Marshall Brain's Website - Needs To Be Seriously Looked Into

[mick]

I don't know if it was real or not, I wasn't there, neither were you, but it shouldn't be AUTOMATIC grounds for dismissal unless you or I were there. That's why as my quote above says I have no clue of its authenticity.

A crackpot story relayed by Pat Robertson from an unidentified source in another unnamed country. . .that is precisely AUTOMATIC grounds for dismissal.

[Believer]

I don't know if it was real or not, I wasn't there, neither were you, but it shouldn't be AUTOMATIC grounds for dismissal unless you or I were there. That's why as my quote above says I have no clue of its authenticity.

A crackpot story relayed by Pat Robertson from an unidentified source in another unnamed country. . .that is precisely AUTOMATIC grounds for dismissal.

Please prove that it did happen or did not happen since you already make the assumption that it never happened. Like I said, I don't know of its authenticity, but with God, anything can happen, it is just the skeptics who were never there that reject it without even thinking first about it, but why would they? They are skeptics.

[mick]

Please prove that it did happen or did not happen since you already make the assumption that it never happened. Like I said, I don't know of its authenticity, but with God, anything can happen, it is just the skeptics who were never there that reject it without even thinking first about it, but why would they? They are skeptics.

The point of the website is that this type of thing has never been shown to have happened. Ever. You say with God all things are possible, and the website it saying, in effect, except if you're an amputee praying for a rejuvenated limb.

[Zamis1]

You say with God all things are possible, and the website is saying, in effect, except if you're an amputee praying for a rejuvenated limb.

In Chapter 5 the author shows that it is not just amputees:

Amputees are not the only ones either. For example:

- If someone severs their spinal cord in an accident, that person is paralyzed for life. No amount of prayer is going to help.

- If someone is born with a congenital defect like a cleft palate, God will not repair it through prayer. Surgery is the only option.

- A genetic disease like Down Syndrome is the same way -- no amount of prayer is going to fix the problem.

In Chapter 6 he points out that, if you look at the statistics, God does not answer any medical prayers.

In Chapter 7 he shows that if you pray for anything impossible, your prayer will never be answered.

It is a fascinating book actually. A little long, yes. But he systematically dismantles prayer, then the Bible, then Jesus.

[jerickson314]

J.P. Holding has already written a reply to this claim here. In summary: God is not a gumball machine.

[jerickson314]

I looked at the other sections, but I couldn't get past the titles for the most part. They cracked me up. He relied almost entirely on silly techniques like Argument from Outrage in his discussion of the Bible. He also implies that human authorship implies a problem with the Bible, when even the most "fundamentalist" of Christians believe that humans wrote the Bible, but were merely inspired by God. His arguments about Jesus showed an incredible lack of knowledge of Christianity. In the entire text I skimmed, I didn't see a single reference to a scholarly source. It was all attacking misconceptions of Christianity through childish reasoning.

I doubt J.P. Holding will write a specific rebuttal on this one, though. He has announced that he will no longer write replies to arguments he's already refuted multiple times. Marshall Brain's unsupported appeals to emotion do not to me look like anything new.

[mick]

J.P. Holding has already written a reply to this claim here. In summary: God is not a gumball machine.

The Holding reply you cite is not a refutation of what Brain is saying. Brain's claim that amputees do not get their prayers for new limbs answered is demonstrably true.

[jerickson314]

The Holding reply you cite is not a refutation of what Brain is saying. Brain's claim that amputees do not get their prayers for new limbs answered is demonstrably true.

I was referencing the claim that if the God of Christianity exists, he will necessarily answer any type of prayer in a particular way. This claim results from a misreading of the Bible, and can be refuted by a Christian such as Holding as easily as a skeptic such as Brain. Thus, Brain's claim (the one you cited) does not offer evidence against Christianity.

[mick]

I was referencing the claim that if the God of Christianity exists, he will necessarily answer any type of prayer in a particular way.

Who is claiming this?

[mick]

I was referencing the claim that if the God of Christianity exists, he will necessarily answer any type of prayer in a particular way.

Who is claiming this?

[Zamis1]

In summary: God is not a gumball machine.

When Jesus says things like, "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." [Matthew 18:19], that certainly sounds like a gumball machine. The sentence, "if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven" does not contain any ambiguity. So why, when two people ask God to restore an amputated limb, nothing ever happens?

What Brain is suggesting in Why does God hate amputees? is that God is completely imaginary. The fact that God ignores amputees indicates that there is no God at all. God answers no prayers because he is not there.

Read the front half of Chapter 26 and you will see what I mean.

[Zamis1]

He also implies that human authorship implies a problem with the Bible, when even the most "fundamentalist" of Christians believe that humans wrote the Bible, but were merely inspired by God.

Here is a typical site where fundamentalists claim that the Bible is the perfect word of God:

http://www.biblestudylessons.com/cgi-bi ... ration.php

The belief that God himself wrote the Bible is very strong among fundamentalists. All "young-earth creationists" believe that the Bible is literal truth -- otherwise they would not believe that the creation story is literally true. Dr. Kent Hovind is typical of the breed. There are so many creationists that they can steer science curriculums state-wide in places like Kansas.

