The existence of God and the efficacy of prayer

blue triangle said:
You might hear an audible answer (the 'still, small voice'). You might see a picture in your mind, you might get a feeling, or some combination of them. You might have a dream. Something in your life might change. You may feel stuck in your job and an opportunity opens up. 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.
Click to expand...
How do you know those things wouldn't have happened if you hadn't prayed?
 
blue triangle said:
This is beneath you. It's a process of opening up and when you go through it, anything can happen. Prayer is a good way to begin though.
Click to expand...

This should be beneath even you.

"If you will just decide that you ought to believe as I do, you will come to see that you ought to believe as I do..."

I wonder why you are reticent to describe the "evidence" that "convinced" you.

blue triangle said:
<snip for focus>
Click to expand...
 
So the most powerful being in the universe cannot communicate as effectively as a single tweet? Sounds pretty lame to me.
 
I Am The Scum said:
So the most powerful being in the universe cannot communicate as effectively as a single tweet? Sounds pretty lame to me.
Click to expand...
So far we have three examples on this thread (blue triangle, my Mormon friend and me) of three people receiving what sounds like an identical communication and interpreting it as three mutually contradictory messages, none of which can be verified. As forms of communication go, this one is actually worse than useless.
 
arthwollipot said:
You might hear an audible answer (the 'still, small voice'). You might see a picture in your mind, you might get a feeling, or some combination of them. You might have a dream. Something in your life might change. You may feel stuck in your job and an opportunity opens up. 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.
Click to expand...


How do you know those things wouldn't have happened if you hadn't prayed?
Click to expand...


One does not, because one cannot compare the two alternatives. One has to look at the odds that it would not happen, and ask if praying for the result was coincidental. When one gets coincidence after coincidence then its seems that a belief in prayer (and in a God) is advantageous.

Example. Yesterday, I was at a Magistrates Court for the third time in four weeks requesting the default judgment I had petitioned the Court for. For the third time they could not find the file or tell me where it was. The first two times they told me it must be with the Magistrate.

The clerk was looking in filing shelves, in piles of files, and in various registries. I kept getting told I had to supply them with my copies and not just the case number, and that it might still be with the Magistrate.

I could see that I was going to be told to come back with all my stamped documents. Here was a time to pray. So I asked God to please not let me go away empty-handed. Two things happened while I was chatting to another person at the counter.

The registrar who originally assisted me to file the suit appeared at the counter with the file. I asked him where he found it. It was mislaid he said, but he was lucky to find it. Request One granted.

The lady I was chatting to at the counter was a lawyer. Unusual because messengers are usually sent to file and collect. But this lady was different. Open, smart and likeable. Some-one I felt I could trust. In the last week, I have needed to consult with a lawyer because of critical decisions I need to take in 3 matters I am dealing with as a lay litigant, and the information I need as to practical process is not in the manuals, the practice notes, the rules, or the case law.

I got her name and will make an appointment. This was not a specific prayer by me, but one could say that it was an answer to a prayer even if I did not make it. Do you know how difficult it is to find a decent lawyer? In my many years of dealing with lawyers, I have tried all sorts of ways and have ended up disappointed. I may be wrong with this one, but I have become a better judge of people over the years.

ETA: Oh. Hi Pixel 42. Just saw your post. Always glad to have you in the discussion.
 
Last edited:
PartSkeptic said:
One does not, because one cannot compare the two alternatives. One has to look at the odds that it would not happen, and ask if praying for the result was coincidental.
Click to expand...
As has been explained to you ad nauseum, your instinctive judgement about the likelyhood of coincidences is unreliable. That's why the scientific method had to be invented, to identify the genuinely meaningful ones from amongst those that only appear meaningful.

When one gets coincidence after coincidence then its seems that a belief in prayer (and in a God) is advantageous.
Click to expand...
Coincidence after coincidence is exactly what would be expected if prayers were not answered.
 
