Religion: The Deuce

[Drumheller769]

modern christians pray to god. they do this to communicate to god/satisfy god. if they pray really good* then god will give them what they ask for, if they don't pray really good* then god will not give them what they ask for or smite them for being shitty prayers.

*there is no way to know what is a good virgin or bad virgin, or how exactly a really good prayer differs from a really bad prayer.

The issue is that prayer doesn't work like that. God doesn't give you whatever you ask for, he gives you what he knows is best for you, not just now, but in your eternal life. If God gave you what ever you asked for, even once, then why wouldn't everyone pray to win the powerball all the time, in hopes that God would answer yes once. Ill give you a hint, while I'm sure there is some amount of people who do this, I would bet its under 1% of people who are saved.

That is why its not ambiguous, you can take your prayer and compare how it stands to what God has laid out in the Bible and KNOW how it will be answered.

[ShootTheChicken]

I'm sorry but I'm not sure what I said was clear(bad wording on my part). I didn't mean creationists versus scientists. I meant there are scientists that have the same level of experience and degrees who believe in creation as there are ones who don't believe. So in terms of scientific ability and expertise in an area I may not have, why should I believe one of them more than the other?

A 1991 Gallup poll of Americans found that about 5% of scientists (including those with training outside biology) identified themselves as creationists.

Please stop pretending like there's a divide. Like there isn't a consensus.

As I cant find any direct link to your poll I will use a wiki article I found that references it: here. It agrees with your numbers, but you can also see that the poll even notes that the organization of scientists that was polled was biased.

Also, the 100,000 who believe in creationism of the 2 million scientists in the US is a large enough number for me to still hold by my point. And since you like polls, here is one that is newer than yours and it certainly shows a divide. here. While this may not be a poll specifically about scientists, I bet it includes some subset of highly skilled people in fields of science.

I got it from this Wikipedia page.

Re: Your second link, nobody is debating that the American public has no fucking idea what they're talking about. But if you'll read all the way up to the top of this post, my first quote from you is specifically about scientists, not the public. Saying 'the American public is divided about this' is stupid. We were talking about scientists. And yes, a small minority of scientists are still deluded, as I said originally. When you start looking at the scientists doing work actually related to biology, that number diminishes further.

But seriously, I'm really angry that I got dragged into this shit show again. Your attempt to say 'I'm not suffering from confirmation bias' while essentially defining confirmation bias with your actions reminded that you can't reason with religious people, and it's infuriating to try.

/IDWtLotPA

[morriswalters]

Ah, manna from heaven. One might ask why God fulfilled Drumheller769's need? Why could it not be served by reason and logic?

The things I would associate with reason and logic did not help. I.E. Trying on my own to quit, asking friends for advice and help to quit, going so far as to remove all money so I couldn't buy alcohol(I ended up mooching a lot), trying to go to support groups. None of these solutions worked.

I understand in so much as I can without believing what you do. From an outsiders point, looking in, the question to you would be how did God fulfill your need and how do you know he did it. I don't know if you can give a cogent answer to that question, nor was it intended for you. It was intended to anyone who questions your beliefs with an eye towards changing them. In some fashion the idea of God achieved something for you that you could otherwise not achieve for yourself. The question is why did that work and what might work in its place. I think of it like this. The utility of God for an individual lies in two spheres, the internal and the social. It's easy enough to replace the external social context, but how do you change the internal context? Not knowing why belief is powerful, then how do you change it.

[DSenette]

Of the scientists and engineers in the United States, only about 5% are creationists, according to a 1991 Gallup poll (Robinson 1995, Witham 1997). However, this number includes those working in fields not related to life origins (such as computer scientists, mechanical engineers, etc.). Taking into account only those working in the relevant fields of earth and life sciences, there are about 480,000 scientists, but only about 700 believe in "creation-science" or consider it a valid theory (Robinson 1995). This means that less than 0.15 percent of relevant scientists believe in creationism. And that is just in the United States, which has more creationists than any other industrialized country. In other countries, the number of relevant scientists who accept creationism drops to less than one tenth of 1 percent.

from your link.

.15 percent of people who work in life sciences and any other science that's related at all to evolution are creationists. that's less than the 5% of total scientists.




here's a nice poll that shows that at least 1/3 of americans believe in ghosts.

modern christians pray to god. they do this to communicate to god/satisfy god. if they pray really good* then god will give them what they ask for, if they don't pray really good* then god will not give them what they ask for or smite them for being shitty prayers.

*there is no way to know what is a good virgin or bad virgin, or how exactly a really good prayer differs from a really bad prayer.

The issue is that prayer doesn't work like that. God doesn't give you whatever you ask for, he gives you what he knows is best for you, not just now, but in your eternal life. If God gave you what ever you asked for, even once, then why wouldn't everyone pray to win the powerball all the time, in hopes that God would answer yes once. Ill give you a hint, while I'm sure there is some amount of people who do this, I would bet its under 1% of people who are saved.

That is why its not ambiguous, you can take your prayer and compare how it stands to what God has laid out in the Bible and KNOW how it will be answered.

what about the bit where in the bible jesus specifically states that anything you ask of god will be granted? what about intercessory prayer (which if you read back several pages, you'll see that praying for other people actually makes their chances of getting better worse)?

that is exactly how prayer is supposed to work. you ask god for something, you either get it now, you get it later, or you don't get it. well guess what, those are literally the only three options for anything you could ever want. you could pray to your mailbox, you'll either get what you want now, you'll get it later, or you won't ever get it.

[Drumheller769]

@Chicken, if you don't want to participate in this thread or you are too upset I think the door is over there.

And its not confirmation bias. Confirmation bias (as I'm sure you know) is selectively picking evidence, interpreting results, remembering something in such a way that it supports your ideas (that have been proven false).

The problem is that my idea is not false:
If you are saved (by the biblical definition), and you pray to God, he WILL answer in a way that matches the principals he laid out in the Bible. This is a simple, testable, and repeatable claim. Because I have repeatable results that match what I was told they would match I believe it was true.

If I found a book and a coin on top of it, and the book said this coin will always land on heads. I flip the coin 1000 times, and it always lands on heads, I'm going to believe the coin will ALWAYS land on heads.

Its not a hard concept. I do something and get a consistent result. I believe in it.

[DSenette]

@Chicken, if you don't want to participate in this thread or you are too upset I think the door is over there.

And its not confirmation bias. Confirmation bias (as I'm sure you know) is selectively picking evidence, interpreting results, remembering something in such a way that it supports your ideas (that have been proven false).

The problem is that my idea is not false:
If you are saved (by the biblical definition), and you pray to God, he WILL answer in a way that matches the principals he laid out in the Bible. This is a simple, testable, and repeatable claim. Because I have repeatable results that match what I was told they would match I believe it was true.

If I found a book and a coin on top of it, and the book said this coin will always land on heads. I flip the coin 1000 times, and it always lands on heads, I'm going to believe the coin will ALWAYS land on heads.

Its not a hard concept. I do something and get a consistent result. I believe in it.

confirmation bias is actually "a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true". it has nothing to do with believing something after it has been proven false (it may be that, but it is not exclusively that).

you believe that god exists, and that god answers your prayers. so, you pray, something happens that sort of fits with the whole praying thing, ergo god exists, no more evidence needed.

so instead of actually doing the science thing, where you try to come up with other possible explanations (like chance), you just accept the god answer and move along. that's confirmation bias.

your claims are not repeatable or testable by the way. i cannot repeat your claims, or test them in any way. only you can. and that's not how science works.

