It's interesting to see... throughout the centuries mankind has viewed that which he can influence and control the most as the cause of things. Mankind was, and still largely is, the ***** of his surroundings, so to be able to have control over things, at least in their own mind, is an important goal. Insert prayer.

90% of your prayers answered, dogsrool? Are you willing to have that claim tested by someone like James Randi?


(The Straight Dope, 2 November 2000)

To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance.
-Dan Barker

The answer to prayer isn't always "yes". As I said in my previous posts, according to the bible, God answers prayers in his own way, and in his own time; Not our way or our time, which means that just because a prayer doesn't have the effect you expect it to, doesn't mean that prayer was inneffective or unheard. I myself can attest to having my prayers answered in one form or another. Call it coincidence if you want, but that's not what I believe.

As for your last quote, again, as I said in my previous post, it is generally believed that God does not interfere with the world directly (as in, no nature-bending), but rather influences it subtley. I agree that to think God would jump in and change things directly for you is a rather arrogant mindset, but that's not what is taught in the bible anyway, so I don't see how it applies.

So in other words, answered or not - god did it. If a cancer patient recovers in a way that can be accounted for by statistics, natural regression, treatment, etc... god did it anyway. If the cancer patient dies, god decided his/her time was finished. God did it. Whatever the **** happens, god did it. If the phrase mental masturbation was ever applicable, it's now.

There's a term for this line of thinking - it's called 'availability bias'.

Let's compare this to a person's conscience. Everyone has one. It influences our decisions, but not everyone follows it frequently, and nobody follows it all the time. If I had to analogize my beliefs in praying for someone to make right decisions, it would be essentially the "programming" of someone's conscience. It is not praying for my concept of what is right, but asking God to use his concept of it to guide said person. Given the nature of this prayer, it still leaves the person in control of whether they choose to follow their conscience.

This is a somewhat weak description/analogy of what I would like to have said about this, but hopefully I helped clarify what I meant by "influence." I couldn't really find another way to describe it without getting really redundant.

If you were to write a letter to the president, that too would be merely influencing, except on a more conscious level.
Really?

Note the results on that site are specifically noted to not favor the "hoped for" outcome. When something could be a placebo, it is stated as such. Also note that some of the major fundamental of prayer outlined in the Bible were left unstudied, such as a person's level of faith in prayer. It is vaguely preachy in a couple of places, like "prayer is free" types of things, but that's expected.

Maybe you didn't catch on, but it's a prayer site. (It says that right in the title.) As a result, the bulk of it is going to be about prayer. You say you have no problem with religion, yet when you see it being practiced honestly... well, we get threads like this, apparently, bashing people for practicing what they preach.

We can't win no matter what we do.

I think he told us to pray. :p
This is a kids site. Kids don't generally know what types of things to pray about, particularly because they don't know what's going on in the world. Hence, the site.

On the contrary, it further edifies the things we believe in. It is the understanding of how prayers "work" (for lack of a better term) that is often misunderstood.

Bring it on. Unless he's going to tell me what to pray for.

What's interesting is that the things I've prayed for other people without them knowing it have come to pass more than that which I pray for myself. So much for placebo.

And I imagine that saying he is incapable of such is the ultimate insult to Him.
It's true, but I was counting the 90% guess as yeses, although I should have clarified that these are all recent, perhaps because my faith has grown (although I'm not sure that it has or not). One of the biggest things I was praying for did not come to pass. I don't know if it was a "no" or a "wait," but in either case, now that I am not blinded by raw emotion in desiring what I was praying for, I can see that I was in no way ready to accept the responsibility of what I was asking. And I'm still not. But I do no longer concern myself with it for this reason. I did what I could, the rest is not my decision.

