Prayers do work!!! In fact, they work 1 out of 8 times on a Keno Three Spot... Unless you play Special Keno and then god only answers 1 prayer in like 30 or something around there. Still don't believe? Here's proof, flip a coin a few times and pray for it to land on heads, I guarantee at least half of your prayers will be answered.

The website www.whywontgodhealamputees.com has a great discussion about this.  The forums on the site are also very good.  Basically the argument is that if god heals prayers, why wont he ever heal amputees?  If you pray he will cure your loved one's cancer or that they survive a surgery, or for that matter any medical situation where if it's ambiguous whether or not it was god or medical science which did the trick, god seems to answer about as often as you would expect it to through medical science or chance alone.  But when the result of the prayer, or the "healing", would unambigously be a result of god's actions (e.g. an amputee growing back a lost limb), god lays a big goose egg. 

 

I have heard some very weak responses to this, such as "how do you know god never heals amputees?" or even worse, "god doesnt heal amputees because it doesnt kill them and it makes them stronger."  Please.  Then how about why wont god heal those afflicted with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease)?  That's a disease that is uniformly fatal and sure as hell doesnt make anyone "stronger". 

 

Or how about why wont god heal bacterial infections?  Many many centuries (millions of years really) passed, with many many people dying, before the development of antibiotics.  But even with all the success we have had over the years developing newer and better antibiotics, bacteria keep pace by mutating and developing resistance to these drugs.  I would love to ask a christian to explain this to me.  Either god is working through medical science to create antibiotics, in which case you would have to ask (1) what took him so long? and (2) why do the bacteria, which he created, keep developing resistance, since obviously that is thwarting his efforts?  Or... you believe that god is working AGAINST medical science by creating resistent organisms to thwart the evil doctors and drug companies that create such therapies, in which case you have to ask why would he not be powerful enough to create a bacteria resistent to any current and future antibiotics?  Or...if you believe that god is just a bystander watching his creations, the bacteria and the humans, battle it out, then what would be the point of praying to him?  So what is it?

 Religion is propogated by the parents, and then the cycle continues with each new generation.  Because of this, religion will never go away.  I've spoken to some of my creationist co-workers about this, and it's pretty scary actually.  The way most rational people believe in things like gravity, air, and evolution, is the way these people believe in god and the accuracy of the bible.  Imagine someone trying to convince you that gravity isn't real, you would hear none of it.  It's the paradox of proving that something invisible doesn't exist.  I honestly wouldn't care what people believe in, if it wasn't holding back humanity.  I mean, how many wars are fought in the name of god?  How much money is spent on those wars?  How many lives, and how much time wasted?  Sure humanity has advanced by leaps and bounds technologically, but our cultural psyche is still in the dark ages.  Makes me vomit.

Holding back humanity from what? Are you saying that if we converted the world to atheism, they'd reach some new found "humanity", fullfilling some notion of what we are supposed to be? What is belief holding us back from? And what is the source of this something we're suppose to have, and not be held back from?

 

And knowledge has some magical quality, that claims for itself that it's not be held back from us? The Gospel claim "the truth shall set you free", is a religious statement, and what we seem to be witnessing here is a comical parody of that. 

Self-deception is a valuable "survival" quality for various animals, including ourselves, knowledge doesn't have some magical bent in a secular world. What it also doesn't have is a distinctive sort of meaning either, like knowledge applies to knowing the joystick movement of Street Fighter, to cooking an ethnic dish, to the rules of soccer, and fight club. Knowledge doesn't have any sort of direction it desires to lead us to. It doesn't prefer peace, to violence, or love to hate, or any emotional proclivity over the other. "Knowledge" serves to inform our desired ends, regardless if they're ones we label benevolent, or destructive. Knowledge serves to inform concerns we've already had to begin with. I have little desire to be knowledgeable about the composition of the stars, and will perhaps remain willfully ignorant of this tid bit of data, as I am of the numerous members of a sports team, I'm not a fan of. 

Bloods and Crypts who kill each other for wearing different color clothing, don't do so out of a lack of knowledge. 