[LaserGuy]

modern christians pray to god. they do this to communicate to god/satisfy god. if they pray really good* then god will give them what they ask for, if they don't pray really good* then god will not give them what they ask for or smite them for being shitty prayers.

*there is no way to know what is a good virgin or bad virgin, or how exactly a really good prayer differs from a really bad prayer.

The issue is that prayer doesn't work like that. God doesn't give you whatever you ask for, he gives you what he knows is best for you, not just now, but in your eternal life. If God gave you what ever you asked for, even once, then why wouldn't everyone pray to win the powerball all the time, in hopes that God would answer yes once. Ill give you a hint, while I'm sure there is some amount of people who do this, I would bet its under 1% of people who are saved.

That is why its not ambiguous, you can take your prayer and compare how it stands to what God has laid out in the Bible and KNOW how it will be answered.

See my milk jug example for why the pray heuristic doesn't work (or rather, why it is irrelevant because it always works, regardless of what you "pray" to).

Assuming I was willing to accept your premise though...

If God is going to give you what He knows is best for you, not just now, but in your eternal life, why should you be praying for anything at all? I mean, if God is loving and kind and generous to His children, and wants the best for you, shouldn't He be giving you what you need, regardless of whether you ask for it or not? I mean, if God had the power to cure your alcoholism, say, why did He have to wait until you asked Him for it? And why is it that other alcoholics (or drug addicts, or whatever) who pray don't get cured? Why is it important to God that you not be alcoholic, but that they continue to be so? Also, there's another thing--if God were providing disproportionate assistance to Christians, shouldn't we be able to see this? I mean, shouldn't Christians, be, on average, much quicker to recover from illness, much more likely to find a job quickly, much more able to recover from addictions, etc.? If this were a strong effect, it should be easily measurable.

And if we stray farther afield... what about all of the Christians who could really, really, benefit from some intercession but aren't getting it? Christianity is the dominant religion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is the country with the second highest infant mortality rate in the world, a country with among the highest rates of rape in the world, having suffered through several brutal tribal wars resulting in millions of deaths, faced massive famines, epidemics, HIV/AIDS, you name it. Do you think that the ~70 million Christians aren't praying all the time for God to help their fucked up country? Or to save the hundreds of thousands of children who are dying? Or to stop some of the thousands of brutal rapes that happen every year in that country? Why is God so prompt about providing assistance to North Americans, but so frugal with His assistance for Christians in Africa (especially when, if there were any justice, the opposite would certainly be true)?

[guenther]

However, if someone says that regardless of causing the seasons, Demeter invisibly and undetectably comes and goes throughout the year, then that's an untestable claim, and I would not assert objective wrongness.

Then why not also add this to your stable of beliefs, to hedge your bets?

First of all, is there a consequence of being wrong? If not, then there's no need to hedge. But more importantly, why do you think I build my stable of beliefs based in that way?

if jesus were to show up today and start talking to you, would his words now become dangerous again?

If it were Jesus, as in the guy from the Bible, then no. However, if it were someone claiming to be Jesus (and I don't know for certain if it's true or not), then there would be a danger. I'm really not sure what you're missing here. Koresh has a lot less power to manipulate people now that he's dead, and that will still be true in 300 years. My claim is about danger, not enticement, not reliability, not trustworthiness. And further, my claim is not about Koresh's words, but about Koresh. Koresh was dangerous because he had a strong ability to manipulate people.

As for the teachings of Joseph Smith, I don't know because I don't know what he taught.

so you cannot hold those base axioms AND claim that you have rationally and logically evaluated your religion/faith.

That axiom is my faith. So I read your sentence as "You cannot hold your faith and say that you have rationally and logically evaluated your faith". In other words, you're saying that they are inconsistent. But that's not a point that I care to defend. I don't care if people call my faith illogical or unreasonable.

More broadly, I see logic and reason as tools, not ideals. They have a lot of value, but they don't inherently make something better. Just like faith. It's a tool, but there's a lot of bad stuff we can have faith in. So I see no inherent problem with people defending their beliefs in these various ways. Or someone simply saying "because it feels right". Of course, that can make a weak argument, and I won't necessarily agree with the justification, but I don't see it as inherently problematic.

it's not terribly difficult to see where holding such a strong irrational axiom at the core of your very being will make you more likely to accept faulty axioms in other, less important areas of life.

I can understand why you and others think that (in fact, I hear that a lot). But from my experience of observing both religious people with faith and areligious people who reject faith, I completely don't buy it. Your claim is testable. So it's up to you if you want to hold it to the standards of evidence. On the other hand, you have the full right to preach your opinions as fact.

then you cannot say that anyone who believes that demeter causes the weather changes to be objectively wrong...which you did say.

This doesn't make any sense. Testable things are testable. Non-testable things are not testable. If a religious claim wanders into the realm of testability, then gets objectively falsified, then it's false. That's really all I'm saying. If someone wants to elaborate on the Demeter theory in a way that makes it consistent with what we know through science, then fine, it moves back into the untestable realm. And I don't assert objective wrongness on things we can't test.

If God is going to give you what He knows is best for you, not just now, but in your eternal life, why should you be praying for anything at all?

Based on the Bible, it's because God wants us to turn to him for support. Part of God's plan is making us better people, and if we ignore what God says, or live with expectations of what God should be providing for us, then we are disrupting that process. Submitting to God is how we allow God to work through us to better ourselves and allow more good to come about.

Why do some people have longer roads of hardship, or perhaps even die before the hardship lets up? That's a good question, and even Christians don't know the answer. But it's not inconsistent from what the Bible depicts. Bad things befall good people, and not all believers come from similar places of luxury and comfort. Instead, the message of Jesus is one that can work for someone born to a rough environment, or to someone inheriting a great wealth.

[Drumheller769]

@Dsenette - You can test it. If you sincerely admitted to yourself that you were a sinner, and admitted that Christ saves you from the eternal consequences of those sins then you would be saved, thus fulfilling the precondition for the test. But if that were not true, then you are correct, you cannot correctly complete the test.

@Laser - What I gather from your two paragraphs are 3 questions, the first is why does God do the things he decides to do? The second is, if God will do what he wants anyway, why should we bother with anything at all? Thirdly, why is there evil in the world/why do bad thing happen to good people?

If these are incorrect or I missed something, please correct me.

I don't know all the answers, nor am I pretending that my interpretation of what the Bible has to say on these is the correct one but here goes:

1. Gods overall goal would be for everyone to worship him. So I think that answering a prayer one way or another, or causing one event to happen are decided in the context of that final goal. If God doing one thing and not another would cause more people to believe in him then I think that is why he would choose one.

2. In the vein of my first answer, when God tells you to do something, you have the choice to say no, and not do it. In the end, what he wants will get done, either by you or by someone else, but it will happen. But because you can decide, saying yes or no, those choices can certainty have an impact on your life, which is why I believe that everything is not pointless and we have free will.

3. My first answer partly answers this one, but I also have anther thought about this. If everyone in the world were happy and content, they would have no reason in this life to turn to God. Also, people would not hold sympathy for one another, or help one anther because everything is perfect.

