The Truth of Christianity vs. All Other Belief Systems

[joobz]

God brought me back from the dead and I did not know why, when it happened. Anyway, so here I am alive and I am a witness to the fact of God raising the dead.

You were actually dead or were you merely heart stopped and revived? Remember that we have a lot better understanding of human phyisology than what was available 2000 years ago.

If you can prove that you were dead dead (ideally for 3 days) than I'd believe you and it would be enough for me.

But as it stands, all you have just done is offer up an anecdote and not a very convincing one at that.

Does that help any? Jesus in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus has Abraham telling the rich man if anyone came back to warn them, it would do no good.

Why is Jesus and god so powerless to prove themselves? Why not heal an amputee?

Why didn't jesus say, " OH, lepersy is caused by microscopic organisms and can be treated with antibiotics. What's an antibiotic? Well...."

Despite that I am here as a witness against you.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you. At best, you were revived by EMTS or good doctors. At worst, you're simply making crap up.

My resurrection will not save you but it will condemn you. I am testifying that God has the power to do what he wants and if he chooses he can have anyone he wants come back to life and accuse you of your faithlessness.

You claim resurrection, but a claim isn't evidence. People claim lots of crap. I work in a field that requires hard fast doumented evidence. Claims aren't enough. PROOF is what matters.

I tell people that I do not have much faith because I have plenty of evidence in my own life that God is real. There are people who have faith and have never had anything unusual happen to them that would make them believe. I have been stuck with another responsibility, one that goes beyond only believing. (That would be something of a luxury to me) I have to actually do something. My doing something does not save me. I am as human as anyone and God could raise me up for a purpose and I could still fall and die just like anyone. It does not matter at this point and is not something for me to worry about. People who are busy worrying about themselves are useless to God.
What does Jesus say? The harvest is ready and few are the reapers.

You have a very inflated sense of self.

Maybe God could not spare one. So my life is but for one purpose. Faith is not in myself and is void in that respect. Faith for me is the grabbing onto the promise, for example; Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies.

Um, you still haven't provided any evidence. You've simply asserted a claim. That you were resurrected. It is for you to prove that you were.

 

[kurious_kathy]

God brought me back from the dead and I did not know why, when it happened. (Just in case anyone is wondering this is another story and not one from the uselessness of prayer thread. I said a long time ago that I was only starting on my miracle stories. I got stopped after the first three) Anyway, so here I am alive and I am a witness to the fact of God raising the dead. Does that help any? Jesus in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus has Abraham telling the rich man if anyone came back to warn them, it would do no good. Despite that I am here as a witness against you. My resurrection will not save you but it will condemn you. I am testifying that God has the power to do what he wants and if he chooses he can have anyone he wants come back to life and accuse you of your faithlessness.
I tell people that I do not have much faith because I have plenty of evidence in my own life that God is real. There are people who have faith and have never had anything unusual happen to them that would make them believe. I have been stuck with another responsibility, one that goes beyond only believing. (That would be something of a luxury to me) I have to actually do something. My doing something does not save me. I am as human as anyone and God could raise me up for a purpose and I could still fall and die just like anyone. It does not matter at this point and is not something for me to worry about. People who are busy worrying about themselves are useless to God.
What does Jesus say? The harvest is ready and few are the reapers. Maybe God could not spare one. So my life is but for one purpose. Faith is not in myself and is void in that respect. Faith for me is the grabbing onto the promise, for example; Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies.

WOW! When did Jesus bring you back from the dead?

 

[Fiona]

He didn't Kathy. Why would he? Why this person and not any other person?

 

[Ethnikos]

WOW! When did Jesus bring you back from the dead?

Five years ago. I try hard to not talk about it because it is a disturbing story and I had a doctor a year ago who I told it to, turn white. So I keep it to family members and medical professionals.
I did not have an out of body experience. I have had those before but this was the life flowing out of me and then just nothing. The next day I was in the exact same spot and position as I was before and it was the most shocking experience I have ever had, just being alive.

 

[slingblade]

WOW! When did Jesus bring you back from the dead?

You have just proven what's wrong with everything you say here.
You are willing to believe anything without any proof at all.
This indicates severe gullibility.

I am so sorry for you.

 

[slingblade]

Five years ago. I try hard to not talk about it because it is a disturbing story and I had a doctor a year ago who I told it to, turn white. So I keep it to family members and medical professionals.
I did not have an out of body experience. I have had those before but this was the life flowing out of me and then just nothing. The next day I was in the exact same spot and position as I was before and it was the most shocking experience I have ever had, just being alive.

Wow, that happens to me every night!


