What are "miracles?" Should they be viewed as a normative part of Christian experience?

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Guessing religious folk of the day would have thought little of the mixed company of persons gathered to the teaching of Jesus. For them submission to proscribed doctrine was the way forward. This in the context of ritual and blood sacrifice. Jesus telling stories about the worth of a flower compared to the worth of Solomon was taken as foolish travesty.

We are a community of persons open to the engagement of difference. Chansen is angry with God. He probably has good reasons. You, Mystic, come across as self righteous and somewhat arrogant. I value you both for your challenge to my thinking in this place. I hope that each of you finds your way forward in a good way. Negative emotions are harmful to character and contagious in the public square.

I have spoken publicly for many years. My message in a nutshell? Be kind to one another. Cooperate in service to the wellness of humanity and its sustaining environment.
 
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But chansen isn't angry at "everyone's" Godde. "My" Godde is simply The Universe and Everything, Reality. He isn't angry at that Godde. He's specifically angry at Mystic's "God - The Miracle Guy".

(And I have no idea what Berserk is really angry at, but dollars to doughnuts it's got summat to do with wimmen...)
 
she agreed that perhaps she might give her phone number to said ailing women (but not to chansen) for direct confirmation, but she needed time to think about this.

Time is money ?

Along those same lines is another opportunity for you join with us in spreading the Good News. The message contained in the books, “Saved By Angels To Share How God Talks To Everyday People” and “A Miraculous Life” is life changing. (Author Bruce Van Natta)

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Okay, I realize you aren't actually trying to get people to donate to this, @Ritafee , but in future I suggest trimming out or anonymizing the donation info. We don't allow advertising here and this gives the impression that we do.
 
Well I hate to tell you Mystic, but I wouldn't be surprised if even Jesus preferred Chansens' company to yours, after reading that remark.
Jesus preferred the company of the “ sinner”, so my hunch is that he would feel equally with either one of the two. They seem to be competing for “ who can be the bigger a**hole” in demeaning the other.
I have reported chansen for stalking Mystic, as he posted names of Mystic private life on WC trying to prove his miracle stories wrong, and I am hoping that those details will be removed. I think that nobody has the right to publish real life info about another without that persons permission and with the intend to damage that persons reputation.
 
I have reported chansen for stalking Mystic, as he posted names of Mystic private life on WC trying to prove his miracle stories wrong, and I am hoping that those details will be removed. I think that nobody has the right to publish real life info about another without that persons permission and with the intend to damage that persons reputation.
Oh good. I've been worried about slipping in report button generation.

My reasoning for outing Berserk's identity is that he keeps dropping claims and hiding behind anonymity. He's been doing it since he arrived. But I figured out who he was years ago. Name edited has postgraduate degrees from expensive school A and expensive school B.. Other than that, there is nothing obvious about him teaching anywhere, though I recall he gave some form of verification some time ago to WC2 poster Besides all that, at the ID'ing info deleted church he last worked at, his old boss said he did not know of name deleted promoting NDEs or faith healing. This is apparently something he does at online ghettos. And, if he is to be believed, in his bible study group.

Berserk is an ambulance-chasing charlatan, an opportunistic scammer of the medically desperate, and just the sort of person who can make you lose faith in humanity. But I don't want to damage his reputation.
Certain identifying information has been hidden
 
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Our task as Christians is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Both Paul and Jesus taught that if we tell people what they need to hear as opposed to what we want to hear, they will be angry with us. I'm not angry, but I bear the reproach of posters here as a badge of honor:

"Am I now seeking human approval or God's approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be servant of Christ (Galatians 1:10-11)."
Jesus: "Woe to you when all speak well of you; for that is what the ancestors did to the false prophets (Luke 6:26)."

I'm confident that most posters here would find the irrefutable evidence of the websites I posted too threatening to their closed-,minded progressive Ghettospeak to actually check them out. So I posted them for the many lurkers, who, I believe, actually will check them out and be challenged to rethink their attitue to petitionary prayer as a result.
 
Oh good. I've been worried about slipping in report button generation.

My reasoning for outing Berserk's identity is that he keeps dropping claims and hiding behind anonymity. He's been doing it since he arrived. But I figured out who he was years ago. Donald Swanson has postgraduate degrees from Princeton and Harvard. Other than that, there is nothing obvious about him teaching anywhere, though I recall he gave some form of verification some time ago to revsdd. Besides all that, at the Colville, WA UMC church he last worked at, his old boss said he did not know of Don promoting NDEs or faith healing. This is apparently something he does at online ghettos. And, if he is to be believed, in his bible study group.