[DSenette]

@Dsenette - You can test it. If you sincerely admitted to yourself that you were a sinner, and admitted that Christ saves you from the eternal consequences of those sins then you would be saved, thus fulfilling the precondition for the test. But if that were not true, then you are correct, you cannot correctly complete the test.

you need to go ahead and exit this conversation now. you do not understand what science is, you do not understand what the scientific method is, and you do not understand what testable and repeatable mean in the context of science.

you would have to be able to actually give me a manual on how to believe and worship god EXACTLY the way you do for the test to be repeatable. i would have to pray EXACTLY the way you do. now, as you have suggested, there already is a manual....the bible. which as you may know, a FUCK TON of people on the planet have read. so why aren't they experiencing the same results as you? are they doing it wrong? how do you know they're doing it wrong? how are they doing it wrong?

as zcorp mentioned (and as has been mentioned continuously), IF god exists and can answers prayers, then the population of the planet that pray to him and believe in him SHOULD show a marked improvement in quality of life over those that do not. this is not now, nor has it ever, been the case

[podbaydoor]

So, in other words, your life plays out with pretty much the same amount of luck, coincidence, and happenstance as Mr. Priyanka in India and Mr. Moftakhar in Iran - good stuff happens and bad stuff happens in varying amounts - and all three of you attribute the good things to God, Brahman, and Allah, respectively. Who's right?

[LaserGuy]

@Dsenette - You can test it. If you sincerely admitted to yourself that you were a sinner, and admitted that Christ saves you from the eternal consequences of those sins then you would be saved, thus fulfilling the precondition for the test. But if that were not true, then you are correct, you cannot correctly complete the test.

FWIW, I did this for about twenty years, and prayer didn't work all that well for me.

@Laser - What I gather from your two paragraphs are 3 questions, the first is why does God do the things he decides to do? The second is, if God will do what he wants anyway, why should we bother with anything at all? Thirdly, why is there evil in the world/why do bad thing happen to good people?

If these are incorrect or I missed something, please correct me.

For the third question, I was looking at something more specific: Why doesn't God grant the prayers of believers in fucked up places like Congo, when he's happy to answer prayers of believers like yourself, as far as you beating alcoholism or getting a job are concerned?

1. Gods overall goal would be for everyone to worship him. So I think that answering a prayer one way or another, or causing one event to happen are decided in the context of that final goal. If God doing one thing and not another would cause more people to believe in him then I think that is why he would choose one.

This doesn't really make sense to me. Surely the more miraculous the results of prayer are, the more convincing they would be and the more likely people would want to join Christianity. I'd have to dig up the verse, but that's basically straight out of the Bible--God gave the disciples (or all Christians, depending on your interpretation) the power to perform miracles for the expressed purpose of convincing people to join their religion and to bring glory to God. I mean, if becoming a Christian actually gave you the power to heal the sick just by laying hands on them, don't you think everybody and their dog would want to be Christian? Especially if all of the other religions didn't have this feature? The more mundane and difficult to observe the benefits, the less impressive the whole thing looks. I mean, if the Christian enclaves in the Congo were bastions of peace and prosperity and civility within a region of extreme despair, that would actually be something to think about. The fact that many of the atrocities are being committed against Christians, often by other Christians, not so much.

2. In the vein of my first answer, when God tells you to do something, you have the choice to say no, and not do it. In the end, what he wants will get done, either by you or by someone else, but it will happen. But because you can decide, saying yes or no, those choices can certainty have an impact on your life, which is why I believe that everything is not pointless and we have free will.

This isn't really an answer though. God asking you to do something is not at all the same as you asking God to do something. Do you believe God would have cured you of your alcoholism if you had still become a Christian but just hadn't prayed about it?

3. My first answer partly answers this one, but I also have anther thought about this. If everyone in the world were happy and content, they would have no reason in this life to turn to God. Also, people would not hold sympathy for one another, or help one anther because everything is perfect.

No, but if all Christians were happy and content and everybody else wasn't, this would be an excellent reason in this life to turn to God. It is the uniform distribution of suffering between Christians and non-Christians that is a conundrum.

[Drumheller769]

@Dsenette - You can test it. If you sincerely admitted to yourself that you were a sinner, and admitted that Christ saves you from the eternal consequences of those sins then you would be saved, thus fulfilling the precondition for the test. But if that were not true, then you are correct, you cannot correctly complete the test.

you need to go ahead and exit this conversation now. you do not understand what science is, you do not understand what the scientific method is, and you do not understand what testable and repeatable mean in the context of science.

you would have to be able to actually give me a manual on how to believe and worship god EXACTLY the way you do for the test to be repeatable. i would have to pray EXACTLY the way you do. now, as you have suggested, there already is a manual....the bible. which as you may know, a FUCK TON of people on the planet have read. so why aren't they experiencing the same results as you? are they doing it wrong? how do you know they're doing it wrong? how are they doing it wrong?

as zcorp mentioned (and as has been mentioned continuously), IF god exists and can answers prayers, then the population of the planet that pray to him and believe in him SHOULD show a marked improvement in quality of life over those that do not. this is not now, nor has it ever, been the case

Then according to your definition, nobody has ever done an experiment. If the experiment calls to fill a beaker with 100mL of water, I bet everyone will fill it in a different way, but it still gets filled. I would argue that it doesn't have to be exact, but that its important that the same steps are repeated under the same conditions. That is not to say that the method of filling it might not matter, or the method of praying, I'm sure praying with hate in your heart would have a different outcome than not having it, just as filling a beaker from either the faucet, or another beaker could have an effect. If you are going to pick out specifics like that and say EXACTLY, then I feel confident in saying that nobody has ever repeated anything.


@ those asking about a difference in the quality of life, I would say that while you may not see a difference in physical well being or circumstance, I bet you will see a difference in how a Christian or anyone religious handles diversity and how they would feel about their lot in life. For example, not sure if I should spoiler, so possible triggger:

Spoiler:

suicide rate of religious people vs non religious people

[a_toddler]

So, in other words, your life plays out with pretty much the same amount of luck, coincidence, and happenstance as Mr. Priyanka in India and Mr. Moftakhar in Iran - good stuff happens and bad stuff happens in varying amounts - and all three of you attribute the good things to God, Brahman, and Allah, respectively. Who's right?

and

No, but if all Christians were happy and content and everybody else wasn't, this would be an excellent reason in this life to turn to God. It is the uniform distribution of suffering between Christians and non-Christians that is a conundrum.

Christians refer to this as common grace. As Jesus aptly puts it:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

On the topic of repeatability, testability, etc. I think we have long established that God's existance is not scientifically proveable. A parallel I can perhaps draw is proving that a parent loves a child using the scientific method. The parent will give good things to the child, sure. But sometimes the child won't get the birthday present she wants, or dessert after dinner. You cannot sit there and eventually conclude, "Yep, after repeated tests and continual observation, we can objectively conclude this parent loves their child".

God is not a genie or a vending machine, God is living and active and has the ability to choose and act according to His will.

So stuff like:

you would have to be able to actually give me a manual on how to believe and worship god EXACTLY the way you do for the test to be repeatable. i would have to pray EXACTLY the way you do. now, as you have suggested, there already is a manual....the bible. which as you may know, a FUCK TON of people on the planet have read. so why aren't they experiencing the same results as you? are they doing it wrong? how do you know they're doing it wrong? how are they doing it wrong?

Sort of misses the crux of Christianity. Its not about what we have to do at all, its about what He has already done.

@drumheller, who just ninja'd me: hypothetically, if two people prayed exactly the same way for exactly the same thing, will God answer them both the same necessarily?

[morriswalters]

The answer to the question of who is right is obvious or obscure. Any one of the three exclusively, or all three at the sames time.

To questions about the Congo, it's all relative. Maybe the Congolese Christians are all happy for different reasons.

