I could take your bible and tear it apart from a logical standpoint but guess what, since you are so brain washed you would probably not get the point. Christians are dumb beyond belief, and I don't take part in the stupidity that is your idea of logic or reason.

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  12. Akaki -

    Denial of a claim that has no proof is not a weak position (and I took philosophy 101). If Chatpilot said he used to be a raelian and decided as an adult that the religion was just a bunch of hooey, the only reasoning that would be required was that it had no evidence.

    While I cannot speak for chatpilot (he seems to do well enough on his own), I can speak for myself. Being raised catholic I can speak for my own reasoning for not believing in a supreme being - I evaluated the lack of evidence for any of the beliefs I was being taught, realized there was none and decided that truth was more important than the warm and fuzzies.

    My reasoning:

    A large number of religions that tend to disagree with the basics.

    Religion is based on geography for the majority of humans

    No evidence that a supreme being is required to either start the universe or life on this planet.

    No evidence for a being that subverts natural laws to its will (for good or evil - except of course for the Flying Spaghetti Monster) - R'Amen

    A personal interpretation of any holy book takes into acount the moral and mental state of the believer more than any "universal understanding" they are supposed to gain.

    The region of the world that religion attempts to explain has become smaller and smaller as science has narrowed the extent of our ignorance.

    In Summary - To use vague interpretations of bronze age texts (in the same way we might interpret a poem) as a method for guiding our actions over a limited lifespan is likely to result in a life not lived to its fullest potential and a great deal of conflict.

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  13. Hi Steven, sorry I misunderstood your earlier point - though I guess you would have to ask a turkey how it felt about God because I certainly don't know.

    On the other hand how do you reason the causality between human disappearance and God vanishing - I am pleased you did Phil 101 then you will know that the tree still falls.


    sala kahle - peace.

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  14. Chatpilot, you seem to have resorted to personal insult instead of argument ... I wonder what that says ... ?

    sala kahle -peace

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  15. Dennis, thanks for a considered reply, I will address each point as best I can.

    A large number of religions that tend to disagree with the basics.
    ... OK so there are a large number of religions but you can’t conclude that if they disagree they are all wrong. Actually I think there is a lot in common between the major religions – for example the Hindus share the concept of a triune god.

    Religion is based on geography for the majority of humans
    This is not really a surprise. It is quite reasonable to expect God’s revelation to each group to be culturally contextual and for the subsequent development of their religion to be contextual, recognising that cultural context is largely geographic.

    No evidence that a supreme being is required to either start the universe or life on this planet.
    This is an unproductive argument for atheist and theist alike because we don’t have a clue as to the actual beginning ... no the one before the one we are currently beginning to understand.

    No evidence for a being that subverts natural laws to its will (for good or evil - except of course for the Flying Spaghetti Monster) - R'Amen Proof is that spag monster can fly;)
    There is good work done by your old church in the area of recognising miracles, where claims are subject to rigorous review by an expert panel that is usually not Catholic and often not Christian. E.g. miracles of healing attributed to St Faustina. Well documented pre and post medical evidence and a genuine expert panel.

    A personal interpretation of any holy book takes into acount the moral and mental state of the believer more than any "universal understanding" they are supposed to gain.
    ... that’s the reason why the Catholic Church bases its doctrine on the bible and tradition/teaching, unlike the churches where anyone can call themselves a preacher. Lack of church scholarship seems to be what got Chatpilot all twisted up.

    The region of the world that religion attempts to explain has become smaller and smaller as science has narrowed the extent of our ignorance.
    Yes that is a fair point. But again it is expected that as science grows there is less mystery in the world. Mainstream theological scholarship recognises this and adapts its understanding of God accordingly. Theology like any field of study is dynamic and increasing in its learning all the time.

    Sala kahle -peace

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  16. Dennis, thanks for a considered reply, I will address each point as best I can.

    A large number of religions that tend to disagree with the basics. ...
    OK so there are a large number of religions but you can’t conclude that if they disagree they are all wrong. Actually I think there is a lot in common between the major religions – for example the Hindus share the concept of a triune god.

