[quote]Lorisco wrote:
orion wrote:
Give me a link to a double-blind- study concerning prayer.
Here is one example of a double blind study on prayer and patients in the Cardiac Care Unit:
But, even then, the very feeling that some people actually care for you might work miracles.
Both groups would have had that same experience, so that doesn’t explain why the group that was anonymously prayed for had better outcomes.
You must at least be open for the possibility that faith can change peoples lifes without being based in reality?
Reality? The only thing you know of reality is what you taste, touch, and see after your brain has sent you that information. You have no connection to anything outside of your body in terms of information other than what your brain tells you.
So my friend, what your brain tells you IS the only reality that you or anyone has. There is no reality outside of the info your brain gives you.
So faith IS reality, because if your brain believes it that is the highest and only reality that a human can experience.
[/quote]
This depends on a number of factors…how the blinding was done, how the control group and study group were decided upon, otcome measures, analysis of researcher.
Bottom line is, prayer dont work. I pary for world peace…now how much has that one been done. If that was the case they would wipe certain warmongers off the planet, but that is yet to happen.
[quote]JPBear wrote:
I am sorry that my post to butterd_corn came across as rude. I am just as concerned for his soul as I am for anyone else’s. I just wanted to answer to the idea that he had been a Christian and found it to be false.
I believe in the perseverance (or better put - preservation) of the saints.
Jesus said:
“All that the Father give Me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should loose nothing, but should raise it up on the last day.” - John 6: 37-39
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.” - John 10: 27-29
I have a ton more scriptures to support this doctrine as well as scriptures dealing with false converts if any one is interested.
[/quote]
I understand this better after having kids, not that I get it completely. I’m sure that God could create something that would love him and worship him automatically. I guess he didn?t want to do that. This gets into the nature of God and his character. With my children I want them to obey me not because I force them too, but because they love and trust me. I think it?s similar with God and mankind. Free choice is an all or nothing deal. Right now I?m thinking that I wish he would have just made me perfect in the first place. God controls the influences of your choices, but if he were to manipulate them to get you to give you no other choice than to worship him then that is not free choice. [/quote]
You misspoke. God controls all of the influences that DETERMINE my choices. He can’t take credit for just some of creation. If he made everything in the Universe, then he made everything that has ultimately led me to be sitting here typing. If he is all knowing, he knew when he started who would love him and who wouldn’t.
Sure you don’t want to force your kids to love them, but would you burn them in fire for all eternity if they didn’t? What about the people who do no evil, they just aren’t Christians? They are going to roast, because god is decided to create billions of people he knew would never love him. Do you consider that to be a just god deserving of love and respect?
If God gave clear, undeniable Revolation to each of us, then he could punish us for denying him. If he can’t be bothered to make the effort, screw him.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matthew 6:5-6)
Or were there versus talking about praying to one of the other gods that live up there with the trinity?
Genesis 1:26
And God said, let us make man in our image.
Genesis 3:22
And the Lord God said, Behold, then man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.
Genesis 11:7
Let us go down, and there confound their language.
Exodus 12:12
And against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment.
Exodus 15:11
Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods?
Exodus 18:11
Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods.
Exodus 20:3
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Exodus 22:20
He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed.
Exodus 22:28
Thou shalt not revile the gods.
Exodus 23:13
Make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.
Exodus 23:24
Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.
Exodus 23:32
Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
Exodus 34:14
For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Deuteronomy 6:14-15
Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;(For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you)
Numbers 33:4
Upon their gods also theLORD executed judgments.
Judges 11:24
Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess?
1 Samuel 6:5
Ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods.
1 Samuel 28:13
And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth.
Psalm 82:1
God standeth in the congregation of the mighty, he judgeth among the gods.
Psalm 82:6
I have said, Ye are gods.
Psalm 86:8
Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord.
Psalm 96:4
For the Lord … is to be feared above all gods.