But here's a little in-advance prayer "statement," and it will sound utterly foolish to you at this time, but nonetheless:
My family is currently looking into buying a home (which I posted a thread on a while back), and alone, there is absolutely no way we're going to get it. However, I strongly believe it is a place God has set aside for us, and intends for us to use as a home for fellowship. We are going to attempt to acquire the house for less than half of it's list price, because it's all we can afford. We do not yet know if we will be able to get the loan, especially since my stepdad filed bankruptcy last year, just before dating and marrying my mom. Typically, the wait on getting a loan after bankruptcy around here is 4 years. Furthermore, being able to afford loan payments depends on us first selling the house we're living in, since we are still making payments on that, and wouldn't be able to afford payments on both. Not to mention other people are interested in the house besides just us.

Now, you don't often hear me speak in great faith. I'd even venture as far as to say never before. We have many people praying for us in this matter, ourselves included. And despite great odds against us, I am very certain God is somehow going to make it possible. And it would follow Biblical trend, too (hardship -> prosperity). I recently learned that not too long ago, we were not even making enough money to pay our bills. Since that time, our household income has trippled. And that's without me having a job.
I am documenting it here for a reason, before it happens. I don't proclaim myself a prophet by any means whatsoever, but I stand firm in what I genuinely believe God is promising us.
And when it comes to pass, will it serve of any proof to any of you, despite the odds against it? More likely, it will be circumvented.

Cool. Apply and get a million dollars - http://www.randi.org



Really?



I know that should scare me, but I still feel deeply chill and relaxed.

The idea that talking hard enough to yourself can influence the outcome of an L.A. Lakers game, or for some reason granted muslim fundamentalists the wish of killing hundreds of American citizens, in contrast, is the ultimate insult to Reason.

What you're saying is that significantly more atheists with atheist families die of cancer than theists, and I'm not convinced.

rofl Tensh, nice. I'm going to start capitalizing 'reason' too.

It's always "God" this and "Believe in Him" that (very annoying). Time for some payback, suckers. :p

ahahahahahaahahaha.

The best parts are:




They're banking on the President's name, without permission!

Holy ****. I wish I hadn't read this. I didn't think people could be this delusional. The Christian god doesn't care about your house.



What?

Look, quit deluding yourself. There is no Logic or Reason in believing something like that. Why would you even begin to believe something like that? Besides, what about the other families that need a place to live? The Christian god cares about them too and he wants them to have that house just as much as you.



Just a thought, but maybe you should quit depending on superstitions to guide your life and get in control of it yourself.

Jesus christ some of you guys make me sick.

Dogs, hopefully you'll get your house. If your loan officer you get is anything like my mom, he/she'll make some miracles happen. Trust me, I've seen some pretty amazing ones in the past. Good luck man.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi] If your loan officer you get is anything like my mom, he/she'll make some miracles happen. Trust me, I've seen some pretty amazing ones in the past. Good luck man.[/QUOTE]


...but if the loan officer makes it happen, then it isn't a miracle. It's a thoroughly competent loan officer.

I think that's what he was trying to point out.

Are you not reading my posts, or are you just trying to bend my words?

As I have already said, God does not interfere directly. Therefore, no, if the cancer patient dies, God didn't do it. If he recovers, God didn't do it. God influences events, but does not control them, in the sense that he does not micromanage every single aspect of reality. Regardless, you're talking about God interfering with every day events, while I (along with the rest of the thread prior) was discussing God acting on prayer, which are very different things.

However, I can see that, once again, this thread has degraded to the point where I can't discuss my beliefs without having them attacked by forum members who disagree, so I will now take my leave. I find it amusing how I've been speaking calmly and politely, and yet I'm getting phrases such as "mental masturbation" thrown at me, treated as if I'm nothing more than an uneducated buffoon. Hooray for civilized discussion.

If a billiard ball is rolling across the table, and I bump it sending it off on a tangent, I've certainly influenced its motion. I've not controlled (I haven't stopped it, picked it up, and started rolling it myself), but I've made a difference, and the end result is that the billiard ball will end up somewhere where it wouldn't have otherwise. With some simple vector diagrams, I can predict where the billiard ball will end up given how hard I nudge. So I might not be controlling its motion by nudging, but I most certainly am controlling its 'end position'.