    Religion is based on geography for the majority of humans
    This is not really a surprise. It is quite reasonable to expect God’s revelation to each group to be culturally contextual and for the subsequent development of their religion to be contextual, recognising that cultural context is largely geographic.

    No evidence that a supreme being is required to either start the universe or life on this planet.
    This is an unproductive argument for atheist and theist alike because we don’t have a clue as to the actual beginning ... no the one before that.

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  17. Hi Dennis, lost part of that ...

    No evidence for a being that subverts natural laws to its will (for good or evil - except of course for the Flying Spaghetti Monster) - R'Amen Proof is that spag monster can fly.
    There is good work done by your old church in the area of recognising miracles, where claims are subject to rigorous review by an expert panel that is usually not Catholic and often not Christian. E.g. miracles of healing attributed to St Faustina. Well documented pre and post medical evidence and a genuine expert panel.

    A personal interpretation of any holy book takes into acount the moral and mental state of the believer more than any "universal understanding" they are supposed to gain. ... that’s the reason why the Catholic Church bases its doctrine on the bible and tradition/teaching, unlike the churches where anyone can call themselves a preacher.

    The region of the world that religion attempts to explain has become smaller and smaller as science has narrowed the extent of our ignorance.
    Yes that is a fair point. But again it is expected that as science grows there is less mystery in the world. Mainstream theological scholarship recognises this and adapts its understanding of God accordingly. Theology like any field of study is dynamic and increasing in its learning all the time.

    Sala kahle -peace

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  18. akakiwibear I have resorted to insults as you stated because logic does not seem to get to you. This is not the first time that we have done this dance and it is quite boring and frustrating at the same time.

    Life without a God is so much simpler and easily explained. Why do we have natural disasters? Is it the wrath of God or in the case of an earthquake the shifting of tectonic plates? When bad things happen to good people, is it God testing their faith or is it just a part of life and a natural occurrence?

    When children are born with genetic defects, is it God testing the parents or just bad genetics being transferred to the fetus?

    Christians spend a lifetime trying to justify the cruelty of their god when in reality it has nothing to do with him. It is just a fact of life and shit happens. What more can I tell you?

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  19. "that’s the reason why the Catholic Church bases its doctrine on the bible and tradition/teaching, unlike the churches where anyone can call themselves a preacher. Lack of church scholarship seems to be what got Chatpilot all twisted up."

    It's funny that you said this, but the Catholic church does not teach this stuff to its believers. Unless you are applying for some position within the church you do not get access to the doctrines and teachings of the church. Most Catholics I know don't know jack shit about the bible. Not to mention for being so theologically sound it seems that they have trouble keeping their dicks in their pants when it comes to minors. That is what happens when you suppress your natural desires for a deity.

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  20. "No evidence for a being that subverts natural laws to its will (for good or evil - except of course for the Flying Spaghetti Monster) - R'Amen Proof is that spag monster can fly;)
    There is good work done by your old church in the area of recognising miracles, where claims are subject to rigorous review by an expert panel that is usually not Catholic and often not Christian. E.g. miracles of healing attributed to St Faustina. Well documented pre and post medical evidence and a genuine expert panel."

    So two people out of x number that prayed to this saint, had a remission (correlation is not causation), and because a panel selected by the vatican can't explain how it happened - god did it? How is this not god of the gaps?

    Someone at work just told me a great line: "In god we trust, everyone else - bring data". A better test would be to take two large enough groups to be statistically significant: one that did and one that didn't pray to this saint and see if there was a significant difference between the number of remissions. This still does not give evidence for a divine being, only that prayer has some effect. I believe the Templeton Foundation has tried similar studies and found no difference.

    This is not evidence.

    And to your point about religion and geography - this supreme being has caused a great deal of pain and suffering due to its poor communication skills.

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  21. And how in the world do I do italics and bold in blogspot comments?

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  22. Dennis, you say this supreme being has caused a great deal of pain and suffering due to its poor communication skills. I am not sure what part of love you neighbour as yourself is hard to understand

    Yes people have used religion as an excuse for their own excesses of power and greed ... As Chatpilot said ‘shit happens’ don’t blame God

    On miracles you said So two people out of x number that prayed to this saint, had a remission (correlation is not causation), By the way it is cure that is the criteria not remission and yes correlation is not causation which is why the Vatican requires immediacy and complete cure to even consider the case. Likewise there have I think only been less than 100 miracles attributed at Lourdes. This is evidence of a strict process.

