David Hume's criteria for accepting stories of miracles applied to religious miracles

[conon394]

conon394,

All these beliefs came about after Nimrod was deified by Semiramis and Cush and were based on the promised " seed " foretold of by God in the garden at the fall of man. The prophecies about Him have stood the test of time and resulted in Him being crucified and resurrected as proof where those that believe on Him will go when this life passes for them. When that great day of His coming arrives every knee of every religion or none at all will bow down and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord so believing or not be prepared. If I appear arrogant it's not my intention rather to preach what God has commanded I preach. Remember I once thought much the same as you but the irresistible power of God changed all that.

None of you pseudo history about Nimrod makes not one iota of sense or has any basis in any reality sorry the guy just did not exist (or at most as nothing more than a shadow of Mesopotamian emperors in the mythology of Semitic speaking goat hearders). If if you could link to some Sumerian monarch it would still not solve your problem since of course that would in way explain religions in other parts of the world completely divorced from the fertile crescent (*). Next you going to tell you believe Herod slaughtered boys in Bethlehem. Your understanding of the seed is a clear misreading of the text. As is Augustine's Manichean fallen earth original sin (Pelagius was clearly the better theologian, Augustine the better church politico).

The prophecies about Him have stood the test of time

Only if you believe the New testament is the unvarnished truth rather than carefully edited and worked books to make it so.

Remember I once thought much the same as you but the irresistible power of God changed all that.

And again fervent converts to other religions can say much the same.

* please tell me you are not cite that smoking pile of rubbish that is Hislop again...

[Calypze]

How do you measure what's more miraculous?

That which is most out of the ordinary.

[Calypze]

conon394,

It's a wonderful story and quite true and it gets even better when I tell you that Neill who was not a Christian at the time was posted to the Falklands where he had his conversion experience making Karen the happiest wife and mother. As far as medical records are concerned it is obvious that these would be at the doctor's surgery and since Neill had just come from there a record of that visit must have been made. I didn't buy into anything as God changed my life as once I was blind but now I see.

What if someone had a similar story, but was a Hindu, and attributed the supposed miracle to the Hindu gods? Would you then believe it?

As it happens, Hindus as polytheists and some of them worship Jesus as one god among their many other gods, and would have no problem with accepting your story and attributing it to Jesus.

[conon394]

What if someone had a similar story, but was a Hindu, and attributed the supposed miracle to the Hindu gods? Would you then believe it?

Pretty sure he already answered that - just luck in that case.

[PointOfViewGun]

That which is most out of the ordinary.

That would be too broad.

[basics]

What if someone had a similar story, but was a Hindu, and attributed the supposed miracle to the Hindu gods? Would you then believe it?

As it happens, Hindus as polytheists and some of them worship Jesus as one god among their many other gods, and would have no problem with accepting your story and attributing it to Jesus.

Calypze,

For a start it wasn't a supposed miracle. One Flight Lieutenant and his wife, a Navigator and his wife, a Squadron Leader, and two Flight Crew and their wives plus a couple of Ground Crew with Karen, Fiona's mum, all laid hands on that wee girl and prayed for her in the name of Jesus and her eyes were straightened. I cannot answer for any Hindu's or anyone of any other religion other than there is only One God and One Saviour in Whose Name anyone may be saved or healed and that is Jesus Christ .

[PointOfViewGun]

Calypze,

For a start it wasn't a supposed miracle. One Flight Lieutenant and his wife, a Navigator and his wife, a Squadron Leader, and two Flight Crew and their wives plus a couple of Ground Crew with Karen, Fiona's mum, all laid hands on that wee girl and prayed for her in the name of Jesus and her eyes were straightened. I cannot answer for any Hindu's or anyone of any other religion other than there is only One God and One Saviour in Whose Name anyone may be saved or healed and that is Jesus Christ .

What this is selective perception. For every miraculous story like that there are thousands of mothers crying themselves to sleep after spending hours upon hours praying for their kid's illness or disability to be fixed without any good outcome. A relatively large number of babies are born with esotropia. Many gets resolved on its own. Given that strabismus concerns how muscles behave it is not out of the question that it can get resolved on its own or at least outside of your understanding. This is miraculous on a day to day basis life but not from a religious stand point. In fact, I'm fairly confident god would consider it sinful to assume that mere show of prayer can resolve its design.

