Initially, every man looks for an inspiration as a driving force for whatever he wants to gain or achieve in life. It could be anything; since we are spiritual beings with a higher level of conscience we relate to individual beings and then tend to lean towards misconceptions such as existence of god and him/her/it being a bleeding half naked jew nailed to a 2 by 4 piece of wood.
But having faith in something is enough for someone to succeed. Its not about measuring or using a metric functionality to prove something exists or doesnt exist. Lateral thinking doesnt work all the time. Prayer/Religion still exists to make the sub-conscious mind believe that you can depend on something or someone that possesses a higher power than you do. Someone who knows things that you cant find an answer to (Omniscient etc).
So in answer to the OP’s Q, “Does prayer work?” Yes it does, but as aforementioned, you can pray to vacuum cleaner and still get the same results. Prayer is there to convince your spiritual being, that you are capable of it.
[quote]clip11 wrote:
Sloth wrote:
clip11 wrote:
Now the moment I get that job at McDonalds the first thing im going to hear is “Did you thank God?” and in going to be thinking WHAT THE FUCK!!! Is it a miracle that im flipping hamburgers at McDonalds??? I mean im told God is supposed to be the almighty ruler of the universe, yet the best miracle he can do for me is get me a minimum wage job at a fast food resturaunt! Oh hallelujah! I feel like speaking in tongues!
Take God out of this for a second…You could be making nothing, still looking for any kind of work. See the unemployment thread. Maybe you should be a bit thankful, if even in a secular, atheist approved, kind of way. It’s honest work, that you want to do, for the wage offered. Otherwise, you wouldn’t take it and some other guy, enthusiastic with getting any sized paycheck, could fill it.
I mean, we’re talking about God here…the same one who created the universe…or the same one that parted the red sea. I only pray for an 11 or 12 dollar a hour job, yet I have to settle for a minimum wage job. Now im not asking for Mt Everest to be thrown into the Atlantic, just a 12 dollar a hour job. How hard can that be to God? He should be able to do that as easy as I can take off my socks. 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.
And this came from the mouth of Jesus who christians consider to be God in person.
[/quote]
Perhaps your faith doesn’t even approach the size of a mustard seed?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
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 probability on the left is infinitely close to 1.[/quote]
Let’s see, since the universe is complex and ordered, you believe it is improbable that it isn’t designed. Yet the designer would have to be even more complex and ordered than his universe, hence even more improbable.
[quote]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.[/quote]
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]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.[/quote]
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]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.[/quote]
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.
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.
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]Loose Tool wrote:
A couple of weeks ago I finished reading, The Black swan" a book about the impact of the highly improbable. In it the author tells a story about a greek philospher, Diagoras, a nonbeliever in the gods. He was shown painted tablets showing portraits of some worshippers who prayed, then survived a subsequent shipwreck. The implication being that praying protects you from drowning. In response Diagoras asked, “Where were the pictures of those who prayed, then drowned?”[/quote]
Exactly. People fall into this logical error all the time. When something improbable occurs, they automatically assume it must be due to divine intervention, but they ignore the other 99% of the time when nothing unusual happens. Sometimes things really do occur by chance alone (e.g., people pray to the Greek gods, then survive a shipwreck).
[quote]Rockscar wrote:
Prayer does work, and it works to better your own life. You must be willing to embrace it, and do it correctly through the right types of prayer and action for it to work for him.
You want to debate if ones prayer heals another physically. This is NOT what I was addressing.
[/quote]
If you’re not claiming that prayer actually improves the health of other people, only that it “betters your own life”, couldn’t you achieve the same benefits through meditation without invoking supernatural beings that don’t really exist?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Prayer is for thanks-giving, worship, contrition, etc. Bascially, spiritual matters. Now we might put foward a worldy, request, yes. If it’s his will, let it be done. If not, so be it. Christ had to suffer, and Christians still have to put in their recovery time after a cardiac event. [/quote]
But if the number of times that “it’s his will” is identical to the number of times it would have happened anyway, without prayer, doesn’t that beg the question? Why pray for results if it makes literally zero difference in the real world?