@Drumheller769

How do you know, other than by faith? Is there any fact or evidence, any non ephemeral event, that you can point to? Would you, in the absence of evidence, external from you, consider the idea that you made a leap to belief absent any evidence? That is, do you believe that your prayers were answered because you could suddenly deal with your problem as you hadn't been able to before? The answer is not intended to deny that faith rather it is an attempt to understand the basis of it? I have made my own leap of faith. I can justify it if you wish, but in absolute terms I can't prove it to the point of no uncertainty.

[Zcorp]

@ Morris and Guenther
Do either of you read Drumhellers posts and and perceive his positions and beliefs to be healthy or reasonable?

Do you know many people who share his thought processes and do you believe there is a connection to his thought processes and his faith?

[morriswalters]

I'll say something generally about Christians. In most cases they have never needed to learn how to defend their faith, so on the whole some of them don't do it very well. Also, in general I find that people have a remarkable capacity to see things as they wish to see them, Christian or not.

[Armanant]

I'd say this kind of thing is much like people believing that their homeopathy has cured their illnesses and aches and whatnot. I think if someone in either situation gets a better understanding of critical thinking, logic and reasoning, and managed to get around to applying it to their beliefs, they could very well alter them. However, I don't think that getting rid of the beliefs will give them a better understanding of critical thinking, logic and reasoning.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I see these kinds of beliefs as more of a symptom rather than a cause?

[Drumheller769]

@toddler, as you said it would be up to God, but since I would guess that each of those people's situations is different I don't think they would receive the same answer.

@morris, Had I not received answer to prayer then no, I probably would not believe, the bible would still be just words on a page, no different than a history book or some other book of older origin. To even further qualify, I would say that had I not continually seen answer to prayer I would also not believe, and as others have said, chalk it up to my internal bias that things worked out a couple of times.

To expand upon what I have said before, its not just answers to prayers in good things. I've prayed before and been told no, nope, no way, go suck it, and had really bad things happen. Yes, it sucked, it was hard. After I got through whatever happened, you know what? I was a better person. Better able to sympathize with less fortunate folk, better able to deal with loss, and becoming more responsible with the things I have been given.

[DSenette]

@Dsenette - You can test it. If you sincerely admitted to yourself that you were a sinner, and admitted that Christ saves you from the eternal consequences of those sins then you would be saved, thus fulfilling the precondition for the test. But if that were not true, then you are correct, you cannot correctly complete the test.

you need to go ahead and exit this conversation now. you do not understand what science is, you do not understand what the scientific method is, and you do not understand what testable and repeatable mean in the context of science.

you would have to be able to actually give me a manual on how to believe and worship god EXACTLY the way you do for the test to be repeatable. i would have to pray EXACTLY the way you do. now, as you have suggested, there already is a manual....the bible. which as you may know, a FUCK TON of people on the planet have read. so why aren't they experiencing the same results as you? are they doing it wrong? how do you know they're doing it wrong? how are they doing it wrong?

as zcorp mentioned (and as has been mentioned continuously), IF god exists and can answers prayers, then the population of the planet that pray to him and believe in him SHOULD show a marked improvement in quality of life over those that do not. this is not now, nor has it ever, been the case

Then according to your definition, nobody has ever done an experiment. If the experiment calls to fill a beaker with 100mL of water, I bet everyone will fill it in a different way, but it still gets filled. I would argue that it doesn't have to be exact, but that its important that the same steps are repeated under the same conditions. That is not to say that the method of filling it might not matter, or the method of praying, I'm sure praying with hate in your heart would have a different outcome than not having it, just as filling a beaker from either the faucet, or another beaker could have an effect. If you are going to pick out specifics like that and say EXACTLY, then I feel confident in saying that nobody has ever repeated anything.


@ those asking about a difference in the quality of life, I would say that while you may not see a difference in physical well being or circumstance, I bet you will see a difference in how a Christian or anyone religious handles diversity and how they would feel about their lot in life. For example, not sure if I should spoiler, so possible triggger:

Spoiler:

suicide rate of religious people vs non religious people

if your experiment calls for you to fill a beaker with 100ml of water, and you fill it with 99.99ml of water, you have not filled the beaker with 100ml of water. you can argue that it doesn't need to be exact, and that's fine, it's called changing the precision of the experiment. like, is this an experiment to be done by a child at home in the kitchen, or is it an experiment to be done in a lab that costs a billion dollars. the former doesn't require the precision of the latter.

so your prayer experiment needs to have the bounds of precision set correctly.

so, for your experiment, what are the people who pray every day, and don't get answers to their prayers doing wrong? which end of the precision scale are they falling off of?

for your difference in quality of life statement.....how religious people handle diversity? what diversity? people that are different from them? because, i think you may find through out history that religion is ABSOLUTELY not the place to look for cultural tolerance.

@toddler, as you said it would be up to God, but since I would guess that each of those people's situations is different I don't think they would receive the same answer.

@morris, Had I not received answer to prayer then no, I probably would not believe, the bible would still be just words on a page, no different than a history book or some other book of older origin. To even further qualify, I would say that had I not continually seen answer to prayer I would also not believe, and as others have said, chalk it up to my internal bias that things worked out a couple of times.

To expand upon what I have said before, its not just answers to prayers in good things. I've prayed before and been told no, nope, no way, go suck it, and had really bad things happen. Yes, it sucked, it was hard. After I got through whatever happened, you know what? I was a better person. Better able to sympathize with less fortunate folk, better able to deal with loss, and becoming more responsible with the things I have been given.

and again, there was a time when human beings threw other human beings into a volcano. they either received blessings or curses for doing so. who was responsible for these blessings or curses?

[Drumheller769]

Eh....fail. Not diversity, adversity.

[Malconstant]

To expand upon what I have said before, its not just answers to prayers in good things. I've prayed before and been told no, nope, no way, go suck it, and had really bad things happen. Yes, it sucked, it was hard. After I got through whatever happened, you know what? I was a better person. Better able to sympathize with less fortunate folk, better able to deal with loss, and becoming more responsible with the things I have been given.

I suspect this point is perfectly well understood. It should be clear that this in no way differentiates prayer qualitatively from the example given above of magical milk jugs or what have you, because ultimately the options of "good things happen, nothing happens, or bad things happen" is exhaustive. And if you have an outlook on life to take the bad things in stride, to recognize how to grow stronger for having lived through them, to better-empathize with those who suffer more, to "build character", then that is the goal.

I would argue that this should be the practical goal of modern religion, to help people arrive at an outlook on life which is empathetic to suffering, and to instill the wisdom to understand how suffering in one's own life can be met with both productive and destructive responses, and that we should try to choose productive responses. Saying "there is an all-powerful benevolent God who will allow everything bad to happen to you, but is still benevolent so you will become a better person for it" can help some people see this wisdom and actively seek out productive responses to their suffering.

Still, the relative suffering in the world should give this supernatural framing some pause. Ultimately this (and hell arguments) is what makes this particular framing (omnipotent and benevolent God) unpalatable to Unitarians and secular humanists. If God's purpose in your suffering is for you to overcome it and become a better person, what is God's purpose in the suffering of whole nations? What could the point possibly be? You can just have faith that it is for the best, and that it will all work out in the end, perhaps in the afterlife. But one should never be entirely dismissive of Occam's razor.

Even if that's where you personally lean, it would be downright unchristian of you to not understand that we can't be certain there is an afterlife, but we can be certain that we have this life, and we have no right to put the justice of the world onto God's shoulders after we die when we see suffering in front of us while we live.

