₦airaland Forum

EarsWide:
@1Godfather

Why do you suppose I am an atheist ? Is it because I believe upwards of 99% of the prosperity preachers are frauds ?

For your information I believe in God and I am a practising christian - the fact that I dont buy the crap that the prosperity frauds are selling does not make me an atheist. The converse is also true - choosing to believe the fraud perpetrated by 419 charlatans does not make you a good christian.

Very sorry. I didn't intend for you to read my post as addressing you specifically, but in any case, since you've ventured this reply, permit me to point out something. If as you say, you are practicing Christian, then I think that your chosen method for "exposing" fraudulent prosperity preachers is self-defeating and counter-productive in the end. Do you know why? Anyone who is not a theist can as well use your very own chosen method to debunk or seemingly "expose" any and all preachers whether they are genuine or not. If the ready performance of those desired miracles is the test of authenticity, you would be unwittingly dismissing all. And what is to stop a skeptic at spontaneous limb regenerations anyway? What if they decide the test of authenticity should be resurrections (not revivifications)? Or how about "calling down fire from heaven"?

I am always amused by the "Why Wont God Heal Amputees" objection by atheists. I suppose that for them to establish that God does not exist, they've imagined that all they need do is pose some challenge for God to come and meet. Mighty presumptuous of atheists, won't you say? To assume that God amounts to no more than a circus dog who is trained to jump through hoops. And so, for them, God must meet their demands or he doesn't exist.

But pray tell, if a skeptic were presented with evidence for a case of something miraculous like the miraculous disappearance of cancer against the diagnoses of qualified doctors, or even the case of some spontaneous regeneration of limbs, would that do anything in the slightest bit to compel belief in God or the supernatural from an atheist? Will it rather not be the case that the atheist would reject the evidence before his very eyes, and seek to attribute it to some natural phenomena? And furthermore, if the requested miracle ever happened, what's to stop the atheist from raising the bar? I mean, what's next, "If God exists, why not heal all amputees and not just this one?" or "If God exists, why not remove all diseases and illnesses--surely he is a good God, and why would he not do so anyway?"; or what about "If God exists, why not remove suffering completely? Is he not capable of doing so?"

Such is the inflexible nature of willful unbelief: the systematic rejection of all inferences to God or Theism turtles all the way down. There is perhaps no gain in entertaining these amusing objections. It is useful to remind these skeptics that ultimately God performs miracles only in so much as they accord with his providential sovereignty over creation, or they glorify him. Deeply dissatisfying answer to a skeptic, but unfortunately you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Zataxs, your problem could simply be that you have an unjustifiably narrow understanding of what religion truly means, or what it might mean to describe someone or some action or experience as 'religious'. You need not have such a constricted view of the subject.

Qualifying atheism or certain aspects of atheism to possess some religious stripe, is neither here nor there. It doesn't make much of a difference to me when you realize in the end that there is a world of difference between Theism and Atheism.

Frosbel, good job.

But what then can be said for the multitudes who will not willingly go to any place or church where they'll get the undiluted sound word of God? What if indeed, despite the fleecing, people still do want to flock to the congregations of these "prosperity pimps"? And have you noticed that if people in these times are not running after "prosperity pimps" then they are invariably running after "miracle pimps"?