The Role of Miracles in Judaism and Christianity

Faith & Science Conversation
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Except that I don’t believe any such thing. For you the resurrection of Jesus may be a magic trick but for me, He leads where we may follow because He is “the first-born of many brethren.” Jesus’ resurrection was not a continuation of business as usual, where Jesus continued His ministry and life as if nothing had happened. It was a complete alteration where He not only appeared in a room without opening a door but He left the earth behind to be with the Father who is spirit. And he made no more public appearance to walk among crowds. His relationship with us in the last 2000 years is spiritual because His existence and body is as Paul belabors in 1 Cor 15 spiritual not physical. There was no statistical anomaly because there was no physical resurrection.

You may need the unsurpassed magic trick in order to believe but I am the complete opposite. I don’t need magic to believe but reality – an assurance that this is not some made up fairy tale but something real. I embrace the idea that science and the physical is not all there is – that there is a spiritual aspect to reality. But it is only real if it does not contradict what is objectively demonstrable. I cannot even comprehend this idea that only blind faith in pure magic is of value – I am sorry, but for me that equals willful ignorance and self-delusion.

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I didn’t say you agreed to those details. You have said over and over that God can’t violate natural law. Thus, what I described is consistent with a view that God doesn’t violate natural law.

Maybe you should lay out what you think happened at the resurrection IN DETAIL not the fuzzy generalities I see here… I have lots of questions.

1 Earlier you said it was spiritual resurrection. If so, the body still lies in the grave, at least I think it would. If it doesn’t , what happened to the body?
2 If the body lies in the grave, then why the reports of an empty tomb? Were they lies? Propaganda? A way to make the gullible masses come to God?.
3. It seems to me that if God can’t violate natural law, as you say, then without a bodily resurrection, how is this different than the afterlife of the Rich man of the rich man and Lazarus fame?
4. Not per se to the issue of resurrection, but if all the miracles are merely statistical flukes of known natural law, how does any of it point us to God? Are we merely worshipping a lucky ‘god’ whose adherents had more than their fair share of statistical flukes?

You wrote:

You may need the unsurpassed magic trick in order to believe but I am the complete opposite. I don’t need magic to believe but reality – an assurance that this is not some made up fairy tale but something real. I embrace the idea that science and the physical is not all there is – that there is a spiritual aspect to reality. But it is only real if it does not contradict what is objectively demonstrable. I cannot even comprehend this idea that only blind faith in pure magic is of value – I am sorry, but for me that equals willful ignorance and self-delusion.

As a philosopher, I would say that the most powerful God in your universe is your view of what is ‘objectively demonstrable’. It is more powerful than ‘Jehovah’. But there is a much deeper issue here and it will take a bit to explain. I have spent my life building theories of where oil is in the ground. Decade after decade, I built theories based upon ‘objective data’ like seismic data, tiny variations in the gravitational field, tensor gravity, magnetic field analysis, physical measurements from wells involving spontaneous potentials, resistivity, pressure, thermal gradients, paleontology of fossils found in the drill cuttings, seismic amplitude variation with offset (indicator of hydrocarbons) etc etc. No amount of money was spared to try to learn about the places we were examining. Each piece of this vast pile of physics and geologic data is objectively verifiable. What it means, when put together into a theory of the geologic history of that basis is anything but objective. Each of us geoscientists can interpret the same data differently–that data that is objectively demonstrable. Theory isn’t what you think it is.

Indeed, you make a similar mistake as the Vienna Circle did in the 1930s in claiming that the only sentences that had meaning were objectively verifiable. The problem was, that they could not objectively verify their own claim–that sentences only had meaning if they were objectively verifiable.

I want to see you objectively demonstrate your own statement, “But it is only real if it does not contradict what is objectively demonstrable” doesn’t contradict objective reality. If you can’t objectively demonstrate this statement doesn’t contradict what is objectively demonstrable, then it isn’t real by your own rules, which is what you should conclude.

