I am an atheist.

[NotAllThere]

It is not a red herring. Amputees have been prayed for over the years by many people and have not been healed at any point in recorded history...

Once again you are factually incorrect:

There's one such miracle reported in the bible, and the catholic church has certainly recorded some over the years.

Obviously you don't accept these report. The red herring is that you do not believe that God exists, never mind that he heals yet excludes amputees.

[MyUserName]

Jeez is username back on the amputee thing again? Has he already done genocide and "God should be able to make the bible totally unambiguous to everyone living over several millenia"?

I'm sure he's a bot with about 4 pre-canned questions coming in some pseudo-random order.

Not yet but give me a few more posts and I will get round to the other God-busters, if I need to. Currently we are at the 'omnipotent gods are logically inconsistant' stage.

Theists define God's omnipotence as meaning he as able to do anything except what is contrary to his nature, or is a logical inconsistency.

Yes, they attempt to side step the logical falacy by redefining the words. Omnipotance with caveats is not omnipotance.

Although if logic is stronger than God (being as it can restrict his actions) then who created logic? It it was God then why did he create a container for himself that he cannot break?!

[Gibbon]

Explain why God would allow a wild animal to be caught in a forest fire and die of its burns in agony over a few days.
Explain why God didn't intervene when Mengele was experimenting on new born babies.

These are proper hard questions.

Supposing there is a god.

A wild animal has no soul, God just doesn't care about it, a better question would be why does it exist if it has no purpose and no soul.

Mengele was acting on free will and will receive his punishment later, the babies will go straight to heaven or purgatory if not baptized.

Good and evil are subjective and it's a flawed argument to try and fix them as a static. Just as the Church's reason that the universe is earth centric was based on Joshua praying that the sun and not the earth be stopped in the sky so he could kill more enemies.

[MyUserName]

Once again you are factually incorrect:

There's one such miracle reported in the bible, and the catholic church has certainly recorded some over the years.

Obviously you don't accept these report. The red herring is that you do not believe that God exists, never mind that he heals yet excludes amputees.

Ooh - I was not aware that there was document examples of spontaneous limb regrowth! Do you have a link?

Although I am still skeptical, if faith healing worked for amputees etc then faith healers must be truely evil people. If I had that gift you find me in hospitals every day healing children who had cancer etc.

[SupremeSpod]

Ooh - I was not aware that there was document examples of spontaneous limb regrowth! Do you have a link?

Although I am still skeptical, if faith healing worked for amputees etc then faith healers must be truely evil people. If I had that gift you find me in hospitals every day healing children who had cancer etc.

What's wrong with healing adults? You like kiddies do you eh, Jimmy?

[MyUserName]

What's wrong with healing adults? You like kiddies do you eh, Jimmy?

[OwlHoot]

Then why has God never healed an amputee? Has no one ever prayed for one or has the answer always been 'no'? ...

How about those who have prayed not to grow old, or die of old age? What if God answered all their prayers too?

If nothing "bad" ever happened to anyone, the World would be a very different place, with all kinds of undesirable in fact unendurable consequences that have probably never crossed the mind of anyone who whines that corny old complaint about God allowing bad things to happen.

[MyUserName]

How about those who have prayed not to grow old, or die of old age? What if God answered all their prayers too?

If nothing "bad" ever happened to anyone, the World would be a very different place, with all kinds of undesirable in fact unendurable consequences that have probably never crossed the mind of anyone who whines that corny old complaint about God allowing bad things to happen.

No worries, I would just pray for these unendurable consequences to become ones which are pleasant for everyone.

[NotAllThere]

Supposing there is a god.

A wild animal has no soul, God just doesn't care about it, a better question would be why does it exist if it has no purpose and no soul.

OK - why does God create an animal if it has no purpose and no soul?

Mengele was acting on free will and will receive his punishment later

Why was God unable to create humans in such a way that they have free will, yet choose to never do evil?

Good and evil are subjective.

NOT in the Christian understanding of God, which the argument from evil is attempting to dispose of.

Ooh - I was not aware that there was document examples of spontaneous limb regrowth!

Of course there are, Luke 6:6-11. It's written down, so it's documented.

One unhelpful answer: Since prayers for healing, or anything else, are only expected to work if they're in "God's will", it's clear that if you don't get an answer it wasn't in God's will.

For the believer, God can heal. Therefore God can heal an amputee. The dearth of stories about the healing of amputees is not really evidence that God hates amputees. Real healings/spontaneous remissions are very rare. I've never heard of anyone being healed of mesothalisoma - it doesn't necessarily follow from that that God can't heal that disease, or hates people who have it. The question presupposes that God heals everyone, which is theologically suspect.

Anyway, what are you expecting? You're asking theological questions, and then when you get a theological answer, you reject it, because it is theological!

[MyUserName]

Of course there are, Luke 6:6-11. It's written down, so it's documented.

Ah yes - a few chapters after the explanation that pouring pigeon blood on someone can heal leprosy!

For the believer, God can heal. Therefore God can heal an amputee. The dearth of stories about the healing of amputees is not really evidence that God hates amputees. Real healings/spontaneous remissions are very rare. I've never heard of anyone being healed of mesothalisoma - it doesn't necessarily follow from that that God can't heal that disease, or hates people who have it. The question presupposes that God heals everyone, which is theologically suspect.

But Jesus states that everything you ask for will be given to you in prayer, if you have a grain of faith you can move a mountain etc. However, this all seems to fail whenever there is a situation where the result can be measured. I am not aware of any modern day reliable report of an amputee spontaneously regrowing a limb, why would God continually choose not to do this? Certainly not the actions of a God I would worship!

Anyway, what are you expecting? You're asking theological questions, and then when you get a theological answer, you reject it, because it is theological!

Hey, I never said I would not give you a hard time!