The existence of God and the efficacy of prayer

[blue triangle]

Yep, nonexistence sounds a lot more appealing than what that terrible, murderous and monstrous creature has planed for those he has already decided to eternally "punish".

A case in point.

 

[John Nowak]

What form would these answers take?

You might hear an audible answer (the 'still, small voice').

Isn't that an entry in the DSM?

 

[blue triangle]

This hypothetical game is just an attempt at some kind of gotcha. It's completely pointless. Like a game of make-believe, except that games are good for children (and adults, if played for fun), but this is just a waste of time.

Here's another hypothetical: if god turned out to be satan in disguise (not a very effective disguise, as it's obvious to me that the bible god is one and the same as satan), would you still pray to keep on the good side of god, and condemn the others to his bad side, if that's what it took?

You don't like this hypothetical, do you? But to me this is a far more realistic depiction of the situation we are facing than the completely divorced from this world game you are playing.

You've witnessed.

Edited by Agatha: 

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The purpose of the hypothetical question was to see if posters here would in principle be willing to pray to God if they were convinced of the existence of God and if prayer was the way to contact him. Most of you are somewhat reticent there, but I see one or two would be prepared to give it a try. Those who wouldn't under any circumstances, or would be very reluctant to do so, are closer to being anti-theists than atheists and their position is harder to understand, since they would then be turning their backs on reality as it is. I would then ask them what their purpose is in posting here. Is it to defend rationality and a naturalistic worldview, or is it simply to give vent to anti-theist sentiments?

I understand that some of you may have had bad experiences with religion, and I'm not here to defend religion as such, only where it supports the idea that we are eternal beings, created and loved by God. I'm far more interested in showing you evidence that God is real.

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[Donn]

You might hear .. You might see .. you might get a feeling.. Something in your life might change. You may feel.. There are a million ways it could happen and although you might not be sure the first or second or third time it happens, with continued use of prayer your confidence in it will grow. I'm talking about how it really is for some of us now, of course, not hypothesising.

This is all I need to know about how you find your evidence.

Seek your conclusion and you will find. Test, instead, your conclusion and you will discover!

 

[Delvo]

But they have, Delvo!

In that hypothetical world where it's possible? Yes, of course, that's my point: there would be nothing to be accomplished by it that hadn't already been accomplished (or rejected).

In reality, where it isn't? No, of course they haven't. But this world has very little in common with the hypothetical one, so a comparison between them isn't useful for answering a question based on such an utterly unreal/surreal premise.

But everyone's situation is unique and every age has its own problems. There are always new situations, new problems...

All of which still would have already been handled by others. There have been billions of us for my entire life, and there's no situation that applies to me but doesn't apply to many millions of others.

If I really want to know what George Clooney thinks about the kinds of subjects that often come up in celebrity journalism, all I need to do is start paying attention to the celebrity news industry. I don't need to contact George Clooney myself.

...new reasons to turn to God.

A world in which there could ever possibly be any "reason to turn to God" (meaning you could not only send a message but also receive feedback or results, because without the latter there's no "reason" to bother with the former) would be so deeply, fundamentally different from reality that I have no way to imagine living in it. It's more thoroughly distant from anything even vaguely resembling actual human experience than trying to imagine living in a society where we could manipulate things with magic as well as with our muscles or technology, or where everyone could read each other's thoughts, or where we had Star Trek replicators, or where robots did everything we currently still need humans to do... or trying to imagine living life as a whale, or a bird in a forest of 200' trees, or an alien in any of countless different alien fictional environments. Life here has not been adequate preparation for attempts to project how any of us would handle an entirely different life with almost nothing in common with it.

At least the lines of communication would be open.

No, they wouldn't, according to all of the stipulations you've added since first asking the question. You've described a god who doesn't really communicate at all. Just like in the thread about dreams, you've brought us back to the cosmic bad girlfriend again.

Any chance we can get back to the topic of this thread, I. E. A God that is crap at maths and making itself known?

I reported the first post in this digression to the gods mods a few hours ago. At least with mods instead of gods, there's a realistic chance they might answer.

 

[asydhouse]

The purpose of the hypothetical question was to see if posters here would in principle be willing to pray to God if they were convinced of the existence of God and if prayer was the way to contact him. Most of you are somewhat reticent there, but I see one or two would be prepared to give it a try. Those who wouldn't under any circumstances, or would be very reluctant to do so, are closer to being anti-theists than atheists and their position is harder to understand, since they would then be turning their backs on reality as it is. I would then ask them what their purpose is in posting here. Is it to defend rationality and a naturalistic worldview, or is it simply to give vent to anti-theist sentiments?