To do this, you need to define what you mean by “objectively demonstrable.” Whole philosophy books have been written on this problem. Assuming our consciousness’s are identical (a reasonable assumption but one that isn’t objective in any way shape or form), I experience sensory data that arrives at my senses. I don’t experience the actual world as it is. Our brains fill in our vision field and we miss much. Immanuel Kant made a division between the phenomenon (what we see) and the Noumena (the thing we don’t see, but which causes the phenomena we see. But right there, I used a word that is problematical, Causation. David Hume ripped up the concept of causation, and if you haven’t read him, you really need to. Causation is not demonstrable, and it was that discovery which made him famous. What we feel as assurance of causation is merely habit, but there isn’t data to prove it. My guess is you will duck on this issue.

Furthermore, by objective demonstrable, I presume you mean multiple observers. You and I can’t objectively demonstrate that the other consciousness exists! I know what my consciousness feels like, but we have no idea what other consciousnesses feel like, nor do we have any evidence for them other than the sense data that comes to our senses. It seems to me that to objectively demonstrate that your sentence doesn’t contradict what is objectively demonstrable, you must also objectively demonstrate that there are more than one observers in the universe–that can’t be done. I believe and act as if you all are independent consciousnesses, and I act that way, but no one can demonstrate with objective data that consciousness exists.(yes, they can demonstrate biophysical reactions to physical measuring devices but that isn’t the same thing. And the Turing test doesn’t really do it either.)

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Paul said in 1 Cor 15 it was a bodily resurrection to a spiritual body not a physical body.

What happened to the atoms and molecules of the physical body is unknown, but the conservation of energy tells us that the physical energy is still here. But I don’t see how this is much different from one of the most common magic tricks on the stage, where somebody or something is put in a box and then the box is opened and the person or contents are missing. What I insist is that what makes something a miracle is not any violation of laws of nature but the fact that God did it.

God CAN violate the laws of nature. God could erase the physical universe with a snap of His fingers. God could simply dream up fantasy people in a fantasy world. But what God did was CREATE a universe that operated by mathematical space-time laws. You may think that means nothing whatsoever. But I think that means everything – that these laws of nature are essential to our life and free will and thus God does not contradict them just to impress a bunch of ignorant savages who would know the difference anyway.

How does magic point us to God. God is the creator of the universe which operates by the laws of nature. Magic points us to fairy tales, Walt Disney movies, and comic books.

What does in fact point people to God. We have had two demonstrations recently in threads people started to explain exactly that. Violations of the laws of nature? NO! Both cases were incredible coincidences between what people needed and asked for and what happened. Believers will always describe them as miracles and non-believers will always describe them as some kind of coincidence.

No we are worshiping a God who is rational and consistent doing things for a reason and not according to the magic power obsessed children demanding to have their cake and eat it too. Therefore He operates within the laws of nature because He has no intention of changing the rules He set out from the beginning just because somebody throws a tantrum.

As a Christian, I would say that you worship power so much that you prefer fantasy and fairy tale to reality.

It means a written procedure anyone can follow to get the same results no matter what they may want or believe.

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What you describe is a ghost. I will certainly grant that the body Jesus had after the resurrection was different from mine, but again, it isn’t a ghost or even a ‘spiritual’ body. As 1 Cor 15 says, it is an incorruptible body: dead shall be raised incorruptible

So, I think you are making the logical error of equivocation, whereby a subtle redefinition of a word is introduced into a debate. Paul’s use of spiritual I think mean the perfected spiritual body, but it is still physical. But your definition of it is that it isn’t physical. Remember, if it isn’t physical, it isn’t part of this world.

The evidence I have for Jesus’ body being physical comes from the entire passage of Luke 24:37-43

But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. 38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? 39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. 40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? 42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. 43 And he took it, and did eat before them.

The disciples thought exactly as you do–that they had seen something spiritual, not physical. Jesus went to great lengths here to disabuse them of that notion.

1 He first offered his hands for them to see that it is solid
2. he said that spirits don’t have flesh and blood.
3 since they still didn’t believe, he asked for food and ate it in front of them.

