If prayers go unanswered....?

If the only God you can believe in one whose actions are indistinguishable from random outcomes, then why bother to believe in God at all?

I don't quite understand your point. I believe in a God whose actions are distinguishable from random outcomes.

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My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. ---Albert Einstein

The slap analogy is one of thousands of instances which could illustrate my point, which is that we can have knowledge before or without evidence.I know I think in my head without needing evidence. I know my heart beats without needing evidence. We know food tastes good without evidence, we can experience truths without evidence. There are trials because there is no certainty even with evidence in some cases, yet a witness will know the truth. Amazing really, but a vast amount of the time, real things happen without empirical or tangible evidence.If someone slaps me they leave no evidence but I have the knowledge, so my point is still correct.And it's all moot as to whether there is evidence for all of the above lil miss Shraffy, because we knew all those things before science.This is a truth Shraff.As much as I would love to answer all those questions in your other post, I feel that the ultimate truths pertaining to your posts and my posts leaves us with the problem of the true truths being unidentifiably moot pertaining of the truths I have told you. I suppose it's futile because of that problem, and we are going nowhere, so I think we she agree to disagree.This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 04-03-2005 07:57 PM

Then you give the exact opposite impression in your post. Let me show you:

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Where is God in all this? Surely He would be aware that His actions would lead to the formulation of the predictive theorems before He grants the prayer request. Would He do it anyway?

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Maybe, I certainly could be wrong about this, but IMHO I suspect that when and if God chooses to step back into human history such that his actions are easily recognizable and incontrovertible proof is given of His existence, it would be more significant than as a statistic.

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Now, what that says to me is "God acts, but since he doesn't want to give away the game, he doesn't let his actions be detected." That's a God who, if he is acting, doesn't act in a way that is statistically discernable from random outcomes. Your post 75 certainly isn't the position of a person who believes that God takes real, significant action in the world.Unless you're saying that God disguises his existence by refusing to act at all. Either way, I don't see that a God you can't count on to take any action that wasn't going to happen anyway is much of a God worth worshipping.

It seems that to atheistoagnosticos, morals are relative.So when God doesn't answer a prayer, then the unbeliever says "he doesn't exist because it's wrong to leave the poor hungry".But morals are relative you say. Does this mean that you, the unbeliever are correct morally? What about another unbeliever with another moral? Shouldn't it be God who has the absolute moral?It's self-righteousness to expect God to cater to your moral whim at the expense of another contradictory moral whim.Since God is consistent, prayers will be answered according to his absolute and righteouss will.

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The slap analogy is one of thousands of instances which could illustrate my point, which is that we can have knowledge before or without evidence.

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But you do have evidence. Your witness, and that of the person who slapped you.Humans slapping other humans is not a fantastic or supernatural occurrence.Your claims are fantastic and supernatural.How on earth can you not see that you are trying to compare the mundane with the extraordinary?

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As much as I would love to answer all those questions in your other post, I feel that the ultimate truths pertaining to your posts and my posts leaves us with the problem of the true truths being unidentifiably moot pertaining of the truths I have told you. I suppose it's futile because of that problem, and we are going nowhere, so I think we she agree to disagree.

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If you had an answer for any of them, you would have addressed them by now instead of completely ignoring them.Look mike, I have absolutely no problem with you believing that god answered your prayers. Maybe he did, I have no way of knowing.I only transform into my bulldog alter ego when you step over the line into Verifiable Claim Land by making a factual claim about the natural world that you then refuse to back up with evidence, yet insist to be taken seriously and believed at face value.Your insistance that you are right, combined with your utter refusal to 1)provide any evidence in support, and 2) properly, honestly examine the illogical, irrational basis for your claim is what makes my jaws clamp down on your behind all the harder.

What are the morals of God?

That’s right, He maintains free will as a choice for us by avoiding our discovery of direct physical evidence of his existence discernable to the general public. He chooses not to be quantified objectively by humans, He chooses not to make his presence known in this age in a wholly discernable way.Doesn’t mean He hasn’t done so in the past or will not do so in the future, it only means He is not doing so today. It simply means He prefers another method of communicating in this age. Not at all, God chooses when, to whom, and how He makes his presence known and which prayers are answered.

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My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. ---Albert Einstein

if god has a plan, then doesn't that make prayer worthless?
what would be the point on praying for an outcome if god had already decided the outcome. Unless god does not have a plan, because if god is omnipotent, all powerful, and infallible, then truly his plan cannot be changed based on the desires of a mere mortal.
logically then either
1. prayer does not effect the outcome of events, because if it did it would violate gods plan.
2. God does not have a plan, is omnipotent, all powerful, and infallible and as such can influence the outcome of events, and he chooses to do so based partially on prayer
or 3. God has a plan and can effect outcomes, choosing to do so partially on prayer, but he is not omnipotent, all powerful, and infallible so his plan may be altered by the actions of mortals, and he counters this by answering prayers.
at least 1 of those statements MUST be true.

Ok, great. So back to my question. Why is a God who doesn't act in a way we can detect worth worshiping? If his actions can't be distinguished from what would have happened normally, how can he be said to be acting at all?If a guy came up to you, and told you that he was responsible for the Red Sox victory, even though he had never been to Chicago, nor seen them play, nor knew anything about baseball, and had certainly never spoken to or communicated with the team in any way - indeed, he had had no detectable influence on the game or the team whatsoever, how would you react? How credible would you find his claim, especially in the presence of other, more likely explanations like "the team really worked hard this season"?Personally I think the idea of giving credit to God in one breath and asserting that his influence is always undetectable with the next is an insult to the men and women of the human race who are actually working to improve things, and whose actions are very much detectable. Credit where credit is due - to the people whose existence and actions we can observe, not to some do-nothing God.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 04-04-2005 02:10 AM

This reminds me of the "Kissing Hank's Ass" skit! Link to text: http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.phpLink to movie: http://www.starcantdead.com/sketches/kissinghanksass.html

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Personally I think the idea of giving credit to God in one breath and asserting that his influence is always undetectable with the next is an insult to the men and women of the human race who are actually working to improve things, and whose actions are very much detectable. Credit where credit is due - to the people whose existence and actions we can observe, not to some do-nothing God.

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Hear, hear!!It irks me to no end when I see some family in a hospital on the television praising God for saving the life of their loved one who just had some major surgery. They declare it "a miracle!"!Meanwhile, it was the thousands and thousands of inquiring and bright human minds who have worked hard over the generations to understand medical problems and develop technology and surgical techniques to make such things possible.It wasn't God, OK? It was human effort.

God does act in ways that can be detected and to the billions of believers who have felt and seen His presence in their lives, that detection is very real. But God will not allow himself to be analyzed such that His actions can be predicted with mathematical precision. Again, you can’t put God in a bottle.Your analogous story is meaningless, you compare God’s actions to the actions of some guy. I’ll say it again, God’s influence IS detectable. I never said His influence is always undetectable

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My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. ---Albert Einstein

Thank GOD for giving us the intellect and talents to develop miracle drugs and procedures.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Very true. Inquiring and bright minds have worked hard over the generations to understand all sorts of medical and technological problems to make life easier. Agree 100%But your next line is where we differ. You cannot possibly say that God was not involved and have it carry any weight. You don’t know the motivations and beliefs of each of these generations of people and the inspirations that served as the genesis for their great technological breakthroughs.But what I can say is that over all those generations right up to the present day, the vast majority of those bright minds were believers who not only had a profound respect for God but also for the majesty of His creations.

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My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. ---Albert Einstein