[conon394]

^This

@basics

I cannot answer for any Hindu's or anyone of any other religion other

Than you are not debating in good faith (pun intended). You simply can't wave away that other people of other faiths are confident their prayers were answered in the process of what they would deem a personally experienced miraculous event. If their personal story of an subjectively apparent un explainable event happens and it happened after they prayed to some not the born again Jesus god. You need to argue that they are wrong or lying or admit that you can't be confident that your story is subject to the same potential view.

[basics]

What this is selective perception. For every miraculous story like that there are thousands of mothers crying themselves to sleep after spending hours upon hours praying for their kid's illness or disability to be fixed without any good outcome. A relatively large number of babies are born with esotropia. Many gets resolved on its own. Given that strabismus concerns how muscles behave it is not out of the question that it can get resolved on its own or at least outside of your understanding. This is miraculous on a day to day basis life but not from a religious stand point. In fact, I'm fairly confident god would consider it sinful to assume that mere show of prayer can resolve its design.

PointOfViewGun,

Sadly yes there are many instances of mothers grieving over the health of a child and sadly most of them are not Christian for it is written that God does not listen to the prayers of unbelievers. But, as Jesus said, " Ask anything in My Name and it will be granted," if your faith is strong enough. So the picture here is that if one is born again of the Spirit of God and asks of God in faith it will be granted and in Fiona's case not only was it granted it was immediately granted.

[PointOfViewGun]

PointOfViewGun,

Sadly yes there are many instances of mothers grieving over the health of a child and sadly most of them are not Christian for it is written that God does not listen to the prayers of unbelievers. But, as Jesus said, " Ask anything in My Name and it will be granted," if your faith is strong enough. So the picture here is that if one is born again of the Spirit of God and asks of God in faith it will be granted and in Fiona's case not only was it granted it was immediately granted.

Oh, many of them are Christians and many of them have unquestionable faith. People's failure to understand a medical situation doesn't make a recovery a miracle of god.

[conon394]

So the picture here is that if one is born again of the Spirit of God and asks of God in faith it will be granted

But seeing as you particular version of Christianity is not certain and depends on interpretation of the received text... it reasonable that you are no true Christian or alternatively your god is more open minded than you are.

[basics]

Oh, many of them are Christians and many of them have unquestionable faith. People's failure to understand a medical situation doesn't make a recovery a miracle of god.

PointOfViewGun,

So, you knew Fiona's predicament and also all the doctors and specialists that Karen and Neill had seen who had no answer for them. I am not talking of hypothetical situations rather of something of which I personally saw the results of when I held Fiona in my arms. Neill wasn't a Christian but he knew something special had happened and he couldn't hide his joy especially after being at the surgery and seeing all those doctors and nurses left speechless at the results.

[PointOfViewGun]

PointOfViewGun,

So, you knew Fiona's predicament and also all the doctors and specialists that Karen and Neill had seen who had no answer for them. I am not talking of hypothetical situations rather of something of which I personally saw the results of when I held Fiona in my arms. Neill wasn't a Christian but he knew something special had happened and he couldn't hide his joy especially after being at the surgery and seeing all those doctors and nurses left speechless at the results.

None of those disbelief moments change the facts.

[conon394]

How old was the girl in question. You are still ignoring supposed large miracles and the basis for for only dwelling supposed personal miracles for born again Christians.

[basics]

conon394,

A Nimrod took off from Kinloss piloted by Dave who was one of the RAF lads who prayed for Fiona. Dave told me that on heading out over Findhorn bay all the electrics cut out, engines the lot, and his first thought was ditching in the Bay. In those moments he prayed outloud, nothing new for his crew to hear or know of, that Jesus built this plane and could fix it and then everything came back on. They circled the airport a few times checking out everything with ground control until they were given permission to carry on with the tour. Mark who was the flight engineer confirmed all that happened and confirmed that this regular crew were quite used to Dave's praying on flights. Sally one of the ground control girls also confirmed what happened to me when we all met at the next fellowship meeting.

If memory serves me correct little Fiona was three years old when the Lord fixed her eyes.

[PointOfViewGun]

If memory serves me correct little Fiona was three years old when the Lord fixed her eyes.

There you go.

[conon394]

conon394,

A Nimrod took off from Kinloss piloted by Dave who was one of the RAF lads who prayed for Fiona. Dave told me that on heading out over Findhorn bay all the electrics cut out, engines the lot, and his first thought was ditching in the Bay. In those moments he prayed outloud, nothing new for his crew to hear or know of, that Jesus built this plane and could fix it and then everything came back on. They circled the airport a few times checking out everything with ground control until they were given permission to carry on with the tour. Mark who was the flight engineer confirmed all that happened and confirmed that this regular crew were quite used to Dave's praying on flights. Sally one of the ground control girls also confirmed what happened to me when we all met at the next fellowship meeting.

