Quote:
Originally Posted by Dion
I have yet to meet a Christian who is troubled by this. I was also once a member of organised religion and never had a problem with that either. I always felt it was wrong to expect or demand miracles.
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They're out there though, here's an entire doctrine based around the question of why there are no apparent miracles today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessationism
If you really dig, lots of Christians do have a problem with the whole issue, though I guess problem isn't the right word.. it's an unresolvable issue and they simply relegate it to the status of mystery to avoid cognitive dissonance.
I know it was something I thought about on and off for a very long time.
When everyone around you is professing to have vision, see angels, basically daily miracles which are evidence of God for them in their lives, and you see nothing at all that hold up to scrutiny, you start to doubt the whole thing.. And once one finds out how susceptible and malleable the human mind is it's easy to see how those around you can be having the experiences they have.
So for the individual that has sought God and some sign for their entire lives and resulted in nothing, that means the God that they think exists doesn't. Not saying no God exists, just the God that would give a sign to the individual to help them with their faith doesn't exist... that the real God is the God of the cessationists.. or the God of the Calvinists and the individual just happens not to be one of the elect and is damned no matter what they do. Or that God isn't the God that's no respecter of persons and has decided for whatever reason that the individual doesn't get the same help others do, too bad, so sad, their soul isn't worth saving I guess.
EDIT: And it's not really about expecting or demanding a miracle, it's about being treated the same as all the other Christians. It's about having some indication that one particular religion is the right one and the rest are the wrong ones. Miracles were a huge part of winning souls in the early church weren't they?