Brain also has this interesting discussion on the authorship of the Bible:

If you do not believe that God wrote the slavery passages in the Bible, then the obvious question to ask yourself is this: How can you possibly know which parts came from God and which parts were inserted by primitive men? How can you pick and choose like that? You have absolutely no way to know whether the slavery passages came from God or primitive men.

It is when you start thinking about the Bible in this way that you understand something very important about the Bible. Either the entire Bible really is God's Word, or the entire Bible was written by primitive men with absolutely no input from God. Here is the reason for this very strong dividing line:

If part of the Bible came from God and part came from primitive men, how can you possibly know which is which? How do you know if Jesus really is resurrected, or if that's just a make-believe story inserted by primitive men? How do you know if God wrote the Ten Commandments or not? If any part of the Bible has been polluted by primitive men, you have to reject the whole thing. There is no way to know who wrote what, so the entire book is invalid.

There really is no middle ground. The Bible has to be an all-or-nothing book. Either the entire Bible came from God, or none of it did.

[jerickson314]

Who is claiming this?

Zamis1. It is also implied in Brain's writing. If you're saying that Brain never claims this, you're effectively saying that Brain's writing is true but pointless, unless there is another point he is making. Is this what you're trying to say, or is there a point to Brain's writing that I may be contesting?

[jerickson314]

When Jesus says things like, "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." [Matthew 18:19], that certainly sounds like a gumball machine. The sentence, "if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven" does not contain any ambiguity. So why, when two people ask God to restore an amputated limb, nothing ever happens?

You have to actually read the article I link to, not just the one sentence summary. The relevant part to this particular passage is as follows:

Barker illicitly isolates Matthew 18:19 from its context to make it look like a general instruction on how to pray for whatever you want in any context. This passage follows instructions for pursuing "sheep" (members of the believing community) who go astray. Verses 15-18 are further instructions for community discipline. Verse 19 is an amplification on verse 18, using the "Again, I say unto you" which indicates an expansion of what has been noted previously. Thus, even so far we see that whatever verse 19 means, it is restricted to the context of discipline within the believing community of Christ. It is not, as Barker imagines, or as health and wealth gospel preachers suppose, a license to request anything.

If you want to contest more passages, please check the article first. The James passage Brain mentions is very similar to the other passages Holding addresses directly.

What Brain is suggesting in Why does God hate amputees? is that God is completely imaginary. The fact that God ignores amputees indicates that there is no God at all. God answers no prayers because he is not there.

Read the front half of Chapter 26 and you will see what I mean.

Thanks for answering mick's question about who is making the claim. I guess Brain does come out and make the claim I say he does, in the first half of Chapter 26.

[jerickson314]

Here is a typical site where fundamentalists claim that the Bible is the perfect word of God:

http://www.biblestudylessons.com/cgi-bi ... ration.php

Your point? That's an entirely different claim from the one Brain tries to refute. See below.

The belief that God himself wrote the Bible is very strong among fundamentalists.

No, rather it is the belief that God inspired human authors to write an error-free Bible that is very strong among fundamentalists and many other Christians.

All "young-earth creationists" believe that the Bible is literal truth -- otherwise they would not believe that the creation story is literally true.

This isn't entirely true. Most young-earth creationists still take figuratively the prophesies in Daniel referring to beasts, for example. It is true that young-earth creationists, like most other Christians, do believe significant portions of the Bible to be literally true. This is different from the claim that God directly wrote the wording.

Dr. Kent Hovind is typical of the breed.

No, he's just an easy guy to attack because his views are so poorly supported. Even Answers in Genesis, one of the most prominent young-earth creationist organizations today, agrees that many of Hovind's claims are unsupported.

There are so many creationists that they can steer science curriculums state-wide in places like Kansas.

There are quite a few creationists, but it was actually the intelligent design people that had an effect on the science curriculum in Kansas. Most in the ID crowd are not young-earth creationists. For instance, Michael Behe (author of Darwin's Black Box) is a theistic evolutionist who believes that God used evolution to create life over billions of years, but had to intervene to do so.

Brain also has this interesting discussion on the authorship of the Bible:

Brain had an interesting chance to reference some scholarly sources, and then didn't. Perhaps because the scholarly sources disagreed with his views...

For instance, perhaps if he had ever taken an ancient history course at any point of his life, he would know that slavery in the ancient world had important differences from American slavery in the 1800s. If he actually read from the Bible itself and not just quotes from other skeptics, he would know that ancient Israel had a "year of Jubilee" every 7 years in which all slaves were freed. I've actually just scratched the surface in terms of immediately obvious errors in this part of Brain's work, but I don't see the point in writing a substantial refutation of a work for which the author has obviously done too little homework.

I guess another obvious error worth mentioning is that Brain completely ignores passages in the New Testament about how the law no longer applies to Gentiles. We can safely ignore parts of Old Testament law which were only applicable to ancient Hebrew culture. Reasoned study is needed to know when this is the case. A library of peer-reviewed theological journals can be found at many Christian seminaries, and would be a good source for further information.