If we assume that God isn't an idiot, he must know precisely what result his divine nudge will have on this mere mortal billiard ball, and so he will be precisely controlling where the billiard ball will end up. So the only way for God to 'influence' something without 'controlling' it is if he is if he 'doesn't know' what the result of that influence will be.

I don't see how praying can effect things. Lets say someone is in a plane crash. If they pray as they're going down will it have any bearing on whether they survive? according to people here the answer to that could be yes.

Which makes no sense at all and is impossible.

If you knew some information about the plane crash (altitude, speed, pitch, roll, bearing, where the problem occoured) you could work out exactly how the plane would hit the ground. From that you could work out exactly what would happen when the plane crashed with models and some advanced calculations. It'd be depending on how they were sitting to whether each individual could survive or not. The only way god could help is by changing the laws of physics making the plane crash differenty.

[QUOTE=The Lamest Idiotic Bible Bashing Site in the World]But as kids who pray, we have a source of strength and hope in our mighty God. It's definitely okay to feel sad for the people who are suffering and going through so much. But the very best thing we can do is to pray. And get others to pray. We can also give to relief groups who are on the ground helping—groups like the Salvation Army are great because they bring the Good News of Jesus right along with food and water and other kinds of help.[/QUOTE]

Ohhh, ok, 1st... we pray...

2nd, we pray some more

3rd, we make others pray

THEN, we send help.

Oh i forgot how like, American kids, under the influence of the bible bashing red neck president, can ACTUALLY perform miracles, when they pray.

God Bless America


Now excuse me why I go cry. That site has disturbed me down to the soul.

Actually, on 2nd thoughts, I'll go kill something.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Yes Ruthven, Christians believe that kids' as well as adults' prayers do affect things. You're also forgetting this is a kids website so they're not really going to be able to donate much money or anything.

So you're still saying people who aren't prayed for die more of disease A than people with disease A who are prayed for. God acting on prayer, right?

A million dollars dude. Think about all the stuff you can do with it.

BTW about the emotional appeal of 'being attacked on your beliefs' - your nation as a whole is losing its touch with reality, and its ace number one position of science research and education in the world because 'people are allowed an opinion'. Back it up. A one with SIX zeros.

Miracle is a figure of speech...though I can see how it's easily misconstrued in context. My bad.

But, as you said, he hasn't picked it up with his own hands. Likewise, God does not "control our minds" or "bend the laws of nature", but rather acts in more subtle ways. I won't begin to claim that I understand how God works, so I can't give very accurate examples, but I think you described it rather well yourself with the ball scenario.



That's a very extreme example, which can't be applied to all situations. Like I said, God very well may choose not to interfere, or he may choose to interfere in a way that isn't immediately expected or noticed. Questions about why God doesn't prevent certain disasters can be answered similarly.




Again, another extreme example which doesn't apply to the topic of prayer as a whole. That's like saying "My brother was dying, so I prayed for him, but he died anyway. That must mean God doesn't exist." No, it just means that God didn't necessarily act in the most expected or noticable way. And you seem to forget that there's a lot more to prayer than just asking for things.

What does money have to do with this? I think I'm missing what you're referring to.

And this has nothing to do with "the nation as a whole losing its touch with reality blah blah blah". This has to do with me trying to discuss something in a calm, polite, and civilized manner, and you, as well as others who disagree, responding with sarcasm and insults. Regardless of what we're discussing, your failure to respond in a similarly calm, polite, and civilized manner says a lot about your intolerance of other's opinions, or in this case, beliefs, which suggests that you did not enter this discussion with the intention of actually discussing, but rather with the intention to cause trouble, trying to make other people look bad just because they don't have the same beliefs that you do, and I have no desire to stick around while this thread derails into a virtual pissing contest. So unless everyone decides to go back to having a calm, polite, and civilized discussion, then I'm out.