    The Catholic Church is obviously aware that a single miracle is proof of a supernatural force and that atheists will attack every case as hard as they can – so they are rigorous in their vetting – can’t fault the approach.

    As an atheist there is the problem of having to dance through every miracle and prove the vetting panel got it wrong (remember immediacy). Now for the sake of argument allow that the panels got it wrong 99% of the time – tough about the other 1% of genuine miracles.

    The research into prayer has had mixed results and is not really conclusive. Personally I would be surprised if it did prove that prayer worked on demand. That leads to the absurd conclusion that if I jumped from a plane without a parachute I could pray and land gently.

    Sala kahle -peace

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  23. Chatpilot some of my comments seem to disapear off your blog ... are you deleting them? If so do remember that as soon as they are posted an email goes to all subscribers witht he full text of comment.

    ???

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  24. I will split the comment and see if that helps

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  25. part 2
    Where you are quit wrong though is when you say Unless you are applying for some position within the church you do not get access to the doctrines and teachings of the church.

    The obvious source is the Catechism of The Catholic Church . Unlike the non-creedal churches the Catholics do document what they believe and make it freely available to anyone.

    See we can engage intelligently when you are not rude to visitors ;)

    Sala kahle – peace

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  26. OK it seems the 1st part where I agree with vanishes, but the 2nd part stays ????

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  27. Chatpilot some of my comments seem to disapear off your blog ... are you deleting them?

    akakiwibear I wasn't aware of this issue, I have heard that there is a limit to how many words or characters you type but I have never payed that much attention. I will try and look into it and see if I can resolve it for you.

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  28. I've reviewed some of the doctrines taught by the Catholic church and was quite impressed with their scholarship, but I don't think that many Catholics especially hispanic Catholics do this.

    Why do Catholics pray to saints? They say it's not worship but veneration, but they have actual prayers directed to the various saints. If God is a jealous God and Jesus says 'I am the way, the truth, and the life and no man cometh to the father but by me' Then why do Catholics waste their time praying to saints, isn't this idolatry?

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  29. Why do Catholics pray to saints? Prayers are directed towards individual saints asking for their intercession in much the same way someone might ask a friend or aunt to pray for them.

    As an aside have you thought about how no man cometh to the father but by me would apply to say a Hindu. CAtholic thinking is that salvation through Christ can be after death. This is linked to the Catholic focus on works - we have to act to save ourselves - rather than just an earthly "get out of jail free" baptism.

    I will try to get that "lost" comment up - I had some special characters in it, but it was no longer than some I posted - do I use too many words?

    Sala kahle - peace

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  30. No still a problem - it appears I get the email saying it was published - it's on screen and then on refresh it's gone. I will try it bit by bit to see if I can find the problem bit.

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  31. I wouldn't say I danced around anything. The methodology I described would demonstrate that prayer had a beneficial effect. As someone who works in the sciences I would expect the same rigor from someone making a secular claim.

    Regardless if 100 or 1,000 have claimed a cure, it is still a god of the gaps argument until the method is measured and verified.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

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  32. ... let’s see if this works.

    You say Christians spend a lifetime trying to justify the cruelty of their god when in reality it has nothing to do with him. ... you must mix with some theologically screwed up Christians.

    Of course I agree with you that It is just a fact of life and shit happens ... We live in a natural world which (as one would hope) functions without the day to day intervention of some being having to make it rain or a child to be born ... and yes because the world is subject to the laws of nature floods happen and children are born with defects ... sad but true.

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  33. Second bit of the first part ...

    Now here you make a really good point the Catholic church does not teach this stuff to its believers and on an every Sunday basis it certainly does seem to teach at much the same Sunday school level theology as other Churches, but at least it is not wanting to burn the Koran.

    I guess for most people the Sunday school theology is OK ... ?
    That churches don’t progress their teaching beyond Sunday school level is one of the factors that leaves many people open to the attacks of atheism.
    They can’t respond to simple statements like “The bible is not true”, yet the Catholic bishops of the UK put out a specific statement saying exactly that - can’t find my link to the source but try

    this

    Hope that works ..