 

The problem with many atheist, who churn shit like this, is that they've been warped by the plethora of religious thinking they've been surrounded by, that they've taken some religious notions and beliefs, as a given, while still proclaiming allegiance to being secular. It's why you find them giving all sorts of divine like qualitiesto certain human emotions, to science, to reason, and to knowledgeable. 

It's why ZAQ, could stroll in all confident, and proclaim without hesitation that religion is holding us back from Knowledge, with a capital K, as if the term has a distintive sense of meaning, that distinguishes this sort of capital "K" knowledge, from the knowledge of Pokeman cards. 

 

Well, his use of knowledge here would of been of some sort of capital "K", knowledge, like the theist use of truth, with a capital "T", regardless if he capitilized the term or not, he was suggesting some sort of note of distinction. 

The one poster suggested religion was keeping humanity back, and everyone been clueless in answering the question, of what exactly is humanity being held back from? One responders suggested knowledge, a rather vague response, since knowledge holds no special merit of distinctiveness, and can apply to both knowledge of Pokeman cards, the composition of the stars, and human relationships. 

 

To the OP: Of course not.  It is always interesting to see how theists who claim physical action by their deity attempt to rationalize the blatant inconsistencies in the reality of that belief.

 

To Zus, Twelve and Butter:  This is interesting to me.  The main benefit I see for abandoning religion is a decrease in dogma.  I don't think that dogma and fanaticism goes away under atheism (far from it!) but I do believe it is far harder to hold a dogmatic position when you don't have any kind of "infallible" source of knowledge defining your base rule-set.

 

And the fact that the concept of Truth (Big T) lies at the heart of many religions creates a fundamental obstacle to human progress.  In a rational world, even the human understanding of basic natural law (Knowledge, big K) can change in the face of evidence.

 

This is why my opposition to religion decreases along with literalism.  Most liberal theists are one step away from deists, and honestly if someone wants to be a deist I am fine with that, because that belief doesn't actually matter.  It is disconcerting though how many "theists" can live their modern lives in a totally rational, secular way, but make a total break with logic and accept the miracle claims in the NT at face value.

Infallibility, as well as "dogma" are terms applied to a sort of divinizing of a supposed truth. In my experiences with both atheist, and theist alike, I find no distinction between the levels of delusions and cognitive dissonance, or even magical thinking in both parties, and I find neither to be more rational than the other, they may be more rational concerning certain things than the other, but not in terms of the totality of their beliefs. 

There are beliefs atheist here hold dogmatically, one in particular, is that suicide terrorist were motivated by their religion to commit their atrocities, and when presented with the scientific studies and findings on the matter from Scott Atran, to the MI5, to the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism that differ from that view, you witness of foaming sense of hostility, and dogmatism, and a denial of the basic facts. 

Other sorts of "dogmatic" beliefs, include beliefs about progress, the power of religion to bend this magical notion called a "moral compass", the power of rationality and science, and an elevated believe that science and reason, are worldviews. When you often get is a parroting of ideas, that are rarely if ever reflected on, and accepted because they sounded catchy, yet clung to like the best of delusional thinkers, and the most sincere of dogmas. 

Now, this doesn't apply to all atheist or theist, but it does apply to atheist one finds abundance in such forums as this one. 

 

 

Really? They do? So all those peddlers of penis enlargement pills, herbal remedies, alternative medicine syrups do not pass go, do not collect their $200, and go directly to jail?

And those Wisconsin parents weren't convicted of reckless homicide for praying rather than taking their dying daughter to the hospital?

Well, here my friend is a classic example of the delusional atheist. 

 

 

 

 

Are you saying that it has rarely if ever happened that parents have escaped conviction for such behavior because of their beliefs? That would be the necessary case for your accusation to be reasonable. The fact that there has been at least one counter-example is hardly relevant, you need to demonstrate that the basic claim is false.

Your arguments might make sense if you knew what the hell you were talking about.

Fraud - deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.

The reason why there are bogus products on the market is because the government doesn't want to/ can't investigate, the victims usually can't afford to fight back and some idiots confuse autoimmune responses for product effectiveness.