"Sometimes I want to ask God why He allows poverty, famine, and injustice in the world when He could do something about it, but I'm afraid He might just ask me the same question."

This kind of productive framing is something Unitarians, secular humanists, and Christians should be able to unite on. What rubs the first two the wrong way is to use God as an excuse to allow faith to externalize the morality of suffering.

[Drumheller769]

I wouldn't hold doubt against anyone. We all hold doubt in our selves about probably anything. There have certainly been times that I have doubted that God cared/was listening. Each of those times I was wrong, but I still doubted.

And as for there being suffering in the world and just saying, eh, that is Gods problem not mine. I don't hold that point of view. I try to give to charities and help out in community service as I can. I might not have the balls to go be a missionary or aid worker in the Congo, or some other war torn area, but I can support those who do. I would go so far to say that because there is suffering and hardship, as Christians we should go out of our way to help those in such situations.

[Malconstant]

And in so far as being productive is concerned, that should probably be where this lies. But since there's tremendous evidence to suggest that these fora excel at hindering productivity, I'm curious. Do you think you understand the secular humanist interpretation of prayer and what I stated as what the goal of religion should be? The way in which a supernatural narrative can help put people in a better place to arrive at this goal? And how about the different religions of the world and throughout time, I'm curious as to how Universalist you are.

[Drumheller769]

For the first part, I think I have a decent understanding of that viewpoint, although I admit there probably are holes in how I perceive it. As to the different religions, I have a surface understanding of some of them, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism but it is certainly not in depth. As to what I think of them, my personal belief is that they are not true on some level. While they may share some concepts with Christianity there are certainly many differences. I believe that Christianity is true as I have outlined how I came to that belief. Since I feel that Christianity is true I can't really say that I think other religions are true, and I don't, even though they may share some concepts. If you are asking if I have ever intently studied another one of those religions and tried to adhere to their tenets, then no.

[DSenette]

this whole post +1...but, still gonna break out the first points that my POV must expand upon to drumheller (so, my responses are to drum, not malconstant)

To expand upon what I have said before, its not just answers to prayers in good things. I've prayed before and been told no, nope, no way, go suck it, and had really bad things happen. Yes, it sucked, it was hard. After I got through whatever happened, you know what? I was a better person. Better able to sympathize with less fortunate folk, better able to deal with loss, and becoming more responsible with the things I have been given.

I suspect this point is perfectly well understood. It should be clear that this in no way differentiates prayer qualitatively from the example given above of magical milk jugs or what have you, because ultimately the options of "good things happen, nothing happens, or bad things happen" is exhaustive. And if you have an outlook on life to take the bad things in stride, to recognize how to grow stronger for having lived through them, to better-empathize with those who suffer more, to "build character", then that is the goal.

I would argue that this should be the practical goal of modern religion, to help people arrive at an outlook on life which is empathetic to suffering, and to instill the wisdom to understand how suffering in one's own life can be met with both productive and destructive responses, and that we should try to choose productive responses. Saying "there is an all-powerful benevolent God who will allow everything bad to happen to you, but is still benevolent so you will become a better person for it" can help some people see this wisdom and actively seek out productive responses to their suffering.

this is the bit that all of the other "do X thing that Y god requests and Z result should be expected" examples are trying to convey.

your experience with prayer to god is indistinguishable from the results of someone else NOT praying to god. there are only three possible outcomes of any desire. you get it when you want it, you get it later, you don't get it at all. those are completely inclusive of all of the possible results of person A wanting thing/idea/event B.

with the volcanic virgins, there was a specific desire: good harvest. they pitched a screaming woman into a mountain full of fire in an attempt to increase their odds of getting this. pretty much everyone in modern society agrees that the odds of this happening the way they wanted it were EXACTLY the same as the odds of it happening if they were to instead throw a goat into the volcano or threw nothing into the volcano, because believing in pele and human sacrifices is stupid. From the start, either they were going to have a great harvest (because the weather was right, they did a good job cultivating the crops that year because they didn't spend most of the year at war with the next tribe over, luck), they were going to have a sufficient harvest (the weather was ok, they were at war some but not all year, luck), or they were going to get screwed (the weather was shit, they were at war all year, luck). would you agree that this is the case for the incans? that their sacrifices to pele had no actual effect on their crops, and that the general outcome of their harvests were the results of how much they worked, what the weather was like, and general luck/chance? or, was it actually pele, and their sacrifices did work, to which point, should we still be trying to cut a deal with pele?



using "ambiguous results of personal prayer" as evidence of god is useless*. any evidence of personal prayer is non-testable and non-repeatable outside of the individual person.

any tests of personal prayer that have ever been done suggest that personal prayer has no increased effect on the outcome of desires. however, since personal prayer is, you know personal, the outcome of most testing is waved away as either the test being done wrong, or the results

intercessory prayer (praying for the well being of others) IS however testable, and all of the tests that have been done show that intercessory prayer DOES NOT work.


*useless in this discussion, or any other religious discussion with someone that doesn't hold your beliefs. it's perfectly ok for YOU to believe in the effects of personal prayer with regards to yourself. as long as you don't expand that belief/trust in personal prayer into effects on others, like using prayer to cure cancer instead of medicine.

For the first part, I think I have a decent understanding of that viewpoint, although I admit there probably are holes in how I perceive it. As to the different religions, I have a surface understanding of some of them, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism but it is certainly not in depth. As to what I think of them, my personal belief is that they are not true on some level. While they may share some concepts with Christianity there are certainly many differences. I believe that Christianity is true as I have outlined how I came to that belief. Since I feel that Christianity is true I can't really say that I think other religions are true, and I don't, even though they may share some concepts. If you are asking if I have ever intently studied another one of those religions and tried to adhere to their tenets, then no.

what is your expected outcome of someone being an adherent to an "untrue" religion?

[Drumheller769]

I would expect the outcome of a believer of other religions to be the same as any non-christian person. On the topic of prayer, yes it is personal.The method of communicating is unique to the relationship each individual has with God, but the answer will always align with the bible. As for prayer in the place of taking action, my personal feeling is no. While the bible says to pray to God for all your needs, it also says don't be dumb. It instructs us to do things like prepare for bad situations, be responsible with your money, build with a plan in mind, don't try to do something without thinking it through.

I do not feel that God chooses to take a hand in every little thing that happens in your life. So if you want his help, you should ask. You might pray to be cured of cancer, but if you don't go to see a doctor about it, I would say the answer is going to be "Hey, if you can't get off your ass and at least try to do something, I'm not going to help you." I'm not saying this will always be the answer*, but the bible specifically says God does not reward laziness, unpreparedness, and foolishness in terms of making a decision, planning, or acting. Even in the case of the disciples who could heal by laying on hands, they still had to pray and then do something, whatever it may have been. Even Jesus would heal people but say, go and do such and such a thing(example the blind man and putting mud on his eyes).

* There are a few instances of God being generous to a person without them doing much of anything. Job comes to mind, but his situation was also caused by God to begin with so...

On the topic of the question, what makes my prayers to God more believable or effective? I would say that it comes down to how should their system have worked. Were they told by their god in some way shape or form that if they threw a person into the volcano that they would have a good harvest? Is there any proof of that confirmation? If they were, and there is, then it comes down to the question of did the situation play out as expected? Did they get a good harvest when they threw someone in?

I would apply the same criteria to that as I do the bible. I meet the precondition for prayer, I pray, I expect the answer to be how I am told it would be in the Bible. It is. I guess the only way for me to prove this is the case would be for an answer to prayer from God to not follow the rules he outlined in the Bible. As God doesn't lie to us this won't happen, so its a catch 22.