If memory serves me correct little Fiona was three years old when the Lord fixed her eyes.

You told this one before. Can't find it in the incident logs for Nimrods. A total engine failure is rather, no extremely rare particularly in a 4 engine aircraft. I have serious doubts that if such a situation had occurred it would not be logged, and w/o explanation of the event the aircraft in a not war situation would flagged to proceed on its mission. At minimum the there should be a logged MAYDAY which should put it in the accident log. Again no way to examine your story. I imagine something did happen. But a modern airplane is a complex system made more so with what 14 crew on board. Consider there is a reason IT will blandly ask you if you restarted device X before trying any real troubleshooting (after asking if you checked the cables) and than ask for you to do it again and wait 30 seconds. Its not just to have time to pray to Jesus for IT support.

Also it not clear to me what this means "the electrics cut out, engines the lot" to loose both the 4 engines and the APU power if that is what you mean to imply would not something you laugh off. Note the Nimrod looks to have an APU and quite well protected and well away from the main engines. (unlike say somewhat startlingly the B52 did not until the latest upgrade - although I suppose with 8 engines it might have been deemed redundant)

Anyways compare

https://www.businessinsider.com/here...engines-2015-5

If memory serves me correct little Fiona was three years old when the Lord fixed her eyes.

So well within the range of natural correction and well before corrective measures would have been deemed failures.

[basics]

conon394,

You asked for examples of miracles and I quoted two which are quite true. Of course the people concerned are now spread all over the country and I have no contact with them anymore but if I could get them to relate what I have told you, you still wouldn't believe them either. One other that comes to mind though is of a crewman aboard a trawler, an elder in Hopeman Baptist Church, or was for I imagine him to be dead now with the Lord. Jocky told me how he was washed overboard during a storm and then washed back aboard. Another of a skipper on hearing of one of his crew going overboard had ropes thrown out whilst he circled until that crewman grasped one rope and was pulled back onboard. All this at the height of a storm and these guys had no doubt what transpired was a miracle. No my ole friend, I have too many stories of miracles to accept that there is no God or that He doesn't look after His own.

[conon394]

conon394,

You asked for examples of miracles and I quoted two which are quite true. Of course the people concerned are now spread all over the country and I have no contact with them anymore but if I could get them to relate what I have told you, you still wouldn't believe them either. One other that comes to mind though is of a crewman aboard a trawler, an elder in Hopeman Baptist Church, or was for I imagine him to be dead now with the Lord. Jocky told me how he was washed overboard during a storm and then washed back aboard. Another of a skipper on hearing of one of his crew going overboard had ropes thrown out whilst he circled until that crewman grasped one rope and was pulled back onboard. All this at the height of a storm and these guys had no doubt what transpired was a miracle. No my ole friend, I have too many stories of miracles to accept that there is no God or that He doesn't look after His own.

Problem remains you take an unlikely event and if happens to involve a proper (in your view) christian you conclude miracle. More importantly that's how fix your memory and in case you sample size is hopelessly small and skewed.

Again Thake your Nimrod story. Like I said the best I can understand is that you to say all its engines flamed out.

First a long read on Flameouts

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-s...meout-9043856/

As you can see a lot of stuff can cause a flame out and restoring the engines is not necessarily an instantaneous process.
So we have an improbable event. We have an aircrew of 3 -4 and a larger technical from of 12 to maybe 20 people. Allowing stuff whatever they are trained to do in this situation. I mention the rest of the crew because unlike say civilian jet the guys running the a lot power draining equipment that I assume would be need to be shutdown if running so not to even accidently draw power from APU.

After some period of time the engines relight.

But out all that you pick out that one crewman about is your sort the right sort of Christian and he prayed and thus you get miracle. I can't agree for reasons that I have no ideal what procedures they undertook. I have no ideal ideal of the record of flame outs in Nimrods, what the weather was like or any other vast multitude of evidence to make any judgment about how unlikely a re lit of the engines was. The situation as a said is unlikely but not a fantastically rare event and not one they is always solved by an immediate fib of switch.

In other words not being Africa I hear hoofs and assume Horses. You hear hoofs and assume zebras (as long a born again Christian is around)

[Sir Adrian]

I find it amusing how people attempting to disprove miracles from God completely avoid modern day miracles