Does Prayer Work? Is There a God?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
182

[quote]pookie wrote:
bantamamerica wrote:
Pat, first of all, you said “You cannot quantify prayer or it’s effects…”, so clearly you can’t demand proof with respect to tree-prayer or vacuum-cleaner-prayer without being a retard and a hypocrite.

He’s mostly confused; and at various times, that confusion makes him appear like a retarded hypocrite, but he’s a good person.

Secondly, pookie was obviously being sarcastic, so declaring a win (“You can’t”) is a smidge premature.

I’m dead serious. Praying to your vacuum cleaner is EXACTLY as effective as praying to God. Any test or method you use to measure the effect of prayer to God will give you the same results if you pray to some random inanimate object.

Like I told pat, try it for a few months and see for yourself.

Third, you might want to learn something about statistics and experimental design before claiming what can and can’t be measured. Then again, it wouldn’t serve your purpose, which is to defend your belief, not to determine actual truth, so you might not want to.

Confusion is comfortable.
[/quote]

Are you comfortable in your confusion? My thoughts are quite linear and free from confusion.

183

[quote]pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
He sounded mad to me, the whole post was just random spouting…

That’s what I was asking… where did you get anger from that? Your reply sounded much angrier than any of his have been.

When did I say praying to a vacuum clearer works? This some more creative reading comprehension?

You said you couldn’t prove it wasn’t just as effective as praying to God. Hence it works just as well. If it didn’t you should be able to prove otherwise.
[/quote]

Ok, so pray to your vacuum cleaner.

184

[quote]Fishsticks wrote:
pat wrote:
forlife wrote:
As you say, the proof is in the pudding.

Scientific studies have looked at the effects of prayer, for example on heart patients, and have found that people prayed over by church groups recover no faster than people that don’t get prayed over. The prayer had literally zero effect.

I do think prayer can help people think more positively, and may be of use in that way. But that is a result of healthy attitudes which can be achieved without pretending to invoke divine intervention.

Another thing to consider is that people of religion A pray to their god, and are 100% convinced that their god has told them religion A is the true religion. Yet people of religion B, which directly contradicts religion A, pray to their own god, and are 100% convinced that their god has told them religion B is the true religion.

Obviously, the “answers” people receive through prayer can’t be relied on, even when you are 100% convinced that they come from your god.

You cannot quantify prayer or it’s effects…This is an area where science is misplaced and irrelevant. It’s like trying to judge the color of a wish, you can’t do it.

I hate when religious people do stuff like this. It’s such an outrageous, bullshit cop-out.
“This is totally something different man. You can’t measure it, because… you know, science measures empirical stuff… and this stuff is magical! Hence, you can’t measure it with science! Haha!”

If you have to resort to logical acrobatics and circular arguing every time you defend your religion, it SHOULD tell you something about your religion.[/quote]

If I a wrong prove it. Mocking me proves nothing.
Where, specifically am I wrong and, who are you?

185

[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
There is no deductive reasoning process that I can take you through that will prove that God intervened in my life in very direct ways. I am not worried about proving it to you either, it is some thing you can do yourself.

What you may not realize, or may not be willing to consider, is that these “very direct ways” may in fact be explained by causes other than divine intervention.

I used to believe exactly what you are saying, but one day I admitted to myself that there were other feasible explanations for the “miracles” I had experienced in my life.[/quote]

I seriously doubt it, but my personal experiences are not up for debate, I will not share.

186

[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
There is plenty of deductive reasoning, history and empirical evidence to back it up. I stick with deduction because it’s the only thing that is valid in forum like this. I can tell you something happened at a certain time and date, but it’s just my word or somebodies word.
You cannot deductively reason out something that is make-believe. Try it and see.

Do you realize that literally billions of people have used the same “deductive reasoning”, and drawn very different conclusions from you about the nature of god(s)? Do you believe Allah or Ramses or Krishna are false gods? Do you realize how many people have followed the identical deductive reasoning/history/empirical approach you have followed, and sincerely concluded that these deities are in fact real? Obviously, the deductive reasoning/history/empirical approach you are following leads to false conclusions and can’t be relied upon for determining objective reality.
[/quote]

Not sure what logical paths you are refering to that would be exactly like “mine”. As you know I am a fan of the cosmological argument methodology. I love to know when and how the egyptians used this method to prove that one of there pharaohs were a god? As for the others you mentioned those are just names for the same, one God, but thanks for playing.

[quote]
Empiricism is weak.

Easy to say when you have no empirical evidence to back up your beliefs. Without empirical evidence, what differentiates your beliefs from fairy tales? It is especially problematic when you claim that your divinity can produce empirical results (for example, that god heals people) and then deny it when the empirical results don’t pan out in the real world.

