Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Second, Why would anyone expect to be smitten by God at this point in time? If you believe in him or not he does not deprive one of life or the benefits of what he has created from anyone.
"...he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good and makes it rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous."-Matthew 5:45
Third, Praying to be made well is about being made well spiritually. We are also invited to pray for the strength to face what can touch all of us, illness, death of a loved one, war, a natural catastrophe.
The Bible invites Christians to press on to maturity and understand why bad things happen to good people and why the wicked seemingly prosper where the righteous falter. Whether we have faith or not The Bible makes it clear we are all subject to the same things... bad government, bad religions, wicked people, natural catastrophes, imperfect lives subject to disease and death.
A mature Christian will not ask "Why God why?" A mature Christian will understand that faith transcends the seasons of change that inevitably happen and affect all of us. We aren't Christians for just one season or one reason.
A Christian's hope doesnt lie in this current way of life that we live. Why should it? we live a few years, years that are a web of good times and difficulties and then die. No, but our hope lies when this current corrupt system ends and the Biblical earth (the earth that was meant to be) begins.
I see Christianity's current stand on healing as a giant compromise on the fact that God doesn't heal. We know that now. We have the statistical evidence--something scientists couldn't do in the past because of the church's power and influence to quash any investigations into whether prayer worked or not. Regardless of the evidence prayer didn't work, the church simply didn't want that getting out because the church leaders didn't want any truth circulating that could damage them and their power, money and prestige. So the facts stayed buried for many centuries.
Today in our modern world with the Internet and information that can travel at the speed of light we know through studies that prayer doesn't heal people.
Quote:
"Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found."
So when the church couldn't keep the truth about prayer's failure to heal started coming out in study after study, the church changed their stance on the matter. They switched it from what they were selling for centuries--that prayer cures physical ills--to what you are saying now: that James 5 was NEVER about physical illness, it was about spiritual illness.
Why spiritual?
Because being cured of physical illness is tangible; it can be seen by disinterested parties. Spiritual illness is not tangible; nobody can tell who is spiritually ill and who is not. So it's simple as pie to pretend you're possessed by a demon, be held down while a charlatan like Peter Popoff screams at you, "Come out of this child of God, you filthy demon in Jesus name" and then go into an act of heaving, huffing and snarling like something out of the Exorcist before quieting down and the pretending to be normal as if evil spirits have come out of you.
But there are some diehard Christians who insist James 5 is for physical illness:
Quote:
a. And the prayer of faith will save the sick: Many have wondered if James guarantees healing here for the sick who are prayed for in faith. Some interpret this as a reference to ultimate resurrection. The reference to sins being forgiven adds to the idea that James is considering a spiritual work and healing, not necessarily a physical healing.
i. Yet the context of the statement demands that James does not exclude physical healing as an answer to prayer, though he does seem to mean something broader than only a physical healing. We should pray for others in faith, expecting that God will heal them, then leave the matter in God’s hands.
So in conclusion the Church has had to do this incredibly deceptive dance of going with whatever the rubes were willing to buy into what the hierarchy was feeding them in order to keep Christianity from being exposed as a fraud. And it can all be best summed up in a nutshell:
Jesus is a fraud. The whole thing of being saved by Jesus and being taken care of by Jesus and being protected by Jesus and by extension all the promises his minions in the clergy fed to people for two thousand years--it all been a total fraud without any supernatural anything to hold it all up. It was incumbent on the clergy who benefited from the deception to keep the deception going by whatever means possible--with lies, with deceit, with bullying, with threats--with whatever it could get its hands on--until it couldn't anymore--until the Age of Enlightenment dawned and rationality began to creep into civilization and until the Internet finally brought the church's grand lie into the open and the whole snowman began melting in the light of the blazing sun of truth.
If I understand you correctly, I'm "way off base" in some unspecified fashion and my post constitutes a rejection of "the" god when it was simply a critique of an incoherent claim by another poster regarding their version of god.
All over the world, people embrace god as he has been taught and explained to them, only to experience all sorts of calamity and sorrow anyway. Happens every day. Do you seriously think that can be cavalierly dismissed as you have here? Who is rejecting whom, anyway?