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  34. Dennis, you say The methodology I described would demonstrate that prayer had a beneficial effect. I am not sure I follow your reasoning.

    Consider a parallel study where the effectiveness of children asking for a cookie each time they walked into the kitchen. All the study would prove is that sometimes the kids gets the cookie and sometimes not. The analogy is strong. The study does however not prove that the mother heard the kid or not or even if the mother was there.

    As someone who works in the sciences I would expect the same rigor from someone making a secular claim. I do too. That is why I think one has to very careful applying the scientific method to situations where it is not applicable.

    But again I observe that a study of response to prayer on demand is testing for an absurd outcome – apply the rigor to the thinking as well as to the science. Prayer is not like waving a magic wand – pray and zap.

    I would be really interested if you could suggest a valid methodology and what conclusions you could draw from the experiment - I don't come close to really understanding about prayer and miracles.

    Sala kahle - peace

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  35. actually I never thought that analogy through all the way - if no one was not in the kitchen the kid would never get a cookie ... so therefore in the prayer study ...

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  36. "Prayers are directed towards individual saints asking for their intercession in much the same way someone might ask a friend or aunt to pray for them."

    I have two specific problems with this statement. The first is, who declares these people saints? Man does, God does not canonize anyone. The second is that intercession is exactly the role that Jesus plays on behalf of mankind. There is no need to pray to others when Jesus himself is the sole intercessor. Nowhere else in the bible are you directed to pray to anyone else for intercession or for anything at all. I view this as idolatry especially when the believers are wearing on their person idols or icons representing their saints of choice.

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  37. The logic has me in a tizzy. I'm going down to my church tomorrow to confess my sins.

    :)

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  38. Chatpilot who declares these people saints? Man does ?? Not really.
    Man only confirms that some people are indeed saints, but does not deny the sainthood of others. A saint is simply a person the Church acknowledges is in heaven.
    There is no reason why I could not pray for the intercession of say my grandmother who was a very righteous person and would have been a sure for heaven.
    So to answer, no its God who decides.

    Next ... Nowhere else in the bible are you directed to pray to anyone else ... but the bible does acknowledge that we can ask others to pray for us. (e.g Ephesians 6:19, 2 Thes 3:1 ... and many others). Now if we believe that those who have died live on in spirit why should we not ask for their prayers.

    I know this is a big problem area for Protestants many of whom received distorted anti-catholic teaching, but really it is no more than asking someone to pray for you.
    especially when the believers are wearing on their person idols or icons representing their saints of choice again a common misconception. The images are intended as aide memoirs.
    Now I know that some people do get the teaching of the Church wrong and may even go so far as to virtually worship some saints – but that is not the actual teaching.

    Sala kahle -peace

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  39. Dennis I'm going down to my church tomorrow to confess my sins. don't they might let you in and have to be struck by lightening ;)

    but seriously I have been unable to come up with a valid scientific test for the validity of prayer. In my atheist phase I read the various studies and initially accepted them as confirming my views, but then I got to be a little more critical and figured out that none of the studies (pro or anti) even come close.

    1) There is no valid control group because there are religious communities throughout the world who pray daily for all the sick and all those in hospital etc ...

    2) They all test for prayer on demand which is absurd.

    So the only way to test a responce to prayer is to set strict criteria and test after the event ... which is what is done.

    When I got to study some of the individual cases I found that I could not fault the methodolgy (so the vatican appointed the panel but who was not qualified to be there?)

    ONce I had accepted that on a balance of probability miracles do occur it was hard to stay atheist.

    sala kahle - peace

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  40. "but the bible does acknowledge that we can ask others to pray for us. (e.g Ephesians 6:19, 2 Thes 3:1 ... and many others). Now if we believe that those who have died live on in spirit why should we not ask for their prayers."

    What a nice attempt to justify the idolatry of the Catholic church. But there is a huge difference in praying for someone and praying to someone and what you are doing when you pray for saints is praying to that particular saint. It is not the role of the dead to intercede for anyone that has been done by Jesus Christ. So what I said earlier still stands it is not taught anywhere in the bible that we should pray to the dead for intercession of any kind.