I call it "sleep."

 

[joobz]

WOW! When did Jesus bring you back from the dead?

And now we know why con artists have lucrative careers.

 

[joobz]

Five years ago. I try hard to not talk about it because it is a disturbing story

So are many stephen king novels.

and I had a doctor a year ago who I told it to, turn white.

what color was she before hand?

So I keep it to family members and medical professionals.

...and people on the internet when I'm caught trying to dishonestly redefine words.

 

[Ethnikos]

Wow, that happens to me every night!
I call it "sleep."

Everyone knows what sleep is and I have been in comas a couple of times, so I know what that is like. I would prefer not to go into the details because it is pretty horrific. I am not claiming to be Jesus, or something and I am not asking anyone to believe in me. It was a personally startling experience to have what happened to me and then, just be ok. I do not go around talking about it. I really do not think of it as being out of the ordinary for me. I am kind of like a cursed person who just keeps on being alive, for some reason. It is not that I am trying to kill myself or anything, but for several reasons I should not be alive. I do not think about it every day, exactly, but I use it as a way to remind myself that I do not need to be waisting my time doing completely frivolous things.
My former girlfriend who is no longer with us died twice. That my be one of the reasons I do not consider what happened to me so extraordinary and I just accept it, anymore. Anyway, my late girlfriend was dead on the floor in her house when her son found her. He was trained in a branch of medicine I guess so he could do CPR on her and call 911 and had her taken to the hospital. It was strange talking to her on the phone and she was telling me how she was going to come down and visit me. Well that never happened because she died for good the next time.
I brought up this whole thing to make a point that God raising people from the dead really makes no difference for people who do not believe. I have this feeling that they convince themselves that they would, given the right circumstances.
God to me is as real as anything can be. I am living proof that God can raise the dead. Now I seriously doubt that is why God did it. It is only proof to me. The real reason, I imagine, is something very mundane, such as some poor lost souls who I have taken in and gave a chance that they would not have had otherwise.

 

[catbasket]

WOW! When did Jesus bring you back from the dead?

Wanna buy a bridge?

 

[slingblade]

God to me is as real as anything can be. I am living proof that God can raise the dead. Now I seriously doubt that is why God did it. It is only proof to me.

We agree you aren't living proof of resurrection to me, but only to yourself. And honestly? That's fine. You are free to live your life as foolishly or as wisely as you wish.

That said, here is a question I want to ask, and a point I want to make:

We didn't come to you.
You came to us, to tell your stories, and to press home to us some sort of point about your belief in some version of god.

Why? I mean, I can't speak for others here, but I know I certainly don't care what you believe in. I don't want to take it away from you, either. I only want you to keep it away from me, to go live your life believing whatever foolishness warms the cockles of your heart, but to leave me out of it. Yet you insist on dragging it in here, time after time.

Now, you want to back up your mundane story, fully explicable in medical terms, with emotional appeals of how it was actually god who spared you. Because out of all the people who actually did die and stayed dead on that day, you were somehow special enough to rescue. And you keep pushing it on us, on we who will not believe you on your word alone, with more and more details about it as if that will encourage us to believe what's still only your word alone.

Why? You know we don't believe you. You know we won't believe you. So why?

Next: The reason you were "resurrected."

The real reason, I imagine, is something very mundane, such as some poor lost souls who I have taken in and gave a chance that they would not have had otherwise.

Amazingly enough, plenty of Atheists who believe in no god or gods at all do the same thing all the time. We don't need a god to know we should help those in need. I've had more tangible help from this forum and its members in the last two years than I ever got in 30 years as a christian from any church.

As an abused wife, I took my problems to my church fellows all the time. "My husband is beating me, he's cheating on me, he's drinking and using drugs, in god's name help us!" But they only told me that I obviously wasn't being a good wife, and that I should pray more; that it was my fault he was doing these things to our family and to me, and that I was apparently asking for it, That was the sum total of the "help" I got from decent Christian people, from several churches. Not just one building full of closed-minded bigots, but many of them.

You aren't special enough for a god to spare your life. None of us is, because if any of us were, and if there was a god, the good, decent, caring people who died needlessly today before what they could do was finished would still be alive!

So. Why do you keep pushing your belief on us? To what purpose?

 

[GlennB]

I was always curious how the kangaroos made it to the Middle East in order to get on the Ark.

 

[RoboTimbo]

The real reason, I imagine, is something very mundane.

You got one thing correct.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Anyway, my late girlfriend was dead on the floor in her house when her son found her. He was trained in a branch of medicine I guess so he could do CPR on her and call 911 and had her taken to the hospital.

