Does Prayer Work? Is There a God?

pookie · June 13, 2009, 4:27am

[quote]pushharder wrote:
As far as “miracles from God” I believe many of them have happened that are more inspiring than replaced limbs.[/quote]

For instance?

If there had ever been a single documented case anywhere I’m sure some enterprising credophile would’ve found it and we’d be getting that URL pasted every time the amputee challenge came up.

Just look at how the URLs rained on me when I mentioned that I wasn’t aware of fanatic buddhists…

As long as the crickets keep chirping when the amputee question is presented, you can be 100% certain that it’s never been recorded to occur anywhere.

As for Quaqtaq, don’t feel bad. Even wikipedia hasn’t heard of Quaqtaq. A shame, it’s such a quiet place too.

Sloth · June 13, 2009, 4:59am

Sadly, I don’t think there’s a one of us with the faith needed to move God to break the natural order in such an intrusive manner as to allow for a rearming (yeah, that was bad. Sorry).

Loose_Tool · June 13, 2009, 12:40pm

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
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.

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

[/quote]

The best at existing.

rohay · June 13, 2009, 1:34pm

[quote]pushharder wrote:
pookie wrote:
pushharder wrote:
As far as “miracles from God” I believe many of them have happened that are more inspiring than replaced limbs.

For instance?

Oh c’mon, you’re a jackass of all trades. You tell us.

As far as “reversed amputations” I don’t know if there have been any. I haven’t heard of them. Then again I’d never heard of Quaqtaq either.

If there had ever been a single documented case anywhere I’m sure some enterprising credophile would’ve found it and we’d be getting that URL pasted every time the amputee challenge came up.

Oh maybe just maybe all that has ever happened did not happen in the immortal Age of the Internet.

Just look at how the URLs rained on me when I mentioned that I wasn’t aware of fanatic buddhists…

That’s what you get when you’re that there aforementioned jackass of all trades. You sputter from time to time.

As long as the crickets keep chirping when the amputee question is presented, you can be 100% certain that it’s never been recorded to occur anywhere.

A lot of the crickets you hear chirping are headquartered in your head.

As for Quaqtaq, don’t feel bad. Even wikipedia hasn’t heard of Quaqtaq. A shame, it’s such a quiet place too.

I doubt it. One of its residents is known to be quite garrulous.
[/quote]

The responses, or rather, lack of real responses to the amputees question has been quite revealing. Either people “don’t have enough faith” or somehow the onus is on others to prove that prayer doesn’t work and God doesn’t exist and people are called “jackasses.”

Of course you are entitled and free to engage in this manner of thinking. However, if this sort of thinking and deference to the “supernatural” still dominated our lives, we would still be in the dark ages. Moving away from this type of thinking allowed for humanity to progress in science, technology, medicine, etc. Humanity as a whole has been lifted up to heights unimaginable even a century ago because of education and reasoning based on real, testable evidence.

pookie · June 13, 2009, 3:38pm

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Oh c’mon, you’re a jackass of all trades. You tell us.[/quote]

You make some vague claim and I’m supposed to tell you what it is? If you don’t have the courage of your opinions, maybe you should stay in Joke Du Jour.

Yeah, because before 1995 we didn’t have books or paper or records and doctors just kept everything in their head and used oral communications exclusively. Fuck you’re stupid.

Unlike you, who of course, knows everything and is master of all.

How witty. Is your dad stronger than my dad too?

pookie · June 13, 2009, 3:39pm

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Sadly, I don’t think there’s a one of us with the faith needed to move God to break the natural order in such an intrusive manner as to allow for a rearming (yeah, that was bad. Sorry).[/quote]

Or even with all the faith humanly possible, there’s no God to act on the prayers and you’re just talking with yourself.

clip11 · June 13, 2009, 3:47pm

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

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.
[/quote]

I just got in trouble with the law the beginning of this year. I was facing 2-5 years in prison. And a felony on my record. Long story short, I hired a very good attorney and he got my felony dropped to a misdemeanor and I am on probation with no prison time. My parents and grandparents keep harping on how its a miracle from God. The attorney gets no credit at all, apparently he’s just an “agent” that God worked thru.

But the whole situation can be logically explained easily as to why I got a misdemeanor. A miracle wouldve been if God had just dropped all the knowledge I needed to be my own lawyer into my brain and I knew exactly what to do w/o ever have gone to law school in my life. Or if the money to pay the attorney just appeared out of thin air into my pocket.

Sloth · June 13, 2009, 4:13pm

[quote]pookie wrote:

…and you’re just talking with yourself.
[/quote]

Well, I do consider myself a decent conversationalist. Well, at least I like and agree with what I say, alot. So, I got that going for me.