And no, I don't wish to imprison your mother for buying into that stuff. I do believe that the purveyors should be scrutinized when they make claims that can be checked out by medical science. That scrutiny should be in place for the religionists also. As some of these charlatans' practices are harmful, all should be examined. If her information led to something that could be interpreted as negligent homicide, would you not want that investigated (if for no other reason than to clear your mom)?

You worked so hard at your response it makes me wonder if you have a god you're defending.

 

Lo, Bob. Haven't seen you in the forum lately. Usually you present a sober argument, but this one is off the mark.

In an earlier post theTwelve stated that he sees no difference between theistic and atheistic delusions and I absolutely agree. I would go even further and say that they are equally dangerous as well, not just by mere chance, but because theism is a prime example of an atheistic delusion in an of itself.

He names a few other examples, of which I find his first especially illustrative: the atheistic belief that terrorism is primarily and exclusively a product of extreme religious belilefs, which some atheists adhere to. Atheists in question not only do not bother to define terrorism in context, not bother to look at scientific research or consider their ignorance on the matter, but they dogmatically and with the zeal of a mad preacher go on a hate-spewing rampage against their favorite target. An atheist of this sort might take the form of the sorry excuse for a human being, the cynical and malicious C. Hitchens, but the delusion is certainly not limited to main stream media loud-mouths. I think theTwelve has a very strong point here and the post you are responding to is just another example of the main argument - atheists are as delusional as anyone.

It should be clear to you that your objection to theTwelve's argument is off the mark, since you really are not adressing the argument at all, but just one of the overwhelmingly nummerous examples of atheistic insanity.

Well, I'm sure if the pastor and church leaders told this wisconsin mother she should forgo available medical treatment and resort solely to prayer in respect to her dying child, than I'm sure they would have been tried as well. But there seems to be no evidence, or argument that they peddled this sort of belief on the mother. In fact, all my years in various churches across the country, being stuck watching countless hours of TBN, I have yet to hear a christian minister claim that prayer is a reason to forgo medical treatment, rather than an act done in addition to it. 

But sure, I think individuals who assisted this woman, such as leaders of a church claiming she shouldn't seek medical treatment for her child, should be charged, but as far as I know, there were no free passes. 

I'm curious though as to what you think of this scenario. Not too long ago some theist woman came and posted here, saying how she enjoys her life as a christian, and a couple of regular posters on this forum suggested that she should perhaps commit suicide so that she could go and be with her maker. Now let's say she takes them up on this advice and kills herself, do you feel the posters on this forum should be brought up on charges?

 

 

I apologize for the misread.

If religion doesn't get a free pass, why are faith healing televangelists still running their tax free scams? Or is someone going off their meds because the preacher said God healed them (resulting in their death) still land in the "bogus but not harmful" category?

 

I guess I don't understand how secular thought is the root of all fanaticism/dogma/religion, so you might need to explain that to me.

 

Besides that, I think you are exaggerating my point, aren't you?  I am not saying that secular thought will lead to utopia.  I even said very bluntly that atheists can be dogmatic.  The difference is I think it is easier to convince an atheist to abandon an idea by giving evidence than a theist who has an idea rooted in religious teaching.  But maybe you know more stubborn atheists than I do.

 

Human progress, sure...the Human Development Index combined with subjective well-being.  It is not exact, but I think you can use it as a base.

 

Again, I think you should be careful not to make too much of my point.  I don't think religion is "evil" and I don't think secularism is "good".  I do think that you can demonstrate that secular societies are more successful than theocracies though, and reducing religious fundamentalism helps encourage secular societies.  Is it always better?  Of course not.  Is a theocracy always worse?  Of course not.  The same can be said for individuals.  But overall, I stand by my statements.  If you could show me that theocracies end up higher on the HDI than secular states, I would be willing to reconsider my opinion.  Don't equate my atheism with the sort of dogma you seem to be saying many atheists have until I demonstrate it.

Where's the free pass at? How is a court ordered treatment a free pass? 

And you talk to me when you can actually provide evidence, and a coherent argument as religion being given a preferential free pass. And remember this bit of wisdom: if president Obama's daughter is granted a preferential leniency when being pulled over for speeding, it's not because she was black. 

