The existence of God and the efficacy of prayer

Rincewind said:
I don't understand why prayer is necessary.

Surely God is supposed to know everything - so he already knows what you are about to pray for.
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If the Godster was half as clever as his believers insist, he'd have a website with a comments section by now.

www.god.com will cost him a fortune though.
 
Pixel42 said:
This is why unverifiable "revealed knowledge" is so potentially dangerous. You cannot reason someone out of a position then did not reason themselves into.
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and you cannot reason someone into the understanding that a life guided by reason alone is a dead end.
 
blue triangle said:
and you cannot reason someone into the understanding that a life guided by reason alone is a dead end.
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Reason can't be used to establish something that isn't reasonable, no. I'll stick to reason, it's been a pretty good guide so far, and those who abandon it usually go astray, often to their own (or someone else's) detriment.
 
blue triangle said:
Pixel42 said:
This is why unverifiable "revealed knowledge" is so potentially dangerous. You cannot reason someone out of a position then did not reason themselves into.
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and you cannot reason someone into the understanding that a life guided by reason alone is a dead end.
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What you actually mean is that you prefer to guide your own life by a lack of credible evidential reasoning (otherwise known as "faith"; meaning "religious faith").

But your refusal to accept reasoned arguments supported by properly recorded, tested and reproducible evidence, is by it's own admission now known to be purely self-deception.

At one time, before the advent of what we now call "science", beginning very slowly from roughly the time of Galileo (c.1600), people did not realise that genuine measurable and reproducible confirmed evidence was required to consistently established the truth of anything. Instead they believed through religious faith (and unfortunately also through the philosophy of the time), that they could determine the truth merely by deciding in their mind whatever they thought (or wished) the correct answers to be.

What science showed, was that notion of determining right form wrong merely by philosophical or theistic musings of the mind (mostly by wishful thinking), most definitely does not work. And in fact it had never worked to actually discover or explain anything properly at all.

If religious faith was entirely harmless, then I dare-say people on forums like this, and people in all sorts of different aspects of life around the world, would not bother to criticise it or be concerned about it. But unfortunately, on the contrary, religious faith turns out to be extremely dangerous to put it mildly. At the very least it's a known and proven danger to the believers themselves. But far worse, it is of course a lethal danger to everyone else on the planet ... as evidenced in an endless history of worldwide religious wars.

But going back to your own highlighted sentence above - it is you who should reason yourself into an understanding of why religious faith does not stand up to even the slightest intellectual scrutiny. And that's simply a matter of educated intellectual honesty (quite irrespective of it's obvious and unarguable dangers for everyone).
 
IanS said:
What you actually mean is that you prefer to guide your own life by a lack of credible evidential reasoning (otherwise known as "faith"; meaning "religious faith").

But your refusal to accept reasoned arguments supported by properly recorded, tested and reproducible evidence, is by it's own admission now known to be purely self-deception.

At one time, before the advent of what we now call "science", beginning very slowly from roughly the time of Galileo (c.1600), people did not realise that genuine measurable and reproducible confirmed evidence was required to consistently established the truth of anything. Instead they believed through religious faith (and unfortunately also through the philosophy of the time), that they could determine the truth merely by deciding in their mind whatever they thought (or wished) the correct answers to be.

What science showed, was that notion of determining right form wrong merely by philosophical or theistic musings of the mind (mostly by wishful thinking), most definitely does not work. And in fact it had never worked to actually discover or explain anything properly at all.

If religious faith was entirely harmless, then I dare-say people on forums like this, and people in all sorts of different aspects of life around the world, would not bother to criticise it or be concerned about it. But unfortunately, on the contrary, religious faith turns out to be extremely dangerous to put it mildly. At the very least it's a known and proven danger to the believers themselves. But far worse, it is of course a lethal danger to everyone else on the planet ... as evidenced in an endless history of worldwide religious wars.

But going back to your own highlighted sentence above - it is you who should reason yourself into an understanding of why religious faith does not stand up to even the slightest intellectual scrutiny. And that's simply a matter of educated intellectual honesty (quite irrespective of it's obvious and unarguable dangers for everyone).
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They can believe their prayer makes them the best of us; in the end, they're as bound to the ground as the rest of us.
 