Berserk is an ambulance-chasing charlatan, an opportunistic scammer of the medically desperate, and just the sort of person who can make you lose faith in humanity. But I don't want to damage his reputation.
Believing that someone can be healed by praying might be strange to you and rightly a reason to argue against. This is still in the realm of belief. He is not selling a potion, and therefore argues within the rules of WC. People are smart enough here to come to their own conclusion.
Following someones identity in real life and contacting their employer however, is stalking, as there is no reason to do so, as he is not doing anything illegal or is at risk of self harming ( which I believe had been a case in the past that had caused an overstepping of online to real life). There is plenty of weird healing believes to be found online for anyone to fall for- keep arguing against it here, but stay out of people’s private lives.
 
Yeah, Berserk lost that option when he told me I didn't want my son to get better.

Edit: But please, keep hitting the "Karen" button.
 
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Yeah, Berserk lost that option when he told me I didn't want my son to get better.

Edit: But please, keep hitting the "Karen" button.

Now you are lying and you know it! You asked my superintendent to check out my posts about this and he assured me in my annual review that he saw nothing wrong with what I told you. That meeting with him was how I discovered the highly unethical way you violated my privacy. What I did was this: I challenged you to ask yourself if you'd rather be right about you skeptical worldview than request prayer for your son's healing. In other words, I challenged you to try a faith experiment.

You may recall my posts on WC in which I described several of my fulfilled death premonitions. Let me share what I was about to express in apost considerably before I learned of your son's heart condition. I remember it well because of what ultimately happened. We were debating whether an atheist could live a meaningful life without accountability to a higher power and you argued indefensibly that you could, overlooking the fact that you have no objective way of establishing what makes right actions right. Then I wrote a what if question: Suppose your young son suddenly died. How then would you justify the claim that he lived a meaningful life? But I did not think that post expressed a premonition at the time, and so, I erased it because I thought you might not even have a young son. You may recall the post I replaced it with in an effort to be witty: I wrote, "What if your destiny, like so many of us, is to end up in a nursing under the care of a Puerto Rican nurse named Maria, and your only pleasure was a decent bowel movement? How then could you look back and say, "My life ultimately became meaningful?" I'm truly glad I did erase the first draft of that post! I subsequently have often asked myself if the erased post actually did express another unwanted death premonition The truth is, I just don't know. All my other death premonitions came hauntingly true. I'm grateful that I no longer have such disturbing premonitions.

That gives me an idea" I will start a biographical thread entitled "My Life Journey through the Lens of My Paranormal Experiences."
 
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Ever met a person asleep at the wheel ... and they awakened just before impact?

That's a NDE ... giving a shock to the driver to awaken them to the facts you should be more astute!

It is a small thing that explodes in the non space called mind ... a little ceded area of thought!

Bete noire is the dark chance that you saw through the satyr, as a bum ass ... causing a depression where it SET making a warmed spot ...

The story goes on in a variety of settings ... in reality none of them really admiring knowledge and wisdom ... as they'd rather follow their desires irrationally ...

It may happen after a good rest when one awakes to another Deis! These are light and pass around in the darks of space ... a spatial cognizance?

Carry a light as you go so you can be Karen ... and attract buggies ... light traffic may provide a glow as a break in the politix of rush that smells ... limbed bough? Considered cynical if analysed critically in depth ... with a little oli matter it too will slip asdt rooth! Dew aders of time ...

Dis resolution of what we don't know is vast ... unlike political powers greatness ... it may be de corrupted ... asdi stilled fluids? Bloody plugs ...

AD vert Izers do wit ... the play of unconscious word from what's unknown ...
 
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The video of 5 "miracles caught on camera" speaks for itself; you either consider these extraordinary survival accounts as miracles or you don't. But here are key points of the other 3 posted websites for those who refuse to check out these websites.


(1) Rita Fee's insinuation that Bruce Van Natta might have concocted his healing miracle to raise money for a charitable cause is refuted by the History Channel gaining access to his medical records to confirm the healing miracle that they had initially tried to debunk. The heavy truck crushed Bruce's abdominal region down to an inch, severing arteries and destroying his small intestine, which was therefore removed. He pulled up his shirt and showed us the hellacious massive scars! Only the continuous prayers of the woman on the accident scene prevented him from bleeding out and dying. In the hospital doctors told him he would soon die without his small intestine and that intervenous feeding could only keep him alive for a while. But then Bruce Carlson, a prayer group member, drove up to Wisconsin to lay hands on Van Natta and pray for an healing miracle. God performed a creative miracle by growing a new small intestine that saved his life.

