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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
 Posted - 05/26/2006 : 06:28:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Robb
I thnk it is and can be measurable. Mostly by devotion to God. Prayer is a communication with God that increases our faith and understanding. The best prayers are just telling God how you feel.
Would not an omniscient God know how you feel anyway?
(That is if you believe that God is omniscient.) quote:
Most christians beleive God can heal people of illness. Go to a church and ask if anybody has been miraculously healed. If so, ask those people about it. If in Ft Worth drop by our church and I can put you in touch with people that have been healed. Now, I know that any of these cases cannot be proved that it was God that healed them, but there has not been a scientific explaination for them either.
I don't think anybody doubts that some people that pray recover from all sorts of misfortunes. But that also happened to people that do not pray. Many people pray but are not healed. Other people pray in other ways or to other deities, also with varied results.
What is interesting to see is - In general, does people that pray and/or are prayed for fare better than other people.
quote:
Most people here agree that God cannot be proven to exist by science because God is not in the realm of science. So why do you think there should be scientific proof of prayer? What would you accept as scientific proof?
People being healed and cured of physical ailments would definitely be a scientific measurable effect of prayer. This mean that we are in the realm of science.
If there were studies that showed that people praying or being prayed for had a increased recovery rate that would be scientific evidence that "praying" or "being prayed for" has an positive effect. (We might also find the opposite.)
If "praying"/"being prayed for" is found to have an effect, we can do more studies to see why and how this works. Blind tests, different population samples, praying methods, different deities, and so on.
We might never know how prayer works but then, we don't know how gravity affects distant bodies but that does not mean that we can't use science to study the effects gravity.
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"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones |
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2006 : 06:48:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Starman
quote:
Originally posted by Robb
I thnk it is and can be measurable. Mostly by devotion to God. Prayer is a communication with God that increases our faith and understanding. The best prayers are just telling God how you feel.
Would not an omniscient God know how you feel anyway?
(That is if you believe that God is omniscient.)
Yes, but God does not get anything from prayer the person praying does. When I have prayed I have gotten a clearer understanding of things in my life. By telling God how you feel he works with you to understand those feelings and helps you deal with them. We don;t pray so God can understand us, we pray so we can unserstand us.
quote:
I don't think anybody doubts that some people that pray recover from all sorts of misfortunes. But that also happened to people that do not pray. Many people pray but are not healed. Other people pray in other ways or to other deities, also with varied results.
What is interesting to see is - In general, does people that pray and/or are prayed for fare better than other people.
Yes I agree these studies have not shown any evidence of gretaer healings from prayer. But if you cannot prove that a healing is from God what good are these studies?
quote:
quote:
Most people here agree that God cannot be proven to exist by science because God is not in the realm of science. So why do you think there should be scientific proof of prayer? What would you accept as scientific proof?
People being healed and cured of physical ailments would definitely be a scientific measurable effect of prayer. This mean that we are in the realm of science.
What proof would you need that prayer has healed a person?
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Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2006 : 07:10:54 [Permalink]
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quote:
Yes, but God does not get anything from prayer the person praying does. When I have prayed I have gotten a clearer understanding of things in my life. By telling God how you feel he works with you to understand those feelings and helps you deal with them. We don;t pray so God can understand us, we pray so we can unserstand us.
Apart form some odd puncuation, I find this quite well said.
It is true on a couple of levels. Prayer is for pray-er, not the prayed to. It matters not at all whether God exists as long as the prayer helps organize the mind and offer some relief from stress.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2006 : 07:37:25 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Robb
Yes, but God does not get anything from prayer the person praying does. When I have prayed I have gotten a clearer understanding of things in my life. By telling God how you feel he works with you to understand those feelings and helps you deal with them. We don;t pray so God can understand us, we pray so we can unserstand us.
So praying is thinking a thing through? Like meditating? How do you know that God is involved?
Isn't there a risk that you are just telling your self what some part of you want to hear?quote:
Yes I agree these studies have not shown any evidence of gretaer healings from prayer. But if you cannot prove that a healing is from God what good are these studies?
If we can learn how to improve peoples lives by praying or not praying I think that would be good.
If you do not get physical benefits from prayer, why pray for it?quote:
What proof would you need that prayer has healed a person?
That is a difficult question, as it will be very difficult to prove that it is this prayer that caused that healing.
I think that you first have to establish statistically that praying do have an effect. (This effect might in such case have nothing to do with any deity.)
Then we have the problem of making sure that no other factors could have caused the healing in this particular case.
Counter question, what evidence would you need to believe that prayer is not capable of healing people? |
"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2006 : 10:22:12 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Starman
quote:
Originally posted by Robb
Yes, but God does not get anything from prayer the person praying does. When I have prayed I have gotten a clearer understanding of things in my life. By telling God how you feel he works with you to understand those feelings and helps you deal with them. We don;t pray so God can understand us, we pray so we can unserstand us.
So praying is thinking a thing through? Like meditating? How do you know that God is involved?
Isn't there a risk that you are just telling your self what some part of you want to hear?
This is close to my thoughts on what Robb said, it is a way to relieve the anxiety, confusion, or conflict by organizing your thoughts on what ever it is that you need a clearer understanding. So it could just be the act of organizing your thoughts that does the job, where God is just nuetral, a supernatural placebo. Perhaps writing your thoughts down or sharing them with a friend will accomplish the same thing. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2006 : 15:31:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Robb
Prayer is a communication with God that increases our faith and understanding. The best prayers are just telling God how you feel.
At the end of my time as a Pentacostal (before I wrote the letter to the church asking them to strike me out of their leger) my prayer was this:
(this is from my memory, some 12 years ago in annother language than English. None the less, any colourful language used is accurately translated.)