IanS said:
What you actually mean is that you prefer to guide your own life by a lack of credible evidential reasoning (otherwise known as "faith"; meaning "religious faith").

But your refusal to accept reasoned arguments supported by properly recorded, tested and reproducible evidence, is by it's own admission now known to be purely self-deception.

At one time, before the advent of what we now call "science", beginning very slowly from roughly the time of Galileo (c.1600), people did not realise that genuine measurable and reproducible confirmed evidence was required to consistently established the truth of anything. Instead they believed through religious faith (and unfortunately also through the philosophy of the time), that they could determine the truth merely by deciding in their mind whatever they thought (or wished) the correct answers to be.

What science showed, was that notion of determining right form wrong merely by philosophical or theistic musings of the mind (mostly by wishful thinking), most definitely does not work. And in fact it had never worked to actually discover or explain anything properly at all.

If religious faith was entirely harmless, then I dare-say people on forums like this, and people in all sorts of different aspects of life around the world, would not bother to criticise it or be concerned about it. But unfortunately, on the contrary, religious faith turns out to be extremely dangerous to put it mildly. At the very least it's a known and proven danger to the believers themselves. But far worse, it is of course a lethal danger to everyone else on the planet ... as evidenced in an endless history of worldwide religious wars.

But going back to your own highlighted sentence above - it is you who should reason yourself into an understanding of why religious faith does not stand up to even the slightest intellectual scrutiny. And that's simply a matter of educated intellectual honesty (quite irrespective of it's obvious and unarguable dangers for everyone).
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All true, but I would boil it down further. blue triangle is playing both sides of the line. He says on the one hand that reason is a dead end while simultaneously saying that it is reason that led him to his belief.
 
Pixel42 said:
Reason can't be used to establish something that isn't reasonable, no. I'll stick to reason, it's been a pretty good guide so far, and those who abandon it usually go astray, often to their own (or someone else's) detriment.
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Reason can't even establish its own authority, as Godel showed. Yes, people can go astray when reason is abandoned, but they can also be given meaning and purpose. Far from throwing their life away they win it back again. Your use of the word 'usually' shows some bias, I'm afraid, and is a slight on everyone who ever volunteered at a homeless shelter, conquered alcohol addiction after a conversion or gave money to the poor - and there are far more of them than there are jihadists.
 
blue triangle said:
Reason can't even establish its own authority, as Godel showed. Yes, people can go astray when reason is abandoned, but they can also be given meaning and purpose. Far from throwing their life away they win it back again. Your use of the word 'usually' shows some bias, I'm afraid, and is a slight on everyone who ever volunteered at a homeless shelter, conquered alcohol addiction after a conversion or gave money to the poor - and there are far more of them than there are jihadists.
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The slight is that you assume such humane actions cannot be driven by those who rely upon reason.
 
blue triangle said:
Reason can't even establish its own authority, as Godel showed. Yes, people can go astray when reason is abandoned, but they can also be given meaning and purpose. Far from throwing their life away they win it back again. Your use of the word 'usually' shows some bias, I'm afraid, and is a slight on everyone who ever volunteered at a homeless shelter, conquered alcohol addiction after a conversion or gave money to the poor - and there are far more of them than there are jihadists.
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Wait.

Are you actually making the delusional argument that only those in thrall to superstitions do charitable , humanitarian work?

I'm excited for you to support this...
 
It is not necessary to abandon reason to volunteer at a homeless shelter, conquer alcohol addiction or give money to the poor. There are good reasons to do all those things.

There are no good reasons to kill people who believe something slightly different to you. There are no good reasons to destroy mankind's cultural heritage. There are no good reasons to prevent girls getting an education. These are all the result of unverifiable dogmatic belief.
 
Slowvehicle said:
Wait.

Are you actually making the delusional argument that only those in thrall to superstitions do charitable , humanitarian work?

I'm excited for you to support this...
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Didn't you get the memo?

People who aren't gullible/delusional enough to believe in religious claptrap are incapable of knowing how to behave nicely.

