The existence of God and the efficacy of prayer

[catsmate]

The skeptical part of me checks nearly everything. I have found that repetition on site after site is no measure of authenticity. I have even looked up manuscript writings from an explorer and found what I suspected was more the truth, and contrary to modern accepted politically correct thinking. People re-write history, and the original documents are the best source.

You are still wrong.

 

[turingtest]

Originally Posted by blue triangle View Post
Oh, I don't know. 100 or so years ago most physicists thought the universe had existed for ever. Only the Bible said it had a beginning. So science in that respect has moved closer to the Bible. In fact, if you look at the actions of God in Genesis 1 and order of creation, ending with man on the sixth day, its not too far from what modern earth science and evolutionary theory are now saying. Yes, it didn't happen in six literal days, but the Hebrew word Yom as well as meaning 'day', also means an unspecified period of time. If you don't take it too literally, it doesn't do badly at all for a creation myth,

The Bible does not say the universe had a beginning.

Well, you know..."in the beginning," right? Close enough to foreshadow science, if that's how you need to read it. Which kind of answers the question BT's been asked- "how do you know when to read the bible literally and when to take it figuratively?" If you need to believe that it says things that we're only now learning through science, it's to be taken literally, however loose a fit it may actually be. And if it says something really ridiculous, like creation in six literal days, then, no matter how literally it was actually meant, that's figurative, and not bad for a creation myth. Of course, this is all subjective; Ken Ham, for one, would disagree most strenuously:

Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation, spanning approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ.
The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of creation.

 

[turingtest]

Originally Posted by PartSkeptic View Post
The skeptical part of me checks nearly everything. I have found that repetition on site after site is no measure of authenticity. I have even looked up manuscript writings from an explorer and found what I suspected was more the truth, and contrary to modern accepted politically correct thinking. People re-write history, and the original documents are the best source.

You are still wrong.

What was sort of funny about that sententious "people rewrite history, gotta check the original sources" is that PS himself said that the Einstein quote wasn't in the original (1949) edition. Apparently it was added in a later edition, as one quote in a section of them attributed to him- for all PS knows, it could have come from nothing more than "repetition on site after site"- and that section has no more context than "here's some cool stuff Einstein might have said."

You gotta practice what you preach if you want to be taken seriously, even as just a "part skeptic."

 

[Darat]

Well, you know..."in the beginning," right? Close enough to foreshadow science, if that's how you need to read it. Which kind of answers the question BT's been asked- "how do you know when to read the bible literally and when to take it figuratively?" If you need to believe that it says things that we're only now learning through science, it's to be taken literally, however loose a fit it may actually be. And if it says something really ridiculous, like creation in six literal days, then, no matter how literally it was actually meant, that's figurative, and not bad for a creation myth. Of course, this is all subjective; Ken Ham, for one, would disagree most strenuously:

For someone to think that the Bible says the *universe* had a beginning indicates that they haven't read Genesis.

 

[Lothian]

The problem with skeptics is you want God to do it your way, he won't.

I couldn't agree more. I would go further in fact. God doesn't do it the way believers want either.

God always does it in God's way, a way indistinguishable from blind chance. Weird that. There must be some rational explanation somewhere.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Wait till you meet him in the afterlife!

Or maybe not, depending on the judgment of how good your life has been.

I see the doctors had to amputate the part of you that was skeptical.

 

[arthwollipot]

I couldn't agree more. I would go further in fact. God doesn't do it the way believers want either.

Except that God always seems to want the same things that the believers want. Odd, that.

 

[Delvo]

I see the doctors had to amputate the part of you that was skeptical.

Maybe God will heal that.

 

[Lothian]

Except that God always seems to want the same things that the believers want. Odd, that.

He certainly shares their opinions but his "actions" don't follow their wishes.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

If God wants me to believe, then by definition he knows exactly what would cause me to do so. I spent years looking for a reason to believe, but never found one.

Hence, I have concluded that God wants me to be an atheist.

I phrase it as "By mutual agreement, my relationship with God does not require me to believe in him." I found prayer and belief in afterlife not just unhelpful but actually counterproductive during a portion of my life I describe as "suicidal teenage child of an alcoholic *******."

The answer to my life was to stop pretending an imaginary friend gave more of a crap about my life than the useless meatbag in front of me.

 

[blue triangle]

Did you tie a bell around his neck when you found him?

That has to be the saddest thing I've read today.

This was the saddest thing I've read. Misery sure likes company, but trolling is no route to lasting joy, my friend. Get out of those slippers and get a life. And if it takes you six years to find one, it will still have been more than worth the effort - and then you too will be in a position to see the trollers for what they are.

 

[Belz...]

Pray to him, sincerely.

If you pray regularly and sincerely you will be heard and your life will change.

Muslims seem to be "heard" although they pray to the wrong god. Are you willing to consider that this is all in your head?

Even if you try to take God out of things, there are still the forces of nature 'running' the world.

Sounds like god is redundant, then.

If it were proven beyond doubt that God is not an invention, but our Creator and Sustainer, and that the only way to get in contact with God is to pray, would you pray?

For me, that depends on what kind of god he is. If he's like in the old testament, count me out. If he's like the new one, I might consider it.

But you'd have to prove it first.