"God, I'm sick and tired of you constantly ignoring my prayers. The few things that did go my way was not more than I would expect from random happenstance. If you can't give me more, then why am I bothering? I'm feeling miserable, and your "church" and my brothers-in-Christ don't give a shit about me. I'm tired of struggling this uphill battle. I asked you for a final favour (you know which I mean), a chance to turn things around but I got zilch in return. From now on I'm going to live my life my own way, screw you, I don't need you anymore and you won't get anything from me again. Go to Hell and fuck yourself!"
From that moment on, I considered myself an anti-theist. I guess some would call me satanist since I "rebelled" against God. By then I was half-way to where I am today. I consider God to be dead or non-existant. Intellectually, I have say I'm agnostic, since science cannot confirm God's non-existance. However, emotionally, I swing between the image of God as a sadist, and the image of God being the rotting corpse of some bronze-age critter-herder's imaination.
Back then, I had a lot of anger and resentment against Christianity for conning me into the brainwashing I had unwittingly relented myself to willingly recieved, and of which I still suffer flashbacks. However, I'm on the mend, and more and more my intellect is replacing my anger with critical analysis.
Judging from most of my posts at this forum, wouldn't you say I've made progress? 
Edited: Oh, I forgot to finish the story...
Three months later I got a new job (the place where I'm working now), that forced me to move to a new town. Here, I got better paid, got to work better hours (and fewer), got a job that challenged my intellect and my intelligence providing more substance and I got to learn many new things as well as utilizing the knowledge I already had, got new friends, got a girlfriend that I celebrated my tenth anniversary with this winter, got a driving licence for a bike I bought myself etc. I'm happier and more content than I've ever been. I grew much more the first 3 years as a person than all the years I spent in church.
Saying "Fuck off, God!" was the best move I ever made, and I haven't regretted it one single second.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
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| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 05/26/2006 15:41:55 |
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2006 : 15:37:36 [Permalink]
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Hey Doc, that sounds very familiar...
I guess we failed whatever test god was giving us, or we weren't real christians in the first place (I've heard both). |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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| Edited by - pleco on 05/26/2006 15:38:20 |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2006 : 15:50:42 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by pleco
Hey Doc, that sounds very familiar...
I guess we failed whatever test god was giving us, or we weren't real christians in the first place (I've heard both).
Whatever test that was, I know most of the people my age in that church were "less" christan than me in the respect that they didn't practice whatever they learned. Or what they taught. All the nice words about being a community, it was still a few exclusive cliques. You were either "in" or "out", though they never talked about it that way. You just noticed.
Just to make sure it wasn't just "that" church, I tried a few others. Some from the same congregation, Pentacostals. But also Baptist and some others. Same everywhere. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2006 : 17:51:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
If the Bible is a book of myths, then evolution is the thought of a blind.
I hope we can get some better logic than this in future posts. You might get away with these kinds of statements in the sandpit but not around here.
quote:
quote:
What proof would you need that prayer has healed a person?
...
Then we have the problem of making sure that no other factors could have caused the healing in this particular case.
Absolutely true. For us to to accept that prayer can have an effect, any other factors must be excluded as an explanation. As already pointed out, things heal spontaneously. People get medical treatment. People change their diets. The healing might have conincided with changes in smog-levels/pollen count/mood swings/less exposure to pathogenic microorganisms etc, etc, etc. For this reason, it is impossible to say in any one instance if it was the prayer that caused the healing. This is why large sample sizes, good experimental design and statistics have to be used since these will (should, at least) tend to cancel these other effects out.
Of course, if we wish to attribute the prayer effect to a god, we must also first prove the existence of this god.... |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2006 : 18:59:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by RobbYes, but God does not get anything from prayer the person praying does. When I have prayed I have gotten a clearer understanding of things in my life. By telling God how you feel he works with you to understand those feelings and helps you deal with them. We don;t pray so God can understand us, we pray so we can unserstand us.
You can do the same thing meditating or taking a long shower.
quote:
Yes I agree these studies have not shown any evidence of gretaer healings from prayer. But if you cannot prove that a healing is from God what good are these studies?
Because you can gather evidence if prayer does anything at all. Given a praying group and a non-praying group. You expect a higher rate of healing from the praying group if prayer does anything. Similarly, you would get a statistically higher rate of -whatever they pray for- in your praying population assuming all other things are equal. You do not because praying is a waste of time.
Of course god my be hiding his existence and not healing his followers who participate in these studies. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2006 : 15:02:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Hawks
Of course, if we wish to attribute the prayer effect to a god, we must also first prove the existence of this god....
At least determine if the God is Yehovah, Vishnu (or'Dhanvantari), Freja, or Ixtlilton. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2006 : 05:12:22 [Permalink]
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| Bithday Wish Sophism: If you tell anyone what your prayer was it wont come true, therefor you can never prove it works/dont work. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2006 : 11:54:24 [Permalink]
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Not precisely on topic maybe, but oh ouch!! 
The key sentence here is: quote:
She said 'Amen' and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. The 65-year-old Brown said she is blessed to be alive.
Blessed... Some blessing! It might be that God was sick of hearing it and was telling her, in his subtle way, to shut the hell up. And, failed again, obviously ...
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2006 : 13:00:42 [Permalink]
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That article was hilarious, Filthy!
Sooner or later, even the dimmest bulb who is consistently struck by the "blessing" of lightning when praying is going to be psychologically unable to continue the behavior. Or will start experimenting with chanting "Hail Satan" whenever they hear distant rumblings in the sky.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2006 : 03:59:58 [Permalink]
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So, is a praying person more likely or less likely to be struck by lighting?
Anybody want to fund my new research project?
Need some test subjects of different religions and denominations as well.
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"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones |
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