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  41. John 14:13
    And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

    Jesus said in the bible to ask for things in his name, not in the name of St. Paul or any other saint for that matter. Considering that you seem theologically sound on some points when it comes to this matter I must say I am not impressed.

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  42. Chatpilot, you are still thinking within the confines of evangelical churches – I don’t mean that as criticism, just observation.

    Your assumption is that the bible is the only source of doctrine and that it cannot be added to. Catholic doctrine is based on the bible plus tradition = the magisterium .

    If we are to accept the bible as the only source of doctrine then we need the bible to tell us that. Where does it say in the bible that it is the only source of doctrine?

    If we accept that the Church can develop doctrine then we need a basis for that such as Matthew 16:19 which clearly gives Peter (by the way ... from whom there is a direct line of apostolic succession for the Pope) the power to create doctrine.

    Do Catholics pray to a saint for their intercession ... this could be a matter of semantics?
    When is it prayer and when is it not?
    If in a meditative state I say “Saint xx please pray for my sick aunt” is that praying to the saint or is that spiritually asking the saint to pray for my aunt.
    If you phone your brother and say “Brother please pray for my sick aunt” ... how is that different, except that the ol’ saint is dead so you can't phone?

    On that you say It is not the role of the dead to intercede for anyone Yet Ephesians 6: 18-19 is quite clear:
    18. With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, 19. and pray on my behalf

    This was a favourite topic of mine as an atheist and even now if I really understood prayer I would be able to give you a better answer.

    Sala kahle -peace

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  43. You keep missing the point I am trying to make, that the bible does not instruct you to pray to saints for intercessory prayer. That role belongs solely to Jesus. People praying for each other is obviously implied in the Matthew 6:18,19

    18. In all your prayer and entreaty keep praying in the Spirit on every possible occasion. Never get tired of staying awake to pray for all God's holy people,
    19 and pray for me to be given an opportunity to open my mouth and fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel

    Notice in 18 it replaces the word saints to God's holy people and then in 19 Paul asks the congregation to also pray for him. Nowhere in this text or any other in all of the bible do you see anyone praying to the dead for intercession. This translation is taken directly from the Catholic bible.

    Regarding the church inventing doctrine I agree with you but at the same time that doctrine has to be bible based and consistent with the scriptures.

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  44. I find it fascinating having this debate with an atheist – sort of got off the topic of why you became an atheist.

    Interesting differences in translation – I used the New American Standard Bible, the New Jerusalem which I think you used is highly regarded.

    The difference is not as big as it seems because the Catholic Church adheres to the concept that we are all part of the communion of saints – the spiritual solidarity which binds together the faithful (saints) on earth and the saints in heaven in the organic unity of the same mystical body under Christ its head.

    So asking a living saint or a dead one to pray for you to Christ is seen as one and the same thing.

    Paul for example is frequently saying he will pray for others – so why should he stop when he gets to heaven? Equally why should he not pray for us in this time? So why should we not ask him for his prayers.

    As I object to sola scriptura on the basis that the bible is neither inerrant nor literal I tend not see much merit in trading individual scripture passages. So let me turn to the tradition of the Church and the dying words of two saints (if you think they are unworthy of the title ... )

    "Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you then more effectively than during my life." [St. Dominic, dying, to his brothers.] and "I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth." [St. Therese of Lisieux]. So were they wrong?

    Sala kahle -peace

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  45. "Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you then more effectively than during my life." [St. Dominic, dying, to his brothers.] and "I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth." [St. Therese of Lisieux]. So were they wrong?

    Yes they were! All they are doing is conveying their beliefs. They are not conveying anything present in the scriptures. John 15:16 clearly instructs you to ask for things in Jesus name. If that is the case then what do you need another intercessor for? It makes no sense whatsoever. One of the goals of Jesus was to reconcile mankind with God and through his death and resurrection he has achieved that. John 14:6 reiterates this. When Jesus supposedly died on the cross the rending of the temple veil was symbolic of the opening of the way for man to once again through Jesus blood sacrifice be able to approach God.

