Why believe in the miracles of the Bible if we don't see any today?

[Parade Orange]

apprently u folks have never been to my home where everyday is a miracle

im a night owl and me getting up early in the morning is a RESSURECTION OF THE DEAD!

[Gail]

LOL When I see a reconciliation happening, THAT is a miracle! When I see love or courage that reaches beyond the human sphere, that is a miracle, too. When I see a totally changed life, from death to life (spiritually-speaking), that is a miracle.

[Woody]

we make our own miracles

[Gail]

Good observation! I would consider that one, too

[Dr. Rich]

Hey Rich, good question! The answer is that no one today has been born again by the Holy Spirit because they believe in lies given to us by people other than the the words of Jesus Christ. Having said this, there will be a time when the 144k (those with insight) will be doing what Jesus prophesied about because they are sealed by God. (See Rev. 11:5-6)

Not until this time will you ever see the real miracles Jesus talked about.

[phkrause]

Have disagree with your post Dr. Rich. I see miracles everyday. They might not be like the ones in the OT but there miracles none the less. Wasn't it King Herod that wanted Jesus to walk on water (his swimming pool) and he would believe????? If we need miracles to believe that Jesus is who he says he is or believe the Bible, it ain't gonna happen.

[cardw]

If Jesus isn't going to provide any evidence then there is no compulsion to believe in Jesus as god over any other god.

If you're promoting faith over evidence, then I would say you are promoting willful ignorance.

There are thousands of gods and writings that claim to know what god wants from many different cultures.

To abandon the need for evidence is to condemn the human race to the following of iron age ethical standards.

You may claim to have gained your ethical standard from god the bible. From what I know of you I would guess that it would be more accurate to say you have gained you ethical standards from what you have made up about what the Bible says about God.

[Dr. Rich]

Bingo! FAITH allowes people to believe and practice a lie without feeling guilty and without condemnation for not seeking the truth in regards to facts in order to practice the real truth as found in John 3:21.

You can't argue facts with anyone who has built their belief upon faith.

[Guest]

Then you must have faith on steroids.

That's not at all what Jesus had to say about faith. Quite the opposite actually.

Jesus exhorted people to have more faith, and gave good reasons why.

[Ellen]

The three baby robins who left their nest yesterday were evidence of a miracle to me.

I just went around my garden counting all the buds getting ready to bloom. We expect those kinds of miracles but no human could produce that in a billion years.

The metamorphosis of a sinner changing his/her desires to God's ways still happens today miraculously.

[Woody]

[To see what] Ellen White [has to say about making miracles the test of ones faith see] 2SM p.52

[Stan]

Ellen, I so agree with you...

[cardw]

I agree that the world around us contains many wonderful things that defy our ability to understand. It also has tornados, earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters that don't really seem all that concerned with human life.

There is absolutely no evidence that the God of the Bible did these things.

Certainly to contemplate the universe and the billions of galaxies out there is a humbling experience, but what I read about God in the Bible doesn't match with that wonder.

The God of the Bible eventually has to resort to violence and destruction. The God of the Bible hasn't been able to transcend iron age ethical world views. This God is hardly sophisticated enough to have come up with the universe.

People change when they learn how to empathize with their fellow human beings. This is often learned through personal suffering. It also helps to experience the connection with other humans and realize that we don't have to be alone.

A lot of things we suffer from are simply things we make up in our own minds. And the Christian religion contributes to a lot of these illusions of fear and suffering by creating shame and guilt for a lot of nonsense.

[JawgeFromJawja]

Good grief. It makes far more sense---. Wake up! Perceive! Look at the occurrence of improbable events! God and His angels are busy, active, working in this existence.

I started my medical practice in 1970 with a rabid atheism on par with that of Richard Dawkins. Dear Lord, what a misguided person! (Both me and Dawkins). The miracles happened. God made His case --- to me. I just pray He does to you. And He will, in His own due time.

And get wise to just one thing - God, Christianity, over the centuries, has had a bad press. Violence? Who caused it? Not God. The bad press was in, through, and by bad acting representatives of mankind.

[JawgeFromJawja]

Oh, dear Gussie. This is a reply to an old post, but my experience matters --- to me, at least.

Come on! Do you think you will really respond to all objections to God's transcendence with vapid protests? To this former atheist, the proof of God's existence is demonstrated by events in my life. Some of those events were trivial, mundane, and easily explained away by circumstance. So what. Life on a day to day basis is trivial and mundane.

I began to see all too many inexplicable events after starting my medical practice. Far too many to be accounted for by coincidence. And yes, I do realize that perception of the significance of events is based on bias. My bias and the bias of those with opinions contrary to mine.

Bias is problematic in science. Bias cuts both ways. Scientists should learn to appreciate this. Scientists should continue to be skeptical, but skeptical in a way permitting open mindedness.

[cardw]

If Christianity has had bad press then the Bible is part of that bad press. There is a wide selection of god ordered violence.

To link these miracles of yours to the god of the Bible has no basis in any kind of sense.

There is a saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The evidence is simply not there at all.

A feeling that you just know it must be god is not evidence.

I am not an atheist. I am an agnostic. That means I freely don't know, but I find it very improbable that it is the god of the bible behind all these mysteries.

[cardw]

I experience transcendence. I just don't think it comes from the god of the Bible. That god is way too immature.

[Tom Wetmore]

Is it possible that the problem was not with the god being described, but with those ancient people's ideas about that god? Maybe a very immature understanding of God?