Unless you can know every event in which a correlative event can happen it will never be more than that.

Does it make more sense to base your beliefs on something that is empirically true with 99.9% certainty, or on something that is empirically true with .1% certainty?[/quote]

There is no such thing as an empirical certainty of 99.9%.
I did not say God doesn’t heal people. There are examples all over the world where that has happened. Go find yourself one, who has a legitimate claims of healing and ask them there experience. Then prove to them empirically, that they were not healed by miraculous means.

You are of course welcome to study the cases of claimed miracles through prayer and intercessions. That would satisfy you empirical desires for evidence. Or is the Mayo Clinic you main source of info for matters of spirituality?

187

[quote]forlife wrote:
rohay wrote:
Not knowing is what makes me tell my wife & kids “I love you” daily, makes me work harder in my career, gives me a sense of urgency in bettering my community, and makes me not want to miss a workout. I don’t rely on prayer for this…but rather, I look inside and ask myself what I value and remind myself to fully appreciate these impermanent things.

Well said.

Religious leaders often scare people with dire warnings about how life will be meaningless, anarchic, and joyless unless they continue believing (and paying their tithes). Few have the courage to call them on this, but those that do realize that there is life, even abundant life, outside the parish.

While I miss the security of believing that I had all the answers, and no longer find comfort in the illusion of a supernatural being watching over me in my path to eternal life, there have been pleasant surprises in pursuing the truth. Probably the best surprise is exactly what you mentioned above.

Realizing that this life may well be all that I have, I am more motivated to make the most of every day. I tell the people in my life that I love them, and show it to them regularly. I am more willing to put things into perspective, considering that life is too short to sweat the small stuff. I am happier, more at peace, and more balanced now than I ever was a believing Christian.[/quote]

If at any point in your life, you thought you had all the answers, then you were clearly foolish.

188

[quote]Buff HardBack wrote:
WHY WONT GOD HEAL AMPUTEES? Its such a simple question.[/quote]

HOW DO YOU KNOW HE HASN’T

189

[quote]Buff HardBack wrote:
Again I will ask this question because, for reasons unknown, no one wants to give me an answer. Why hasnt god ever in recorded history healed an amputee? Im guessing plenty of them have prayed for a limb back.[/quote]

HOW DO YOU KNOW HE HASN’T

190

[quote]Buff HardBack wrote:
forlife wrote:
Of course, the point of asking about amputees is that spontaneous limb restoration is impossible. It would be a real miracle for it to happen. It’s not just a coincidence that the religious “miracles” claimed by people can all be explained by other means, but that real “miracles” which couldn’t happen spontaneously never happen.

Exactly. Its an Impossible miracle. Yet I thought that god was able to do anything.[/quote]

HOW DO YOU KNOW HE HASN’T?

191

[quote]pushharder wrote:
I sure hope the amputee and peanut allergy questions get resolved.

And premature baldness.

And stubbed toes. Has anyone EVER seen God heal a stubbed toe? Those things hurt like the dickens (and the dickens hurtz really bad). And when I say heal a stubbed toe I mean like right away! Not later on after it starts feelin’ better!

[Still face-palming after incessant restored amputation example requests][/quote]

Should be easy enough to resolve the whole amputee thing, just present the case for all amputees that have ever lived and show that none of them ever received a limb back.

The source is a website book, so I am assuming this is where he is getting that bullshit. Don’t believe he came up with it on his own. You can join the guy’s little atheist army too, if you want.
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

192

[quote]pushharder wrote:
I sure hope the amputee and peanut allergy questions get resolved.

And premature baldness.

And stubbed toes. Has anyone EVER seen God heal a stubbed toe? Those things hurt like the dickens (and the dickens hurtz really bad). And when I say heal a stubbed toe I mean like right away! Not later on after it starts feelin’ better!

[Still face-palming after incessant restored amputation example requests][/quote]

When I stub my toe, before the stub signal reaches my brain, I convince myself that it didn’t hurt much, and low and behold, it doesn’t hurt as much as it would have had I not convinced myself it didn’t hurt much, I think.

194

[quote]Loose Tool wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
No Law of Science can be proven. We can only say: ‘To the best of our knowledge…’. Laws are based on empirical data and are truly only probabilities.

Yet we accept them and are fine with them.

The probability that an ordered world exists by chance is infinitly small. Something must have provided the order, with an extremely high level of probability.

Pr(God) = 1 - Pr(no God)

The probabilty on the left is infinitely close to 1.

