If prayers go unanswered....?

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Shraff, I already adressed those points, you simply repeated yourself in message #68.

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You didn't answer most of them at all. You ignored almost all of the questions I asked, which is why I had to repeat them in message #68....and in several messages before that.I have quite thoroughly addressed your points, mike, why won't you address mine?The only reason I have asked for your reply again is because you continue to post similar ramblings to those at the begining of this thread, as if they had not already been addressed, and you hadn't already dropped out of the discussion.

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I feel I have answered these questions as best I can

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You didn't answer the questions at all.However, if you feel like this is your best, then so be it.

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but that nothing will satisfy save a visit from Yahweh.

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However, once again, I must correct you on this point.I certainly do not need a visit from God to accept that prayer has a discernable, real effect upon nature.I don't even need a visit from god to accept that your particular clims of answered prayers are true.I have very clearly listed the entirely and completely reasonable bits of information that I need to even begin entertaining the notion, yet you resist providing even one small portion of this information.Unfortunately, you have chosen for me to remain in an unknowing, ignorant state regarding your particular claims. That has been your choice all along, so DO NOT BLAME ME because I have no basis upon which to evaluate your claims.You have never given me one.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-06-2005 07:00 AM

OK, so you say that the net outcome of prayer is, indeed discernable from random chance.Let's see your detailed records of all of your specific oucomes prayed for and the hit/miss rate which shows the statistical analysis.You say you don't have such a thing?Then you are asking people to just take your word for it. You might be accurately recounting the events and the rate of hits, but then again, the greater liklihood is that you are highly biased to credit prayer for all the hits, and you are also highly likely to define your hits as hits after the fact.

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Yes, I do have such a thing, but it is not up for scrutiny.

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Well, OK, but then I have no information to make a determination either way.

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As I have stated before it is all subjective. I am well aware of this.

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It is also not my job to "prove to you" anything of the sort.

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Well, good, it is appreciated.

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It is up to you to find out for yourself.

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Well, asking you about your records of answered prayer rates was part of "finding out for myself", but I understand why you would consider it private.

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Yes, I am asking you to take my word for it, for it is what I believe at this point in time.

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Sorry, I don't take pople's word for things that I cannot independently verify and are also not of a mundane nature.

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By the same token, you cannot go around telling everyone that it is proven that prayer does not work.

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Well, I would never use the word "prove" anyway.What I most certainly can go around telling everyone, however, is that, thus far, any time the effectivness of prayer has been properly tested, the only positive results observed has been when people have been prayd for in their presence, and given a feeling of community and support by the prayer. Sick people who were prayed for who didn't know they were being prayed for showed no difference in recovery rates, etc.But it's also true that healing/recovery rates are better regardless of prayer activitis if the person has a lot of love and support.

OK, I feel as though I have let you move the goalposts on me and we are now talking about something very different from what my point was originally.In the interest of making things clear, I will summarize.Below is the text of your message #90, along with my comments in bold italics:

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Monk:

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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%.

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Please note here that you are still with me, talking only of those inquiring and bright minds involved in medical advances.

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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.

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I never addressed this, but now as I reread it, I realize that I should have.

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When I said "It wasn't God, OK? It was human effort.", what I meant was "God's personal, miraculous intervention did not cure your loved one yesterday."

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Sure, people might be motivated by their religious ideas to do all sorts of things, including trying to cure cancer, but that's not what I was talking about.

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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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I provided evidence that the religious beliefs of scientists, science being that from which very nearly all of our medical advances originate, are quite different from your above claim.

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Unfortunately, I allowed you to draw me away from this point, and you later, in message #94, actually claimed that you weren't ever talking about scientists, even though that is the bulk of the people making the medical advances:

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You narrow the focus of the term ?bright minds? to scientists in order to prove your point without acknowledging that atheist scientists are a minority subset of the broader category of people who are represented by the term ?bright minds?.