I understand that some of you may have had bad experiences with religion, and I'm not here to defend religion as such, only where it supports the idea that we are eternal beings, created and loved by God. I'm far more interested in showing you evidence that God is real.

Edited by Agatha: 

Removed moderated content.

To what end? So that you can create a bigoted sound-bite dismissal of all of us here who find your sophistry both ignorant and arrogant, plus a waste of time?

Or so that you can feel proud of exposing yourself to a bunch of heathens in your religious duty of witnessing?

Or do you really want to understand where "we" are coming from? If that were so, a simple respectful discussion of attitudes would be a more useful approach.

But you have gone from an attempt to pretend you are a mystic sharing esoteric knowledge to becoming a resistant apologist for faulty brain habits and old time religion. None of that is anywhere close to "showing [us] evidence that god is real".

If you had any interest in how we think, you would have given up this charade before you even went down this disingenuous poll about a hypothetical universe that doesn't exist, pretending that an acid god exists above and beyond the holy texts it wears as dirty dirty coagulating bs and nonsense clothing in this, the real world.

Thus I have lost interest in you and your pretend "discussion".

The whitewashing of the evil doings in the bible is a ******** protest from deeply corrupted minds who refuse to see the consequences of the worship of a Lord whose texts clearly show the lord as unworthy of respect, let alone worship!

Pretending that it is those of us who have taken a cold clear look at the holy texts who are straw manning is precious! "God is love" is not supported by the text. Nevermind a "second channel"! The first one is a complete cock-up!

I've had it. Goodbye.

 

[Slowvehicle]

There are different ways of reading the Bible.

...and you have declined, repeatedly, to explain just how it is that one is to be supposed to distinguish the poetic bits from the metaphorical bits form the superstitious bits from the "true" bits.

A common straw-manning tactic used by atheists is to use a literal reading of chosen sections of scripture to portray God as a monster.

I see. The Levitical law (you know, a girl must marry her rapist; you must stone apostates to death, &ct.) is one of the metaphorical, not-true bits. You should inform your fellows...

Richard Dawkins does it in The God Delusion. And in doing so they're trying to show how this God isn't worthy of worship or even attention. But the nature of God is hardly the issue here. It's the existence of God that's the issue. If God does exist, then you'll just have to deal with it.

Right. The "nature" of a 'god', that , even metaphorically, can be described as a monster (and a badly-plagiarized monster at that) is not the issue in your claims that 'god' does, in fact, exist.

"Polc, pilc."

 

[Pixel42]

Isn't that an entry in the DSM?

blue triangle's description of those experiences exactly matches the ones my Mormon friend says convince him of the validity of the Book of Mormon, including the 'still, small voice'. So either blue triangle is a Mormon, or he rejects at least some of the information 'revealed' by such experiences himself.

 

[Darat]

A case in point.

A case of what? Using the text of the Bible is how I came to my description of the god described in the text. Even if we dropped all of the old testememt the description of God from the Bible remains the same. Do you use some other text?

 

[Slowvehicle]

A case of what? Using the text of the Bible is how I came to my description of the god described in the text. Even if we dropped all of the old testememt the description of God from the Bible remains the same. Do you use some other text?

No. Same text, just...interpreted...in a different (metaphorical, sanitized) way.

 

[MikeG]

,.......I understand that some of you may have had bad experiences with religion........

Not me. I just worked out that it was bunk at quite an early age.

 

[Garrette]

Not me. I just worked out that it was bunk at quite an early age.

Similar here. Even considered the priesthood quite seriously a while, and I still miss some aspects of the community of the church, but the silliness and contradictions of it all just wouldn't remain hidden. To be fair, the nastiness is what first got my attention.

 

[The Norseman]

There are different ways of reading the Bible.

And each one claims the same thing of being correct while the others are not, so there's literally no way to discover which one is actually correct. Thing is, maybe they're all incorrect but, but again, each one thinks they have evidence to back up their own personal interpretation and again, there's nothing which can actually, objectively, be shown as correct.

A common straw-manning tactic used by atheists is to use a literal reading of chosen sections of scripture to portray God as a monster.

Which are the literal verses and which are not? What is the rule which we may apply to all of the verses to come to the same conclusion?

It's the existence of God that's the issue. If God does exist, then you'll just have to deal with it.

Okay, so what's a logical, coherent, rational, meaningful definition of God so that we may all objectively discover if God exists?

I will deal with it just fine, thanks, and treat this existing God as anything else that exists in nature and I will be so bold as to say that the vast majority of scientists will do the same, if only for the fact that there is one more fascinating thing to explore, examine and discover about the universe we live in.