So while I may not be able to prove in no uncertain terms that God is real and answers prayer to another, the proof in my life is enough for me. If because of my belief I can become a better person (as described in other posts), help others, and in the view of the non believers, maybe possibly if I am right not be damned to hell forever, whats wrong with that? If I am wrong then I have become a better person, helped others, and I am in the same boat as everyone else after I die.

Thinking about the previous question "whats wrong with that" I guess depending on the person and what they do with their beliefs, yes, there could be a lot of things wrong. The Crusades, Howard Camping, and other various acts of wrongness committed by the church are all examples. But as I cant say I have done anything on that scale I don't feel that my beliefs are a bad thing.

[Malconstant]

I think that part of what confounds us is that in the face of cultural relativism, it should be clear that other people of different faiths believe just as strongly in the realness other supernatural narratives, and for the same reasons. So believing that yours is different than theirs feels naive.

That combined with how the Christian faith itself has changed dramatically over the years, the Bible itself has undergone huge changes*, makes believing very strongly that this particular modern incarnation of Christianity, which is unique historically, is correct to the negation of all others also comes off as naive.

*There literally are more differences found among different translations of the bible than there are letters in the bible. Most of these differences are unimportant ones, transcription errors, but entire stories have been inserted and deleted over the years. If you're serious about the importance of the authenticity of the Bible, I'd strongly recommend you pick up "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Ehrman.

Though the biggest humdinger in your responses has been of Hell. Believing that an omnipotent and benevolent God has crafted a universe where if you don't do.....something which isn't terribly specific and changes definition depending on who you talk to, then you'll suffer eternal torture for it. And also, in the face of scientific reasoning which God has bestowed upon us, it can be demonstrated that belief in the existence of supernatural narratives is unnecessary whereas their place in our cultures and our ability to appreciate them can be explained through a purely physicalist context. In the face of that, Hell is absolutely an indefensible position. There is no recourse. You lose the right to say "it's God's mysterious plan that us mortals cannot fathom" once you go there. That crosses the line into ideas seeming naive and going irretrievably to a point where you are operating under pure rationalizations in the derogatory sense.

[DSenette]

I would expect the outcome of a believer of other religions to be the same as any non-christian person.

that didn't answer my question. what does it mean for a person to belong to an untrue religion. what should they expect from life? should their quality of life be expected to be less than the quality of life of a member of a "true" religion?

On the topic of prayer, yes it is personal.The method of communicating is unique to the relationship each individual has with God, but the answer will always align with the bible. As for prayer in the place of taking action, my personal feeling is no. While the bible says to pray to God for all your needs, it also says don't be dumb. It instructs us to do things like prepare for bad situations, be responsible with your money, build with a plan in mind, don't try to do something without thinking it through.

I do not feel that God chooses to take a hand in every little thing that happens in your life. So if you want his help, you should ask. You might pray to be cured of cancer, but if you don't go to see a doctor about it, I would say the answer is going to be "Hey, if you can't get off your ass and at least try to do something, I'm not going to help you." I'm not saying this will always be the answer*, but the bible specifically says God does not reward laziness, unpreparedness, and foolishness in terms of making a decision, planning, or acting. Even in the case of the disciples who could heal by laying on hands, they still had to pray and then do something, whatever it may have been. Even Jesus would heal people but say, go and do such and such a thing(example the blind man and putting mud on his eyes).

* There are a few instances of God being generous to a person without them doing much of anything. Job comes to mind, but his situation was also caused by God to begin with so...

On the topic of the question, what makes my prayers to God more believable or effective? I would say that it comes down to how should their system have worked. Were they told by their god in some way shape or form that if they threw a person into the volcano that they would have a good harvest? Is there any proof of that confirmation? If they were, and there is, then it comes down to the question of did the situation play out as expected? Did they get a good harvest when they threw someone in?

waaait a minute. is a belief in pele something that you would consider to be a true religion? are there multiple gods in existence or just one? if it's just one, which one?

based on your previous statement that there is only one true religion (christianity) the previous questions are mostly rhetorical.

if christianity is the only true religion, then the christian god can be the only true god. so, if that's the case, why are you concerned with how well they adhered to their non christian beliefs, or what their commands from their non christian god were?

I would apply the same criteria to that as I do the bible. I meet the precondition for prayer, I pray, I expect the answer to be how I am told it would be in the Bible. It is. I guess the only way for me to prove this is the case would be for an answer to prayer from God to not follow the rules he outlined in the Bible. As God doesn't lie to us this won't happen, so its a catch 22.

and this is where your usage of logic fails.

"i do this thing because this book i believe in tells me to, i believe in this book because i did the things the book tells me to do"

So while I may not be able to prove in no uncertain terms that God is real and answers prayer to another, the proof in my life is enough for me. If because of my belief I can become a better person (as described in other posts), help others, and in the view of the non believers, maybe possibly if I am right not be damned to hell forever, whats wrong with that? If I am wrong then I have become a better person, helped others, and I am in the same boat as everyone else after I die.

Thinking about the previous question "whats wrong with that" I guess depending on the person and what they do with their beliefs, yes, there could be a lot of things wrong. The Crusades, Howard Camping, and other various acts of wrongness committed by the church are all examples. But as I cant say I have done anything on that scale I don't feel that my beliefs are a bad thing.

faith/religion only has something "wrong" with it when your application of it effects someone that isn't you. so as long as you're not discriminating against others (being anti-homosexual), or causing other general harm to others, then who cares what your personal beliefs are.

[Drumheller769]

Well, look at the idea of Hell this way, if you don't think I am right, what have you got to lose? If you don't want me to be concerned about what will happen to you after you die, then I'm not. I'm honestly only going to continue discussing it with someone if they are interested. So if you don't care, then at worst you have wasted 5 minutes. Again, this is from my perspective, I realize there are/have been people who have gone way overboard in taking drastic action because of things like that, I'm not one of them.

As to why I'm continuing this discussion here when people are clearly not agreeing with me, well this is a debate thread and also this is a public board, they can either exit the thread or foe me if they don't like what I am saying and they don't want to discuss. If nobody responds to any posts here, I would also stop posting in this thread.


Gogo preview button!

@Desenette, I'm applying the same logic to the belief in pele as I did to my belief in God, the same as I would to other things I can repeat and see a consistent result from.

I perform a specific action in a certain way
Something has told me that this action will cause a specific result
Repeated tests show that this action causes the described result
I then believe that the impetus of performing that action is true

(Assuming I could remember that far back)

On the morning after I was born, I observed the sun coming up.
Its the first time I have seen the sub come up, it rises in the east.
The next day the sun again comes up in the east.
At some point after the repeated result of the sun rising in the east, I will always believe the sun will rise in the east.

- If the sun rises in the west, well shit, then I have got a problem. As that has not happened, I do not have a problem.

In response to this line:
"i do this thing because this book i believe in tells me to, i believe in this book because i did the things the book tells me to do"

It was more "I tried this thing that I read in a book and someone told me about. The result of this thing aligned with what the book said it would be. I believe in this book because of that"

And yes, I would agree people trying to force their beliefs on others, in a massive scale, or even personal scale is wrong.

[Soralin]

@toddler, as you said it would be up to God, but since I would guess that each of those people's situations is different I don't think they would receive the same answer.