Psalm 97:7
Worship him, all ye gods.
Psalm 136:2
O give thanks unto the God of gods.
Jeremiah 1:16
I will utter my judgments against them … who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods.
Jeremiah 0:11
The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.
Zephaniah 2:11
The Lord will be terrible to them: for he will famish all the gods of the earth.
John 10:33-34
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
1 John 5:7
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
[quote]haney wrote:
Personally I agree that these posts do get old, but they are very useful to me personally.
If one was to read my posts on these topics going back a year. They could easily see how much my opinion on things has changed. Someone will post something I disagree with it, and then I do some research. In the process of my research I sometimes find myself forced to change my opinion. The problem with most of these debates is no one is looking to learn something. They are too busy trying to prove something.
I tend to gain a new respect for the person I am dealing with, and my knowledge of things increase.
[/quote]
You aren’t afraid of facts and are willing to read both sides of these issues. You are smart enough to understand that reading only unsourced apologist websites is not a path to the truth (whatever that turns out to be). Few of the other Christians here are willing to do that.
I don’t understand how so many believers can feel called to proselytize, and then fail to arm themselves with a least a basic understanding of logic and science.
Cutting and pasting weak, illogical arguements (that they themselves can’t explain) consisting of nothing but double-talk is sure to drive away more people than it will ever convert.
[quote]doogie wrote:
I don’t understand how so many believers can feel called to proselytize, and then fail to arm themselves with a least a basic understanding of logic and science.
[/quote]
Remember doogs, religion by its very nature decries the use of logic. Believing in supernatural stuff does not make any kind of logical or scientific sense. At all.
That’s why they can use cognitive dissonance to such a degree as to say and do such wacky shit… like the earth is only 6000 years old or that dinosaur bones are put here to test our faith.
An ounce of applied common sense will slay all religious belief. And that scares the shit out of them. Reality is scary for some people.
You don’t have even a speck of gold you could hold up and show us, you have the same emotional feelings that Atta and his pals were feeling when they shouted god is great before vaporizing themselves.
D[/quote]
I seriously doubt Atta shouted God is Great before vaporizing himself.
[quote]
Mass suicides a recurrent world phenomenon
Reuters, March 18, 2000
LONDON, March 18, 2000 (Reuters) - At least 100 members of a Ugandan Doomsday cult died in a ritual mass suicide on Friday, police said on Saturday.
Following is a list of some of the previous mass suicides over the past quarter century.
March 23, 1997 - Police in Saint Casimir, Quebec, found the charred bodies of three women and two men inside a house owned by a member of the Solar Temple, an international sect that believes death by ritualized suicide leads to rebirth in a place called “Sirius.”
Police identified the dead as two French women, two Swiss men and a Canadian woman and said they included the house owner, his wife and her mother. The bodies of the five were found in a bedroom, laid out on a bed in the form of a cross.
December 1995 - 16 Solar Temple members were found dead in a burned house outside Grenoble, in the French Alps. Two French police officers were among the 16 dead.
October 1994 - Police found the burned bodies of 48 Solar Temple members in a farmhouse and three chalets in Switzerland. At the same time in Quebec, five bodies, including that of an infant, were found in a chalet in Morin Heights, a picturesque village in the Laurentians ski resort area north of Montreal.
October 1993 - 53 hill tribe villagers in a remote Vietnamese hamlet committed mass suicide with flintlock guns and other primitive weapons in the belief they would go straight to heaven. Officials said they were the victims of a scam devised by a blind local man Ca Van Liem, who received big cash donations in return for promising a speedy road to paradise.
April 19, 1993 - At least 70 Branch Davidian cult members died after fire and a shoot-out with police and federal agents ended a 51-day siege of the compound near Waco, Texas.
David Koresh, leader of the Waco group, died of a gunshot wound to the head sometime during the blaze. A baby-faced rock guitarist from Dallas, Koresh had preached a messianic gospel of sex, freedom and revolution and told his followers he was Jesus Christ.