Spirits don’t eat fish and honeycomb. Thus, I argue that the word ‘spiritual’ used in 1 Cor 15 is definitionally equivalent to glorified body, but still a body.

Mitch wrote: *It means a written procedure anyone can follow to get the same results no matter what they may want or believe."

As a cancer patient I am quite interested in the latest research. The problem that is plaguing science right now is the replication problem. A huge percentage of scientific experiments with written procedures on how to get the results fail to replicate the results. there are now conferences on this issue and you have to remember, most experiments are never replicated but still sit in the journals.

In 2015, a Science article caused an upheaval in the psychological sciences. A group of researchers attempted to replicate a hundred published studies. They found that two thirds of these could not reproduce the so-called “statistically significant” effects found in the original studies, so the published studies had failed a basic check. Cancer studies have faced similar problems with non-replicable findings – a stark reminder that this replication crisis can have real-world consequences. https://thewire.in/science/replication-crisis-science

Since the length of my life depends on the validity of those studies, this issue causes me to ponder what is and isn’t objectively verifiable.

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What Paul describes in 1 Cor 15 is not a ghost. A ghost is a dead spirit.

1 Cor 15: 35 But some one will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is alike, but there is one kind for men, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall[b] also bear the image of the man of heaven. 50 I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Thus Paul says, Jesus was raised in “spiritual body” NOT a “physical body,” and the spiritual body is imperishable, more powerful, and made not of dust as things are on the earth but of the stuff of heaven. Thus Jesus became a life-giving spirit.

I merely read all of what Paul has said rather than editing it as you have.

Which is indeed evidence that the resurrected Jesus was not a ghost. In that you are correct.

God is spirit and yet God is all powerful. Ergo… the spirit can do everything that the physical can do and more.

Exactly. Science is based on the ability to reproduce results and when they cannot be reproduced, then the results are not accepted. Though one of the problems we should aware of is the difference between the hard sciences and softer sciences. In the latter case we are studying something of a moving target because people change.

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And I read what Jesus said. Assuming the two must concord, then what I suggested above is one way of doing that. I think this discussion has gone as far as it can.

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To be honest I only read a little bit of your post.

But I did get this far:

      • That they don’t comport with information we know about reality is how we know it is a story, not a factual account of history.

What this is basically saying is there is no God and therefore anything which defies the observed is nonsense. In effect, it is also saying that our mind is god, for it is only through this that reality can be observed and verified.

Yet in every single generation we have discovered things that were totally beyond the previous generations range of sight, both externally in the Universe about us and internally within the atomic structures that compose us.

Thousands of years before this time, the Bible described the number of stars as beyond counting. Several times men tried to count the stars, coming up with a thousand or so because this was all that they could see. Then we discovered that some of these stars were actually galaxies and not individual stars. Today we can guesstimate them but cannot count them, while the conjectural limits of our universe may be just as absurd to future generations as the Greek idea of a silly bowl covering their area of observable reality.

The Bible contradicted all human wisdom when it was written, thousands of years ago. The fact that it still contradicts your wisdom is not at all proof that it is the Bible which is wrong. For in every area where proof can be found, is small enough that we can measure it today, the Bible was right:

Bible%20Contradiction%20or%20Conformation
Bible Contradiction or Conformation.jpg800×1000 603 KB

One more BIG point is this. Faith is listed way before Abraham. Noah had faith and it was through this that Noah spent about one-hundred years building that big, box like boat that may have looked far more like a log house with a floor or even a coffin than a boat.

On the other hand Adam and Eve, who walked with God, (maybe with Jesus), did not have faith, for just like you, they would not believe what they could not see. Yet, both of them had a very long life time to see that all God had foretold would come true, so maybe, in the end, they did believe, but only after watching all of the pain and death that their rebellion had created.

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:laughing: I think you need to read a wee bit closer. What you quote is not what I said, it is what another person used as a justification for ditching historicity in parts of the Bible they don’t like. If you read carefully, you will see that you and I are on the same side, that historicity in Scripture is a MUST.

