Lions and Eagles

Yes, it's another Reddit "debate religion" question that I felt driven to take on. And here's what I had to say: I've known people who have been healed of poor vision, breathing troubles, and other ailments from prayer alone. I also know folks just as faithful who have prayed and not been healed. Here's the thing: God is not some genie, you rub a lamp and get your wishes granted. Prayers are not magic incantations, they are conversations and petitions that may be granted, or not. As Gandalf said of himself, do not take God for a conjurer of tricks. In the Chronicles of Narnia, it was often remarked that Aslan isn't a tame lion, after all. No one I know who is really practiced in prayer for healing ever promises 100% results. There are people who make that sort of promise, and they are generally hucksters. It's no contradiction to believe that there are both real healers and fraudsters, any more than it is a contradiction to believe that there are b...

Here's another train of thought inspired by reading atheists on Reddit . "If God is so all-powerful, surely He can prove His existence to me! I might believe if there were any evidence!" Let's be real, atheist friends. I respect you, but I don't think you're giving enough credit here to the human capacity for skepticism. And skepticism can be both good and bad at times. There was at least one time during Jesus's ministry when an actual voice from Heaven told a crowd, "I am the Lord, this is my Son, listen to what he has to tell you." And some in the crowd said, "Meh, thunder." So, even presented with direct proof, people came up with alternative explanations. Can you honestly tell me that if I were to show you a sign from God right now, out of the blue, that you wouldn't look for a hoax behind it? Of course you would, and it's sensible to do so. With photoshoppers and video manipulation neural networks producing more impressive ...

This question was posed by an atheist on on Reddit some days ago, and I have been mulling over how I might answer it since. Instead of replying in that environment, I thought I might put my answer here. Really, I have a number of points to make to answer that challenge. 1) He is much better at giving attention than I possibly can be. For me to give time and attention to one thing, I generally have to take time and attention away from another. God exists outside of time, so He doesn't face this difficulty. Imagine history is layed out like a book to you: You can spend all day reading and rereading one page, or skimming back and forth between chapters. That's what it's like to be outside the timescale experienced by the characters.      Furthermore, our issues of size are not an issue to God. He can look at galaxies in one moment of eternity, then look at atoms the next, and still have plenty of "timeless time" for each of us in between.      ...