@morris, Had I not received answer to prayer then no, I probably would not believe, the bible would still be just words on a page, no different than a history book or some other book of older origin. To even further qualify, I would say that had I not continually seen answer to prayer I would also not believe, and as others have said, chalk it up to my internal bias that things worked out a couple of times.

To expand upon what I have said before, its not just answers to prayers in good things. I've prayed before and been told no, nope, no way, go suck it, and had really bad things happen. Yes, it sucked, it was hard. After I got through whatever happened, you know what? I was a better person. Better able to sympathize with less fortunate folk, better able to deal with loss, and becoming more responsible with the things I have been given.

How do you tell if something is an answer, or merely a result? I mean, I assume here that you're not getting an actual answer, otherwise you could simply write it down, or post it here, and we could all observe to see if it comes true. I'm thinking that you're just taking whatever happens to result, and calling it an answer after the fact, right?

Say for instance I flip a coin, one of us prays for it to be heads, and the other prays for it to be tails. After it lands, does that mean that one of our prayers was answered "yes", and the other one's prayer was answered "no"? Or does it mean that neither of our prayers were answered, and the coin simply landed as it would have otherwise? How do you distinguish between those two scenarios to determine which one is right?

In other words, if you pray for something to happen, and it happens, how do you distinguish between your prayer being answered "yes", and your prayer not being answered at all? I mean, people of other religions praying for something to happen, will often have that thing happen, especially if the thing being prayed for is relatively common or likely, as is to be expected. If you pray for rain long enough, eventually it's going to rain.

I mean, you could look at the statistics, and look at what the probabilities are, to determine if the prayer is having an effect on the outcome. I mean, if it did have an effect in some cases, it would have to have to change the statistics of the outcome. But when we've looked for that, we've found that things like praying for people to get well, or christian rates of car accidents or such, are the same as what you find for if no one prayed or was a christian at all.

[nitePhyyre]

@Drumheller769: My business isn't doing too well. How should I pray to God to get him to fix that? Exactly what results can I expect, in what time-line? What passages in the bible can answer these things for me?

[Drumheller769]

Each persons relationship with God is personal and their own. How they converse will be unique to them. One thing that will be consistent is that the message will be in line with the bible. More often than praying for something in particular to happen, or to receive something specific I instead pray for guidance and wisdom in making choices. As I said God will answer a prayer in relation to how that answer best works towards his goal of having everyone worship him.

The problem with me interpreting that for you is I am me, I am not God. In the bible he says simply that he wants everyone to worship him. That is kinda it, I can't really give you details on how a particular incident will work towards that goal, as I am not God.

Going back to prayer and how you might find an answer. Yes it could be in how an event turned out, but at least for me, I also listen in my daily life. Everyone has their own internal voice, their conscience, they also have their own thoughts and experiences.

For example, if an opportunity were to come up for me to go to say upstate NY and help repair flood damage. I might pray for guidance on should I go or not. If I start feeling a large amount of compassion for those people after seeing their wrecked homes on the news, or I start seeing ads for sales on plane tickets there, and hey my boss is offering me an extra week of vacation. I am going to start to get the hint that maybe I should go.

What sets that apart for me from after the fact bias, is that I know myself, and very often I don't make what I know is the right choice, and I know my reasons for such things. If my thoughts and how I perceive the world act different than what I might expect then I know that the 'hint' is not my own thought, but God nudging me where he wants me to go. Ideally over time, I would change my thoughts and perceptions so that I would just go to help those people without prodding. As that type of action is what the bible says we should do.

[Drumheller769]

@Drumheller769: My business isn't doing too well. How should I pray to God to get him to fix that? Exactly what results can I expect, in what time-line? What passages in the bible can answer these things for me?

Anything I would tell you would be pointless if you don't believe in God and you aren't following the guidelines in the bible. How you pray is up to you, if you meet the conditions outlined in the bible, then you can pray however you would like, although I would say that prayer is necessary if you expect a response from God on whatever issue you have.

If you want specifics then the books of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John would help. If you want an example from the bible of "Shit hit the fan, I don't know what to do" you could try Job.

But no, I'm not going to lay out word for word how you should pray, that is between you and God.

Also, I think I detected a hint of sarcasm in your post, but replied because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.

[DSenette]

Well, look at the idea of Hell this way, if you don't think I am right, what have you got to lose? If you don't want me to be concerned about what will happen to you after you die, then I'm not. I'm honestly only going to continue discussing it with someone if they are interested. So if you don't care, then at worst you have wasted 5 minutes. Again, this is from my perspective, I realize there are/have been people who have gone way overboard in taking drastic action because of things like that, I'm not one of them.

As to why I'm continuing this discussion here when people are clearly not agreeing with me, well this is a debate thread and also this is a public board, they can either exit the thread or foe me if they don't like what I am saying and they don't want to discuss. If nobody responds to any posts here, I would also stop posting in this thread.


Gogo preview button!

i am perfectly fine with discussing things, and it's not about you not agreeing. it's about you seeming to not understand some of the points being made

@Desenette, I'm applying the same logic to the belief in pele as I did to my belief in God, the same as I would to other things I can repeat and see a consistent result from.

I perform a specific action in a certain way
Something has told me that this action will cause a specific result
Repeated tests show that this action causes the described result
I then believe that the impetus of performing that action is true

(Assuming I could remember that far back)

On the morning after I was born, I observed the sun coming up.
Its the first time I have seen the sub come up, it rises in the east.
The next day the sun again comes up in the east.
At some point after the repeated result of the sun rising in the east, I will always believe the sun will rise in the east.

- If the sun rises in the west, well shit, then I have got a problem. As that has not happened, I do not have a problem.

so basically, what you're saying is that since for thousands of years, people seemed to have enough results from throwing virgins into volcanoes that they continued to do it, that pele is real?

again, back to your personal prayer. it's COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE for you to NOT get the described results when the described results are "yes, maybe, and no". if handed you a book, and told you that it was a magical book that could make you a really good gambler, and it told you that if you play roulette, you should put some money on a number and color that you like, and by the providence of the book's magic powers the result of the spin will be your number in your color, or your number in a different color, or neither your number or your color" then any result at the table would coincide with the predictions of the book.

In response to this line:
"i do this thing because this book i believe in tells me to, i believe in this book because i did the things the book tells me to do"

It was more "I tried this thing that I read in a book and someone told me about. The result of this thing aligned with what the book said it would be. I believe in this book because of that"

And yes, I would agree people trying to force their beliefs on others, in a massive scale, or even personal scale is wrong.

and you understand that your conclusion is actually illogical and unscientific correct? it's irrational and unsupportable.

[Malconstant]

Well, look at the idea of Hell this way, if you don't think I am right, what have you got to lose? If you don't want me to be concerned about what will happen to you after you die, then I'm not. I'm honestly only going to continue discussing it with someone if they are interested. So if you don't care, then at worst you have wasted 5 minutes. Again, this is from my perspective, I realize there are/have been people who have gone way overboard in taking drastic action because of things like that, I'm not one of them.

As to why I'm continuing this discussion here when people are clearly not agreeing with me, well this is a debate thread and also this is a public board, they can either exit the thread or foe me if they don't like what I am saying and they don't want to discuss. If nobody responds to any posts here, I would also stop posting in this thread.

Was this a response to my post? I called a belief in hell to be fundamentally inconsistent with a belief in an omnipotent and benevolent God. I said that a belief in hell is indefensible given all that we know. I would go further and say that it would take a deeply malicious God to design a hell under such circumstances. That is my challenge to you. Can you defend your beliefs? Saying that "you're not forcing everyone to agree with you so why should I care" isn't an argument at all.

