I just read your essay for the first time and I very much enjoyed it. I haven’t had time to read the rebuttals and your responses yet but I did want to mention something. You seem to be a thoughtful person who enjoys philosophy. Your beliefs align fairly well with those of Leibniz. If you haven’t done so, I would highly suggest reading some of his philosophical works. In particular I think you would like his ‘principle of sufficient reason’ which is a principle that is similar to a God-created, purpose-driven determinism.

I beg to differ in the comparison with Hinduism. As far as I researched, hinduism was never a religion till the Christians in the form Colonial british came to India. I was a way of life. How a person lived his lifes, his occupation, his economical level, placed him is soceity of classes.

Khatriya - King, ruling class
Brahman - Learned class
Shudras - Working class

The vedas which date back to 4000 yrs (1500BC) do not mention GOD, but mentions a lot about how these 3 classes of ppl should live their life, how to do good, what should a person follow in his daily life, and most of all science was in every sentence of it. The Church condemned Galileo for sayign Earth revolves around the Sun, when I was in the Hindu (am using the word not as in religion, but as in saying its from the Indian sub-continent) scpritures.

Sex was given as much importance in everyday life (Everyone know Kamasutra came from India).

And then the british came brought is so many Christian ideas (including making sex as a taboo issue) ..

Also, to Jo and whatever, neither of you actually have access (from what I can gather) to medical records, to be able to argue accurately.

Finally, real Christians aren’t here to force their beliefs on anyone; they’re here to be supportive …. and not as enemies who will try to exploit that weakness and “convert” you against your will.

I’ll believe this when laws are not created to hold everyone to someone elses religious ideals. I can’t buy a vehicle or alcohol on sunday either because it’ll save my soul or it removes a temptation for the religious types. If people are that shaky about temptation what does that say about them? And why does everyone else have to pay for it?

The only way I can see to conclude this is to agree to disagree. Nothing ever will change what I believe. I have recently been going though a major period of time where I was seriously doubting what I believe, and questioning things in great depth.

I have come out of that time, despite everything that happened then, believing in God. If possible, I believe in Him even more now.

To deceive myself would be stupid; a lie. You and I weigh things up differently. I see things as evidence for God. You don’t. That is that.

I disbelieve in the tenets of Christianity and other religions that I’ve studied IN SPITE OF my wish that there were more to life.

So, I’m not coming at you from some perspective of ignorance of the Bible or Christianity. I’ve been where you are. I’ve witnessed “healing” and “speaking in tongues”. I know how easy it is to get caught up in the moment and how easy it is to believe that miracles are happening. Unfortunately for me, I guess, I’m also the kind of person to ask questions. When you ask questions and really look into the facts of these occurrences, they always fall apart.

Don’t you think it’s curious that you claim that people are regrowing limbs, but medical journals aren’t brimming with documented evidence? Point me to a documented case of a limb being regrown. It should be easy. There should be pictures of the person without the limb, maybe medical records of the injury or deformity, then pictures of the person with the limb. Don’t you think it’s curious that when Randi’s team looks into faith healers that he finds deceptive tricks used to deceive the viewers that he has documented with live video footage?

I’ve visited religious discussion boards for years. I’ve studied the Bible with other Christians. I’ve seen things from both sides.

Maybe after this explanation, you might see how I can confidently tell you that your inability to even go to Randi’s site and spend a little time reading is a sure sign that you want to remain blind to anything that might damage your faith.

You say that I am believing things because I want to. This could be just as easily applicable with you-you come up with all sorts of ‘logical’ reasons why such things could happen, because you don’t want to believe they happened. When I watch a miracle happen, i do not just believe it. I like everything I believe to be backed up, as what is a belief based on nothing? I also would like to know, how some stranger in the street who you go up to knows these ‘tricks’ you talk about? There are lots of times where a limb has grown etc, and it’s been where a limb has grown out. How can absolutely every person know such ‘tricks’?

I never claimed to be a healer. I said that God healed people through me. The definition of a healer is “a person skilled in a particular type of therapy”. This isn’t anything to do with skill. It’s to do with listening to God.

Actually, although the Bible says “do not put the Lord your God to the test”, it’s because there’s no need to, in a sense. God has already shown us people rising from the dead, and Jesus came (most importantly). You say under ‘intelectual scrutiny’. We aren’t that clever, and, like you said, we can make results appear to be as we want them to be.

I think it’s curious how you rely on a point about grammar to finish up you argument, almost as if you need that to help you support it. This argument isn’t about English grammar. It’s about God.

If you are curious why I put an exclamation mark there, it’s because I dislike how people usually assume things are male only. The Bible says “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28).

You say I should analyse my religion. Maybe you should analyse your lack of one?

