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Wed, 4-Sep-13 16:27:32
Thu, 5-Sep-13 10:56:59
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Sat, 7-Sep-13 20:02:47
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Sat, 7-Sep-13 20:08:34
Hebrew wander wrote:Mark doesn't answer many questions sadly
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Mon, 9-Sep-13 09:11:38
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Mon, 9-Sep-13 09:21:18
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Proteus wrote:I doubt that mark's been around since the questions were posed.
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Mon, 9-Sep-13 12:54:52
Arikm7 wrote:Has anyone noticed that Mark, thus far, not answered the two questions I posed to him?
Arikm7 wrote:This will put this back and forth to rest succinctly.
Arikm7 wrote:Does one's claim of miracles trump/override G-d's command regarding miracles?
Arikm7 wrote:When G-d told a group of people not to do something and they don't do it, are they obedient and faithful to G-d and considered children of G-d?
Mon, 9-Sep-13 13:05:39
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Mon, 9-Sep-13 13:19:14
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After the Buddha returned to his father's kingdom, uncertainty still existed about whether Gautama Buddha was really enlightened or not. In response, the Buddha allegedly displayed the Yamaka-pātihāriya or the "Twin Miracle", called so because of its simultaneous production of apparently contradictory phenomena; in this case, fire and water.
The twin miracle entailed Gautama Buddha producing flames from the upper part of his body and streams of water from the lower part of his body, alternating this, and doing similarly between the left and right sides of his body.
Afterwards, the Buddha took three giant steps, arriving in Tavatimsa. There, he preached the Abhidharma to his mother who had been reborn there as a Deva named Santussita.
Mon, 9-Sep-13 13:21:10
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Mon, 9-Sep-13 13:31:58
Only take heed and watch yourself very carefully, so that you do not forget the things that your eyes saw. Do not let [this memory] leave your hearts, all the days of your lives. Teach your children and children's children about the day you stood before G-d your L-rd at Horeb. . . Then G-d spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no image; there was only a voice.He announced to you His covenant, instructing you to keep the ten utterances.Watch yourselves very carefully, since you did not see any image on the day that G-d spoke to you out of the fire at Horeb.. You heard the sound of words, but saw no image; there was only a voice. Has any nation ever heard G-d speaking out of fire, as you have, and still survived? Has G-d ever done miracles bringing one nation out of another nation with such tremendous miracles, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand and outstretched arm, and terrifying phenomena, as G-d did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? . . .Realize it today and ponder it in your heart: G-d is the Supreme Being in heaven above and on the earth beneath - there is no other. -- D'varim / Deuteronomy 4:9-39
Over the centuries, many religious adherents have tried to prove that they possess the "true" religion by performing miracles. However, Maimonides states: When one is willing to give credence to a religion because of reports of miracles, that is entering into dangerous territory - for one never knows whether the "miracles" may in fact be optical illusion or sleight of hand. . .
Miracles of Islam
Mon, 9-Sep-13 13:50:06
mark wrote:There is no way I can "win" an argument with someone who claims that he wouldn't be impressed by someone rising from the dead after 3 days. So let's suspend this discussion about miracles until I've got something more compelling to tell you about.
After nightfall they came to the tomb, burst open the doors, came in and took away the finery, and saw that Anthia was still alive. Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale (3rd? century CE)
Chaireas was guarding and toward dawn he approached the tomb.... When he came close, however, he found the stones moved away and the entrance open. He looked in and was shocked, seized by a great perplexity at what had happened. Rumor made an immediate report to the Syracusans about the miracles. All then ran to the tomb; no one dared to enter until Hermocrates ordered it. One was sent in and he reported everything accurately. It seemed incredible-- the dead girl was not there...
"What is there surprising in that ( being resurrected)?" said Antigonus : "I know a man who came to life more than twenty days after his burial, having attended the fellow both before his death and after he came to life." Lucian, Lover of Lies, Chapter 26 (2d century CE).
Mon, 9-Sep-13 14:14:42
how many others are there(?). . .the question is, whether any one who was really dead ever rose with a veritable body. Or do you imagine the statements of others not only to be myths, but to have the appearance of such, while you have discovered a becoming and credible termination to your drama in the voice from the cross, when he breathed his last, and in the earthquake and the darkness? That while alive he was of no assistance to himself, but that when dead he rose again, and showed the marks of his punishment, and how his hands were pierced with nails: who beheld this? A half-frantic woman, as you state, and some other one, perhaps, of those who were engaged in the same system of delusion, who had either dreamed so, owing to a peculiar state of mind, or under the influence of a wandering imagination had formed to himself an appearance according to his own wishes. which has been the case with numberless individuals; or, which is most probable, one who desired to impress others with this portent, and by such a falsehood to furnish an occasion to impostors like himself.”
But since the Jew says that these histories of the alleged descent of heroes to Hades, and of their return thence, are juggling impositions, maintaining that these heroes disappeared for a certain time, and secretly withdrew themselves from the sight of all men, and gave themselves out afterwards as having returned from Hades,--for such is the meaning which his words seem to convey respecting the Odrysian Orpheus, and the Thessalian Protesilaus, and the Taenarian Hercules, and Theseus also,--let us endeavor to show that the account of Jesus being raised from the dead cannot possibly be compared to these.
Mon, 9-Sep-13 14:42:29
Mon, 9-Sep-13 15:13:36
Should Christians embrace the beliefs of all of those faiths?
Mon, 9-Sep-13 16:10:07
Mon, 9-Sep-13 16:45:25
Mon, 9-Sep-13 17:02:33
Mon, 9-Sep-13 19:04:30
On the other hand, I do believe that it's possible for a Ouija board to move around by itself and spell the name of a dead person, or whatever. But I do NOT believe that tapping into that power is acceptable to God, or according to His will.
No, because they are explicitly antithetical to the faith handed down from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And they are explicitly antithetical to Jesus. Now you would say the same thing about miracles performed in Jesus' name (if you believed that they actually occurred, which, as I outlined above, I suspect you do not). What would be necessary, then, is for God Himself to somehow resolve the "antithetical" nature of Christianity against Judaism.
Tue, 10-Sep-13 08:46:00
Arikm7 wrote:Mark:How is it that those pagan faiths are in your words "antithetical to the faith handed down from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" but belief in a godling whose daddy impregnated a "virgin" (akin to Zeus and Diana) is NOT??? How is the religion of Mithras not line with the faith of the Patriarchs but your dying and resurrecting godling is??
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