Organizations that have money, and political clout,  often get preferential treatment, regardless if their CEO is Hispanic, or if the organization is secular or religious. I get preferential treatment during job interviews, because I served in the military, but it would rather stupid to say I got preferential treatment here, because of my big dick. 

Do you get the point? To say that a Christian Organization, gets preferential treatment because its religious, the case has to be made that they get preferential treatment, and that treatment is granted because the organization is religious, and not because of other factors, such as a large and influential constituency. 

If the latter is the case, than the argument is not that religious organization get preferential treatment, or a prefernital free pass, but that large and influential groups get preferential treatment/free passes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uhm, lets see if you can decipher your faulty logic. Did a parent have a free pass to burn her child with an iron, before being caught by child services and having the child taken away?Do I have a free pass to speed when no cops are around to catch me. The parent didn't have a free pass to forgo medical treatment for her dying child, anymore so than a pedophile had a free pass to molest a child before he gets caught.

And, I'll accuse you of resorting to your delusions, since I'm not defending any God, nor do I perceive a threat here towards a god either. I could just as well be wrong, and I wouldn't give a fuck if that's a case. It's only your deluded mental faculty that assumes otherwise. Fix it, and perhaps we can talk as grown ups do.

 

 

If this is what you deduced from what I've written? If so, it's not even worthy of response. I asked question about a free pass, I never said anything about the "first time someone commited a crime.

If you learned how to answer the actual questions purposed it would perhaps serve you better.

 

 

Okay, theTwelve, here are a couple for you. Organized religion holds people back socially and scientifically. Instead of people and countries talking to each other and working out conflicts through normal human interaction, they'd rather go to they're warm and fuzzy place and pray to an invisible deity. They'd rather go to their bedroom and read the Bible. They'd rather raise their hands the air and dance around with a tambourine, instead of facing reality. Religion holds back third world countries because they have negative "religious" thoughts regarding condoms and birth control. Twelve year old girls are raped, and are expected to keep the unwanted fetus, because according to you, god wants her to keep this baby. AIDS is rampant among countries such as Africa, and missionaries only touch on topics of abstinence, and no sex until marriage, when really they should be concentrating on handing out condoms, and teaching them that raping a young child will NOT cure their own disease. We're not even allowed to advance in science because it's so "taboo" to work with stem cells. Religion does nothing but spread the disease of superstition and unnatural belief. It allows people to blame their actions on invisible forces of 'good' and 'evil'. Please tell me how much longer this has to go on before people realize that religion WILL be the end of humanity? We will eventually all end up destroying each other over a figment of your imagination, all in the name of Zeus, Allah, God, Jesus, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Santa Claus, etc, etc, etc.......... I am so SICK of all of it!

And if you are in fact a theist....and you truly believe the Earth and mankind is so special to your invisible deity....please explain away the purpose of at least these three items.

1)Dinosaurs

2)Mosquitoes

3)The universe that exists outside of planet Earth

Umm ...you seem to have something wrong.  There is no god, yes.  The reality of that has nothing to do with the beliefs of people.  It doesn't follow that atheists 'created everything social'.  It doesn't mean at all that a god must have done it otherwise.  It's simple, isn't it?  Believers invented religion.  Perhaps in a incognizant sense the first believers were atheist until they were believers or invented their cult, but you'd be hard pressed to prove that only atheists and not believers have since 'created everything social'.  Humans have, certainly, but not every human is atheist nor is every human theist.

 Honestly...I don't even know where you are going with that post, ZuS.  Is your main point just an argument about the language we use when discussing religion?  Are you arguing that because of naturalism everything is secular and so religious ideas are secular?  I don't see how what I am reading in your first paragraph is a productive line of reasoning, it sounds more like you are trying to be cute with semantics, but I don't know what your point is.

 

As for points 1, 2, 3...again, what is your point?  Could you re-phrase?  I don't see how any of those have anything to do with what I was saying.  Are you mis-interpreting what I meant by human progress?  I thought I was clear, but you seem to be thinking I am talking about meeting some sort of goal, and I am not.  I was very clear about what human progress is, and how I think it can be increased more quickly by moving away from religious thought.