[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]
This has been an interesting thread. I want to sincerely note that I feel people often cling to ideas and perceptions about prayer and God as a way to cope with the reality that we all die at some point. And the thought that there is likely nothing after death can be terrifying. I know because I have felt this anguish and have had to do a lot of inner work to deal with this.
It reminds me of a quote that has helped me deal with these ultimate questions:
“I always wanted a happy ending… Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.” â??Gilda Radner
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.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Perhaps your faith doesn’t even approach the size of a mustard seed?
Classic response:
If you pray for X and it doesn’t happen, either:
It wasn’t god’s will or
You didn’t have enough faith
Identical reasoning can be used to prove your vacuum cleaner answers prayers.[/quote]
See i was told that the bible is the LITERAL WORD OF GOD and that everything said in te bible is right…but alot of times it hard to reconcile with real life. When Jesus said “Ask and it shall be given to you” that seems straightforward. There was no prerequisites that Jesus mentioned. He didnt add “…if it be Gods will”. So when you do what Jesus said and nothing happens, it raises a shitload of questions!
As for not having enough faith, Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, which is the size of a grain of salt. Thats the most meager amount of faith one can have. I have scoliosis but my grandfather will tell you he has enough faith to pray for anyone with any illness and they WILL be healed.
I can go to his house right now, at this moment and have him pray for my scoliosis right now and what do you thimk would happen. Any takers? You guessed it, I would still leave his house with scoliosis…but I would be told that its just the will of God that I not be healed. And I will think to myself “How the hell i it the will of God for me to have a curved spine!” I mean it doesnt make sense. Now the scoliosis doesnt affect me in everyday life, but according to the bible, it should still be healed with prayer.
By the way, if my scoliosis is healed thru prayer…everyone on T Nation will hear about it. I have x rays and doctors statements saying I have scoliosis, and if prayer heals it ill go get doctors statements saying I no longer have it and will be sure to post both on T Nation.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Perhaps your faith doesn’t even approach the size of a mustard seed?
Classic response:
If you pray for X and it doesn’t happen, either:
It wasn’t god’s will or
You didn’t have enough faith
Identical reasoning can be used to prove your vacuum cleaner answers prayers.[/quote]
So? That’s like saying, if I answered the question “Who is the Christian savior” with Christ, I’ve given a “classic response.” Since faith can’t be measured in size and compared to that of a mustard seed, we’re talking figuratively. The message is, we fall so far short in our faith, failing time and again, our faith doesn’t measure up. For an atheist, you seem determined to argue as a “Fundamentalist Penecostal.”
Of course, if you think the original post is really from a faithful Christian in the first place, I can’t help you. Lord knows we all start topics railing at God for our McDonalds job. Not to mention admitting one is actually an agnostic in the same post. Honestly, the original post is more like a non-christian troll job.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Prayer is for thanks-giving, worship, contrition, etc. Bascially, spiritual matters. Now we might put foward a worldy, request, yes. If it’s his will, let it be done. If not, so be it. Christ had to suffer, and Christians still have to put in their recovery time after a cardiac event.
But if the number of times that “it’s his will” is identical to the number of times it would have happened anyway, without prayer, doesn’t that beg the question? Why pray for results if it makes literally zero difference in the real world?[/quote]
I specifically said any intercessions in this world would be so rare as to not even register. You pray for your brother out of concern.
[quote]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.
[/quote]
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]Sloth wrote:
The message is, we fall so far short in our faith, failing time and again, our faith doesn’t measure up. [/quote]
I get the message. My point was that this logic provides a blanket excuse for one’s belief. It is literally impossible to disprove it, because any outcome can be written off as “not being god’s will”, or “not having enough faith”.
As such, it is useless for knowing what is actually true.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
I specifically said any intercessions in this world would be so rare as to not even register. You pray for your brother out of concern. [/quote]
If you’re concerned about someone, wouldn’t you want to take action to actually address his problem? If you knew that prayer would have zero effect on his problem, how is that praying out of concern?