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Notice that you are already moving the goal posts by talking about the "broader category of people" who can be described as "bright minds".

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I have always been talking ONLY about people who are involved in medical advances. Those people, as a group, cannot be described as "believers who not only had a profound respect for God but also for the majesty of His creations." Certainly, using the qualifier "vast majority" would be inaccurate.

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And while I do agree that the trend over the last century has been an increase in atheism among scientists, it doesn?t change my original observation that the vast majority of bright minds over the centuries have been people of faith.

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But this isn't what your original observation was. Look at my citation to your original message at the top of this page. You clearly were claiming that the majority of bright minds involved in medical advances have been people of faith.Not only did you claim that they were people of faith, you claimed that they were "believers who not only had a profound respect for God but also for the majesty of His creations". This certainly implies that you feel that they had this particular flavor of faith.So, to be clear, I don't think that it is accurate at all to say that the "vast majority of believers who were or are involved in medical advances not only had or have a profound respect for God but also for the majesty of His creations."I have provided evidence in support of this view. If you would like me to consider evidence which supports your claim, please provide it.

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Perhaps, but since you were responding to my original post and did not create an independent post of your own, it is you who has moved the goalposts not me.

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No, that's not correct.I responded to Crashfrog in message #87, where I said this: You replied to my independent post, not the other way around.Goodness, you could have just looked at the thread like I just did.Anyway, let me ask you something...When you said this:

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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%.

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In response to my saying this: ...in what way should I have known that you were actually talking about all people, and not only those involved in medical advances?

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"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."--Thomas JeffersonThere is no greater threat to civil liberties than an efficient government. -jar

Mike, there are perhaps a few mundane things affecting the outcome which you might not have considered...How many times have you opened your bible to the page with the blood compared to the number of times you have opened the bible and it did not open at that page?Also, could it be that the page with the blood on it is slightly wrinkled or thickened, so the book "wants" to open at that page a bit more than in other places? Sort of like a dog ear? Has the book been laid flat with that page open for a greater length of time than it has laid open in other places, so the spine has a "memory"?How, exactly do you open the bible...I mean, how do you physically open it? Do you do it with both hands, one hand, drop it on the desk, etc.?If you wanted to test this, I would standardise the way you open the book in such a way that you affect it in exactly the same way every time.I would also find a book of similar page count and paper weight, put some blood on it like you did the Bible, in the same place in the pages.Now, do a bunch of trials. Open the books exactly the same way a couple of hundred times, and record how many hits you get between the two books, and within each book.Then, calculate this against the chances of this happening by chance alone.

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For atheist, the quest for a physical explanation has no end. If one is not found, then the argument is simply that some day it will be. Believers get to a point where potential physical explanations have been stretched beyond limits and a supernatural cause begs to be recognized.

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1) It does not logically follow that because we have no naturalistic explanation for something means that there is a supernatural cause.It simply means that we do not know the cause.2) Lack of physical, naturalistic evidence for some phenomena does not constitute positive evidence for the supernatural.It simply means we do not know.3) The record over all of the centuries of religious explanations for naturalistic phenomena is that the vast majority of what used to be attributed to the supernatural is now explainable by natural means. Gods and demons used to be directly responsible for anything that we did not understand, but science has consistently been able to explain most of there phenomena.The track record of science for being able to consistently, reliably, predictably explain natural phenomena is very good, where religious or supernatural explanations have consistently been shown to be wrong, over and over.

Well, mike, I am really, truly impressed that you tested your claim. Most people wouldn't, they would be too afraid or insecure.I have to niggle you just a little bit, though, by quoting you:

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Well, good job my faith never depended on such things.

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If you are honestly saying that your faith doesn't depend upon such things, then why do you constantly present them as some kind of reason that you believe, or proof of god, or something?Anyway, don't feel like an ass. You should feel proud of yourself for challenging yourself and taking a chance. Not many would.(It's too bad you didn't have a "real" phenomena. We could have both been famous and rich!)