Indian Guru v Galilean Guru

Furrowed Brow · Post by **Furrowed Brow** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:26 am

Are the reports of miracles of the Indian Guru Åšri Sathya Sai Baba more reliable, less reliable, equally reliable as the reported miracles of the Galilean Guru Jesus?

Miracles of Sathya Sai Baba and Miracles of Jesus

Furrowed Brow · Post by **Furrowed Brow** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:21 am

forumwarrior wrote:i found one.

[youtube][/youtube]

i know im convinced.

Would this mean that the lack of any debunking video footage for Jesus leaves the claims for his miracle more credible than the claims that surround Sai Baba?

Did you really need to see the debunking video to measure Sai Baba as a fake? I suspect like the rest of us here you already thought he was a fake before you found that video. If so you were already unmoved by the fact millions believed in him. Maybe thought they were too easily impressed. Or if you had an open mind you may have thought it was equally likely he materialized stuff out of thin air as it was he was just using stage magician tricks.

What the video clearly demonstrates is not just Sai Baba's trickery but also just how incredibly naive some folk are. Is it just to point the same criticisms at the early Christians, or should we presume they were a tougher audience not prone to superstition and mysticism in near equal measure to the followers of Sai Baba. What is it about the early Christians that would make them more skeptical and less likley to fool themselves than modern Hindus?

Woland · Post by **Woland** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 9:27 pm

forumwarrior wrote: but what are you trying to say there brother woland? that christianity is just as silly as this "guru?" i think id beg to differ, but i need to be sure about exactly what youre saying first.

Something like that - except that I'm not sure if this guru teaches the "justice" of delightful things like eternal torture, "regular" torture, genocide (including children and even bunnies), collective punishment, vicarious redemption through human sacrifice, stoning people to death for a variety of "crimes" etc. like relatively common interpretations of certains texts in certain religions. I don't think that he teaches that an entity responsible for all of these things corresponds to "love", at any rate.

Of course, there are typically responses to this like "we don't live under the old Law now" etc. but they seem to be massively irrelevant given that if you actually believe that Yahweh with his "objective morality" at least once approved all of these things with the Omni-stamp, it ironically raises serious problems concerning the validity of these claims of "objective morality" - especially since today, to give only one of many examples, Christians would largely be outraged if someone owned another human being for all their lives and was allowed to beat them with impunity. Maybe I'm wrong.

On what basis would you "beg to differ"?
Popularity?
Having a semi-formal "standard" account of your religion's supernatural claims?
Having lots of people give lots of thought to these claims over the ages and coming up with all sorts of mutually exclusive theories on "how best to interpret the Bible"?
The notion that there are educated Christians?

I'm curious.

-Woland

forumwarrior · Post by **forumwarrior** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 7:03 pm

notachance wrote:
Anything is possible. Including that Muslims go to heaven and Christians go to hell. Had you thought of that?

im sure that at the end of days there will be plenty of muslims roasting in hell right next to me. if the proper religion was the only requirement to get into heaven, then EVERYBODY would be a catholic. god is a liberal. and so we have a religion for every street corner.

but youre a bible expert aintya chief? dont you realize that the mooslims are our cousins? ishmael is to isaac as muslim is to christian. and god said for abraham not to worry about ismael. that he would make a nation out of him too. that he would be like a wild ass out in the desert, and everybody would be against him and he would be against everybody.

how about THAT for a damn prophecy. i just made a believer out of you didnt i?

forumwarrior · Post by **forumwarrior** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 7:18 pm

Woland wrote:
On what basis would you "beg to differ"?
Popularity?
Having a semi-formal "standard" account of your religion's supernatural claims?
Having lots of people give lots of thought to these claims over the ages and coming up with all sorts of mutually exclusive theories on "how best to interpret the Bible"?
The notion that there are educated Christians?

I'm curious.

-Woland

well if youre saying this cheap street corner magician is the same as christ, i would have to say that there is a big difference between pulling rabbits out of a hat and healing the sick, raising the dead, commanding the weather, and rising from the dead. oh. and we cant forget walking on water. i believe thats required of any genuine "guru."

