Jonah,
We can take this one by one.
This reply misses the point of the "God hates amputees"
challenge by quite some distance. A more complete way of framing
the challenge is this: If God can and does heal people of various
ailments such as cancer, leprosy or even death, why doesn't he also
heal amputees?
There are two possible answers:
1. God does heal people of other ailments, but
for some reason has no interest in restoring the limbs of amputees.
Does he discriminate against them?
2. God does not heal people of other ailments.
E.g. when someone recovers from cancer, it may be due to the
administering of medical treatment, misdiagnosis in the first
place, or simply fakery. There is less ambiguity about amputees
(it's harder to fake a missing limb), hence there are no claims of
a regrowth of limbs through prayer.
Maybe there's a third possible answer, but you'll have to
enlighten me on that. Otherwise, you have to concede either (1) or
(2) to solve the challenge.
Exactly what is the
“God hates amputees” challenge supposed to prove? That God exists
and hates amputees, or that God does not exists and therefore the
issue does not even arise? What’s your pick, reasonable.atheist?
Pick one. We can have a debate on this and I’ll give you a run for
your money.
BTW, this kind of
“challenge” can take many forms, such as
1. Why doesn’t God
bring about world peace?
2. Why doesn’t God
strike me dead right now?
3. Why doesn’t God
give me a lottery win?
4. Why doesn’t God
give me a husband/wife?
5. Why doesn’t God
______________ ? (add your own peeve here)
Note though that
those who are fixated with demanding answers to these specific
questions often missed out on other things that God has done, other
miracles of healings or providence that cannot be explained
naturalistically. These people are indeed guilty of suppressing the
truth by their unrighteousness as the Bible so declares.
But having asked the
above kind of questions we must still ask, “SO WHAT?” What does the
challenge prove ultimately? What does it conclude? What is it
supposed to prove? And is that conclusion proven? What I want to
point out is that this atheist’s argument is likely to be guilty of
a logical fallacy called a non sequitur. The fallacy is
committed when a conclusion or statement does not logically follow
from a previous argument or statement. Perhaps RA can prove me
wrong in this?
BTW, has the atheist
ever thought that God might have His reasons for not healing
amputees? I suppose the thought does not even occur to them since
God does not exist as far as they are concerned. Anyway, for those
who are not atheists they can consider people like Bethany Hamilton
who lost her arm from a shark attack (see movie Soul Surfer) or
Nick Vujicic who was born without all four limbs. These Christians
are the source of inspiration for millions of people, even
full-limbed people! These handicapped Christians found their solace
in God and in turn allowed God to use their disabilities to enable
and encourage and inspire many more people and possibly touch even
more lives than if they were full-limbed people. But do amputees
and people in general find solace and inspiration from atheists and
their atheistic worldviews? Consider this as MY challenge to
you.
BTW, this challenge
did not go unnoticed by other Christian websites. Some of their
responses are found below
http://www.gotquestions.org/God-heal-amputees.html
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/01/30/feedback-god-heal-amputees