December 1991 - Mexican police blamed a minister’s fervent belief in God for his death and that of 29 followers who suffocated when he told them to keep praying and ignore toxic fumes filling their church. Ramon Morales Almazan shouted at his followers to remain calm as they began to choke, vomit and faint.
November 18, 1978 - Paranoid U.S. pastor, the Rev. Jim Jones, led 914 followers to their deaths at Jonestown, Guyana, by drinking a cyanide-laced fruit drink. Cult members who refused to swallow the liquid were shot. Jones had carved a sign over his altar at Jonestown, reading “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.”[/quote]
Fun fact: The persecution and mass murder of European Jews by Christians from 306 to 1945 CE was the longest lasting mass crime against humanity.
Recent genocides motivated by religion:
–The deaths of unknown millions Congolese, starting in 1885 and continuing into the 20th century, while the Congo Free State (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) was controlled by King Leopold II of Belgium. It was a regime of widespread forced labor, mass murder, mutilation and torture.
–The massacre of the Armenian Christians by the Turks during 1915 & 1916. Although the government of Turkey denies that this actually happened, the evidence of the genocide is overwhelming.
–The highly organized extermination of about 11 million persons by the Nazi government of Germany, including six million Jews.
–The genocide of Muslims, Roma, Serbian Orthodox and others by the Usta?a – a Roman-Catholic/Fascist regime) which controlled Croatia from 1941 to 1945.
–The genocide of the Roman Catholics in East Timor by the Muslim government of Indonesia from 1975 to 1999. About one in three Catholics in the country were exterminated.
–The genocide of hundreds of thousands of people, mainly Muslims, primarily by Serbian Orthodox Christians in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1990s
–The genocide of Christians and Animists by the Muslim government of Sudan. This program continues today.
Of course, they were just following God’s example.
Old Testament Genocides:
–Genesis, chapters 6 to 8: The Bible records that God was concerned about the level of violence and other evil behavior among humans. He “was sorry that He had made man on the earth…” 6 God apparentlydecided that the solution lay in more violence: He decided to destroy almost the entire human race. Only Noah, his three sons and their four wives survived by building an ark to ride out the flood. The rest of the human race – elderly, men, women, youth, children, infants and newborns – and the land animals and birds were said to have all drowned a gruesome death. The Schofield Bible dates the flood as happening in 2349 BCE. This was the largest and most thorough act of genocide in history.
– Exodus, chapters 11 & 12: God first hardened the heart of the Pharaoh of Egypt so that he would refuse the request by his Hebrew slaves for permission to leave Egypt. Then, God sent a series of plagues to torment all the inhabitants of Egypt. Finally, God sent an angel to kill all of the first-born in the country – both human and animal – including the old, middle-aged, young, and newborns. The only exception were those Hebrews who had taken special precautions by ritually slaughtering a lamb and spreading its blood over the doorways of their homes. This genocide was the final act that convinced the Pharaoh to release the Hebrews.
–Deuteronomy, chapters 7 & 20. and Joshua, chapters 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, etc.: After wandering in the desert for four decades, God ordered the Hebrews to invade the “promised land” and totally exterminate “the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites” 7 leaving “alive nothing that breathes.” 8 They were to fight and kill the soldiers of these groups, and then murder the defenseless elderly, women, youths, children, infants, and newborns. The book of Joshua records the progress of the genocide, city by city:
Joshua 8:24 - City of Ai
Joshua 10:26 - Joshua murdered five defenseless kings of the Amorites in cold blood.
Joshua 10:28 - City of Makkedah
Joshua 10:29 - City of Libnah
Joshua 10:31 - City of Lachish
Joshua 10:33 - City of Gezer “…Joshua smote him and his people until he had left him none remaining.”
Joshua 10:34 - City of Elgon “They left none remaining.”
