The powerlessness of prayer

[Ladewig]

I think that prayer is an outward manifestation of an internal belief. It might be that more skeptical people have less miracles in their lives.

Do you really not understand that RandFan was talking about believers and children of believers?

 

[Ethnikos]

Do you really not understand that RandFan was talking about believers and children of believers?

I think that I do. I really do not have an answer. That was why I brought up my friend. He was raised a Catholic and had daily bible study at home. He rejected God and kind of lived in opposition to God with a rebellious spirit. He lived life more dangerously than me and did it, not from foolishness but as if he was tempting God to kill him. He challenged all the gods that be and they answered him.
One thing happened within sight of where our hike started in my other story, in the mountains, at Idylwild. We were standing at night by a big fire that had been burning for a long time with large logs and a thick bed of hot embers. I watched the invisible hand of a strong spirit being grab ahold of him, pick him up and throw him into the middle of the fire. He put out one hand to stop himself and it went through until his face was right up against the flaming embers. He was picked back up and thrown straight back-wards with so much force that he rolled right down the hill and stopped about 30 feet away.
So, he had some serious issues with the spirit world but he ended up surviving it. We can not just look at people and make judgment calls about why some people die and some live. There are things going on that we can not understand. I can not directly address the prayer question. What I am sure about is that there are forces at work in the world, for good or bad, that we do not control. We can not use our will to change the minds of spirits. I try to ally myself with one particular god and hope for the best.
RandFan would ask why someone who prays to the same god I do, might not get a positive outcome for his effort. My answer would have to sound like a total cop-out. I have to defer it to the next life. Whoever is the most blessed in this life will be the least blessed, in the next. So, you end up with a sort of role reversal that creates a balance in the universe.

 

[Marcus]

Ethnikos,

I don't understand. Why is that some children suffer and die and you get to live? I know you've had some difficult times but come on, these kids die at 1, 2, 3...7, 8... and they only know suffering. How can you compare yourself to them? Why are you so special? What's the point of prayer if it won't save children who are suffering? Why is prayer no more effective, statistically, than four leaf clovers and horse shoes.

I'm reading what you are writing and it's hard for me to believe that you believe it. And I was a true blue believer.

To his credit, Ethnikos has finally responded to this question, saying that he does not have an answer.

I do. Children continue to suffer because there is no Sky Daddy up there altering the natural course of events.

Prayers do have a placebo effect, if the prayed for one is a believer, and knows he is being prayed for, some improvement can be observed. I seem to recall that in studies where this knowledge on the part of the patient was removed, the effect dissappeared.

 

[Ali]

To his credit, Ethnikos has finally responded to this question, saying that he does not have an answer.

I do. Children continue to suffer because there is no Sky Daddy up there altering the natural course of events.

Prayers do have a placebo effect, if the prayed for one is a believer, and knows he is being prayed for, some improvement can be observed. I seem to recall that in studies where this knowledge on the part of the patient was removed, the effect dissappeared.

The discussion regarding why children continue to suffer is a very sensitive area to many; and coming to some conclusion, true or false, would make many boil.

What you can be sure of is that God is right, just, and fair.

 

[quarky]

The cool thing about prayer is that you can keep doing it after the child dies, because then you are praying for the child's soul-journey deal.

Prayer isn't like CPR, wherein you quit after awhile, and pronounce the guy dead.
You get to continue feeling like you have a connection and an influence with a person, as their flesh decays.

Pretty heady stuff for the believers...and fairly harmless, too, in the long run.

 

[JPL]

Ethnikos

I owe you an appology. I checked your link & and even found another that states that certain rattlesnakes do stay with their young. I hadn't heard that before. Sorry about that.

 

[Senex]

To believe a god answers prayers is to believe a god has crazy ass priorities about which ones get answered. When in parochial school I used to ponder why Jesus could heal people but only healed the people he happened to stumble on -- and not always very enthusiastically at that. A little too random for a diety if you ask me.

Prayers to a Judeo-Christian god have as much chance of changing the laws of physics as lighting candles and trying to put a spell on a stranger. Believe me, I've been trying and that actress who plays Cutty on House has yet to show up on my doorstep in that maid outfit.

 

[Ethnikos]

...certain rattlesnakes do stay with their young.

I had a habit of going places that were very remote. This area took me about two years of exploring around every weekend to actually get to. I may have been the first human, since the Indians were kicked out by the Spanish, to ever set foot on that rock. We did find a perfect Indian bowl, about a mile from that spot. It was on the ground, upside-down, kind of jammed up against a rock that partially shielded it from the elements. It was make using a technique of rolling the clay into a long cylinder and coiling it in a circle. Once the bowl shape is formed, fingers are used to smooth it out. It probably should have gone to a museum, but my friend saw it first and kept it.
Anyway, I have a respect for rattlesnakes and can appreciate their right to stand their ground. It was a big surprise to me, and rather disturbing that they would not back down.

 

[Egg]

Prayers to a Judeo-Christian god have as much chance of changing the laws of physics as lighting candles and trying to put a spell on a stranger. Believe me, I've been trying and that actress who plays Cutty on House has yet to show up on my doorstep in that maid outfit.

Just curious...which particular laws of physics would have changed if Cutty knocked on your door tomorrow?

 

[Senex]

Just curious...which particular laws of physics would have changed if Cutty knocked on your door tomorrow?

