Naw,....I'm not alone, in body or Spirit. There are many just like me. I can't fully explain "how", but I can explain "why" these things happened. You can't explain how and you don't believe why, so they didn't happen (for you).
All the miracles you mentioned make my head spin sometimes as well. Where you get hung up on the "how, I am rejoicing in the "why"! It's like watching, excitedly, as a delivery truck enters your neighborhood and you know "why" because you, based on what you did, are expecting a new.....something, but if you know you haven't done anything to expect that delivery, you could care less. Christians expect a "delivery" everyday based on "why" those miracles happened and how they have responded.
Like I said, makes my head spin.
Christians expect a lot but they get no more than the rest of us.
My young life was encompassed with church, Sunday school, prayer meetings, etc. My maternal grandmother admonished me before I was even school age, "Old Scratch(her name for Satan) Will Get You!" When I was naughty in any way she poured that on me. Looking back I'm very glad that she did. As I grew older that just didn't seem right. Punishing a youngster for mistakes while they were learning the ways of the world.
By the time I was in my mid teens I had already read the bible and the book of Mormon. I wasn't baptized until I was in my early twenties. I always doubted that there was a savior, a son of god, an invisible man in the sky, someone who selected whose prayers would be answered and whose would not but after I married "Church" was a social necessity.
I stayed in the church until I was about sixty years old but one thing which continued to pop up in my mind was the Wednesday evening prayer meetings in the 1940's and 1950's. Prayer lists were a foot long, every family had a member or a close friend who was dying of heart disease or cancer. In those days there was nothing medical science could do for them. Usually a first heart attack got folks because they didn't know to say something when they had chest pains before that. If they survived they suffered for a year or two and died then. Surgery for an obvious tumor was the only treatment and most of the time following the surgery the tumor metastasized and spread all over their bodies and then they suffered another 6-12 months and died. There were many "closed casket" funerals because they were down to "skin and bones" by the time they departed. Literally billions of prayers were either unanswered or ignored by the supreme being.
Now that medical science has diet control, sophisticated diagnostic procedures and systems, stents, bypasses, transplants, chemotherapy, radiation, stem cell transplants, etc. the same kinds of patients live on into their eighties and sometimes nineties. Christians even ask for prayers when they're scheduled for a colonoscopy.
The prayers didn't have anything to do with their dying back then and they don't have anything to do with them living now. If you doubt what I'm saying look at the average life expectancy in the 1940's and look at where they are today. Look at the insurance actuary tables for coronary disease and cancer back to the 1940's.
If there is some invisible, supreme being in the sky somewhere he/she/it either doesn't give a damn or doesn't answer prayers.
Did you know that the first born of a virgin, son-of-god, savior of the world, crucified stories were alive and well in ancient Egypt 3000 years before the Jewish version? Do you realize that the Jews wrote the new testament but do not even believe it themselves?
If it were not for the brainwashing of innocent infants and small children from each new generation that "ancient god worship" would die on the vine.
There is hope for the unbelievers who are fascinated enough to hang out here. They make make ripples but I love it they just can't stay away!
This is a place for religion and PHILOSOPHY!
By the way...did you just hide my post about useless prayers? I'll post it again just in case:
"My young life was encompassed with church, Sunday school, prayer meetings, etc. My maternal grandmother admonished me before I was even school age, "Old Scratch(her name for Satan) Will Get You!" When I was naughty in any way she poured that on me. Looking back I'm very glad that she did. As I grew older that just didn't seem right. Punishing a youngster for mistakes while they were learning the ways of the world.
By the time I was in my mid teens I had already read the bible and the book of Mormon. I wasn't baptized until I was in my early twenties. I always doubted that there was a savior, a son of god, an invisible man in the sky, someone who selected whose prayers would be answered and whose would not but after I married "Church" was a social necessity.
I stayed in the church until I was about sixty years old but one thing which continued to pop up in my mind was the Wednesday evening prayer meetings in the 1940's and 1950's. Prayer lists were a foot long, every family had a member or a close friend who was dying of heart disease or cancer. In those days there was nothing medical science could do for them. Usually a first heart attack got folks because they didn't know to say something when they had chest pains before that. If they survived they suffered for a year or two and died then. Surgery for an obvious tumor was the only treatment and most of the time following the surgery the tumor metastasized and spread all over their bodies and then they suffered another 6-12 months and died. There were many "closed casket" funerals because they were down to "skin and bones" by the time they departed. Literally billions of prayers were either unanswered or ignored by the supreme being.
Now that medical science has diet control, sophisticated diagnostic procedures and systems, stents, bypasses, transplants, chemotherapy, radiation, stem cell transplants, etc. the same kinds of patients live on into their eighties and sometimes nineties. Christians even ask for prayers when they're scheduled for a colonoscopy.
The prayers didn't have anything to do with their dying back then and they don't have anything to do with them living now. If you doubt what I'm saying look at the average life expectancy in the 1940's and look at where they are today. Look at the insurance actuary tables for coronary disease and cancer back to the 1940's.
If there is some invisible, supreme being in the sky somewhere he/she/it either doesn't give a damn or doesn't answer prayers.
Did you know that the first born of a virgin, son-of-god, savior of the world, crucified stories were alive and well in ancient Egypt 3000 years before the Jewish version? Do you realize that the Jews wrote the new testament but do not even believe it themselves?
If it were not for the brainwashing of innocent infants and small children from each new generation that "ancient god worship" would die on the vine."
I thought it was a medium for which to insult and threaten atheists, using philosophy as a Straw Man. I, too, welcome being proved wrong.
Again, in part, we agree!
I appreciate your views being insulting but I haven't seen the threatening aspect. I try to read the threads but maybe I missed a few. Honestly though, I don't even try to read those multi-page cut and paste postings.
__________________
A nobody telling everybody about Somebody.
http://myforwards.com/item.php?id=154
Quote:
About 70 miles from Amarillo, there is a town called Groom, Tx.
Right outside of town, a piece of land was donated to a sculptor
so he could display his works.
All of these sculptures are made of metal, even the crosses.
One of the most memorable days of my childhood was a visit to the National USAF Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. That visit was a wonderful inspiration for me. I eventually chose to join the Air Force, despite knowing that my eyesight disqualified me from any airborne job.
__________________
We work together every damn day. --Jon Stewart
One of the most memorable days of my childhood
was a visit to the National USAF Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base
near Dayton, Ohio. That visit was a wonderful inspiration for me. I eventually
chose to join the Air Force, despite knowing that my eyesight disqualified me
from any airborne job.
My "service" days were also with the USAF.......
short stay at "Lackland" for basic, "Scott AF Base"
for a year then the rest of my time was at
"Pepperrell AF Base" in St. John's, Newfoundland........
wouldn't trade this time for anything...
got out on the early releases after the Korean War.......
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