Cortes · June 13, 2009, 4:42pm

[quote]clip11 wrote:
And the bible does say all i have to do is have the faith of a mustard seed and if anyone has ever seen a mustard seed its the size of a grain of salt.

[/quote]

clip, from reading your posts over the past few days, the size of the faith demonstrated therein would make a mustard seed look like that mountain you are talking about being thrown into the sea. If I were God, I wouldn’t help you either. I’d be waiting patiently for you to figure out how to make things work for yourself. Because, as any good parent knows, kids who are given exactly what they ask for when they ask for it don’t end up appreciating a damned thing. Nor do they grow strong or tall, like that proverbial mustard tree.

Whether or not you believe in God, your negative attitude is keeping you exactly where you are. Period. I think you would do well to read a good book or two. Don’t worry. They are not the Bible or anything religious at all. If you are truly interested in improving your situation, you are welcome to PM me.

Cortes · June 13, 2009, 12:46pm

[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]

Yeah, I agree! Because we humans know absolutely everything that ever is or will be, damnit. There are NO confounding variables or unknowns that will EVER disturb the current scientific worldview of what IS!

…sounds like there’s a new kind of “magic” afloat, if you ask me.

clip11 · June 13, 2009, 7:10pm

[quote]Cortes wrote:
clip11 wrote:
And the bible does say all i have to do is have the faith of a mustard seed and if anyone has ever seen a mustard seed its the size of a grain of salt.

clip, from reading your posts over the past few days, the size of the faith demonstrated therein would make a mustard seed look like that mountain you are talking about being thrown into the sea. If I were God, I wouldn’t help you either. I’d be waiting patiently for you to figure out how to make things work for yourself. Because, as any good parent knows, kids who are given exactly what they ask for when they ask for it don’t end up appreciating a damned thing. Nor do they grow strong or tall, like that proverbial mustard tree.

Whether or not you believe in God, your negative attitude is keeping you exactly where you are. Period. I think you would do well to read a good book or two. Don’t worry. They are not the Bible or anything religious at all. If you are truly interested in improving your situation, you are welcome to PM me.
[/quote]

So youre almighty God and im just an infallible human being. God knows all about human nature, and human nature is to withhold judgement until there is ample evidence to base a decision on. If I AM going to have to improve my own situation, then why bother to pray if im not going to get any help? I’m just thinking the way we humans are programmed to think.

Besides, there are numerous bible verses saying plainly that if you pray it will be done. Let me tell you something from my experience with the black pentecostal church. They interpret the bible literally. They actually believe it is possible for a mountain to be thrown into the sea…LITERALLY! They believe sick people can be instantaneously healed, they believe that people can be raised from the dead through prayer, again LITERALLY…anything that is possible or impossible they believe can be accomplished through prayer.

What is the problem with this you ask? In my whole entire life I have never seen any of those things happen one time. And when I heard of it, it was always questionable or some other way to explain it. There was just never something unambigious where you could say that was a miracle by God.

Something unambigious would be if I went to a funeral one day and someone went up to the casket and said “In the name of Jesus come back to life” and that person gets up from the casket and is alive again. Imagine if that happened, it would be national news. It would be all over CNN or MSNBC. And there would be evidence too. Hundreds of witnesses, funeral home records stating this person was in fact dead, statements from the family saying this person was dead, a death certificate…and now here this person is, alive again. NEVER SEEN IT!

My own parents and grandparents claim they have enough faith to heal any sickness through prayer, yet here I am with scoliosis. Im here in their own backyard, im not some AIDS orphan all the way in Uganda. And whats stopping them or anyone else who makes similar claims from going right up there to downtown Detroit and going into Receiving Hospital or Henry Ford Hospital and just going on a healing spree. They can start in the ER and end up in the cancer ward. One or two might be a coincidence, but hundreds of healings all in one day at the same place would be a miracle. I’ll even go with them and be an eyewitness and write down everything I see and even bring a camera so it can be recorded! No excuses…

I was raised to believe anything is possible through prayer…so when I ask for something as minor as a $12 a hour job and thats very possible, about as possible as you can get, you wouldnt see any headlines on CNN about it, you can see why my faith is the way it is. The only miracle ive ever seen, if you want to call it that, is people rolling around and speaking in tongues…and you have no idea what theyre saying, its supposed to be a heavenly language.

And I could go on and on…

Buff_HardBack · June 13, 2009, 10:54pm

[quote]rohay wrote:
pushharder wrote:
pookie wrote:
pushharder wrote:
As far as “miracles from God” I believe many of them have happened that are more inspiring than replaced limbs.