Have you anything positive to contribute to this thread? Christians, Muslims etc are not so credulous that they expect God to intervene constantly. A lot of Christians in the UK do not take the stuff in the Bible as being literally true either.

Do you consider his views strong evidence for your claim?

Exception to what?

You're going to be right about something eventually, I promise...don't give up the hope. 83% of Americans say God answers prayers.

Some do, some dont. You've claimed at various points that a majority dont believe in an interventionist God (you also claimed nobody did, but presumably that was hyperbole).

It's obviously superior to believe in a non-interventionist God, nonetheless lots of theists think he does act in the world. (Like any catholic who think the various saints have actually performed miracles, for example - do you think that's a tiny minority?)

exception to the rule that Christians believe that God is in practice non-interventionist

No but you could at least quote LemonZest in context. You missed this bit out "As you know rarely does a miracle healing take place."

I don't understand why all you non-believers come on here to knock theists. The chess forum isn't full of people who hate chess saying it's a rubbish game.

Are you a Christian who believes in regular divine intervention ?

Seriously. I mean we've all been wrong before - who cares about that? But continuing to assert it with no evidence for and a truckload against...?

Stubbornly sticking to assertions when pretty much any level of research shows the belief in an interventionist god is widespread amongst theists. What's the upside?

Since you've been shown to be comprehensively wrong and you have admitted by omission that you are unable to provide any evidence to the contary, there's not much more do to except stand back and laugh as you make yet more comical blunders.

I'm not knocking theists. I just think it's best to criticise their actual position, rather than what I wish they believed.

Why are you here, as a non-believer, insisting they dont believe what they say they do?

Isnt that like a chess-hater insisisting those guys are actually playing checkers?

Sure. He doesnt think miracles are common. He does think they happen though (which you said theists dont generally believe).

The saintly miracles don't happen everyday. I make my points cogently. Do you really need everything to be caveated for a small number of exceptions ?

I am a Christian who believes in divine intervention, or to make the minimal claim possible one who at least does not believe that God doesn't intervene at all.

I will refrain from describing God's intervention as regular at least for the sake of this post because I'm not really sure what would constitute regularity, or even that we would necessarily agree on a definition of intervention, and in any case I'm not really prepared to argue for my position in a way that would be at all satisfying to anyone.

But I thought you might like a second data point anyway, to go along with all the other citations that a belief in Divine Intervention is definitely a mainstream view among Christians. And I suppose beyond those citations it's certainly my anecdotal experience that the majority of american Christians that I know believe that God's intervention in the world is a real thing, if perhaps not a "regular" thing, depending on how you would define that

It seems like this may be a semantic argument about frequency, more than a question of whether or not most Christians are deists

We're not talking about how often saintly miracles occur. We're talking about whether believers think God intervenes in the world.

You think they dont. They think they do.

It's irrelevant to their everyday beliefs if they only believe they happen once in a blue moon. In practice they do not expect God to intervene at all.

Nonsense. When was the last time you went to church?

Churches are full of people who think that, if you pray for people when they're in hospital, they'll be more likely to get better.

Quite simply, cwocwoc is a troll. He'll deny it, but his posts on 2+2 are easily found, and they're just horrible -- lacking in logic, avoiding addressing the substance of contradictory information, basically confident ignorance. I guess he could not be a troll, but I'd rather not think so poorly of him.

What has God done in the last fifty years which you and your friends would describe as "real" ? The view of Christians in the UK is that God will sort it all out in the after-life and we're on our own down here.

Let's face it gangstaman you've been stalking me ever since I posted about gays in a jocular fashion. You keep trolling me !

This is definitely true at my parent's church where my mother heads the "prayer chain". This entails someone calling her anytime someone falls ill or gets injured so she can start the chain of calls to inform those on the list that they need to pray for that person's well being.

I dont know. I'm fascinated to see how difficult it is to just say yeah I overstated the case. The gradual shifting from "most (all?) theists dont believe in an interventionist god", "That was then, this is now", etcetera to "it's not functionally different from believing in a non-interventionist god if one thinks the intervention only happens in a blue moon", "many UK christians dont believe in an interventionist god", "LEMONZEST agrees with me, if you ignore some of his post" - that's the silly part, not speaking too broadly or making an error.

It's ubiquitous in the three churches I've been to (in atheistic, secular, noncomittal australia).

I mean I wish Cwocwoc was correct. It just so obviously isnt the case though.

They may pray for the sick but they do not think that that God will intervene.

And you think they're representatives of "Most of the four billion Christians and Muslims " ?