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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Rolan7]

I'm having trouble finding it, but I'm pretty sure Jesus condemned some cities because they had witnessed great miracles from him but refused to believe.

It may have just been one of the apostles, though.

[Orange Wizard]

I didn't change my argument. I made some dumb mistakes with arranging points. I can try again if you like but please don't be obstinate about it.

...

I'm having trouble finding it, but I'm pretty sure Jesus condemned some cities because they had witnessed great miracles from him but refused to believe.

It may have just been one of the apostles, though.

I think I know what you mean, pretty sure that was an apostle. Jesus was kinda showy with miracles a couple of times IIRC though, just wasn't his main thing.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm having trouble finding it, but I'm pretty sure Jesus condemned some cities because they had witnessed great miracles from him but refused to believe.

It may have just been one of the apostles, though.

Honorary mention of Simon, who could fly and claimed to be the actual Messiah. Jesus denounced him, though the whole flying thing never did get explained.

[origamiscienceguy]

 Yes, he did it to Nazaeth. And to the Pharasees.

Jesus also promised to come back with a sword sticking out of his mouth.

You only think that's symbolism.

He

Jesus also promised to come back with a sword sticking out of his mouth.

You only think that's symbolism.

Of course he didn't do that particular trick during his first coming though. But when he comes back a second time, it will probably be the most terrifying thing humanity has ever seen. And I do believe that that will happen someday.

[Frumple]

... though, re: flashy miracles, it did just occur to me that the bible wasn't very big on flashy positive ones. I can't recall many towns being cured en masse or anything like that -- jesus tended to do pretty small scale stuff, and he was about the only thing worth a shit in the text insofar as that kind of thing went. It was mostly mass slaughters and curses and plagues and whatnot when divine intervention occurred. Lotta' nasty stuff, but about the largest scale nice thing I can recall of note was the ark, and that was less god doing anything (except maybe fitting all that stuff in the box) and more it warning a few people who actually did all the work. Plus it was alongside what was purported by the text as global scale genocide. Most of the other vaguely nice acts were also accomplished/accompanied by mass infanticide, murder, rape, etc., etc., etc. There's maybe a promised mass resurrection, but it's again alongside great horrors inflicted for roughly no apparent reason but to be a colossal jackass.

Maybe the biblical god can't help people out in regards to healing and whatnot to any substantial degree, which could be why prayers to help people just don't really seem to work. It would kinda' seem to follow the available evidence...

[Fenrir]

I guess if you’re going to make miracles flashy, it makes sense for the punishments to be the flashy ones. “Disobey and I’mma nuke your shit from orbit.”

Edit: or maybe “It rubs the lotion on its sin or else it gets the flood again.”

[penguinofhonor]

Jesus did all sorts of showy miracles. He drew in his first disciples by going out in public and filling their nets with fish. He transmuted loads of wine at a wedding and magically produced food for thousands of people. When he died, the world shook and the dead rose from their graves. His apostles were guided by pillars of flame and spoke tongues to people. Those last ones might be the Holy Spirit, but its will aligns with Jesus' will.

On a side note, what does it say about the apostles that they believed in Jesus because they saw his miracles instead of through "true" faith?

[Rolan7]

Thanks, I almost mentioned the eclipse but forgot to. And good question.

Though, doubting Thomas was kept on. Not sure if that's significant.
(Not at my best atm)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Well, Jesus did say that the Roman centurion who believed he could heal his slave from a distance had the greatest faith in Judea, and he said that to the apostles.

[Bouchart]

The Gospels generally portray the apostles as being clueless on a number of things.  Jesus must've facepalmed a whole lot back then.

[Rolepgeek]

I figure it's kindof a matter of God doesn't want us becoming dependent on him in the sense of forgetting about shit. Keep in mind I don't believe this stuff, I just like playing devil's advocate, so I know that for a truly all-powerful being, 'being dependent upon' doesn't actually constitute a weakness. It might be a matter of him feeling like that's not free will, and he obviously has a thing about that.

In other news, I just finished The Talos Principle, which was pretty damn cool.

[origamiscienceguy]

Jesus did all sorts of showy miracles. He drew in his first disciples by going out in public and filling their nets with fish. He transmuted loads of wine at a wedding and magically produced food for thousands of people. When he died, the world shook and the dead rose from their graves. His apostles were guided by pillars of flame and spoke tongues to people. Those last ones might be the Holy Spirit, but its will aligns with Jesus' will.

On a side note, what does it say about the apostles that they believed in Jesus because they saw his miracles instead of through "true" faith?

Those weren't for show though. They were because he wanted to teach people or help them. I'll take the 5000 feeding one as an example because that is probably the biggest one. Jesus gave them all food because they were hungry and he wanted them to stay and hear him teach more:

Matthew 14: 15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

[ChairmanPoo]

16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

17: "It's treason, then"

[Ghills]

Well, basically. God said to Israel that he would give them the promised land, but they still had to go out and fight the dudes who were there first. Abraham (and lots of other guys) were promised children, but they (presumably) still needed to go at it with their wives for that to happen. Jesus promised us that anything we pray for in good faith will be given to us, so it stands to reason that we still need to put the effort in, even if God has a hand in the results.

Long story short, the Bible never advocates laziness.

You can’t be fucking serious.

So let’s assume that people regularly pray for loved ones with terminal illnesses. That’s not hard to believe. Cancer’s a classic, so let’s go with that one. With your assumption, if someone prays for a cancer victim and the victim dies anyway, the supplicant was being lazy and didn’t really give an effort. Now, you’ve got to assume one of a few things.

1. The vast majority of people don’t die from cancer if they receive both treatment and prayer.
2. Most people who pray for cancer victims don’t really try to save a loved one from cancer.
3. Jesus was full of shit.
4. Jesus never actually said that.

Now, 1 is testable. I really doubt you’re going to pick 1, since we might be able to look that one up. If you believe 2, you’re not only wrong, you’re an asshole. Sure, maybe you could explain away a few cases as laziness on the part of the supplicant (and this fact was somehow enough to condemn the cancer victim to suffering and death for some reason), but 1 would still have to be true. 3 is the one I’d go with personally. I’m not sure about 4, since I honestly never did read the bible.

(There are a number of other problems with this, but I don’t want to complicate things too much.)

It's actually 4 - Jesus did not say that everything we pray for sincerely we'll get. People keep misunderstanding the relevant scriptures because it is incredibly tempting to think that just by praying hard enough we can get whatever we want.  But that's not how it works.  Ex: We can't just pray for immortality and get it, although I'm sure some people have tried.  God has a plan and that plan doesn't include never dying.  People praying for that are going counter to what has been set in place.

Trying to remember the exact scripture references, but iirc the complicated part is that we have to pray in faith, nothing wavering, and faith means having a firm knowledge of God - so if we try to pray for something counter to God's will, we'll get 404: Real Faith Not Found, Re-Ponder And Try Again.  Learning to communicate with God and understand what he wants us to do is key.  This is part of how and why miracles happen - it's a mix of knowing that yes, you can ask for a miracle and yes, this is the right time and place for a miracle.

ETA: Could also be 403: Miracle Forbidden Right Now.  HTML error codes, useful for so many areas of life. 

[TheBiggerFish]

Actually you probably want a 403 Forbidden error but that's really a nitpick...