I gotta ask. Do you have lighted curio cabinet full dinosaur figurines?

Honestly, its the only explanation that makes any sense. If free will is the objective, in this case free will to love God, then every one of our actions have to be our own.

As for the kid, I think for some reason whatever he has to offer the world was too relevant to be lost before it could be delivered. Whether God's Creation or God Himself saved that boy its a miraculous event, particularly it happening at the moment of his mothers prayer.

I responded to AJ about this. I agree with all you say. I can see the view, however, that if god is an axiom form which we cannot logically arrive at conflicting propositions, then I don't think it conflicts with objectivism. So if they're saying "all objective reality is a miracle of the gods", it's an unfalsifiable claim. It's not like saying, god punishes the evil or will answer my prayers.

"No, in fact I believe that science is the unraveling of God devices AND that man was given his mind and faculties to achieve wonders of his own."
If I understand this right, you believe all of this, all reality, all the experiments we do that appear to give time-invariant results, is God's creation. You're not asserting the gods are influencing experiments. You're not saying god talks to you and tells you what (s)he wants. You're not saying god intervened in a child's life but rather the universe in which life exists is a miracle.
If this is you're position, I don't see it as conflicting with Ayn Rand's view (based on the 2 books I read) one bit.

That prediction is faith-based on Biblical scripture and is preached by a number of Christian denominations and on evangelical cable TV stations.
The above statement is a no kidding solid fact.

,

Look for the logical deductions that Aristotle offered to prove the existence of God. Those are based on some premises that I think we all share here. The most important one is that all existent entities (sorry for the redundancy) must have a cause for its existence. As the chain cannot be infinite (another assumption), then there must be a first cause that is not an effect. That first cause is the origin of all the other effects and it is what we can call god.

I presume you already heard this one and didn't accept it. OK, it is what I accept but I don't see where it is flawed.

Anyway, I agree with you that everything can be explained scientifically...... maybe my reasons are different from yours. I claim that God made a perfect universe, he invented the rules that science can discover, and we are just scratching the surface on how thoughts can affect health, for example. Look at Emoto's photographs to see something amazing.... of course Emoto also has detractors. Another thought..... if we think of the universe as a whole system, then the actions of the parts will impact other parts for sure, being those negative or positve, therefore praying should have some positive effects.

And that is my argument to you about Rand. I was in a bible study group for several years. Your logic regarding her questions is flawed. The minute anyone stops asking questione -they are doomed.

Oh, especially those! After reading the second one, every photo of an orchid reminds me...
And vice-versa! :)

"But a predictive value is found that an Antichrist will rule a hell on earth for 7 years before Jesus then comes back and rules the world for 1,000 years before all goes not the hell but to God.
It's all in Revelations. "

That's a "Prediction"?!
You were kidding, right? That's like the economists who've 'predicted' 25 of the last three recessions... :)
It doesn't take a lot of effort to find a LOT of 'seven-year-periods' that could be labeled "hell on earth" but which did NOT seem to culminate with The Rapture.

But thanks for launching that concept into this thread, Allosaur. :)

when the ship lifts, all debts are paid; no exceptions

isn't it interesting how they look like orchids? lovely!

-- j

Robbie, I understand your point and your belief, BUT the foundational basis is that God Exists "to GIVE humanity free will."

Once you give yourself over to that belief, Everything Follows Logically and Consistently after that.

Nobody can break that chain of 'logic.'

But it does NOT PROVE that God Exists! I might even prefer Occam's Razor, since the tangle of 'explanations' for a Good/Bad/Loving/Punishing God Figure just get more and more complex without leading to any conclusion. A 'belief' that the Universe provides Random Inputs, some of which we like and some of which just plain piss us off... well, for me that works with no further 'explanation' needed. (or wanted, which may be one of the root causes for 'beliefs.'... do you Need or Want such 'explanations'? The Answer to That Question, when pondered and investigated, might be even more telling.) My 53rd Law kind of looks at that... http://www.plusaf.com/falklaws.htm#53rd

Robbie, I don't have a problem with that kind of discussion, either, but as an atheist, one of my favorite indoor sports (second-favorite, actually) is to try to understand how people reach the conclusions and positions they hold.

For me it's an educational voyage. Unfortunately, for more than the 'most part,' when I or other atheists encounter 'believers' in such discussions, the 'believers'' side of the discussion too often devolves into that circular logic of 'I believe it because the Bible says it's true and it's true because the Bible says it.'

That just does NOT work for me, so I enjoy the challenge of trying to find, if not root Cause, root Reason, and it's never been forthcoming. Hence my tenacity to my own belief system.

To 'conclude' that 'because we're here and we can't explain why means God Did It' is, for me, Supremely Irrational.

Yes, my background, training and inclinations are science and engineering, so if there's something "we don't know," my cohort will try to devise ways to Find Out What The Hell IS Going On!

Believers who quote their Bible (whichever one they prefer) as Proof never seem to demonstrate To ME that they have any interest in searching for new answers or testing the old ones. My cohort is virtually always testing old theories and beliefs. And I prefer that.

I'm not out to change anyone's beliefs... I'm mostly curious about how they Got Them in the First Place. Once in a while, my questions do make a difference...

After a Two Hour Discussion, one-on-one, with a devout Mormon, he verbalized agreement with my position that "the abortion issue is NOT a simple black-and-white/binary issue."

And a few months later, he took his family and moved out of Silicon Valley to the then-much-more-conservative Willamette Valley area near Corvallis, OR. Did I have an impact? Was it for good or for bad? I Have No Idea.

And maybe those events were truly coincidences, but it didn't stop me from asking my kinds of questions.
:)

got it... thanks!

I don't have a problem with that, either, j, but after a few passes through the est Training back in the early '80s, I could agree with them that a 'cause' may be possible to identify for any and every 'effect,' and some of the 'causes' are quite random... unless your belief system says that none of them are 'random.' Which is a Whole 'Nother Discussion altogether... and quite popular, eh?
:)

one of my many 'faves'.

I never claimed it was only the CPR that revived this boy. I said that there were many other cases of people who supposedly drowned in cold water that were revived. And there is plenty of evidence that is explained scientifically, so there isn't any reason to add a god to explain his revival.

Also an atheist doesn't have faith. The burden of proof is on the theist that is making the affirmative claim. It is encumbent on the theist to provide solid evidence for their case. The atheist is just saying that the theist hasn't met their burden for the atheist to accept that the theist's god exists.

I do not know the mechanism whereby this boy survived. The burden of proof is on the person making an assertion that they have knowledge. There is a heavy burden on those asserting something approaching absurdity like prayer had anything to do with it. Temporal proximity does not equal causation.

Benign means it does not cause harm.

You can prove it at the same level as you can prove matter is composed by atoms: by deduction. Nobody has seen an atom, never.

Aristotle offered several arguments to prove the existence of God. One of them refers to the unmoved motor or mover. Ironically AR used the same term in AS... Anyway, the proof is logical. You're not convinced? Fine! Don't allow anybody to force you to think: the choice is yours :)