Trampoline Man said:
You say you don't believe in just attributing the good in the world to God but you go ahead and do it anyway. If a lot of the injustice and poverty in the world is man made, then why do you think it is such a stretch to say a lot of the justice and prosperity in the world is also man made?
If you believe in miracles and other such wondrous things, and that Jesus did actually heal the sick, then does that mean you believe in alot of the rest of the old and new testaments?
If so, how do you reconcile the fact that the bible indicates the universe is at best about 12,000 years old, while scientific study has shown it to be many billions of years old? And how do you explain dinosaurs and all other life which existed millions of years before humanity?
What was the purpose of the existence of dinosaurs?
You see, the problem I have with Christianity and all other religion is that while they aim to explain the workings of our world and the universe, no religion has ever explained much beyond the borders of the regions they were created. How do you explain that?
I don't think I said human beings are incapable of good, God did create man in His image and gave him responsibility to govern this world, so they are certainly capable of doing good things of their own means. However to go back to my earlier point, no human is perfect in the sight of God.
With the miracle thing, I know its not easy for people from our soceity to intially have an open mind when it comes to miracles etc, but the way I think about it is to ask "Is everything in the universe perceivable to our physical senses". There's no arbitary reason to think that the answer to that is yes, therefore things like miracles can happen. Also with the previous comments about the injustice of God in answering the prayers of people who don't live in third world conditions, I don't see any reason to impose a Rawlsian limit (that is God must help the poorest person in soceity then the next most poor, and the next most poor), I think with regards to prayer God responds to faith.
KFunk on the other hand I gather the greatest number of mircales and answered prayer does occur in places where there are a lot of poor people, or where Christians are recieving serious persecution, and your assertion about more prayer being answered in the developed world is not neceserily correct.
I believe the bible is the word of God, however I'm not nesecarily a literalist when it comes to creation, the purpose of that account is to establish the starting positions of humans, and our relationship to God. Therefore dinosaurs are definietly not written out of the bible.
I also believe that the bible doesn't just deal with things localised to a particular time and culture, but with subjects which still are relevent today, and ones which people find relevent today, like does life have a purpose, or what happens to us when we die. It's not just a children's book, that is simply a generalisation.