Woland · Post by **Woland** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 7:42 pm

forumwarrior wrote: well if youre saying this cheap street corner magician is the same as christ, i would have to say that there is a big difference between pulling rabbits out of a hat and healing the sick, raising the dead, commanding the weather, and rising from the dead. oh. and we cant forget walking on water. i believe thats required of any genuine "guru."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba

"Some of the reported miracles included levitation (both indoors and outdoors), bilocation, physical disappearances, changing granite into sugar candy, changing water into another drink, changing water into gasoline, producing objects on demand, changing the color of his gown while wearing it, multiplying food, healing acute and chronic diseases, appearing in visions and dreams, making different fruits appear on any tree hanging from actual stems, controlling the weather, physically transforming into various deities and physically emitting brilliant light.[130] Haraldsson wrote that the largest allegedly materialized object that he saw was a mangalsutra necklace, 32 inches long, 16 inches long on each side.[131]"

People make all sorts of claims, my good forumwarrior.

Why should any "real magic" conform to your expectations about it?
Why should any "real guru" have to be attributed the same "miracles" that are claimed that the Jesus character did in Christian religious literature?

Are you ready to convert yet?

Why give more credence to texts written by ancient religious desert-dwellers who allegedly got their claims way down the line from people who claimed to be eyewitnesses or to have heard their tales (and even that's being generous) than to many metric tons of people today swearing that they saw this or that "magic" supporting another belief system?

Don't you think that there are a few problems with this approach?

Can you agree that for Christianity to be what it is today in no way appears to require any god intervening at any point in its history?

Sai Baba gained MANY more followers than Jesus did in his lifetime.
Like, a whole lot more.

-Woland

notachance · Post by **notachance** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 4:28 am

forumwarrior wrote: well if youre saying this cheap street corner magician is the same as christ, i would have to say that there is a big difference between pulling rabbits out of a hat and healing the sick, raising the dead, commanding the weather, and rising from the dead. oh. and we cant forget walking on water.

That's true. Pulling rabbits out of a hat has actually been done in front of eyewitnesses by magicians that certifiably existed, whereas the story of Jesus's miracles was invented by people that never met Jesus, decades after he had already died.

[insanity]Clearly there's only two explanations for the miracle stories of Jesus: Either they are made up, or they are real.

If they are real, then the only explanation is that it's because Jesus was the son of the Devil, and as a way to deceive us, Lucifer endowed his son with magical powers.

I know you will reject this, but the very fact that you reject it proves that it's true, because Lucifer blinded you. Otherwise why would you reject it? It makes perfect sense.

Furthermore, there isn't just perfect logic to confirm the absolute certainty that you worship the devil. I also had a personal experience in which I spoke to God and he told me the truth. So that is DOUBLE confirmation. Please try to find it in you to abandon Satan and his son Jesus, and re-embrace your loving creator God.

[/insanity]

Let me know if you want to have an evidence and fact based conversation at any point, or if you just want to just continue making baseless dogmatic claims ad infinitum. Either is fine with me, I can make up dogmatic claims as I go along, for as long as you like.

Furrowed Brow · Post by **Furrowed Brow** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 5:36 am

Woland wrote:
forumwarrior wrote: well if youre saying this cheap street corner magician is the same as christ, i would have to say that there is a big difference between pulling rabbits out of a hat and healing the sick, raising the dead, commanding the weather, and rising from the dead. oh. and we cant forget walking on water. i believe thats required of any genuine "guru."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba

"Some of the reported miracles included levitation (both indoors and outdoors), bilocation, physical disappearances, changing granite into sugar candy, changing water into another drink, changing water into gasoline, producing objects on demand, changing the color of his gown while wearing it, multiplying food, healing acute and chronic diseases, appearing in visions and dreams, making different fruits appear on any tree hanging from actual stems, controlling the weather, physically transforming into various deities and physically emitting brilliant light.[130] Haraldsson wrote that the largest allegedly materialized object that he saw was a mangalsutra necklace, 32 inches long, 16 inches long on each side.[131]"

He also raised Mr V Radhakrisna from the dead in 1953 and managed to appear outside a passenger plane at altitude Link and from the link provided in the OP he has affected the sky and caused mysterious clouds. I think we can directly compare the miracles of Sai Baba to those of Jesus.

forumwarriori wrote:well if youre saying this cheap street corner magician is the same as christ

That is about the rub of it.