I just jumped in to the thread. I will just take the hit for missing the context.
I see Christianity's current stand on healing as a giant compromise on the fact that God doesn't heal. We know that now. We have the statistical evidence--something scientists couldn't do in the past because of the church's power and influence to quash any investigations into whether prayer worked or not. Regardless of the evidence prayer didn't work, the church simply didn't want that getting out because the church leaders didn't want any truth circulating that could damage them and their power, money and prestige. So the facts stayed buried for many centuries.
Today in our modern world with the Internet and information that can travel at the speed of light we know through studies that prayer doesn't heal people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/h...of-prayer.html
Oh puh-LEEZ. There are just as many 'studies' out there to show that God DOES heal. Besides, I'm sure that many of those who ARE healed with prayer haven't participated in those 'studies'.
So when the church couldn't keep the truth about prayer's failure to heal started coming out in study after study, the church changed their stance on the matter. They switched it from what they were selling for centuries--that prayer cures physical ills--to what you are saying now: that James 5 was NEVER about physical illness, it was about spiritual illness.
Oh, puh-LEEZ. You keep thinking that because God Himself didn't swoop down and heal you, that God didn't heal you AT ALL. You were healed, right? Don't you get that God often delegates?
If you went to Bill Gates and asked him for some money, and he sent you to different firm that he owned, are you going to say that Bill Gates didn't help you? If you go to your parents for help with math, and they sent you to a tutor, are you going to say that your parents "didn't help you"?
I get answers to prayers all the time, thrill. And it's not because God Himself came swooping down and stood in front of me. I get that God doesn't work that way. Like I said above, God often delegates. He works through others. Sometimes He 'inspires' us to do something we didn't even think about doing, WITHOUT His inspiration.
Quote:
Why spiritual?
Because being cured of physical illness is tangible; it can be seen by disinterested parties. Spiritual illness is not tangible; nobody can tell who is spiritually ill and who is not. So it's simple as pie to pretend you're possessed by a demon, be held down while a charlatan like Peter Popoff screams at you, "Come out of this child of God, you filthy demon in Jesus name" and then go into an act of heaving, huffing and snarling like something out of the Exorcist before quieting down and the pretending to be normal as if evil spirits have come out of you.
But there are some diehard Christians who insist James 5 is for physical illness:
So in conclusion the Church has had to do this incredibly deceptive dance of going with whatever the rubes were willing to buy into what the hierarchy was feeding them in order to keep Christianity from being exposed as a fraud. And it can all be best summed up in a nutshell:
Jesus is a fraud. The whole thing of being saved by Jesus and being taken care of by Jesus and being protected by Jesus and by extension all the promises his minions in the clergy fed to people for two thousand years--it all been a total fraud without any supernatural anything to hold it all up. It was incumbent on the clergy who benefited from the deception to keep the deception going by whatever means possible--with lies, with deceit, with bullying, with threats--with whatever it could get its hands on--until it couldn't anymore--until the Age of Enlightenment dawned and rationality began to creep into civilization and until the Internet finally brought the church's grand lie into the open and the whole snowman began melting in the light of the blazing sun of truth.
Oh, puh-LEEZ. You keep thinking that because God Himself didn't swoop down and heal you, that God didn't heal you AT ALL. You were healed, right? Don't you get that God often delegates?
Oh, puh-LEEZ. Someone was healed, therefore your specific god did it.
I can assure you absolutely nothing will happen that is a clear sign you should stay with God. He doesn't care what you do, stay or leave. He simply doesn't care. ...
It's true God doesn't care if you believe in Him. He loves you anyway.
I tried Christianity, but I didn't like all the twisted logic. I struggled with the question of God's existence into my 50s. Then one day walking through a meadow outside Elgin, IL I was so upset by the not knowing that I had a cathartic moment demanding to know if He was there, and if He was I was going to have to get a sign. That night I went to bed exhausted and upset still. Then I had the most beautiful dream that suffused me with feelings of being loved -- it was like a great uplifting, warm hug. I woke the next morning refreshed and knew my question had been answered.
Leave religion to the churches, God is everywhere. And yes, you are loved.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
