Ryan McAvoy said:
RicOlie_2 said:
Ryan McAvoy said:
RicOlie_2 said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rusfefmQDEs
Out of curiosity, what is the atheist explanation for things like this? Or do you just ignore these things and assume that there will be a scientific explanation in the future?
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RicOlie_2 said:
That of course doesn't even cover why he imagines God would torture him under a truck causing him agony the like of which he couldn't believe, then putting him into hospital for two months making his families lives a living nightmare. Also running up huge medical bills, depriving his family of his income and distracting the Doctors from helping other people. If God really wanted to help him, he would have stopped the truck falling on him in the first place.
This comes from a misunderstanding of the true nature of God. God allows suffering because he allows free will. It is mostly people who cause the suffering, not him. Suffering, however, is good according to Catholic doctrine because it helps atone for sins and is also good for the character. From what I gather, this man's faith was strengthened by his experience, which would explain why God might have allowed it. After all, it is the soul that really matters, not the body (though the body has value too, of course).
It's not for you to determine "the true nature of God", even the Pope would be over reaching on that one IMO. But again I say his faith was strengthed because of his own self-obsession in that he assumes God thought his life was worth bothering to save... rather than just putting his visions down to blood-loss, delrium and shock. If I was in that ammount of pain, panic and shock, I'd think there had been something wrong if I hadn't seen Angels!
I agree that it is not for me to determine God's true nature. I think God revealed it to us though. Even if his faith was strengthened through his own self-obsession, it was still strengthened, which is a good thing in the eyes of a Christian.
RicOlie_2 said:
If you look at these problems the same way Sherlock Holmes would...
"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
Using that logic, it's pretty easy to realise that since Angels are impossible, there are hundreds of possible explanations.
Except that there is absolutely no way to determine whether Angels are impossible.
You are missing the point of Holmes' logical assertion. i.e. 'The hound of the Baskervilles': Holmes instantly assumes a hound-from-hell is impossible allowing him to immediately deduce all the possible real explanations. Everyone else in that book (Including us the reader in all likelyhood) entertains the possibility (However remote) that the hound could be supernatural, clouding our reasoning.
I didn't entirely miss it. I wanted to point out that you were assuming it was impossible. But yes, that should be the last assumption because it's more unlikely than the alternative.
Going by the tone of your original post, you took his story at face value (Since you questioned how there could possibly be any other explanation). However, I did not instantly assume it was genuine and was therefore able to examine the case with a fresh mind. Even with my very limited knowledge of both the incident in question and medicine, I was able to come up with a raft of possible explanations within minutes.
I didn't take it entirely at face value. I was less skeptical than you were, and since I know just about nothing about human anatomy, I didn't pick up on the bit about the small intestine and the severed arteries. Had I known that was off, I would have been far more skeptical right off the bat.
RicOlie_2 said:
A final note: If his prayers worked, how come they didn't for the other hundred thousand people that also died while praying for salvation on that day? It comes down to arrogance I guess (Sorry if this sounds harsh). That he'd believe that out of all the other much more deserving, blameless (He wasn't blameless the incident was his own stupid fault) and deeply good people that had their prayers ignored, he alone was chosen by God as being special among all the peoples of man.
The incident may have been partly his fault, though it seems like an accident to me. Remember, if God and heaven are real, then it is the soul that matters. If people pray for salvation, they get that when they go to heaven. I'm guessing you just used the wrong word, but I'm not sure what you meant. As I wrote, God allows suffering for purification. God doesn't usually help people because they are deserving. He also doesn't answer prayers that aren't beneficial to a person's salvation.
OED definition of the word 'salvation'...
1: Preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss:
"They try to sell it to us as economic salvation"
1.1: (one's salvation) a source or means of being saved from harm, ruin, or loss:
"His only salvation was to outfly the enemy"
2: Theology - deliverance from sin and its consequences, believed by Christians to be brought about by faith in Christ: the Christian gospel of salvation for all mankind.
Apologies, it was just an odd usage of the word. Most people would have said it differently when using it to refer to the first definition. I just misunderstood, that's all.
^ The first is what it means, the second is what you believe it to mean. You keep suggesting I and others have made silly "mistakes" in our posts which comes across as quite patronising (Especially when you are infact incorrect yourself), I'm sure it is not your intent to do so. I let it go the first few times but thought it time to mention that.
You may not realize it, but you have come across as being condescending and patronizing a few times. You have also been wrong about some things regarding religion. I don't mean that to sound/look condescending, but please realize that both of us are doing the same things.
That aside, can you explain that out of the thousands(?) of other people on the planet who suffered painful (Near fatal) accidents on that day (Or any day), who also prayed to God, he alone got a little help (While for everyone else it was "Tough sh*t"). I'm sure you could point to a hundred other cases of Angels appearing but I could point to a hundred-billion where they didn't.
Sure, they didn't, and what I am saying is maybe they went to heaven. If they went to heaven/purgatory, then that's what's important.
This is the kind of story that only confirms by belief in the non-existence of God.
I don't think it is evidence against God's existence. I think it is evidence, albeit weak, for the existence of God.
For me, it is a story of the kind of crazy stuff the human mind can dream up when it is pushed to the limits. If it was a story of a totally rational and sober man seeing Angels, it would be less easy to dismiss.
Possibly. Entirely sober people have described experiences like that, though many of them are still explainable. Another instance of a miracle (whether it was or not, I can't say for sure) is just a minor instance. When my grandmother was far younger, she broke her wrist and the bone was protruding. Her father took her to the hospital and the doctors looked at her wrist and noted the protruding bone. Her father touched her wrist (I can't remember this part with certainty) and told her it would be all right, or something like that. She says the pain went away at that point. When the doctors went to put the cast on her wrist, to their surprise the bone was no longer protruding and her wrist was healed. Her father had a sore wrist for six months after that. Now, I am just telling the story as I heard it. My grandmother tends to think critically and skeptically most of the time and is not a super spiritual type like someone who made that stuff up might be. She is quite honest and as far as I know, isn't prone to embellishing her stories. You can take it as you will, but I don't know if that's what really happened, or if something really happened there. There were some strange things about my grandmother's father, and he supposedly appeared to someone after his death and my great-grandmother heard his voice saying "I made it"--presumably to heaven. Cloven hoof-marks were also found on his body (he was supposedly tempted by demons during his lifetime). I don't know what to make of all that, but I figured it might be relevant information when determining the authenticity of the healing.
Thoughts? Explanations? Or do you think that isn't enough information? I personally don't think it's explainable with that information, but I don't think that means it can necessarily be taken at face value either. But make of it what you will.