What you quoted was in italics in my OP, which is a sign that it is a quotation and not the thoughts of the person quoting it, necessarily.

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From what I have read of your previous work you dug deeply into questions regarding Genesis 1 and rejected young-earth creationism.

But based on your new view no such digging is necessary concerning all the other miracles in the Bible since God can do anything? Young-earth creationists exploit the same argument you endorse but use it to promote their belief in a young creation whose old age is merely apparent. As they see things Jesus’s miracles confirm the power of God to alter nature instantly, like turning water into wine or healing a leper instantly. Likewise, God spoke in Genesis and it was so, instantly. And Jesus’s word immediately stilled a storm. As one YEC summed things up, “If Jesus can be shown to have risen, which we believe can be done, then many things that once looked impossible become interesting… [because] the story of a man coming back from the dead is, after all, much less plausible than that of a global flood… And any god capable of raising the dead is able to do a great deal.” (Paul Nelson in Three Views on Creation and Evolution, Zondervan, 1999).

Also, do you only endorse miracle stories found in a particular Protestant Christian canon of writings? What about the different canons of writings declared holy by different Jewish or Christian denominations?

There were also writings by Jewish God believers between the Old and New Testaments that featured miracle stories. Some of those inter-testamental works are included in the canons of some denominations of Jews or Christians but not in others, while other such writings are non-canonical but still contain miracles stories common to the ancient world in general. Why be skeptical of intertestamental miracle stories but remain unskeptical of every miracle story in the Old and New Testament?

Or maybe you ARE skeptical of some miracle stories even in the NT? I am not sure based on reading what you wrote above. Though you don’t seem eager to dig into questions concerning particular miracle stories like you were once eager to dig into particular young-earth creationist arguments and interpretations of biblical miracle stories, but there is much to dig into from what I have seen, and many obvious questions worth asking.

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Hi Ed. It has been about 15 years since we spoke together? I see you are the same evangelical atheist you have always been. I have never understood why people think that evangelizing such a view is a worthwhile thing? I mean, this world is it, we all die in about 3 million years the average lifespan of a species, the earth will burn up in a few billion years, and we all will have left zero impact on the universe except some radio waves of dubious value spreading out into the local cluster.

I spent many years toying with the idea that you and other atheists might be correct, but the thing that made me leave was the utter nastiness of too many atheists. When Genie Scott and others were plotting to stop Jon Buell’s book PRE PUBLICATION, I realized that yall were incapable of dealing with people who had different views, and unwilling to grant them the freedom to believe what they wanted. I also saw the vitriol on atheist lists that were directed at me when I took down my web pages. I had gone from darling token Christian hero of your side to the worst scum of the earth in the blink of an eye. That of course told me that I was merely being used. I was never liked by you guys.

Now to your questions.

Ed, since you are a materialist and I am not, I see no reason to waste my time answering such a question and dancing for your entertainment. You don’t think God exists. Fine. I do. If I am correct, then yes, God can do anything. If you are correct, I have a minor delusion that doesn’t hurt anyone. so why are you so bothered by the concept that I might believe a different assumption than you? That I might believe in God? What is it about you that makes you be Don Quixote against the Christian windmill?

God spoke in Genesis and it was so, instantly.

No Ed, that is not true. It is a caricature. I would expect a rationalist to take better care of the details of the Genesis account than you are. Sadly, your standards seem to have dropped over the years. No where does the word ‘instantly’ appear in Genesis. I would point you to my blog where I outline a way to read genesis 1 in a concordistic manner which matches science–it doesn’t match your caricature of the Bible, so don’t bring me complaints about me not matching what you mistakenly THINK the Bible says. See here

That is a good question. Do I think miracles only happened to Biblical characters? No. But I do defend the ones in the Bible. It is hard to be sure when someone tells you of their miracle that it actually happened. I think two miracles have happened to me. One my Turkish translator experience, which people on the NCSE list always said was just a fluke, but I found it to be the one thing I couldn’t get around when I almost became an atheist. But then, I actually lived it; yall didn’t.