 

[SusanB-M1]

Blue Triangle

Since most of the last few pages has been on the subject of prayer, I wonder whether you will now consider my question to you (page 6 or 7) about the process of prayer. When you pray, what do you think happens to the words you think or speak? Who or what hears them? How does any hearer decide on action or lack of action?

I get the impression too, reading this thread, that you are not prepared to consider that you might be wrong. Is that correct?

 

[The Norseman]

Blue Triangle

Since most of the last few pages has been on the subject of prayer, I wonder whether you will now consider my question to you (page 6 or 7) about the process of prayer. When you pray, what do you think happens to the words you think or speak? Who or what hears them? How does any hearer decide on action or lack of action?

I get the impression too, reading this thread, that you are not prepared to consider that you might be wrong. Is that correct?

IIRC, blue triangle has said he'd been an atheist for 27 years, so I'm quite certain that he'll say that he was wrong at one time in relation to his god and has seen the evidence to prove, at least to himself, that his god exists.

I don't mean to be rude and I'm not answering on his behalf.

 

[blue triangle]

How could anything like that ever convince me, when it could so easily be my own mind manufacturing such experiences?

Has it ever happened to you?

If it never has, then you literally don't know what you are talking about.

How could it ever be obvious, when it could so easily be my own cognitive biases causing me to think I see correlations where none actually exist?

You will often be unsure, and you need to maintain a skeptical attitude, or you'll e seeing everything as a sign. In fact everything does have meaning, but usually the meaning is that there is no meaning, if you see what I mean.

I assure you I had already lived a little, and had my shell cracked more than a bit. Besides I have tried again - quite a few times in my 62 years - with no result.

Then I feel a little sorry for you, because you obviously would like to believe. That little girl who once did fervently believe is still there, and still feeling she's been let down.

Look, I have personally witnessed miracles, including one manifestation. No amount of abuse or clever argument could ever change my mind, not because I'm insane or stubborn but because I was given the physical evidence a skeptic like me needed, and more. Death has no sting for me, and life now has rich meaning. I don't care as much as some might imagine about what any of you believe, but if you are someone who would like to let God into your life, then please don't give up. it's true that some of us can hear spirit more easily than others, but nobody is completely unable to hear. You could take DMT or iboga and you would instantly know, but as I previously said these are dangerous. Do something radical. Try the Alpha Course. Go to an evangelical church and ask for prayers. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I agree. We just disagree about who the ones in the ivory towers are.

Well in coming here you'll appreciate I've come out of my own little place of safety and into the lion's den.

 

[blue triangle]

IIRC, blue triangle has said he'd been an atheist for 27 years, so I'm quite certain that he'll say that he was wrong at one time in relation to his god and has seen the evidence to prove, at least to himself, that his god exists.

I don't mean to be rude and I'm not answering on his behalf.

No, you're not being rude, but you are answering on my behalf and I'd rather you didn't. I will answer the question later. And yes, you're right: I was given the evidence I needed - real, physical evidence.

 

[Garrette]

Has it ever happened to you?

If it never has, then you literally don't know what you are talking about.



You will often be unsure, and you need to maintain a skeptical attitude, or you'll e seeing everything as a sign. In fact everything does have meaning, but usually the meaning is that there is no meaning, if you see what I mean.



Then I feel a little sorry for you, because you obviously would like to believe. That little girl who once did fervently believe is still there, and still feeling she's been let down.

Look, I have personally witnessed miracles, including one manifestation. No amount of abuse or clever argument could ever change my mind, not because I'm insane or stubborn but because I was given the physical evidence a skeptic like me needed, and more. Death has no sting for me, and life now has rich meaning. I don't care as much as some might imagine about what any of you believe, but if you are someone who would like to let God into your life, then please don't give up. it's true that some of us can hear spirit more easily than others, but nobody is completely unable to hear. You could take DMT or iboga and you would instantly know, but as I previously said these are dangerous. Do something radical. Try the Alpha Course. Go to an evangelical church and ask for prayers. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.


Well in coming here you'll appreciate I've come out of my own little place of safety and into the lion's den.

In reference to the bit I highlighted, you will, I take it, be joining a Church of Satan congregation and partaking in their rituals? It is obvious that you want meaning, and the CofS is the only true way to it; you simply have to partake to know that.

 

[Slowvehicle]

<snip for focus>

I understand that some of you may have had bad experiences with religion...

<snip for focus>

Speaking of "straw person" arguments...

 

[Slowvehicle]

No, you're not being rude, but you are answering on my behalf and I'd rather you didn't. I will answer the question later. And yes, you're right: I was given the evidence I needed - real, physical evidence.

"Real, physical evidence" you decline to discuss, or present, or identify.