    Jesus said to pray in his name so that the father may be glorified in the son, not to pray to dead saints etc. In fact in the O.T. When Saul sought the counsel of Solomon he sought out the witch of Endor. God allowed in that one instance for Solomon to appear but later it states in 1 Chronicle 10:13 that Saul died as a result of his transgression. In fact communication with the dead was strictly forbidden.

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  46. Here is another way to look at it, regardless of what the church says, it was Jesus who was the example that all believers should strive to emulate in their personal lives. The Gospel narratives which contain lots of supposed sayings of Christ never state to pray to saints or dead people of any kind. It says to pray to the father directly in his name.

    Even the epistles to the various churches are dated earlier than the gospels regarding church doctrine and teachings and they say nothing about praying to saints. Jesus is supposed to be the sole intercessor between man and God.

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  47. unless I missed something there is nothing in the bible that says:
    1: there is no communion between the living saints and the dead ones
    2: we can't ask the dead saints to pray for us.

    but it does say that the Church has the authority to create doctrine - and asking saints for their prayers is doctrine.

    sala kahle - peace

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  48. No it's not it's idolatry! See how stupid your bible is? People just interpret it the way they understand it, thus making out of it anything you want it to mean. Typical hard headed Christian I am done discussing this issue with you. You sound like a fundamentalist. Just believe what you want most christians have been doing that for the past two thousand plus years. Making that shit up as you go along.Christians can't see nor understand logic since their minds are clouded by primitive thinking based on mythology.

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  49. I think this link explains it better than I do

    No it's not it's idolatry!, big call for an atheist! ... but link may interest you considering your bible based church background.

    Sala kahle

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  50. You claimed that god had no religion and that religion was created by man, yet you cling tenaciously to the Catholic faith. Once again it sounds like you are confused by that muddle you call the bible. It is my fault for trying to argue nonsense from its source (the bible).

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  51. akakiwibear: "Sure you had a bad experience by joining churches that lacked scholarship and credibility." BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
    .
    Granted, Chatpilot belonged to one of the more emotive and reactive denominations (to put it mildly), but come on akakiwibear!
    .
    "Scholarship and credibility" is the mantra I hear from too many modern, moderate Christians these days - I can use fancy words, but that doesn't make them true or accurate. Apologists, from the OT prophets, to Paul, to Augustine, and now modernist Christians fatigue me. Instead of coming to common sense and plausible conclusions - they wiggle strenuously to force the square peg into the round hole. Religion is a burrowing tick in the primitive brain of stubborn men.
    .
    Listen up, you're a grown adult - don't give me this shit about talking snakes and magic fruit. Don't feed me any crap about Jesus shuffling a few fish and loaves and dealing a full-house to thousands of starving people. Stop making excuses by claiming 3 month old Canaanite babies could somehow be a bad influence on Israel, thus they must be hacked to death with dull Bronze Age swords alongside their pagan families.
    .
    Some modern Christians claim much of the bible is allegorical. Not to be taken literal. Some even acknowledge the ACTUAL scholarship and mountains of geological evidence showing the earth is much older than 6,000 years and biological & fossil evidence of evolutionary mechanisms (hell, the avian flu mutated/evolved to jump the species barrier)... yet they make excuses, claim the literal to be figurative, and the figurative to be literal in turn. They "study" (the bible and biased literature) like fiends.
    .
    All of this "scholarship" (read: fearful compromise mixed with the ritual of reading and mental aerobics unworthy of a geriatric ward) in order to cling to such a horrific book of ancient mythology. Stop wiggling out of your straight jackets - you are insane for believing in magic and spirits. You're not a "scholar" of anything short of fiction - it would be more worthwhile to be a "scholar" of Spider Man comics (BTW, Doc Ock first appeared in issue #3 in 1963).

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  52. I am a Christian ... but do not believe in faith healing ... never have. I also do not see the Bible as teaching that either.

    - just saying

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    1. It depends on how you interpret that Bible. From a charismatic point of view it does teach it.

      13Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:13-16 (NIV)

      17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” Mark 16:17-18

      Although it's true that most scholars believe that this portion of Mark was a later addition. Pentecostals believe it word for word as literal and true and applying to believers today just as it did to those in the past.

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