Also, even if we both analyse our beliefs, I know I’m not going to change mine because I have found them to be true. If you agree with yours, there is nothing I can do about that-as your life isn’t mine. I know what I believe and I fully believe it to be true. Everything I learn supports it.

About the blind man: he had been blind all his life, and was a very well known blind man. Someone who has been blind all their life can’t pretend to be blind. A person is either blind, or they’re not blind. This man was blind. At the time this healing happened, I wasn’t even sure if I did believe in God anymore. I was wrong.

If the only reason you reply is to “win” this “argument” then why bother? I’m not discussing this topic to “win”. It would achieve nothing, but a momentary victory. A victory of that kind is nothing, it’s a material feeling.

With regards to this ‘randi’ website, you are not listening to what I have said before. We are noly humans, and by no means perfect. We aren’t the ones to look to, but Jesus is if you want to look at our faith.

If Randi has such issues with Hinn, then maybe they should meet up and talk sometime. It seems to me all his assumptions are not based on any fact, just what he thinks.

Like you said, we can make things appear as we want them to.

In college, I had a couple of dorm friends who would play around with a Ouija board. One time — when I was sitting in the room watching the proceedings — a guy, John, walked into the room and no one sitting at the board saw him come in. The puck moved around or over the “J”. John immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was spelling out “John”. It did no such thing. He told everyone that the board spelled out “John”. I heard the lie repeated to me by others in the dorm. Some people just want to believe some things so badly that they see what they want to see. When confronted with the facts later by those of us who witnessed the event, John swore up and down that he had seen his entire name spelled out… amazing. I think he actually believed his own fantasy.

As to the healing of blindness, psychosomatic blindness is a well documented psychological condition. It could be the cause of what you saw. Or it could be someone just trying to fool you for his or her own reasons.

Limb length changing? Bullshit. David Blaine convinces people standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM that he can levitate. I fool my kids all the time with little tricks of making it look like a limb is growing or that I’m shoving a pencil in my ear. They’re just simple tricks that anyone can learn. You *want* to believe that a miracle is happening, so you don’t question anything that reinforces that belief.

You should *really* look at Randi’s site where some journalists uncovered some of the tactics that Benny Hinn uses to fool the gullible. http://randi.org/jr/2006-05/051206benny.html#i1

If there is evil in the world, it’s these people who prey on the sick and the weak minded, fooling them into thinking that they’re “healers” — all to get rich.

Don’t be a gullible sheep. Learn to tell when someone is trying to deceive you. Help others by keeping them from falling for the same tricks.

Of course the Bible says that you shouldn’t test God. No religion wants its God or gods tested. No religion wants its claims put to any kind of intellectual scrutiny. They ALL fall apart when that happens.

Oh, and you never mentioned the sex of the person who was “healed” previously. Rather than make the grammatical mistake you made of using “their” when you should have been using a singular possessive pronoun, I thought I’d just take a chance and use “he”. The sex of the alleged victim wasn’t really relevant… but it’s curious how you use an exclamation point like it’s some sort of victory in the conversation. Stop trying to win an argument for a few minutes and open your mind to the fact that you’ve been fooled. I can see that you’re trying to think critically about what I’m saying. Instead, turn that around and think critically about what you already believe. Think critically about the Bible, “faith healers”, and some of the things that you have thought of as already proven in your life.

I wouldn’t call healings such as where a blind man can see, or where people have witnessed a leg grow out, easily explanable.

You can say what you want, but I was there, and I saw things happen, where people have prayed that God will show them things, and then these things have come true. You may say it’s a conincidence, once or twice-but when the numbers of such situations start multiplying it’s not possible that people would lie.

And also, the Bible says ‘do not put the Lord your God to the test’, which is what you would be doing with the randi thing. And who wants money, aside from that, when it is a material possession-and they’re not important.

Oh, and the person whose knees got healed was a female!

Why is it that with “miraculous healings”, it’s never something impressive like the regrowing of a lost arm or something? You’d think that if God were doing it that a healed pain would be no more difficult for him than restoring an arm. Instead of something truly miraculous and impressive, we get ‘no pain’ type miracles that have other easy explanations.

You ever wonder about that?

You should really go to http://randi.org and read everything you can handle there. James Randi is a magician who uncovers charlatans. His foundation has a million dollar challenge that’s been available for years to anyone who can prove something supernatural. All you’d have to do is show medical proof that someone had some type of injury or disease, then have a bunch of people pray for that person to heal him. It has to be something verifiable, mind you, like a massive tumor or a lost limb or something. After God healed that person through the power of prayer, your church could collect the money, winning a two-fold victory: You’d get the million dollars AND you’d get the notoriety of proving Randi and his organization wrong! Imagine the prestige.