[quote]pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
Prayer does work.
And amazingly, it works equally well if you address your prayers to your vacuum cleaner or to that big tree in the neighbor’s yard.
Prove it.
Well, you can’t measure it, but if you give it a try for a month or two, you’re sure to notice it. Proving it is difficult, as it’s more of a relationship with the vacuum cleaner. How do you prove a relationship?
[/quote]
You can’t. Thanks for proving my other point.
[quote]pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
Prayer does work.
And amazingly, it works equally well if you address your prayers to your vacuum cleaner or to that big tree in the neighbor’s yard.
Prove it.
Well, you can’t measure it, but if you give it a try for a month or two, you’re sure to notice it. Proving it is difficult, as it’s more of a relationship with the vacuum cleaner. How do you prove a relationship?
You can’t. Thanks for proving my other point.[/quote]
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.
Secondly, pookie was obviously being sarcastic, so declaring a win (“You can’t”) is a smidge premature.
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.
[quote]pookie wrote:
bantamamerica wrote:
We’re social animals. Babies die or grow slowly when they aren’t held. People in solitary confinement go nuts. Tom Hanks makes best friends with Wilson. Without relationships, we degenerate. We need them. So it does help, if it’s the only way you can avoid feeling alone.
But it’s sad so many people are stuck with that.
Most people have families, friends, etc. If having an imaginary daddy was only found in solitary confinement inmates, it’d be understandable. But most people, I assume, are not entirely alone in the world. Wouldn’t it be better to work on real, existing relationship, rather then waste time on some imaginary one?
[/quote]
I agree it would be better. It would also be better if people were twice as smart, less wasteful, more charitable, and could change shape at will.
What someone thinks would be better is of no use in light of what actually is. People with healthy family relationships used to regularly attribute social traits to rivers and the Sun. Even today, studies show people attribute emotions to a simple bouncing ball animation. We’re wired this way. We fabricate relationships. It makes it easier to understand actual ones. Check out evolutionary psychology starting with Tooby and Cosmides if you haven’t yet. I’m not saying any of it is right or good. It’s just the way primates are.
This actually delves into something other than whether or not God exists. Now we are talking about religion itself. The only record we have of Godâ??s â??behaviorâ?? is basically the bible, at least here in the mostly Christian side of the world. Looking how God behaves when people try to test them, he tended to not act very favorably towards it. The more he was pushed the more elusive he became. Why would he do anything differently now?
Hell, in the gospels Jesus chose death rather than put on a dog and pony show for the Pharisees. He could have come down from the cross, healed himself and opened a can of whoop-ass on the whole crowd, but instead he just sat there and took it like a man and did not give into the temptation to prove himself, even though he could have.
As far as the universe is concerned, I guess we look at the same thing and see it differently. I think it looks exactly like he exists and not the other way around. But that is a different topic we done tackled in the other thread, Iâ??d rather stay on topic here.
[quote]bantamamerica wrote:
pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
Prayer does work.
And amazingly, it works equally well if you address your prayers to your vacuum cleaner or to that big tree in the neighbor’s yard.
Prove it.
Well, you can’t measure it, but if you give it a try for a month or two, you’re sure to notice it. Proving it is difficult, as it’s more of a relationship with the vacuum cleaner. How do you prove a relationship?
You can’t. Thanks for proving my other point.
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.
Secondly, pookie was obviously being sarcastic, so declaring a win (“You can’t”) is a smidge premature.
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.[/quote]
I demanded proof specifically to prove you cannot prove it, that was the point.
I know statistics and experimental design well enough to know you cannot measure a variable that is a moving target.
The variable, in this case being God, isn’t going to behaving like you want him to and you think he should, first. Second, he specifically said the he cannot be tested and you shouldn’t do it. Third, when it has been done, he became purposefully elusive. So if anything, measuring God’s behaviour, in this case is perfectly consistent with the portrayal of his behaviour in the scripture. So it would have been inconsistent for the â??studyâ?? to show anything other than it did.
You aren’t dealing with an isolated consistent variable here. You’re dealing with a variable that has superior intellect and will compared to that of the experimenters. This is what you believe if you believe in God. He never has put on a show when ever people asked him to, he’s not a trained monkey.
The study solves nothing. It proves that God won’t respond to prayer in the way you think he should, or he does not exist, or he didn’t like the prayers that were said, or he’s not a trained monkey willing to do your bidding just 'cause.
[quote]pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
Prayer does work.
And amazingly, it works equally well if you address your prayers to your vacuum cleaner or to that big tree in the neighbor’s yard.