She wasn't dead. She was unconscious and probably would have died given that her son found it necessary to perform CPR, but she was not dead. If she had been dead CPR would have had no effect.

I suspect that your own experience was similar. You may have blacked out, but that doesn't mean that you were actually dead.

 

[Sun Countess]

God to me is as real as anything can be. I am living proof that God can raise the dead. Now I seriously doubt that is why God did it. It is only proof to me. The real reason, I imagine, is something very mundane, such as some poor lost souls who I have taken in and gave a chance that they would not have had otherwise.

So your all-knowing, all-powerful god brought you - specifically - back from death to help some poor lost souls? I guess he wasn't on the ball when he let you die in the first place, but couldn't he go to a plan B and ask some other still-living soul to take in the same poor lost souls that you've been helping?

Or how about a plan C where he just directly improves the lives of all those suffering lost souls using his magical powers? It just seems that reviving a dead guy to act as your wing man is adding an unnecessary extra layer or two to what could be a very simple process. Just magic the suffering right out. BAM! (And please spare the sermon on free will.)

 

[RandFan]

Everyone knows what sleep is and I have been in comas a couple of times, so I know what that is like.

I hate it when that happens. The comas, the deaths, the raising from the deaths, it's tough stuff.

Ethnik,

Do you know what it's like to be so sure of something that you feel justified to make anything up in support of it? We call it lying for Jesus. Satan if the father of all lies except those that further god's plan of salvation. Those are ok.

 

[RandFan]

Or how about a plan C where he just directly improves the lives of all those suffering lost souls using his magical powers? It just seems that reviving a dead guy to act as your wing man is adding an unnecessary extra layer or two to what could be a very simple process. Just magic the suffering right out. BAM! (And please spare the sermon on free will.)

Just end childhood life threatening diseases. That would be a pretty damn good thing and wouldn't interfer with free will at all.

Only if there were a being capable and willing.

 

[Marcus]

Wanna buy a bridge?

Kathy is not gullible, she KNOWS that the story is true.

 

[GlennB]

I was always curious how the kangaroos made it to the Middle East in order to get on the Ark.

Bump for God.

 

[yy2bggggs]

My resurrection will not save you but it will condemn you. I am testifying that God has the power to do what he wants and if he chooses he can have anyone he wants come back to life and accuse you of your faithlessness.

One problem: Faith is not a virtue. There's no fathomable reason why a moral God would require faith of people over the threat of eternal punishment.

Faith is required over threat of punishment because emotional appeal is the only way to get people to believe. A god that requires faith of people rather than intellectual honesty is a god who does not value the quest for truth--i.e., is a god of lies.

I tell people that I do not have much faith

...how special you must be, for God to have not required faith of you. How presumptuous of you to assume not only that he requires faith of me, but that I'll never accept him, and will be judged by your utterly unconvincing performance. And how petty of your god to judge me for using my brain.

I try hard to not talk about it because it is a disturbing story

But you have no problems bringing it up unprompted then not talking about it, and using propaganda techniques to try to get people to believe your particular story.

Now let's see what you did talk about:

God brought me back from the dead and I did not know why, when it happened.
...
The next day I was in the exact same spot and position as I was before and it was the most shocking experience I have ever had, just being alive.

So during this missing day, you conclude you were dead.

Everyone knows what sleep is and I have been in comas a couple of times, so I know what that is like.

There is nothing it is like to be in a coma.

My former girlfriend who is no longer with us died twice. ... Well that never happened because she died for good the next time.

Thus demonstrating your belief that there are two types of death--the type you can get brought back from, and the "died for good" kind. The phrase "died for good" suggests that you don't believe God is going to bring your former girlfriend back from the dead, even though he allegedly brought you back, and brought her back.

"Died for good" is what most normal people simply call "died". The kind where you pass out for a day with no memory and wake up in the same spot is what most people would call "blacked out", and such a condition is not only common, but mundane. It's nowhere near the evidence for an infinitely sized invisible guy who wants us to throw away intellectual honesty or to burn forever for not guessing the right wacky thing to believe.

By the way, you really should strive to understand the medical conditions which led to your "not for good" deaths. Your health is on the line.

I brought up this whole thing to make a point that God raising people from the dead really makes no difference for people who do not believe.

God didn't raise you from the dead.

I am living proof that God can raise the dead.

You're living proof that you have impaired judgment, even though at some level you're aware of the discrepancies. (For the sake of this discussion, I'm assuming you're not merely trying to be manipulative like you were a few posts earlier which, oddly enough, still reads "four and a half minutes"... that's a long five minute "limited time" pitch).