The second miracle is one that is attested by science. In 2003 I was diagnosed with gleason 8 prostate cancer which was spreading into my gut–it wasn’t contained in the organ. If it had been contained my odds of living would have been much better. The doctor, who was mad at my previous doctor was actually yelling at me that I was going to be his first patient to die since PSA test came in. He said I only had a small chance of living 2 years. I was already stage IV–the final stage of the cancer. FYI Gleason 8 is right on the edge of a total death sentence. If you have gleason 9 or 10, pack your bags. Most gleason 8’s have to pack their bags a little bit later than the 9’s and 10s.

. I had surgery for the removal of my prostate and 3 years later, the cancer came back–but I was alive 1 year past the dooms day. I then had radiation in 2007 and a year later the cancer came back–gleason 8 and my new doctor told my wife that I had a median life span of 5 years. that was in 2008. In the Fall of 2016 she said I had a life span of about 3
years. Well, I made it past that. But my cancer is getting out of control and I got a 2nd oncologist up here in College Station. She and my MD Anderson oncologist independently in January told me that I had 6 months. My doctor here though said she wouldn’t bet against me because she would lose her money. She also raised me in a seminar with her colleagues here because as she said, “You have lived so long with this cancer”. That is very unusual and I consider this my 2nd miracle, and get a chance to speak with you again, only this time with the assurance that God exists–something I wasn’t sure of back when we engaged.

Again, Ed. what a caricature. Sheesh, do you go around telling others what they believe and then whack them for what you say they believe??? I believe in other miracles. I don’t gullibly believe in everything someone says is a miracle.

Why don’t you assume that I skin cats and tell everyone that I hate cats? Your intellectual abilities are slipping my friend.

Ed, I believe the Bible is true. I have a scenario which matches Genesis 1 to science. I have a workable scenario for a local flood that matches exactly the Biblical account, and recently I learned that the details of the Exodus account are absolutely archaeologically verifiable–people have been looking for the Exodus at a wrong time.

Of course, you will continue to disbelieve because well, I don’t know why. As I said, I don’t understand why it is so important to you to go around verbally ‘slaying’ all the Christians around you. You remind me of Saul of Tarsus in that regard. He changed. Maybe there is hope for you too.

God Bless you Ed. I know he loves you. Lol, but you might not like hearing that. .

edited to add: Ed, the week I learned that the cancer had gone to my bones, I was a bit bummed out. But that week, I read an article which solved a problem in QM for me which showed that the soul actually exists and is not subject to the laws of physics. Subsequently, Frauchiger and Renner came up with a throught experiment which showed that if you apply quantum to minds using quantum mechanics (observers), that you get contradictions with some observers seeing an alive cat and other seeing a dead cat. Frauchiger and Renner’s work has been experimentally verified. The soul exists Ed. You won’t like hearing that either.

Now I know you are not a physicist but what I wrote is understandable by those who are not physicists. Go here

I have put this out in front of atheist physicists and one guy wanted to go to superdeterminism (a really bad option because science means nothing) in order to avoid this conclusion.

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I thought I would add this: Ed, there are lots of Christians here who think like you do about the miracles, that they are not historical events. You would have lots in common with them.

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He certainly does. He has a rational epistemology.

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That was helpful. lol

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Rational epistemology tends to be when dealing with claims of the supernatural.

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Well, true. That is why I mentioned him being a materialist and me believing in God. Both are ‘rational’. and I actually dislike them having absconded with the term. The two views stem from a different assumption–matter is all there is, vs. matter is not all there is, there is a God. Logical conclusions follow from each of those assumptions. The problem is, some on both sides don’t want to give any credence to the logical validity of the other. Both assumptions are logical because assumptions are based upon faith, and in that sense, neither side is totally logical. We humans can not avoid making assumptions.