Prove it.
Well, you can’t measure it, but if you give it a try for a month or two, you’re sure to notice it. Proving it is difficult, as it’s more of a relationship with the vacuum cleaner. How do you prove a relationship?
You can’t. Thanks for proving my other point.[/quote]
Prove to me that there’s a difference between praying to my Electrolux and praying to your God.
[quote]pat wrote:
The variable, in this case being God, isn’t going to behaving like you want him to and you think he should, first. Second, he specifically said the he cannot be tested and you shouldn’t do it.[/quote]
How convenient. Of course, anyone can write anything and declare “and if you try to test my claims, they will become purposefully elusive” – you wouldn’t buy into BS that made claims like that if you weren’t raised into it, or embedded in a social group that would spit you out if you disagreed with them, and you know it. So how can you put it forward as a respectable position?
And with respect to the JudeoChristianMuslimBahai god not giving in to temptation to prove itself, why are you sticking up for it? Shouldn’t you emulate that gods behavior, take your beatings and die in silence like the big man did?
(I don’t mean to imply ill will toward you with that last question. Just wondering, as it seems to follow if you believe Christians should try to be more like Christ.)
[quote]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.[/quote]
He’s mostly confused; and at various times, that confusion makes him appear like a retarded hypocrite, but he’s a good person.
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.
Confusion is comfortable.
[quote]bantamamerica wrote:
And with respect to the JudeoChristianMuslimBahai god not giving in to temptation to prove itself, why are you sticking up for it? Shouldn’t you emulate that gods behavior, take your beatings and die in silence like the big man did?[/quote]
Someone aspiring to be like God should be an atheist; as God himself, if He existed, would be an atheist.
Do you mean dead or mythical?
[quote]pat wrote:
Looking how God behaves when people try to test them, he tended to not act very favorably towards it. The more he was pushed the more elusive he became. Why would he do anything differently now? [/quote]
That was the plan, no?
The universe is almost entirely hostile to human life; we can’t survive in vacuum or outside a very narrow range of environmental conditions; we’re stuck here on this tiny Earth which we’re slowly polluting to death. The other planets in the solar system are inhospitable to Earth life and apparently the rest of the universe is forever out of reach, as faster than light travel does not appear physically possible.
The universe is also incomprehensibly vast; and has been around for about 14 billion years. Homo Sapiens have been around for about 200,000 years, give or take which is 0.000014% of the time. If you think all this is just for us, you’re a bit like a ant finding crumb in the kitchen of an aircraft carrier thinking “Wow! All this was made just for ME!”
We’re stuck on less than 0.000000000000000000000000001% of the real estate and we weren’t even there for 99.99996% of the time.
Yeah, we’re real special in Creation.
[quote]pookie wrote:
He’s mostly confused; and at various times, that confusion makes him appear like a retarded hypocrite, but he’s a good person.[/quote]
I don’t doubt it.
My comment about your sarcasm was regarding your claim that you can’t really prove whether or not it works. You’re dead serious that you don’t think empirical methods apply to measuring the effects of vacuum prayer (or dead Jew prayer, equally)?
Only if theism requires a belief in a power higher than oneself – then god would be right to be an atheist. But that isn’t theism. Theism is belief in god. No reason god couldn’t believe in himself, if he existed.
[quote]hedo wrote:
It has worked for me. Sometimes you don’t always get the answer you want in the time frame you think is needed. Prayer should be about giving thanks not just pleading for something to happen in my opinion.
[/quote]
If you are praying “God, please find me a job…or girlfirend, or money, or luck” then it won’t work.
There’s a Karma effect. If you pray for the wellbeing of OTHERS, and strangers, and ask for god to help show you HIS will with regard to your own life, then this is a prayer. I find good things start to happen to me when I focus on being a nice person and being of service to others where THEY need help.
A prayer isn’t “Help me this or that.” That is a plead, a desire, a wish, and is all based on self interest and is totally selfish. It does not work.
[quote]bantamamerica wrote:
My comment about your sarcasm was regarding your claim that you can’t really prove whether or not it works. You’re dead serious that you don’t think empirical methods apply to measuring the effects of vacuum prayer (or dead Jew prayer, equally)?[/quote]
Well you can prove that it works just as well as any placebo, or no prayer at all. You can’t prove to a believer that it doesn’t work, since they’ll instantly come back with “If God thinks you’re testing Him, prayer won’t work. He told me so last time He spoke to me.”
[quote]Someone aspiring to be like God should be an atheist; as God himself, if He existed, would be an atheist.
