One reason it's hard to believe in prayer...

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I like this one as well:

Two farmers with side-by-side fields. One has wheat and the other has beans.

The wheat farmer prays for "dry" before the harvest;
The bean farmer is asking for a good, soaking rain;
Each man knows his neighbor's prayer and neither will relent.

What would God do? (Smart answers accepted, of course.)

As I have been taught, we just trust whatever happens is best for all in the end.

King - Headed to work, so no time for any real reply. But here's a link on the story, take it from there as you like: http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/parkinso ... tion-track

Before referring to Scripture, perhaps you should study it more carefully.

ruveyn

I knew that was in there, but I have no similar duty of concern. Nevertheless, I should be more cautiously comprehensive.

Noted!

Yes, I'm assuming that at some point during those 23 years, he prayed hard for a way out. I can't imagine he wouldn't. And I never, ever said this was scientific in anyway. It is certainly disheartening though.

For no -known- reason. Our understanding of the disease is far from complete.

Do not confuse a natural, but not fully understood process with a miracle.

ruveyn

The whole "miraculous cure for cancer thing is absurd anyway.

It's just another manifestation of god of the gaps. What you claim now as certain evidence of god you will forget in 50 years time when we demonstrate that physiological processes, not demonic intervention causes and cures cancer.

Last edited by ryan93 on 24 Feb 2011, 1:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

yes, God of the Gaps man created God to explain the unknown so the more we know, the less ignorant we are, the less we need God

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ma ... insons-ill

i see how well it worked

Actually, locked-in syndrome may not be as bad as many think it is:

http://www.newser.com/article/d9liq02g1 ... lyzed.html

That is of course precisely one of the points in Don Camillo, and totally undermines at least 75% of that Best of all possible worlds" discussion.

Obviously hold it dry on the wheat farmer while soaking the bean farmer. This is an all-powerful being.

Look I understand that you are trying to put forward the idea of incompatible desires, but that's actually irrelevant for 75% of the discussion. Very few people think that African children should starve to death. Even further, if we are talking about an omnipotent, and omniscient being, I don't think that getting one farm wet while keeping the other dry is that big of a problem as there is no logical incompatibility. Philologos, here's the problems that the best of all possible worlds gets into:
Pareto efficiency. Are there possible worlds that improve everybody's lot. Most of the people who believe this isn't the best of all possible worlds think that this question can be answered "yes".
Kaldor-Hicks efficiency. Are there possible worlds that are net improvements, that is to say that the losers lose less than the winners gain? Most of the people who believe that this isn't the best of all possible worlds think that this is a "yes".

As such, your concern isn't relevant to the discussion.

Hell, even with wheat vs bean farmer, the fact of the matter is that there is probably an answer better than the other, that is to say that helping one guy can and will lead to greater "good" than the other. The only way to avoid this conclusion is to reject objective morality on these sorts of choices, which is an almost absurd conclusion, and one that most people won't start off with. But *seriously* notions of comparing welfare ALREADY FREAKING EXIST, and human beings on a practical playing field, ALREADY DO THIS, without even divine knowledge. So.... if that's the "great objection" then we just have more ad hoc skepticism, as it is odd to think that a business or judge can do what a God cannot.

As I had initially heard it, that story actually did have an extra "twist" in it by one farmer needing a good harvest to keep from losing the farm altogether and/or for one or the other farmer to keep his family fed and pay for a much needed surgery for his wife. But, I now longer recall which farmer had needed what and where the tug lines had been attached.

The "God of the Gaps" concept is very weak. It is very far from adequate for explaining the religious impulse. In fact, divine entities are not that often appealed to as explanations.

Furthermore, if you look at the history of science, you will see that with each new piece of the puzzle we identify more that we cannot explain. The more primitive the science, the less we need explanations. Plato had no reason to explain why no horses in the New World, or why we never see the other side of the moon.

Ok, so? There is still a better or worse option. All this means is that this is harder, but that does not mean that in EVERY situation, there is anywhere close to this level of balance.

That is not the end of the story - there's this from Jan. 19 of this year; what you found was from March of last year: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/ ... 58310.html . In any event, I don't really expect you to believe or not, I simply set the case before you. Since neither that nor any miracle (save those related to Christ's life/death/resurrection) is essential to the Catholic faith, you're absolutely free to disbelieve it. There's neither space nor need for a 'God of the Gaps' in Catholicism; unless you can show where in the Nicene Creed - the best summary of Catholicism there is - such exists*.

To go off on something of a tangent - King, this is what puzzles me about you. You were raised Catholic, you attended CCD classes, and you nearly made it to Confirmation class. So, you had some instruction. But whenever you set out to describe Christianity, you end up talking about some mash-up of various fundamentalisms that is not and never has been part of Catholicism - it vanishes from your picture. It's odd, that's all.

*(edit: waiting for it. We'll see.)

Last edited by Natty_Boh on 24 Feb 2011, 11:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.