I have known Ed since the maybe early 1990s and now I think we haven’t spoken in 20 years, I am looking forward to when he comes back

Edited to add. Most atheists believe that because science has not detected God therefore he doesn’t exist. The problem with this is that the methodology of science is strictly limited to the material. It can’t, by definition detect God. But as they say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And on this point, they get illogical and not rational

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One can do both. Of course absence of evidence is evidence of absence. I bet you’ll tell me I can’t prove a negative next. One does not even need to invoke a lack. The material lacks nothing at all after all. Which is untrue as being a material being, I yearn for significance. I lack. The only hope for it is the testimony of the earliest Church.

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No, but obviously you found ‘absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence,’ as badly as I did, “He has a rational epistemology”. So we are even steven. lol

I agree. The Watergate conspirators fell apart quickly. Even the Mormon witnesses back tracked on their claim the saw the golden plates. Things that are not real, don’t hold people together. One of the things I found interesting was this story about St. John, told by St. John’s spiritual grandson, John-> Polycarp-> St. Clement. I can’t figure out why an old man would do this if he didn’t believe in the importance of Christianity and the only reason he could see that importance is if he believed Jesus rose from the dead. Already, the local bishop showed that he hadn’t seen the resurrection and thus was a bit less aggressive in going after the guy.

XLII. And that you may be still more confident, that repenting thus truly there remains for you a sure hope of salvation, listen to a tale? which is not a tale but a narrative, handed down and committed to the custody of memory, about the Apostle John. For when, on the tyrant’s death, he returned to Ephesus from the isle of Patmos, he went away, being invited, to the contiguous territories of the nations, here to appoint bishops, there to set in order whole Churches, there to ordain such as were marked out by the Spirit.
Having come to one of the cities not far off (the name of which some give), and having put the brethren to rest in other matters, at last, looking to the bishop appointed, and seeing a youth, powerful in body, comely in appearance, and ardent, said, “This (youth) I commit to you in all earnestness, in the presence of the Church, and with Christ as witness.” And on his accepting and promising all, he gave the same injunction and testimony. And he set out for Ephesus. And the presbyter taking home the youth committed to him, reared, kept, cherished, and finally baptized him. After this he relaxed his stricter care and guardianship, under the idea that the seal of the Lord he had set on him was a complete protection to him. But on his obtaining premature freedom, some youths of his age, idle, dissolute, and adepts in evil courses, corrupt him. First they entice him by many costly entertainments; then afterwards by night issuing forth for highway robbery, they take him along with them. Then they dared to execute together something greater. And he by degrees got accustomed; and from greatness of nature, when he had gone aside from the right path, and like a hard-mouthed and powerful horse, had taken the bit between his teeth, rushed with all the more force down into the depths. And having entirely despaired of salvation in God, he no longer meditated what was insignificant, but having perpetrated some great exploit, now that he was once lost, he made up his mind to a like fate with the rest. Taking them and forming a hand of robbers, he was the prompt captain of the bandits, the fiercest, the bloodiest, the cruelest.
Time passed, and some necessity having emerged, they send again for John. He, when he had settled the other matters on account of which he came, said, “Come now, O bishop, restore to us the deposit which I and the Saviour committed to thee in the face of the Church over which you preside, as witness.” The other was at first confounded, thinking that it was a false charge about money which he did not get; and he could neither believe the allegation regarding what he had not, nor disbelieve John. But when he said “I demand the young man, and the soul of the brother,” the old man, groaning deeply, and bursting into tears, said, “He is dead.” “How and what kind of death?” “He is dead,” he said, “to God. For he turned wicked and abandoned, and at last a robber; and now he has taken possession of the mountain in front of the church, along with a band like him.” Rending, therefore, his clothes, and striking his head with great lamentation, the apostle said, “It was a fine guard of a brother’s soul I left! But let a horse be brought me, and let some one be my guide on the way.” He rode away, just as he was, straight from the church. On coming to the place, he is arrested by the robbers’ outpost; neither fleeing nor entreating, but crying, “It was for this I came. Lead me to your captain;” who meanwhile was waiting, all armed as he was. But when he recognized John as he advanced, he turned, ashamed, to flight. The other followed with all his might, forgetting his age, crying, “Why, my son, dost thou flee from me, thy father, unarmed, old? Son, pity me. Fear not; thou hast still hope of life. I will give account to Christ for thee. If need be, I will willingly endure thy death, as the Lord did death for us. For thee I will surrender my life. Stand, believe; Christ hath sent me.”
And he, when he heard, first stood, looking down; then threw down his arms, then trembled and wept bitterly. And on the old man approaching, he embraced him, speaking for himself with lamentations as he could, and baptized a second time with tears, concealing only his right hand. The other pledging, and assuring him on oath that he would find forgiveness for himself from the Saviour, beseeching and failing on his knees, and kissing his right hand itself, as now purified by repentance, led him back to the church. Then by supplicating with copious prayers, and striving along with him in continual fastings, and subduing his mind by various utterances of words, did not depart, as they say, till he restored him to the Church, presenting in him a great example of true repentance and a great token of regeneration, a trophy of the resurrection for which we hope; when at the end of the world, the angels, radiant with joy, hymning and opening the heavens, shall receive into the celestial abodes those who truly repent; and before all, the Saviour Himself goes to meet them, welcoming them; holding forth the shadowless, ceaseless light; conducting them,to the Father’s bosom, to eternal life, to the kingdom of heaven.
St. Clement of Alexandria
Who is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/clement-richman.html