Only if theism requires a belief in a power higher than oneself – then god would be right to be an atheist. But that isn’t theism. Theism is belief in god. No reason god couldn’t believe in himself, if he existed.[/quote]
Theism is not believing in oneself; everyone does that. Theism is believing in the existence of a being “higher” and more powerful than oneself. If God does not do that, then He has no theism and is, by definition, an atheist.
If God does exist, then atheists are closer to Him in spiritual nature than believers. If He doesn’t exist (most likely) then we’re just right. Win-win, no?
[quote]pat wrote:
The variable, in this case being God, isn’t going to behaving like you want him to and you think he should, first. Second, he specifically said the he cannot be tested and you shouldn’t do it. Third, when it has been done, he became purposefully elusive.[/quote]
In other words, you’ve created a concept called “god” that is by definition untestable and unprovable. I could do exactly the same thing, only I would call my concept “katyperry4ever”, because I just saw her avatar in concert and think she is cool, and would like to worship at her altar. Can you prove katyperry4ever doesn’t exist? Of course not, because Her Divinity is beyond our comprehension, and She is beyond being tested and proved in the real world. But none of that changes the fact that She really does exist, that She will live forever, and that She is the cause of every good thing in the universe.
Point: When you create an idea that is untestable, your idea is useless. It is no different from any other fairy tale which is similarly untestable.
[quote]Rockscar wrote:
There’s a Karma effect. If you pray for the wellbeing of OTHERS, and strangers, and ask for god to help show you HIS will with regard to your own life, then this is a prayer. [/quote]
That is exactly what happened in the study. Good Christians were praying for OTHERS, not for themselves. Yet the net effect of these prayers was zero, since their heart patients recovered at exactly the same rate as the heart patients that weren’t prayed over.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
If you are spending time every day thinking positively about how to improve your life and taking actions towards that end then you are good. Whether you want to direct those thoughts towards a supreme being or focus them inswards, the result is probably going to be the same.[/quote]
The danger of praying to something that doesn’t exist is that you can then rationalize anything in the name of serving the will of your fairy tale god. History has proven that in spades.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
Prayer does work.
And amazingly, it works equally well if you address your prayers to your vacuum cleaner or to that big tree in the neighbor’s yard.
Prove it.
Well, you can’t measure it, but if you give it a try for a month or two, you’re sure to notice it. Proving it is difficult, as it’s more of a relationship with the vacuum cleaner. How do you prove a relationship?
You can’t. Thanks for proving my other point.
Prove to me that there’s a difference between praying to my Electrolux and praying to your God.
[/quote]
I can’t. But try it and see.
[quote]pat wrote:
Prove to me that there’s a difference between praying to my Electrolux and praying to your God.
I can’t. But try it and see.[/quote]
So you can’t prove any difference between praying to a canister with an air pump attached and your God, yet you defend prayer as effective.
See what I mean by confused?
[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
The variable, in this case being God, isn’t going to behaving like you want him to and you think he should, first. Second, he specifically said the he cannot be tested and you shouldn’t do it. Third, when it has been done, he became purposefully elusive.
In other words, you’ve created a concept called “god” that is by definition untestable and unprovable. I could do exactly the same thing, only I would call my concept “katyperry4ever”, because I just saw her avatar in concert and think she is cool, and would like to worship at her altar. Can you prove katyperry4ever doesn’t exist? Of course not, because Her Divinity is beyond our comprehension, and She is beyond being tested and proved in the real world. But none of that changes the fact that She really does exist, that She will live forever, and that She is the cause of every good thing in the universe.
Point: When you create an idea that is untestable, your idea is useless. It is no different from any other fairy tale which is similarly untestable.[/quote]
My aren’t we an angry little atheistâ?¦
One, I created no concept what so ever. Two, I don’t give a shit who you worship, but if you decide to worship a chick, she might as well be hot, like the one I saw dancing at the Luxor, a perfect 10. Three, if you want to get back to discussing the existence of God I suggest we go back to the other thread where the arguments are laid out already and we donâ??t have to spend a whole shit load of time rehashing them out.
If one is praying, one should be assuming the existence of God in the affirmative, otherwise whatâ??s the point.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
It is impossible to quantify any effect of prayer, and these “studies” are useless, because in order to do so, you would have to assume that every prayer offered should be answered in the affirmative. That would be a dumb assumption, because it presumes the validity of every request.
It can’t be evaluated empirically.[/quote]
http://www.whywontgodhealamputees.com/
Food for thought…