[cardw]

If ancient people aren't very good at understanding god then what we are really looking at in the Bible is a history of belief.

That doesn't really let us know if it is true or useful.

I think treating it as history is fine, instead of treating it as sacred.

The question that comes to my mind is why doesn't Christianity allow itself to write and believe more advanced references than the Bible?

Eckhart Tolle writes some of the most pragmatic insightful ideas on the sacred and how to be in the now and yet he would be condemned as "New Age" or even a deception.

I find that a regard for the Bible as sacred freezes people to these ancient people's ideas, even though they don't deliver what they promise.

[Tom Wetmore]

The freezing effect demonstrated itself with the extreme resistance to giving up the idea of a flat earth or geocentricism.

Among Adventists the accepted "advanced references" seem to be EGW. I have noted here before that her elaborations on Biblical stories that add details or even that even seem to contradict certain details are accepted as being "new light" without any qualms. But then we see a freezing to her ideas that makes no allowance for more advanced ideas than hers...

[cardw]

I think the question that comes to my mind is, "Why call it Adventist?"

I am far more confident of what I believe when I let go of the labels and simply explore what is true.

I don't have to vet everyone as being SDA approved. I can simply test the hypothesis of each claim and see if it plays out in real life.

I can also change with the accumulation of new information without having to examine if I'm a heretic or not.

[Tom Wetmore]

Labels mean less and less to me. In fact, I am little concerned to be labeled a heretic. The heretics of yesterday are often regarded as the saints of today. Maybe there is hope for us yet!

[JawgeFromJawja]

If one assumes a miracle, to what other God should the miracle be linked? Jupiter? Athena? Baal?

I am quite familiar with this saying about extraordinary evidence. Who said it?

Not only that, but on what principle did the one saying it base the statement? Why do "extraordinary claims", whatever those are, require more extraordinary evidence than not so "extraordinary claims"? Any event outside the realm of usual knowledge should require evidence, of course, but why "extraordinary evidence"? One of the problems with the statement is the question of who determines whether evidence for an extraordinary event is sufficiently extraordinary? Bias of more determined skeptics unconsciously tends to cause them to reject any evidence as insufficient.

As far as the evidence not being there at all, how is your prayer life? Ask for insight insight into evidence for miracles. And whom would you ask? In your case, ask the highest wisdom in your mind, which is a valid approach to prayer for non-believers. Most of all, just open your eyes.

For many events, there is a profound "knowing" when God is intervening in the lives of a believer. For the believer, this requires no evidence. The believer simply has nothing to prove. I do agree, that such profound knowing would be entirely inadequate for academic proof.

I'd like to suggest a classic in psychology for you, The Varieties of Religious Experience. It was written by William James, a giant among the psychologists and philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You would probable gain some respect for others who do not believe as you do by James' thoughts.

Behind what mysteries [do you have in mind]?

[cardw]

I'm not assuming miracles so I don't have to come up with a god.

Carl Sagan [made the statement about extraordinary evidence.]

A miracle is an extraordinary claim. If you can't recognize that then we can't have a conversation on the topic of miracles.

In the case of miracles I would say you would need something that couldn't be explained by other means. An example would be if one could have an amputated limb restored through prayer. That would be extraordinary evidence of a miracle.

You know I was a Christian for 30 years and I saw no evidence that prayer changed anything externally. It was useful to provide focus or calm, but I saw nothing that would suggest that it changed any outcomes directly or miraculously.

I have experiences of profound knowing, but I don't connect it with the god of the Bible. The god of the Bible is too immature. The ethics of the Bible are too immature.

I am familiar with William James. I respect people, that doesn't mean I have to respect what they believe. The reason I say that is the frequency that people of belief kill others that don't believe. Or they condemn others to the punishment of god simply because they don't accept Jesus as their savior. That seems silly to me.

[About the mysteries...]

If you don't recognize that we live in a world of the unexplained then I'm not sure what to say to you. I have come to recognize that the more I know the more I don't know.

I'm simply not willing to assign the god of the Bible to all the gaps in my knowledge. He just doesn't seem all that smart or wise.

[JawgeFromJawja]

Of course. It does seem that the god of the earlier books of The Bible is way too mature. However, one thing I have found in multiple cover to cover readings of that wonderful old tome is a definite change in the character of God as described in the early Old Testament compared to the late New Testament. The change becomes more obvious with an increasing number of readings from Genesis through Revelation.

But did God change from the earlier Biblical writings of circa 500 BC to those final writings of 100 AD? No. Those who wrote the Bible changed. They changed in many ways, beginning with a population that was only some 500 years separated from their primitive, desert wandering, violent, polytheistic nomadic ancestors to a people who had settled down after brutally subduing native peoples on the southwestern coast of the Mediterranean, founded empires with multiple dynasties, evolved through a theocracy, and had finally been invaded and conquered by the Roman Empire.

Personally, I am beginning to see a thread woven through those writings that span over 600 years, a thread of prophecy concerning all of mankind's being blessed through those erstwhile brutal people. The prophecy concerns a spiritual kingdom that will be established during the time of the Roman Empire. That kindom is not of this world, but will eventually peacefully unite all mankind.

The ruler of that kingdom is Almighty God, the same God who was so incredibly misunderstood by Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and a long line of prophets. The God who as Father of mankind was finally understood by Jesus Christ.