It's this "without religion, where do morals come from?" baloney.
Dumbest argument ever, dressed up as Mrs Dumb from the Dumb Boutique.
 
blue triangle said:
Reason can't even establish its own authority, as Godel showed. Yes, people can go astray when reason is abandoned, but they can also be given meaning and purpose.
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By Gödel you strike-down reason: fain dare with its bones to assemble some nameless alternative.

Remember, as you wallow in the shadow of the corpse of reason; building randomly; praising your god in disordered octaves; being carelessly precise, now folly enfolds: that russet set to the darkling air is irony — there is not one thought that can stand 'pon another without the intrusion of reason!

Comes down to the personal, this. Abandon reason, you say; here is a panacea, you say; simply spurn sense, you say. I recoil! Keep your poison! Tender this unto your tendentious lord: Howl now, you lost dog of the wastes; we are coming for your throat, one tool at a time!
 
Garrette said:
All true, but I would boil it down further. blue triangle is playing both sides of the line. He says on the one hand that reason is a dead end while simultaneously saying that it is reason that led him to his belief.
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I expect most religious people would say that their faith is based on sound reasoning, and on what they regard as useful "evidence". But it's not evidence that would pass any scientific scrutiny. And by that I don't mean that we have to examine everything in a lab with a cyclotron! All anyone has to do is just be honest with themselves about whether or not the stuff they regard as evidence, is actually evidence of whatever they are claiming (or whether it's actually only evidence of something else entirely).

For example; in the past I've had very extensive discussions with theists on this forum (or before that on Rational Scepticism or on the old Richard Dawkins forum), where the theists claimed that the existence of our observed universe was actually evidence for the existence of God. And also claimed, that evidence of so-called "personal experience" (e.g. things they believed to be miracles or where they believed their prayers had been answered) were again direct evidence for God.

Of course, in any honest assessment they would have to admit that none of those things are evidence for any God at all. But those theists insisted that such things most definitely are absolutely rock solid evidence for God - the universe exists, so that "proves" God exists :boggled:.

What is amazing in all of that, and amazingly disappointing (and dangerous), is that it's so easy for organised religion to persuade otherwise intelligent educated people into a level of self delusion that leads them to insist that such things are truly evidence, or even absolute "proof", that God exists :(.
 
Pixel42 said:
It is not necessary to abandon reason to volunteer at a homeless shelter, conquer alcohol addiction or give money to the poor. There are good reasons to do all those things.

There are no good reasons to kill people who believe something slightly different to you. There are no good reasons to destroy mankind's cultural heritage. There are no good reasons to prevent girls getting an education. These are all the result of unverifiable dogmatic belief.
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I expect that sound "reason/reasoning" is often a very effective strategy for overcoming excessive alcohol consumption, or for giving up smoking and such-like (e.g. overcoming really bad/unhealthy eating habits etc.).

E.g., although almost everyone finds such things hard to give up, quite a lot of people do either cut down to more healthy levels, or else eventually quit such habits altogether, by a realisation of the harm that they are doing to themselves. Often that takes a shock or personal health scare, e.g. a routine health check reveals a potentially serious problem which persuades the individual to make much more serious and effective effort to stop the damaging habits.

The same applies to many other things, like irresponsible driving, where a near miss can bring someone to the their senses and make them reason that a definite and permanent change is required in the way they drive.

It sounds to me like Blue Triangle is trying to find quite deluded reasons to justify an irrational belief system that he has been persuaded into (there are many avenues of persuasion for religious belief ... which in itself is quite amazing in the 21st century). But as I said above ; it seems to me that it's all too easy for organised religion to persuade people into quite irrational and ultimately seriously dangerous beliefs ... even though those beliefs will not stand up to even the slightest scientifically honest scrutiny.

For example, it always amazes me that over 150 years after Darwin discovered that humans had evolved from earlier apes, and hence had certainly not been created by any Christian God, people still don't see that discovery (since then, supported by a vast mountain of evidence, right down to the molecular level of genes in all living things) as a massive nail in the coffin of religious belief (where the central and quite crucial element of original belief was that Yahweh had personally created humans as his special & central purpose in this universe ... only now it turns out, since Darwin in 1858, that humans were certainly not created by any such God ... in fact homo sapiens did not even exist on this earth until about 200,000 years ago, which is extremely recent in the approx. 3.5 billion year history of life on Earth).
 
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