The Miracles

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Sam Arcot
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The Miracles

Post by Sam Arcot »

It is easy for us to criticize the theists for their belief now that we have made our way out of faith. But it is important to realize that coming out of a faith is not that easy as it seems to us. Thinking a lot of course can lead any sane person to truth. But were the makers of the faith not aware of this? They surely made a lot of efforts to convince the thinkers into their ideology. And what about the masses who don’t think a lot? In the classical era, masses were the majority. Explaining faith in the form of an ideology and theory would have been fruitless on them. Hence the creators of the faiths had to go for the miracles. And this is where they went wrong!

They did manage to coax the masses for ages (and even now) with their claimed miracles but did nothing to stop thinkers, in turn made them suspicious. If Islam would have taught me ‘God never approaches anyone. That is the test. We have to blindly believe in him or burn in hell.’ It might have been difficult for me to become a skeptic. But fortunately it was this way ‘God never approaches anyone, except for the prophets and their people to whom he approached again and again. The test is after the miracles are shown. If you still do not believe in him you burn in hell.’ And that makes sense. Why were the Prophets shown miracles if we were to be convinced by the scriptures? If they were shown why not us? Why those two or three hundred thousand medieval nomads and why not seven billion us? When I raised this question to Islamist they said it is because they were barbaric and needed miracles. We are educated and we don’t. We have Quran as the miracle, they said. Then they began their exploitation of its various interpretations like that of the egg shaped earth, the leach and fetus, rotating sun and they did manage to convince me at that time. But when I read the quran on my own, things made less sense to me. It seemed like the world of a person who lived in 6th century. But I kept faith in it for the time but asked god to show me a miracle (so strong was my belief). A miracle like the ones he showed to children of Israel. The miracle never came and the faith faded away. The Islamist quoted to me “Deaf, dumb and blind; and they are not to return.” And they said I was blind to his miracles while they were not. They said they could see his signs everywhere. They got me thinking again. But then I wondered how many times Mohammed must have been approached for miracles by the people. Of course he had something made up to convince them. He was definitely an astute, canny and a wise man. But a bit too ambitious.

In the Hindu community of India, they still show miracles in the temples. One of the saints (Sai baba) had a childhood friend who went on a campaign to educate people of the Saint’s treachery. He claimed that they both learnt tricks in the same school. But of course Sai baba was better at the thing. This man explained each and every trick which Baba called miracle. But they were not many listeners to him and I never heard from him again. Baba used to fly catching a vertical bamboo. It seems he had a rod from the bamboo that ran under his sleeve and supported him. People would go mad when they saw him performing those tricks. He had several female aids in his temple with whom he was said to have had amatory contacts. Many well-known business men, doctors, actors, politicians, sportsmen visited him to take his blessings when he was alive. Now that he is dead, they take his photograph for good luck everywhere they go. It is very common to see a modernized and educated family being a strict believer of such saints. What’s shocking is to watch the foreigners coming to India and visiting Baba for his blessing. I guess they do it to gain attention and respect from the natives. But luckily, a good part of the Hindu community chide these saints.

It just makes me wonder, how easy it must have been prior to age of reasoning, to fool people. To make them believe in miracles. Then haunt them with the stories of ghosts and devils. It was so easy to get away from anything with the claim of god. And to blame people of witchcraft and sorcery. In France, cats were burnt alive on bonfire as this was expected to bring good luck. And this was a christian belief. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-burning

Now that we have come to this age, shouldn’t we make efforts to reveal the treachery of such saints. Why can’t we have an international team of myth busters? They should respond to any claim of miracle or super natural and prove it wrong. That would certainly make a lot of difference in the countries with masses.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: The Miracles

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Sam Arcot wrote:]If Islam would have taught me ‘God never approaches anyone. That is the test. We have to blindly believe in him or burn in hell.’ It might have been difficult for me to become a skeptic. But fortunately it was this way ‘God never approaches anyone, except for the prophets and their people to whom he approached again and again. The test is after the miracles are shown. If you still do not believe in him you burn in hell.’ And that makes sense.
That's a really interesting notion.

Miracles seem to be both the glue that binds a religion to claimed divine authority (otherwise, one religion can not claim to be better than any other one), and its Achilles' heel at the same time (as you mentioned).

In the Hindu community of India, they still show miracles in the temples. One of the saints (Sai baba) had a childhood friend who went on a campaign to educate people of the Saint’s treachery.
That's pretty cool. Do you have an article reference I could learn more about that on?

There's some history of debunkers in the Torah and even the new testament. It seems every religion loves to show how educated it is, by debunking the miracles of other religions- but they never turn that skepticism inwards.

It seems also that they HAVE TO debunk the miracles of other religions in order to validate their own as the "one true religion".
Now that we have come to this age, shouldn’t we make efforts to reveal the treachery of such saints. Why can’t we have an international team of myth busters? They should respond to any claim of miracle or super natural and prove it wrong. That would certainly make a lot of difference in the countries with masses.
Well, we do have the JREF (James Randi Education Foundation), which has a pretty large group of volunteers and experts.

It's too expensive to travel around debunking myths, because as soon as you smash one, another one comes up in its place. Skeptics are too few, and with limited resources.

What Randi did, which was brilliant, is offer a million dollars to any of these people if they can prove they can do what they say. Many people try for it, all of them fail at tests they agreed to (and agreed they would pass)- very simple, and objective tests, overseen by both sides so they can't be rigged.
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Sam Arcot
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Re: The Miracles

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yblhsr1O4IQ

Watch this video, exposing some of his cheap tricks. His supporters and devotees go hostile when they find someone opposing him. In his lifetime he gathered not just wealth but also political power. http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/more- ... thi-116432
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/sath ... 35354.html

Atleast this one had no rape cases alleged against him. There are saints who have harassed women openly and still enjoy freedom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asaram_Bapu

India is in the iron grasp of these saints. Thanks to the masses! They have raised organizations like RSS who are much similar to Taliban. They are not suicidal but dangerous enough. Their beliefs are anti-modern, anti-minority and anti-western. With the complete cooperation from the government, these fascistic organizations suppress any effort of revealing the conspiracies. The only thing that stops them from having complete control over India is its constitution.

It is said that before the partition of India, Hindus were less fundamentalist kind and open people. Throughout history they have been of peaceful nature and kind towards animals (at least some of the higher classes). But their insecurity against the Islamist neighbors has radicalized them. They are obstinate, insular and stubborn.

We did have a modern trend until a few years. But suddenly the tables have turned. The Hindutva organizations and political powers are brainwashing the younger generation with the cartoons for example that portray hindu gods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_No_21

Hindutva organizations who heavily depend on the masses are working on increasing the population growth further despite the already over populated condition of India. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... -children/

It is a total mess here!
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