Argh. ><

click me

...Except the point was that even though I'm not controlling the motion of the billiard ball, I am controlling its position. The more accurately I do my calculations on this billiard ball, the more acutely I am controlling its position (of course God would be do his divine calculations perfectly, and his control would be perfect too).
God might not be actively controlling our actions like puppets on a string, but by 'influencing' the actions we do make he is controlling the end result (the end result probably being another action, and so this whole thing applies again and again, until God knows the entire 'series' of actions that will occur by his influence, which he is controlling).

As long as God is 'perfect', he will know exactly what result his influence will have on us, and so we cannot have 'free will' to choose our actions because God already knows what we're going to choose and has 'influenced' us to avoid us making that action.

Also, this nudge is a physical force. For God to have any effect, he too must provide a physical force. Which to us would appear to be a spontaneous force - which does most certainly 'bend' our perceptions of nature.

No, this is about people making their claims as vague as possible, resorting to the tested and tried 'whatever you say, I'm right anyway'.

I'm sticking with what I said - your religion not being unconditionally accepted must be quite a culture shock to you.

So let me ask you now: what effect does prayer for a terminal cancer patient have, if not a speedy recovery, full healing, etc... No vague stuff, I'm asking for the real deal.

What insults? Burden of proof is on you.

God will help someone find a new house to live in because he cares about it?

If that is so, then I'm guessing God doesn't care about the millions of kids in Africa dying from Aids. That, or noone is praying for them.

Actually, it applies to every situation where something happens naturally. The same as Mort's ball example and anything where there is a physical outcome. The only thing you could argue is that god influences peoples decicions. Lets go back to the plane crash. Maybe god could influence the pilot to fly the plane better while it's crashing so less people die?


But isn't that taking away his free will?

And here's what happens when you try to rationalize God...

Indeed, there's all those stories with 9/11 with people either missing their plane (One that crashed) or missing work (at WTC).

Now, some would argue maybe God had influence on that outcome...

There's no point this discussion though. Neither side is going to win here people...

That's a very poor arguement. People miss planes and work all the time. It's not divine influence. It's just luck that those people wern't there. It's like saying "God influenced me to choose the right lottery numbers".

God is not real.

God is not going to cure cancer.

God is not going to help you get a house.

God is not going to make you pass your psychology test.

God is not going to find your car keys.

God is not going to help you find a spouse.

God is not going to help you do anything.

These are things that real people do. Doctors, real estate agents, and most prominently: YOU!

You know what Bill, you have opened my eyes. I'm gonna completely disavow the existance of God, just based off of what you said. After all, it was such a compellng argument.

Well, he's right.

lol you're funny.

lol this is some deep !@#$

Nubs future posted me by 6 minutes...

now that genuinely made me laugh.

There aren't enough horses in your post.

Hey if you want proof that doctors cure diseases, real estate agents sell houses, and students get their own good grades, you don't even have to google it! Ask anyone!

This is how it will go:

You: What is a doctor?

Them: He is a guy that fixes people.

This is how it will not go:

You: What is a doctor?

Them: HE IS THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD!

There aren't enough cells in your brain.

I beg to differ Bill. :p Back when I was religious, I lost my keys at work. I looked all over for them for about an hour. I'm ashamed and embarrassed to admit it, but I actually went into the bathroom to pray to god to help me find my keys. When I lifted my head from my prayer, I was looking right at them. They were sitting on the little divider between the urinals. :em321:

True story. At the time, I of course used this incident as an excuse to bolster my faith. Now, I realize that I found them because I decided to go to the bathroom to pray. It was just a coincidence.

As Yoshi says, this is what happens when you try to rationalise God. Mort, your analogy is based upon the natural world and as Christians believe that God is in the supernatural realm, it doesn't work.

You are essentially saying "Well you're wrong because God is God." God being almighty and having nothing applied to him that we humans go through seems to be the trump card people bring out when they have nothing better to say. You can believe "Well you're wrong because God is God," but that doesn't necessarily make you right. It just means you use an easy answer to a hard question.