(I know its the old argument from design, but what the hey)

To paraphrase Diagoras, what of all the worlds that began, but, because probability was against their survival, failed. This world exists precisely because it didn’t fail … yet.[/quote]

Since this world exists and existence is superior to non-existence, this world must be the best possible world, simply by virtue of existence. (Dr. Pangloss :wink:

195

[quote]Buff HardBack wrote:
WHY WONT GOD HEAL AMPUTEES? Its such a simple question.[/quote]

Because if they had all their limbs, they’d drive their cars off of cliffs. Duh!

196

[quote]GrandpaButch wrote:

Personally I’m sick of the FAG logic that if I make believe there is no GOD I can carry on my sick disgusting perverted life style without fear of repercussion from GOD good luck. Think about everything in this GOD’S universe do you think it really happened by chance. Lets see the air we breathe , The water we drink. The human mind ,and brain with all of its capabilities. The sun is in the perfect spot in heaven that we neither freeze nor get barbecued out of existence period! The miracle of life which we abort. In the old testament satinists sacraficed live babies to baal (satan)in front of obelisks. The more innocent blood they shed the more power he granted them (They prayed to satan). This happens in the usa everyday thru abortion partial birth abortion turns it into almost a human sacrafice. Our obelisk is in Washington D.C. it is the Washington monument.

[/quote]

Welcome to P & WI!!

197

[quote]pushharder wrote:
I sure hope the amputee and peanut allergy questions get resolved.

And premature baldness.

And stubbed toes. Has anyone EVER seen God heal a stubbed toe? Those things hurt like the dickens (and the dickens hurtz really bad). And when I say heal a stubbed toe I mean like right away! Not later on after it starts feelin’ better!

Wow…I mean really. I have nothing to say to that. I asked a very simple to the point question and, low and behold, look who comes out of the woodwork to grace us with yet another intelligent, well thought out answer. Oh wait, you didnt answer it or even try to answer it. All I got was another sarcastic response. You guys all argue the same way and then when you get backed into a corner and you might be even the slightest bit near having to question what you believe you break out the insults. What do I have to do to get just a simple response to the question I posted? What guys like you misinterpret about people like me is that lots of us WANT to believe in something, yet we just havent seen the evidence to sway our beliefs and aparently we can not get any real answers because certain people like to resort to high school tactics over the internet.

Serious question. Why is it I asked that and you choose to mock it rather than just say ‘ok here is how we see that’ and let me decide whether it makes sense?

[Still face-palming after incessant restored amputation example requests][/quote]

198

GrandpaButch wrote:

Personally I’m sick of the FAG logic that if I make believe there is no GOD I can carry on my sick disgusting perverted life style without fear of repercussion from GOD good luck. Think about everything in this GOD’S universe do you think it really happened by chance. Lets see the air we breathe , The water we drink. The human mind ,and brain with all of its capabilities. The sun is in the perfect spot in heaven that we neither freeze nor get barbecued out of existence period! The miracle of life which we abort. In the old testament satinists sacraficed live babies to baal (satan)in front of obelisks. The more innocent blood they shed the more power he granted them (They prayed to satan). This happens in the usa everyday thru abortion partial birth abortion turns it into almost a human sacrafice. Our obelisk is in Washington D.C. it is the Washington monument.

Yeah and you just have issues.

199

[quote]pat wrote:
Buff HardBack wrote:
forlife wrote:
Of course, the point of asking about amputees is that spontaneous limb restoration is impossible. It would be a real miracle for it to happen. It’s not just a coincidence that the religious “miracles” claimed by people can all be explained by other means, but that real “miracles” which couldn’t happen spontaneously never happen.

Exactly. Its an Impossible miracle. Yet I thought that god was able to do anything.

HOW DO YOU KNOW HE HASN’T?[/quote]

Ok do me a favor and do the research. I have already. It has never happened. Look all you want in every source possible and, seriously, if you find any times in history where it has happened send me the info. Id like to read about it.

200

[quote]pushharder wrote:
I sure hope the amputee and peanut allergy questions get resolved. [/quote]

Well when cancers go into remission, we hear a lot of “it’s a miracle from God!” or when a very sick child recovers, you have all those idiots praising God instead of thanking the doctors who actually saved the kid. And on and on. Any life-threatening disease that’s somehow avoided is credited to God, but all those always have alternate explanations. Even without medical treatment, people forget that the human body can fight off and recover from many illnesses all by itself. It’s no miracle, it’s that useful immune system Evolution gave us.

The amputee question arises from the fact that such a recovery would be indeed miraculous because humans don’t spontaneously regrow limbs. It’d be a “miracle from God” that would actually be the real thing.

Of course, that’s why it has never occurred in documented history.