(2) The 40-doctor team of investigators only considered as Lourdes miracles (1) the many medical cases that modern medicine considers incurable for which they gained access to all relevant medical records and which they could follow-up for years afterwards to confirm a lasting miracle.

(3) Dr. Jeffrey Rediger (a Harvard Med School professor) also gained access to the medical records of over 100 patients healed of illnesses considered incurable and intriguingly discovered common denominators in their faith or state of consciousness that seemed to facilitate their healing. For example, they had what Dr. Rediger describes as a theology of hope and possibility; that is, they developed a totally different relationship with the self after receiving their fatal diagnosis. Their positive mindset did not repress fear, stress, anxiety, or anger over their condition. They had their healing support team and cheerfully and proactively changed their lifestyle ways that facilitated their healing miracle. They later came to view their terminal illness as a gift that transformed their consciousness and way of being.
 
(1) Rita Fee's insinuation that Bruce Van Natta might have concocted his healing miracle to raise money for a charitable cause is refuted by the History Channel gaining access to his medical records to confirm the healing miracle that they had initially tried to debunk
The insinuation was that Bruce Van Natta and Bruce Carlson are both cashing in on the 'healing evangelism'. I have no position one way or the other about the 'miracle' being debunked or documented as 'the real deal'. I am against capitalizing on 'miracles' whether it is for 'charity' or not. https://sweetbreadministries.com/ ...

As the story goes ... Jesus was not a capitalist ... so following Jesus would involve going out and using the authority of his name not the authority of the 'dollars collected in his name'. I understand that this world and it's brick and mortar churches need 'money' but Jesus - who was not a Christian - did not depend on a bank or a foundation to fund his 'way'. Jesus did not a write a book about himself either. He taught against it as far as I know.
 
Many ministries feed on stories of the miraculous.

Accounts of healing, wealth, and deliverance draw people to the door.

@Mystic What do you make of this miracle story?

The Deaf and Mute Man

Then Jesus left the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. Some people brought to Him a man who was deaf and hardly able to speak, and they begged Jesus to place His hand on him.

So Jesus took him aside privately away from the crowd...
and put His fingers into the man’s ears. Then He spit and touched the man’s tongue. And looking up to heaven, He sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). Immediately the man’s ears were opened and his tongue was released, and he began to speak plainly.

Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone.

But the more He ordered them, the more widely they proclaimed it.

Humans are shallow creatures who often choose the immediate good over the eternal great. While a few individuals called on Jesus specifically to hear His teaching (John 3:1-2), mobs came to Him seeking healing (Mark 6:54-56). Some stayed to hear His teaching (Mark 6:34). But the vast majority who heard of Jesus' miracles betrayed Him in the end because He didn't perform the one miracle they wanted—independence from Roman rule (Luke 23:18-25).
 
The light of awareness needs to remain partisan (underground) as superficially ... the powers hate anyone that knows something ... explains why some greatest of powers hate NU's!
 
Carolla: "And remember, healing a life differs from curing an illness."

But Dr. Rediger's point is precisely that "healing a life" in the way he researched was the key to the seeminly impossible ;healing of over 100 patients with supposedly incurable diseases. I heard Dr. Rediger's long interview on "Coast to Coast." I see no difference between what he said in your posted website and what he said in my posted TED lecture.

Rita Fee,
Did you even bother to watch Bruce's testimony? Why do you object to a gratitude so great that its beneficiary wants to respond with a ministry in the Lord's service? What matters for this thread is that the History Channel verified his testimony by gaining access to his medical records. And as I said, he showed us his hellacious massive scars from his multiple surgeries. And where did you get the idea that Bruce Carlson is part of Van Natta's ministry team? Carlson's prayer group was asked to pray for Van Natta, but Carlson felt led by God to travel interstate to visit and pray for Van Natta in the hospital.
 
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I did not listen to the TED talk you posted Mystic. I did listen to this presentation by Rediger - which I think is more recent - 2018. He's focused on how the field medicine is evolving, the shift to people taking more charge of their health status, the impact of treating the whole person rather than a collection of symptoms, as some of the newer docs now do. He talks about the need for less passivity & learned helplessness. The impact of having meaning in one's life. This the work I was involved in for several decades, so this resonates with me. For those who are interested - it's a 40 minute video - and quite interesting. No mention or focus really of "miracle" healing.

 
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