 

And your last paragraph is just pointless.  You are claiming *I* claim we are living in a Utopia, or that secularism will lead to one.  I have to say, with all respect, wtf?  I cannot rationalize your response to my paragraph.  I said secular societies are not perfect, but they are better than theocracies, and you responded directly by saying secular societies are not perfect so I am wrong.  Do you see why I am confused?

 

Then your last point about secular versus rational...ok, but again aren't you just playing with definitions?  I don't see how we could disagree on anything but language.  Then you say I might be a dick, and I am wrong because of logic...but I don't know why I might be a dick because I don't even understand your sentence about primates, and you act like I made some giant logical construct to make my point...if anything though, my arguments should be criticized for being anecdotal and illogical!

 

I really doubt we have much to disagree about if we spoke the same language.  Maybe you could explain again?  Is your point just that being secular does not make you rational?  If so, just say that.

Of course it does, it implies that religious people's beliefs are not divine and thus not different in origin than yours or mine. If you look at our misconceptions and self-delusion, you will see no reason to believe that the religious delusions are more dangerous than ours. Sure, we don't believe in god, but for every delusion that we don't buy, we buy a million others and most of them are on the level of an average religious Joe. One purely atheistic delusion is that we are not believers and it is even bigger and more dangerous than the god delusion. Another one of our major delusions is that religious delusions are particularly dangerous and need to be fought. If you take a step back and look at the economic truth of our society, you might see this issue in a different light. Perhaps you might see it as a divide and conquer tactics that we are too deluded to see right in front of our noses. I think this would be reasonable to a degree.

It really does. We are born atheists and we acquire different delusions as we go through life - fundamentally we are believers. If you think that the most dangerous religious delusions are much more severe and dangerous than something like "the free market model", you are just not serious enough about this to investigate and see the same secular interest originating both. Don't take my word for it, take Russell's instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=4380729

I am not too hard pressed to prove that the root of the tree is the only reason for it's existence. Every delusion exists because of something and that something is with us today as much as it was with us the first time an atheist thought: "I think I can use a delusion as a weapon or tool and it will be more convincing if I can convince myself along the way". What I am saying is that we should ally with other deluded, preferably the ones with our general world view and an interested in tools rather than weapons. The religious deluded are geniouses when it comes to organization and value education and are therefore an important asset.

 

I'm not sure what this means but ZuS has done a lot of crunches and deserves plenty of credit for that.

I disagree that the beginning of the tree is the root. It's not - the beginning of a tree is a seed and as my horticulturalist mate Bruce tells me,

seeds leaf and root at around the same time as part of a balanced process. Your plant needs photosynthesis to grow so leaves and exposure to the

sun are as vital as roots. Neither trees nor belief systems are a linear process.

As for 'fundamentally being a believer' I think I can say that fundamentally I have no idea what the fuck is going on and in the context I find myself

that's exactly how it should be. One the one hand the god of the deluded is a manufacture of boundless crap and on the other when I point my 5 earthly

senses at the star filled sky, it's no wonder I'm blinded.

 

 

 

The failure of prayer is directly connected to Schroediner's pesky feline. By inspection it is a near certainty that every prayer has an opposite prayer and with multiple partially negating and partially supporting other prayers.

As with the feline we cannot know for certain a prayer has not been answered until the contrary event has occurred. But as no prayer is answered and as they come in mutually exclusive groups if follows there must be multiple branching realities so that all prayers can go unanswered.

Using this principle we can exclude the existence of any universe where a prayer is in fact answered.

Thus we can demonstrate there is no just reality in which people get what they pray for as the continued existence of the human race demonstrates they never receive their just deserts.

Bob Spense told me a story about a guy who got stuck in an elevator and prayed to be rescued. After being rescued he claimed that it was because of his prayer that he was. BUT THEN when he went to church to thank god for saving him, he hugged a statue which wasn't anchored well, the statue fell over and crushed him to death. IN CHURCH!

 

While the death itself is not funny, the irony is.