Joshua 10:37 - City of Hebron
Joshua 10:38 - City of Debir
–Judges, chapters 19 and 20: Some of the people in the town of Gibeah of the tribe of Benjamin sexually abused and murdered the concubine of a priest. In an act of grave desecration of her body, her owner mutilated her corpse by cutting it into 12 pieces. He sent one to each of the tribes of Israel. This triggered a civil war between the tribe of Benjamin, and an army of 400,000 soldiers, drawn from the remaining 11 tribes. Tens of thousands died during the fighting. Apparently all of the Benjamin towns were burned and their women and children were systematically exterminated during these battles. The tribe of Benjamin was nearly wiped out; only a few hundred men survived
You aren’t afraid of facts and are willing to read both sides of these issues. You are smart enough to understand that reading only unsourced apologist websites is not a path to the truth (whatever that turns out to be). Few of the other Christians here are willing to do that.
[/quote]
My parents taught me to think for myself. So when I was about 16 I started my path to find out what I believe to be the truth vs. what I had always been taught. As I have gone on I have discovered that my belief has to stand up to the harshest critic, and have atleast a plausible answer for it to be real.
I think that about most people I deal withconcerning politics, money, education, etc…
How can so many people take such a basic interest in some of the most important things in life. The things that impact them on an everyday basis.
It just seems like people don’t want to learn anything. It drives me nuts that people are so lazy that they want their answers handed to them on a plate.
Man… that was sharp, and very accurate for a lot of situations.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
In an honest question for conservatives:
If you are like Doogie, and don’t believe in the Christian thing, then how can you reconcile conservatism with the hijacking the religious right has done to your party?
To me, it seems, once again, like it’s live and let live. Conservatives should be for this…[/quote]
We have to choose what issues we prioritize when it comes time to vote. There will never be a candidate that is everything I’m looking for.
For now, the things that piss me off about the religious right don’t scare me as bad as the psychotic left.
Things I don’t like about the religious right.
–Federal judge James Leon Holmes, who said these lovely things:
“we are left with some unease about this notion that Christianity and the political order should be assigned to separate spheres.”
“Christianity transcends the political order and cannot be subordinated to the political order.”
“..the final reunion of Church and state will take place at the end of time, when Christ will claim definitive political power of all creation, inaugurating an entirely new society based on the supernatural.”
…using Byrd’s “Good/Intermediate/Bad” scoring system to evaluate their own data, the MAHI researchers found “no significant difference between [the] groups.” Thus, with respect to Byrd’s positive data, the MAHI study was not able to replicate his results…
… Although they have “no explanation” as to why, even at the P = .04 level, the Byrd scoring system failed to find significance in their own data, the MAHI authors offer speculation. They note that their protocol was more thoroughly blinded than was Byrd’s, in that neither the patients nor the medical staff were even aware that a study was being conducted. Such awareness among the Byrd patients assured that those with objections to such a study were able to opt out, thus indicating to the MAHI authors that “only ‘prayer-receptive’ patients were included in [Byrd’s] final cohort.” Additionally, the Byrd intercessors had been kept informed as to their patients’ conditions and progress, whereas the only patient information given the MAHI intercessors was their first names. Translation: Byrd’s scoring system may have been too tough for a more thoroughly blinded test involving patients not screened for prayer receptiveness…
f “intercessory prayer” was not controlled, except that each IP patient was assumed to have received somewhere between X+3 and X+7 prayers daily, as opposed to X+0 for the control patients, what are we to conclude? That God is conditioned in a Pavlovian manner to automatically respond to the side with the greater number of troops, even though the assigned intercessors had no emotional ties to their patients, and even though the IP patients were otherwise no more worthy of healing as a group than were the controls? Does God not know that the side with fewer troops is in just as much need of assistance? Where is the evidence of his omniscience and compassion?
