PS: Rhian,

Since you seem to know, can you explain exactly what God's point IS, and how a couple of dodgy and extremely dubious cancer 'cures' are supposed to achieve it? If it's intended to make converts, then it's pretty much a miserable failure, isn't it? Would't he be better off writing his name on the Moon in letters 100km high, for instance?

Who will be canonised re the miracle that Australia hasn't totally stopped functioning under Labor ?

John J

I don’t pretend to know the mind of God, but we do know a fair bit about how human ideas and thought processes have changed over the centuries. To the bible writers, miracles were signs and wonders illuminating the activity of God in our lives. In a culture where many illness and cures were believed to have supernatural causes, the distinction between “miracle” and “natural” cures was almost non-existent.

To the modern mind, miracles are reinterpreted as demonstrations of divine power intended to prove the existence of God precisely because they seem to show the impossible happening, and “laws of nature” being violated. Likewise, a God who wrote his name in 100km high letters on the moon would give us no choice but to believe in him. Such coercive proof is not what the biblical miracle stories are intended to do – a point missed by credulous Christians and incredulous atheists alike.

I don’t believe either God or Mary McKillop cured incurable cancer. I don’t think God’s relationship with the world takes the form of dramatic infrequent overturning of the laws of nature. Miracles as Hume understood them are logical impossibilities, and neither necessary nor sufficient for belief in God.

"It is nevertheless true that some people find benefit in taking particular saints as icons through whom they can more fully approach the divine."

One of the problems the non religious often have with the beliefs of the religious is forming a clear understanding of what they mean. The quotation above from Crabsy is a case in point (for me, at least). Could Crabsy, or someone else, please explain in simple, everyday terms what is meant by using icons to more fully approach the divine?

Most religions have icons and these are as stimulating to the
followers of that religion as is pornography to masturbators.
Christians add torture to the fantasy.

GlenC:

Icons have not been a strong part of my own spiritual practice, but I’ll try to explain how some other worshippers see them – at least as I understand them.

God may be indirectly sensed but never fully known by a human individual. Icons are used as a concrete instrument by some to enhance concentration on coming closer to God in prayer or meditation. The aim is to detach from the egotistical self and allow a stronger attachment to God to develop.

Icons are usually pictures or statues of particular saints or even of Jesus, composed following a detailed stylistic tradition and incorporating many visual symbols. The person portrayed in the icon is selected on the basis of the example his or her life-story offers for anyone wanting to grow more holy.

The use of icons is often denounced as idolatry, but this is based on a misunderstanding. The icon is not worshipped for itself; rather it is used as a tool, perhaps like a window that gives a glimpse of a pathway towards God.

Iconography is not unique to Christianity. Buddhists, Hindus and some other faiths use it similarly as a tool for approaching the divine no matter by what term they know it.

As I said, icons have not played an important part in my religious practice. I can, though, understand how they may be useful to some other people. I may not have given a complete explanation, but this is the best I can do at present. I hope it helps.

Rhian:
I agree with you that the notion of a supernatural power is misleading today. Would you agree that the miracles as narrated in the scriptures are something like icons in that they can provide a "window" through which we may gain greater awareness of God in our lives?