And Odin and Zeus are cooler.

 

[blue triangle]

For someone to think that the Bible says the *universe* had a beginning indicates that they haven't read Genesis.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1.1, NIV) The clue here is in the word 'beginning', implying that there was in fact a beginning, a start to things, a point of departure. The verb 'created' implies creation, and the subjects, 'the heavens and the earth', are a fair description of the universe from the point of view of tribal man. Ergo, the universe had a beginning.

 

[MikeG]

.......the subjects, 'the heavens and the earth', are a fair description of the universe from the point of view of tribal man. Ergo, the universe had a beginning.....

........from the point of view of a tribal man. Luckily, we now know better, and don't have to rely on ancient texts and the collected wisdom of bronze age Arab goat-herders.

 

[Belz...]

There are different ways of reading the Bible.

That's one of its many flaws.

Has it ever happened to you?

People imagine wrong stuff all the time.

Emotions, moreseo, and emotions have a way to convince you of falsehoods.

God is beyond definition.

Nonsense. Theists define him all the time as "creator of the universe" and other things. Never mind that no evidence exists that the universe was created.

Was that your experience that there was no God, or something like that? I'm guessing but what you might have been experiencing was spiritual, and it was because you were ready to see beyond a conventionally religious faith, which might have trapped you, as it has trapped many.

Speaking for myself, I abandoned the silly Christian faith when someone asked me if I believed in god. I had to do a quick analysis and concluded that, absent of evidence, I could only say 'no'.

It was an entirely intellectual exercise, as it should be. Again, emotion can and does fool us. What things "feel like" are often not how they actually are.

 

[Belz...]

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1.1, NIV)

Circular reasoning.

The bible makes the claim that god exists. You can't use the claim to prove that the claim is correct.

Let me make this clear for you: no one in the history of mankind has proven that god exists or even that he is possible, to the satisfaction of any sort of person of scientific rigor. You could be the first, but you won't.

 

[blue triangle]

Muslims seem to be "heard" although they pray to the wrong god. Are you willing to consider that this is all in your head?

Sounds like god is redundant, then.

For me, that depends on what kind of god he is. If he's like in the old testament, count me out. If he's like the new one, I might consider it.

But you'd have to prove it first.

And Odin and Zeus are cooler.

And Achilles was pretty cool too, except Odin, Zeus and Achilles probably didn't exist.

I like your open mindedness, but proving God exists (and he is much more like the New Testament than the Old) can no more be done than proving God doesn't exist. Science has not yet found convincing evidence of a Creator, but then the scientific method has its own Achilles heel. I've shown evidence on another thread of what many of us believe to be evidence (not proof) of a divine hand guiding the writing of the Bible and it can be studied a leisure and even analysed. In the end though a leap of faith is required.

 

[blue triangle]

Circular reasoning.

The bible makes the claim that god exists. You can't use the claim to prove that the claim is correct.

Let me make this clear for you: no one in the history of mankind has proven that god exists or even that he is possible, to the satisfaction of any sort of person of scientific rigor. You could be the first, but you won't.

The point here was to show that according to the Bible the universe had a beginning, not to prove that God was the Creator. Read back a few posts.

 

[blue triangle]

Yup! Only the Bible! There are no other creation myths whatsoever! Not a single one!

That's a fair point, because of course there are plenty of creation myths. I should have left out 'only'.

 

[Belz...]

And Achilles was pretty cool too, except Odin, Zeus and Achilles probably didn't exist.

That was my point entirely: if I'm to worship a fictional character, I might as well go with the interesting ones.

I like your open mindedness

I'm absolutely open-minded. All I need is evidence. Solid evidence.

But here's the question: are you open-minded?

but proving God exists (and he is much more like the New Testament than the Old) can no more be done than proving God doesn't exist.

Then you cannot convince me.

Think about it this way: you live at the base of a mountain in your neolithic village. All is well. One day, the mountain explodes, killing a lot of people, and you barely escape with your life. The village is destroyed. But this is your home, and the soil is more fertile than ever, so you stay and rebulid. The soothsayer in the village then claims that the mountain was angry at the village because of sin. If you know nothing of science and tectonics and magma, it makes sense, doesn't it? You figure there _are_ spirits around, after all, and what do people do when they're angry? They make loud noises and destroy stuff, just like the mountain did. How do you appease an angry man? Sex. What do you have in your village? Virgins.

So you throw a virgin into the volcano and pray to the mountain and for generations, nothing happens, so you all figure that the prayer works and that the mountain is happy with your regular human sacrifices.

But you and I both know that there is no god in the mountain, and that the prayers and virgins have nothing to do with it not exploding for a few centuries at a time. But the priests' rhetoric is convincing, and the mountain's behaviour fits with the theory.

That's why you need more than the theory in order to convince people like me. All the words in the world are useless without solid evidence.

Science has not yet found convincing evidence of a Creator, but then the scientific method has its own Achilles heel.

It really doesn't. Science is the best and only tool we have to determine the truth value of objective facts.

In the end though a leap of faith is required.

Why? If you cannot prove that your god exists, why would I be required to make a leap of faith? Muslims and people of other faiths use the exact same reasoning. Who am I to believe, if anyone, if none of them can show that they have the edge of reality over the other claimants?