Not to mention the less-strong challenge of cultural relativism (people of other faiths believe in other supernatural narratives just as strongly as you believe in yours and for the same kinds of reasons/evidence, so how can you justify the truth of your supernatural narrative to their negation?), and of the changing history of Christianity and the Bible (why is it that we needed to be removed from Christ by 2,000 years and have included tremendous changes to the Bible throughout history in order to arrive at the truth all of a sudden? Modern Christianity is incredibly different from early Christianity, and especially from those who Jesus taught. Are Jesus' disciples and those who listened in Hell now because their practices are completely different from yours? These lines are arbitrary, how do you justify them).

Those are my challenges to your epistemologies. If you don't want to discuss them then I can't make you, but there they are as plainly as I can articulate them, though I'd be happy to go into more depth/explanation.

[Soralin]

Going back to prayer and how you might find an answer. Yes it could be in how an event turned out, but at least for me, I also listen in my daily life. Everyone has their own internal voice, their conscience, they also have their own thoughts and experiences.

For example, if an opportunity were to come up for me to go to say upstate NY and help repair flood damage. I might pray for guidance on should I go or not. If I start feeling a large amount of compassion for those people after seeing their wrecked homes on the news, or I start seeing ads for sales on plane tickets there, and hey my boss is offering me an extra week of vacation. I am going to start to get the hint that maybe I should go.

What sets that apart for me from after the fact bias, is that I know myself, and very often I don't make what I know is the right choice, and I know my reasons for such things. If my thoughts and how I perceive the world act different than what I might expect then I know that the 'hint' is not my own thought, but God nudging me where he wants me to go. Ideally over time, I would change my thoughts and perceptions so that I would just go to help those people without prodding. As that type of action is what the bible says we should do.

Well yes, but the thing about an internal voice.. is that it's internal (i.e. not external, not coming from an external source). Your internal voice, conscience, thoughts, experiences, are all things that exist within your own mind, not things that are placed there from outside.

Feelings are things which exist within your mind, they're not observations of reality. If your pray for guidance, and feel something as a result of that, what makes you think that that feeling is coming from without, rather than from within? Certainly, observing and paying attention to your own feelings on the matter is a useful thing to do, and gives you a better chance to end up doing what it is that you really want. If your feelings end up not matching what you expected they would, what makes you think that your own expectations of what you would think are perfect? That you would never end up in a situation where how you thought you would feel about something, doesn't match up with how you actually feel when you get into that situation, unless there was a god making alterations to your brain from the outside?

[Drumheller769]

so basically, what you're saying is that since for thousands of years, people seemed to have enough results from throwing virgins into volcanoes that they continued to do it, that pele is real?

It would not be sufficient to say enough results, but that every result was in accordance with how they had been told it would work.

and you understand that your conclusion is actually illogical and unscientific correct? it's irrational and unsupportable.

First, yes, God is God, by definition he wouldn't be God if everything about him was explainable. I chalk the parts I don't understand up to faith, as I am sure many of you do with evolution. Last I checked none of you were around 100 billion years ago, so you take by faith that what some people(unless you have done the same experiment yourself) say is true, when many of the various methods used to determine such things have been proven unreliable, i.e. carbon dating.

EDIT: Some tongue in cheek that may or may not annoy you more than usual, but as I see that many posting don't mind replying to me with that sort of thing, here ya go:

Spoiler:

Now let me throw the illogical irrational bit back at you then, if God isn't real and doesn't influence people then how do you make decisions that aren't quite as basic as which shoe to put on first? Is it if the sun is particularly hot on one day that you do it different, or is it maybe you had 5 taco bell tacos instead of 3? Or is it random?

What I'm saying, albeit tongue in cheek, is that I go through my life making decisions based on my Christian morals, and what I hear from God when I feel a choice isn't one of the A. B. or C. options that would normally apply. When you are presented with a situation that you don't know what to do, do you choose based on how many people near you have green shirts? That would be illogical and irrational to me.

Also, as I don't wish to make the people participating in this debate rage too much, an FYI once the weekend hits and I am off work, I probably wont reply in this thread until Monday..for all our sanities.

[Drumheller769]

Was this a response to my post? I called a belief in hell to be fundamentally inconsistent with a belief in an omnipotent and benevolent God. I said that a belief in hell is indefensible given all that we know. I would go further and say that it would take a deeply malicious God to design a hell under such circumstances. That is my challenge to you. Can you defend your beliefs? Saying that "you're not forcing everyone to agree with you so why should I care" isn't an argument at all.

Not to mention the less-strong challenge of cultural relativism (people of other faiths believe in other supernatural narratives just as strongly as you believe in yours and for the same kinds of reasons/evidence, so how can you justify the truth of your supernatural narrative to their negation?), and of the changing history of Christianity and the Bible (why is it that we needed to be removed from Christ by 2,000 years and have included tremendous changes to the Bible throughout history in order to arrive at the truth all of a sudden? Modern Christianity is incredibly different from early Christianity, and especially from those who Jesus taught. Are Jesus' disciples and those who listened in Hell now because their practices are completely different from yours? These lines are arbitrary, how do you justify them).

Those are my challenges to your epistemologies. If you don't want to discuss them then I can't make you, but there they are as plainly as I can articulate them, though I'd be happy to go into more depth/explanation.

Sorry, I misunderstood you. So I think you are asking why I believe in Hell as it has been dis proven? Honestly, I have no special proof other than the bible which I have already professed to believe in. In regards to God being malicious, God is neither good or bad. He has equal capacity to do good, i.e. sending Jesus, as he does to do bad, i.e. the flood, or when he wrecked sodom and gomora.

As to the changes in the bible over time, I don't really have enough knowledge of that to say one way or another. In regards to that I trust people that have the know how to read the original transcripts for as far back as we have and I trust what they say.

@Soralin - So you don't feel that how you perceive anything can be modified externally?

[podbaydoor]

A lot of atheists/agnostics are ex-Christians or ex-other religions. I spent the first 18 years of my life (that I remember) following the Judeo-Christian's God's commands (specifically of Protestant/Baptist God flavor) and praying fervently to Him.

I never received an answer or experienced any amazing turnarounds that could only be attributed 100% to the prayer. People died, people were born, money came and went, grades went up and down, sickness came and went, and nothing happened that didn't already have a non-supernatural explanation. I experienced the revival fervor, the uplifting of spirit, all of it - and yet, none of it was in any way meaningfully different from the experiences of my Indian acquaintances. Or my Muslim acquaintances. Or pagan acquaintances. They had the fervor and the faith and the good/bad experiences, too.

But I kept trying to believe that I, my faith, was different, that there was some meaningful difference in my life. For me to believe in something as huge as a whole religious system that dictated my entire life, I needed it to be rock solid. It had to be completely true and absolute. It wasn't. I couldn't make myself move past the gaping holes at the bottom. Every mentor and pastor I went to, had a lot of sophisticated answers, but I kept asking questions and pushing deeper. And without a single exception, every single person was eventually reduced to repeating to me, "Just have faith." Why? Why do I need faith for something that is objectively true? It's objectively true, isn't it? I spent hours and hours and hours in prayer, begging for God to give me the faith that I lacked. Well, it never worked. I received lots of pat answers that never held up, because it always boiled down to faith. But you shouldn't need faith for something that is factually true. It just is. No faith necessary.

So, what do you say to the people who have prayed, and intimately know what it's like to be on the inside - and experienced results that were identical to results that could have happened under any other deity or no deity?