Is there a particular god I should pray to? There appears to be some dispute. Worse still, it doesn't seem to matter from what the various believers tell me. Interestingly, when one applies statistics, it doesn't even seem to matter if one prays or not.
 
Last edited:
blue triangle said:
...snip...

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.

...snip...
Click to expand...

Why did your god only provide this evidence to you and not to say the participants in this thread who like yourself (prior to the physical evidence) did not believe in him via faith and needed physical proof?
 
blue triangle said:
It's true that there are as many readings of the Bible as there are Christians. It's far better to read it with an open mind than with too much fervent belief or with too much skepticism. For a long time I wasn't even sure if Jesus had actually lived, since there are so many connections between the gospels and the myths of Osiris, Mithras, Odin, etc. I'm pretty sure now that he did live, but I have always been very skeptical about the Bible as a historical document. It's more like a book of wisdom, guidance and symbolism and it has enormous depth. The parts where God is apparently ordering people to do terrible things is probably more to do with the tribal mentality and circumstances of the Hebrews, who could easily have been wiped out by their enemies, and the sexism is a reflection of the patriarchal culture within which it developed. ...snip...
Click to expand...


In another thread you are claiming that your god decided thousands of years ago what to put in that text, you claim he controlled all of this "developed" text, down to literally the punctuation and even misspellings. You seem to be contradicting yourself.
 
tsig said:
If god liked crushing humans it would be well not to contact him. Hypothetically.
Click to expand...

The bible makes it very clear that you don't want to be in his sight or sights - whether as one of his own or one of his enemies.
 
Pixel42 said:
So far we have three examples on this thread (blue triangle, my Mormon friend and me) of three people receiving what sounds like an identical communication and interpreting it as three mutually contradictory messages, none of which can be verified. As forms of communication go, this one is actually worse than useless.
Click to expand...

And according to the texts that he/she uses getting the understanding wrong is grounds for having terrible atrocities inflicted on you. Never mind the many, many wars and deaths over the entirety of human history between those that disagreed what the communication meant or means.
 
PartSkeptic said:
One does not, because one cannot compare the two alternatives. One has to look at the odds that it would not happen, and ask if praying for the result was coincidental. When one gets coincidence after coincidence then its seems that a belief in prayer (and in a God) is advantageous.

Example. Yesterday, I was at a Magistrates Court for the third time in four weeks requesting the default judgment I had petitioned the Court for. For the third time they could not find the file or tell me where it was. The first two times they told me it must be with the Magistrate.

The clerk was looking in filing shelves, in piles of files, and in various registries. I kept getting told I had to supply them with my copies and not just the case number, and that it might still be with the Magistrate.

I could see that I was going to be told to come back with all my stamped documents. Here was a time to pray. So I asked God to please not let me go away empty-handed. Two things happened while I was chatting to another person at the counter.

The registrar who originally assisted me to file the suit appeared at the counter with the file. I asked him where he found it. It was mislaid he said, but he was lucky to find it. Request One granted.

The lady I was chatting to at the counter was a lawyer. Unusual because messengers are usually sent to file and collect. But this lady was different. Open, smart and likeable. Some-one I felt I could trust. In the last week, I have needed to consult with a lawyer because of critical decisions I need to take in 3 matters I am dealing with as a lay litigant, and the information I need as to practical process is not in the manuals, the practice notes, the rules, or the case law.

I got her name and will make an appointment. This was not a specific prayer by me, but one could say that it was an answer to a prayer even if I did not make it. Do you know how difficult it is to find a decent lawyer? In my many years of dealing with lawyers, I have tried all sorts of ways and have ended up disappointed. I may be wrong with this one, but I have become a better judge of people over the years.

ETA: Oh. Hi Pixel 42. Just saw your post. Always glad to have you in the discussion.
Click to expand...

So, someone found a file they were looking for, and you liked someone you bumped into in a public office.....therefore god. Is that about right?

I'm an architect. I met one of my clients in a builder's merchants, standing in a queue. We're both atheists. How on earth did that happen without a god interfering?
 