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But he does gbob. Have a full, rational epistemology. There’s nothing even about it. It’s all and nothing. There is no absence in materialism. Making a claim of the supernatural is not rational at all. None of us has ever encountered it in any transferable way. No private, subjective miracle convinces anyone else but the credulous. Other pious stories don’t fare much better, if it all.

The early letters of Paul now, they testify to the phenomenon of the Church itself, far and wide within a generation or less of their subject’s mission.

If one is desperate to believe, there, rationally, is something historical to accompany the sublime, qualitative claims of Jesus that may speak of divine intelligence.

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For me it first depends on what does someone mean by a miracle. I break miracles down into two parts.

  1. The miracles done by the laying on of the apostle hands or someone they laid hands on that developed the power of the spirit such as healing the sick by command, casting out demons by command, speaking in unknown tongues to even raising the dead by command. These gifts were bestowed upon the apostles and ceased after the last apostle died and the last person to have received the laying on of hands died. I don’t believe that exist anymore. Primarily due to scripture and enforced by zero evidence for It.

  2. The miracles such as someone having their prayer answered. They drastically need some money for food and they end up getting it or any other thing along these lines.

The purpose of the first one was to jumpstart the church. It’s explained that the word by the apostles would cover the whole earth and the apostles
Message in their lifetime would spread from Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the further gentile nations. It did. That power showcased the authority for the apostles to lead the church as the spirit guided them and write the epistles.

In Judaism it was for a similar reason. It was to edify the prophets and show the tribes of Israel that the prophets spoke with their Gods authority.

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Well, none of us have ever encountered another person’s qualia either, yet most people allow for the idea that other people basically experience subjective feelings similar to what I experience. this alone shows that things that are not subject to scientific verification and not discernable by scientific methodology do exist.

I don’t think science will ever explain how nerve signals become redness or the smell of a rose which is different from having scientific input that red is 790 nm wavelength light and a rose smell is this group of chemicals on my smell receptors. The experience of redness and rose smell is totally a private experience yet we are all convinced others have it. Thus I find the idea that God can’t be met with in a similar manner to be questionable.

Why is it that people who don’t seem to like Christinatity always get around to pulling out the desperation card? I am not desperate. I made a conscious choice that I felt this was the right path. My impending death does not scare me, does not make me too sad (I will miss my family), but dang it, I am not desperate and since desperation is a private feeling that you can’t detect in someone else, such a statement in and of itself goes beyond observational data.

I don’t really understand your position, if you are an atheist please stop saying things that go beyond observational data, saying things you can’t know.