And what can be said about the evidence for God’s omnipotence? It is true, assuming that Byrd’s data are valid, that in the IP group, 5 percent fewer patients needed diuretics, 7 percent fewer needed antibiotics, 6 percent fewer needed respiratory intubation and/or ventilation, 6 percent fewer developed congestive heart failure, 5 percent fewer developed pneumonia, and 5 percent fewer suffered cardiopulmonary arrest. But no significant differences were found among the other twenty categories, including mortality, despite explicit prayers “for prevention of … death.”
…In addition to the twenty-six categories previously described, three further variables were tracked during the study and tested for significance: “Days in CCU after entry,” “Days in hospital after entry,” and “Number of discharge medications.” No significant differences between the prayer and control groups were found, despite explicit prayers for “a rapid recovery.” Are we thus to conclude from all of the data derived in this study that although God may reflexively respond to the will of the majority, his manifestations are so marginal as to approach insignificance?
… in other words, there’s no such thing as magic supernatural powers – which you would have known already if you weren’t superstitious.
The effect of prayer is emotional only. Just like music. Hey, sometimes it helps to get an emotional boost. But realize that it is not some magic property of the music which does this – it is inside of YOU. You are the one creating the effect. The music does nothing without someone to react to it.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
orion wrote:
Give me a link to a double-blind- study concerning prayer.
Here is one example of a double blind study on prayer and patients in the Cardiac Care Unit:
But, even then, the very feeling that some people actually care for you might work miracles.
Both groups would have had that same experience, so that doesn’t explain why the group that was anonymously prayed for had better outcomes.
You must at least be open for the possibility that faith can change peoples lifes without being based in reality?
Reality? The only thing you know of reality is what you taste, touch, and see after your brain has sent you that information. You have no connection to anything outside of your body in terms of information other than what your brain tells you.
So my friend, what your brain tells you IS the only reality that you or anyone has. There is no reality outside of the info your brain gives you.
So faith IS reality, because if your brain believes it that is the highest and only reality that a human can experience.
[/quote]
If you take that argument a step further , even a made up God is as real as it gets, as long as you believe in him.
At least in your reality which could be fundamentally different from mine. Is there a God in your universe, but not in mine and is this perfectly possible?
If that is you point of view, how does that prayer thing work? If we do not share one reality, hopwever different we perceive it to be, how can your praying make changes in me.
It goes back to, your God can be very real to you, but still does not have to exist, subjective reality and so, and if praying really works, there are a lot of other things that need some serious research, like does it matter who prays, to what Gods, when, where, how many, can we duplicate those findings in a conmtrolled setting.
It would still not prove the whole Abraham/10 commandments/Jesus thing, though.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
ZEB wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
It is preaching. You are all on your soapboxes. If you’re that concerned with someone’s well being, send them a PM and be done with it. Start an email club or something for your cults.
But please, please stop crowding the politics forums with all this crap. There are sites on religion, there are plenty of discussions on religion elsewhere.
I don’t mind it once in a while, but its getting tiresome. I understand you had good intentions Solomon, but isn’t that what the road to hell is paved with?
Live and let live. You guys need to take that to heart more often.
I think that was well said Irish!
In fact, you have inspired me to begin a thread about how Christians should be kinder and gentler to those who don’t believe.
You’re a bastard, but that was well done ;)[/quote]
And you are my very young liberal pal that I must bust on now and then.
…it’s quite telling that no believer responded to this post. Minor oversight or willful ignorance?
I responded to him in a PM.
Sometimes things happen that you cannot see, and know nothing about.
Faith my friend…faith!
…whatever (-: I would love to see that post adressed in public by our clique of firm believers. Please, humor me…
[/quote]
Excellent notion! That’s what this forum was for I thought… or are we lost, sinful, wayward chaps a product of a good ole bait and switch tatic. Let’s Get it On!
Oh and UFC 60 Tonight BABY! Matt Hughes vs. Hoyce Gracie IT’s ON!