PartSkeptic said:
When one gets coincidence after coincidence then its seems that a belief in prayer (and in a God) is advantageous.
Click to expand...
But one would also expect to get coincidence after coincidence if one did not pray and there was no god.

I have had stories like your lost paper stories happen to me, too. Yet I didn't pray and don't believe in god. So why are your stories proof that prayer works and yet my stories are not proof that it doesn't?
 
PartSkeptic said:
One does not, because one cannot compare the two alternatives. One has to look at the odds that it would not happen, and ask if praying for the result was coincidental. When one gets coincidence after coincidence then its seems that a belief in prayer (and in a God) is advantageous.
Click to expand...
Ah, the art of applied coincidence. Because coincidences never happen. If that sort of thing happened routinely, we'd probably need a name for it, right?

Thank you for answering that question. Now, about my other question...?
 
PartSkeptic said:
One does not, because one cannot compare the two alternatives. One has to look at the odds that it would not happen, and ask if praying for the result was coincidental. When one gets coincidence after coincidence then its seems that a belief in prayer (and in a God) is advantageous.

Example. Yesterday, I was at a Magistrates Court for the third time in four weeks requesting the default judgment I had petitioned the Court for. For the third time they could not find the file or tell me where it was. The first two times they told me it must be with the Magistrate.

The clerk was looking in filing shelves, in piles of files, and in various registries. I kept getting told I had to supply them with my copies and not just the case number, and that it might still be with the Magistrate.

I could see that I was going to be told to come back with all my stamped documents. Here was a time to pray. So I asked God to please not let me go away empty-handed. Two things happened while I was chatting to another person at the counter.

The registrar who originally assisted me to file the suit appeared at the counter with the file. I asked him where he found it. It was mislaid he said, but he was lucky to find it. Request One granted.

The lady I was chatting to at the counter was a lawyer. Unusual because messengers are usually sent to file and collect. But this lady was different. Open, smart and likeable. Some-one I felt I could trust. In the last week, I have needed to consult with a lawyer because of critical decisions I need to take in 3 matters I am dealing with as a lay litigant, and the information I need as to practical process is not in the manuals, the practice notes, the rules, or the case law.

I got her name and will make an appointment. This was not a specific prayer by me, but one could say that it was an answer to a prayer even if I did not make it. Do you know how difficult it is to find a decent lawyer? In my many years of dealing with lawyers, I have tried all sorts of ways and have ended up disappointed. I may be wrong with this one, but I have become a better judge of people over the years.

ETA: Oh. Hi Pixel 42. Just saw your post. Always glad to have you in the discussion.
Click to expand...

This is beautiful, just beautiful. I've seen the "logic" where prayer, as an active act, works, and its outcomes are evidence for god even when the thing prayed for is withheld ("sometimes god says no"). But I don't think I've ever seen someone claim, in answer to "how do you distinguish between the results from prayer and not-prayer?" that even not-prayer is evidence that prayer works and that god listens.

No wonder guys like Kenneth Copeland can afford to fly private jets all over the place- believers have already done more than half of their heavy lifting for them, with that sort of seamless faith.
 
Last edited:
Pixel42 said:
So far we have three examples on this thread (blue triangle, my Mormon friend and me) of three people receiving what sounds like an identical communication and interpreting it as three mutually contradictory messages, none of which can be verified. As forms of communication go, this one is actually worse than useless.
Click to expand...

Identical communication? Mutually contradictory? What a misrepresentation. We all received what we needed at the time, that's all. We are lead one step at a time, and from where we are. People can be led into a church, out of a church and within their church. The language and imagery will be appropriate for that church and for the person. It is personalised communication.
 
I Am The Scum said:
So the most powerful being in the universe cannot communicate as effectively as a single tweet? Sounds pretty lame to me.
Click to expand...

Not only can God 'tweet' very effectively, he personalises His 'tweets' for everyone who receives one. But to get one, you have to join up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom