Congratulations and I’m happy for you and your mom for her healing. I envy people who’s got access to the “fountain of life or miracle medicine”, let’s face it nobody wants to die although everybody wants to go to heaven. If only death is painless, I guess. I am tempted to believe and do believe there’s such a phenomenon although skeptical because if it’s such a reality then why isn’t it as popular as Taylor Swift, the Pope or Obama. Also the country wouldn’t be fighting about Obamacare.

Here’s my problem with saying that such healings are God’s direct doing or Jesus Christ or angels. As we both agree, God is almighty, all loving, all merciful. But then, why are such healings only for the selected few and selected locations on earth, it’s an exclusive healing rather than all inclusive. In one movie, Seth MacFarlane mentioned, “Parkinson’s is just another way that God mysteriously shows us that He loves us”. I’m just now reading that it has become controversial. So this is what’s been happening, mankind randomly but surely will be struck with a debilitating terminal disease, so they ask God why them, then pray for healing which may or may not happen, if they do get healed permanently or even temporarily they’ll claim they’ve been touched by the hand of God, “blessed”. To make a long story short, if God’s idea of being in control is to love us in sickness an in health, then why do believers ask for healing, they should rejoice in excruciating pain because God loves them so much that He would allow pain to enter or linger when God have all the power to remove all the sufferings or not strike you with it in the first place.

I’d characterize those healing phenomenon as embedded in the creation in the beginning, just like all diseases, but not a real time God intervention.

“We’ll meet again soon, my brother.” ( Achilles to Hector – Troy )

With regards to the nuclear bomb image, a friend of mine made that, and he meant it to be understood sarcastically 🙂

I agree with more of what you say than you might think. Really the only place where I think we differ is in terms of our experiences (or lack thereof) with the supernatural today. I can send you some links to some of the healings and miracles that I’ve personally encountered if you like (like my mom getting healed of CFS, a man with a hip injury being healed), but I’ve found that if you’re a skeptic of such things, hearing things second-hand isn’t always the best way to go. That’s why I’m one to believe that a personal one-on-one relationship with God is paramount to it all.

Thanks again for sharing!!

deism ( source Google ) : belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. The term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.

deism in Culture Expand
deism [( dee -iz-uhm)]
The belief that God has created the universe but remains apart from it and permits his creation to administer itself through natural laws. Deism thus rejects the supernatural aspects of religion, such as belief in revelation in the Bible, and stresses the importance of ethical conduct. In the eighteenth century, numerous important thinkers held deist beliefs. ( See clockwork universe.)
Source:
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

As reference to your last line “What do you think?”. For someone with such name, you should have more confidence or should I say, “faith” 😉 in your work. Great job! My opinion, veer away from the idea of, “Satan” & the “Garden” ( of Eden ), it’s along the lines of “Release the Kraken” 😉

Faith : belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something, especially without logical proof
Source : MS Word – Encarta Dictionary

emphasis on the : “without logical proof” . Is that who you really want to be? What do you think? <3 😉

Free will – When you pray to God to look out after you, help you, or dare I say bless you, isn’t it equivalent to :

1. I know you’d say it’s a wish, a request, I’d say it’s a command, in any case it sounds like a suggestion to:

2. Swap God’s Will in lieu of His gift of “free will” to you, which if you think about it, doesn’t that sound like taking a Christmas gift to the store, day after Christmas to exchange it because it’s not good enough for you. And I thought God is in Control when he gave that gift of free will to us. God said, "free will", my gift to you. Mankind's response, "Thanks but no thanks, it's worth nothing, I like Your Will better."

Freedom of religion. I prefer not to be in any religion at all. And that’s one of the major reasons I love about United States of America <3 & The Founding Fathers <3 who came up with such rule <3 🙂

Starting paragraph 7, “In the beginning”, ( I also clicked & read a little bit of the link, same ol same ol, Genesis version 99 millionth time. Decided to just scan through. . . Jesus, yada yada . . . Revelation, chaosssss, ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on bra . . . The End! – Hmm, well that was “unique”! – See what I did “there”? 😉 )

( Back to “God in control”. ) Then comes the part about, God’s will or our will . . . ( Okay yes. ). Then, Jesus taught us to command the weather & diseases . . . ( Uhh, no go. )

Yes – Agree on the paragraph about the questions : . . . not having enough faith to get healed ( ? ), God using tragedies to teach ( ? ) . . . , . . . we’re not supposed to suffer on earth ( ? ), . . . we could’ve done something more ( ? ). All great questions!

Then, the supposedly, “I don’t know” response of people who are incessantly trying to make excuses for God. I thought you have me, there. You didn’t. Click on your Philippians 4:7 link. You’re still holding on to the quote unquote, “Word of God”. But as, Bart Ehrman Ph.D. Professor of Biblical Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said in History Channel’s, Bible Secrets Revealed: Lost In Translation, “the Bible maybe divinely inspired but there are human finger prints all over it.” And Marvin Meyer ( Chapman University ) from Discovery Channel’s Biblical Mysteries Explained: The Lost Gospels, has it, “The Bible didn’t fall from the sky. The Bible was finally put together by Christian thinkers who represented a particular point of view.” You’re still holding on to the idea that the Bible have the answers & is there for you even after explaining why you can’t explain all the calamities that had happened, are happening, and will be happening. So my opinion, you cannot claim, “I don’t know.” Vis-à-vis, Philippians 4:7.

More so, “A relationship is based on communication and trust, not facts and knowledge.” ( ? ) Communication, at least a two way street ( excluding introspection ). If you have heard God’s literal voice talking with you. Time to visit the doctor or contact Guinness Book of World Records. Trust, doesn’t involve pain. Can you guarantee, I mean “trust” that God will make sure you don’t encounter pain for the remaining time of anyone’s life including your own? A relationship not based on facts and knowledge is a fairy tale. “Holy Bible”! ( Again, see what I did there? :p )

“God OBVIOUSLY ( ? ) isn’t on vacation from the world” ? ? ? Who are we to decide when He goes on vacation? I’d go as far as God is on permanent vacation, that would explain an absentee God and I wouldn’t take that against Him even if let’s say I have an imaginary right to do so.

“It’s allowed”, is always my father’s response and just about all Christians I debate with response when getting cornered, “It’s the gift of free will.” Then, I tell them, “Free will of the rapist. Not the free will of the victim. How about the infants born with AIDS because of the “parents” promiscuity.” That’s when my debaters scramble saying, “I know, it’s really difficult to understand”. All I can think is, “Speak for yourselves.”

Don’t’ Worry God Is In Control with Mushroom Cloud photo. Feeling oh so blessed yet, are we? How do you square that mushroom cloud image with an Almighty, All Powerful, Merciful, Loving God who is in Control ? ? ? Reminds me of that, Footprints In The Sand poem/song,

“But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life, there was only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”
He whispered, “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.” ( End of quote )

I guess what’s left to say is, “God damn it, would you put me down already! What’s the point of carrying me after all?”

I wish I’d thought of, “the phrase”, first, but someone or some others did . . . “prisonplanet”.com by Alex Jones, a Christian with a bone to pick on organized religion ( based on my googling). However I was told by a friend that, “Prison Planet” is a Scientology ideology.

I “hope” I didn’t hurt anybody’s feelings too much 🙁 I was just googling for a picture of Christ or “God” with a saying, “God Is In Control.”, so I can prove that He or They Are Not In Control. “This year of the Lord”, 2014, ISIS, Ebola. And your mushroom cloud picture saying God Is In Control, is perfect for what I’m looking for, the proof that God Is Not In Control.

In conclusion, if I haven’t mentioned, I’m a former confused Christian Catholic for about 33 years. Now I’m a clear enlightened Deist 🙂 for more than a decade 🙂

Consider this video for a comprehensive, practical history on how this happened:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwqUr7PSRO8

Hang with me, because this next part requires us to completely separate ourselves for the indoctrination that has taken place from birth. “Money”, or currency as is more accurately put, is something that we give massive amounts of our time to. We can’t buy, sell, eat, or frankly live without it. Even a ministry or a church will die without it. To say that we ascribe worth to it is an understatement (ascribimg worth to something is to worship it). But that’s just the way it is, right? Im not so sure That’s where my journey began over two years ago and it has shaken me to my core, but has also freed my mind.

One of the most troubling things Jesus said was that it was impossible to serve God and money at the same time. Now before we go all defensive theology on that, His statement speaks for itself. We as Christians love take obedience issues and turn them into degrees-of-the-heart issues; ie. “it’s the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil, not money itself”, or “it’s okay to have money as long as money doesn’t have you.”. What makes us so confident that we are able to make those self-evaluations anyway? Jeremiah reminds us that the heart is desperately wicked and who could know it?

To make matters worse, it turns out that money is evil and has been designed to enslave entire nations. Currency is debt and it is born out of usury. It does not originate from your government and they are frankly in as much trouble as we are on the subject (although highly complicit). This is where I will stop because it seems only about .001% of the population can handle the rest. If you dare, look ideeply into the monetary system (not just the US by the way, but 142 other countries), with your Bible open next to you throughout the process. If you are willing to come out from underneath the spell that money and its masters have cast upon you, you will never be the same, and neither will your relationship with your Creator. Most won’t let go, some will. Narrow is the gate…