05-30-2016, 01:37 PM
The question may not be so much whether one believes in God but instead what one means by "God". If one means that physical, mathematical, and logical laws exist and operate reliably, then such at the minimum is God. Paradoxically the rejection of miracles is consistent with that view of God.
An inexplicable entity intervening in daily life? Sure. Blind, random chance beyond manipulation by any human will.
If one thinks that one has some way of manipulating blind, random chance to his favor, then he is either a bad gambler or a believer in a god of miracles... which I find suspect.
I can just imagine what I would have done had I been God during the monstrous reign of Adolf Hitler. Maybe I would have translated some heavy metal (maybe a lead statue of the Fuhrer) into U-235 while some Nazis were plotting horrific crimes against Humanity and detonated it. Just enough -- and then I would have made My Presence known to the world, explaining My Intolerance for monstrous iniquity. The scene out of Raiders of the Lost Ark in which the Nazis make a blasphemous prayer (I don't know Hebrew, but I can just imagine one that Biblical patriarchs might have used):
Hear, O Lord, as we beseech Thee, that Thou might deliver us from a foe that showeth contempt for Thy Law, that Thou might smite the doers of evil and injustice but avoid harm to the innocent in our time of greatest need.
Asking God to use His Powers to aid evil is the worst of all blasphemies, and, yes, the Nazis would find out exactly what happens when God smites His foes in the name of Justice.
Don't you wish?
An inexplicable entity intervening in daily life? Sure. Blind, random chance beyond manipulation by any human will.
If one thinks that one has some way of manipulating blind, random chance to his favor, then he is either a bad gambler or a believer in a god of miracles... which I find suspect.
I can just imagine what I would have done had I been God during the monstrous reign of Adolf Hitler. Maybe I would have translated some heavy metal (maybe a lead statue of the Fuhrer) into U-235 while some Nazis were plotting horrific crimes against Humanity and detonated it. Just enough -- and then I would have made My Presence known to the world, explaining My Intolerance for monstrous iniquity. The scene out of Raiders of the Lost Ark in which the Nazis make a blasphemous prayer (I don't know Hebrew, but I can just imagine one that Biblical patriarchs might have used):
Hear, O Lord, as we beseech Thee, that Thou might deliver us from a foe that showeth contempt for Thy Law, that Thou might smite the doers of evil and injustice but avoid harm to the innocent in our time of greatest need.
Asking God to use His Powers to aid evil is the worst of all blasphemies, and, yes, the Nazis would find out exactly what happens when God smites His foes in the name of Justice.
Don't you wish?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.