The conservation of momentum. I have no momentum. My sex life is a closed system currently at rest. It seems to remain constant. I thought I could shake it up by giving up on the actress that plays Cameron and putting the wammy on the one who plays Thirteen. Failing that I tried for the more age appropriate choice in Cutty and boiled every newt, root of hemlock, wool of bat and fillet of a fenny snake in the state of Connecticut. Still no momentum change.

I need to put my faith in quantum mechanics. Uncertainty can't be any worse than the certainty I've been experiencing. Just don't equate uncertainty and prayer because in the end there will be no Cutty at my door -- not that it will matter because I'll die, she'll die, all the suns in the universe will burn out and none of this will have mattered anyway.

 

[quarky]

Pretty cynical, Senex.

Have you even tried calling Cutty?

 

[Senex]

Pretty cynical, Senex.

Have you even tried calling Cutty?

Calling Cutty? Just call a famous actress working in California? That sounds pretty silly doesn't it?

And I just heard an A&P in Massachusettes has a special on fenny snake and there's a guy in Rhose Island with a newt farm I read about on the Internet. I'm like the 12 stepper who has giving myself over to his higher power -- my higher power just likes to smell the brew that is true bubbling in my cauldron.

I may sound cynical but just last night a woman in a maid costume was on my sidewalk -- it turned out she was taking her daughter trick or treating and I kind of embarrassed myself a little when I kept calling her Cutty and telling her she was getting a good spanking but what matters is maybe my incantations are starting to work.

Just call her...hehehe.... me, with a cauldron and love potion recipe ... You sure are silly.

 

[Nogbad]

Oh Lord we are not worthy - in thy infinite mercy smite us as we so rightly deserve.

......this one generally works sooner or later.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

1) It was not so easy for me to think that way but a conclusion I came to decades later. It was easy to know what happened to get me into a bad situation because I was the one making the decisions. I can not explain why god did what He did. Thinking the kid was just there is easy to do and that is what I thought, at the time. I never tryed to analyze it until relatively recently.
I did put this lesson to good use when I drove my car off a road. It was on a forestry road winding around the mountains. When I went off, I had a lot of thoughts , rather quickly. I knew that somewhere down that side of the mountain there was a couple of houses and I actually thought I could see a road below. I imagined I could just go straight down and get onto it. Of course there was no road and I could have run off a cliff or hit a big rock or something. I had a sudden realization that I had been here before (de ja vu?) and decided I had to keep all the elevation I had and to fight going down. I could try to stop as close to where I came off, as possible, and check it out on foot. The driver's side of the car was on the up hill side. I could not get out of my car without it rolling down. I had to stay seated and reach something (a jack) to jam under the back of the front tire. I took my dog's leash and tied the steering wheel to keep it from turning down-hill. I reached behind me and grabbed a rope from the back seat and tied one end to the window opening of my open door and the other end to a conveniently nearby, very small tree. This was a VW bug. I was able to get out and walk for help. In the morning I was able to get someone with a big 4wd to pull my car up onto the road.
So, while I was foolish to drive off the road (my generator quit and my lights dimmed out. I was driving under trees and when I came around the corner, I was in the open, looking straight into a full moon) I did learn something from that previous episode of foolishness. Which is, don't go down when it leads only to oblivion, in order to find a hypothetical path.
I normally never think about any of this stuff and writing about it forces me to deal with it, somehow. Same thing with the boy and the cliff story. I never analyzed it until recently and because of other experiences, I can see a certain pattern, and better come up with a possible agency behind them.
2) I do know other people die. In that particular case, of attempted mountain climbing; most people who die mountain climbing probably have some idea of what they are doing and make an informed decision to do something dangerous. Maybe God protects people who do not know better, I don't know. This is a serious question that there may not be a good answer for. My brother let this get to him and it practically drove him insane. He got to the point of thinking he should get killed somehow, while saving someone else. "you are a better man than me, Gunga Din". Well, that's not me. I have a limit and it has to do with the idea that I can not help people if I am dead.
That probably disqualifies me from being a good Christian, so that is not a reason for me being alive, while others are not.

You're getting closer now, but still not there.

Let me take one particular thing you said out of the whole mountain of words you typed:

"I can not explain why god did what He did"

Then if you cannot explain why God did what he did, how about considering the possibility that maybe there's a better, easier explanation for what happened? Considering you don't actually have an evidence that there is a God at all in the first place.

How does considering the possibility that there is no God make you feel? Good? Bad? Indifferent?



I will rephrase.

Answer these questions in short, quick sentences.

1) If you cannot explain why God did what he did, why haven't you considered the possibility that there's an easier explanation instead of the explanation "God did it". That maybe there is no God in the first place.
2) How does considering the possibility that there is no God, make you feel?

 

[RandFan]

I think that prayer is an outward manifestation of an internal belief. It might be that more skeptical people have less miracles in their lives.

There is zero evidence. There might be unicorns also. Do you believe in them?

Dude, it's really simple. You are an anecdote. You don't prove anything. Why do Christian children die of lukemia at the same rate as non-Christian children?

 

[Ethnikos]

We did find a perfect Indian bowl, about a mile from that spot. It was on the ground, upside-down, kind of jammed up against a rock that partially shielded it from the elements. It was make using a technique of rolling the clay into a long cylinder and coiling it in a circle. Once the bowl shape is formed, fingers are used to smooth it out. It probably should have gone to a museum, but my friend saw it first and kept it.

Just so no one freaks out, I just sent an email to the Pechanga tribe. I found the coordinates using google earth, of where we found the artifact, and directions, in miles, from three different points.
I told them it probably belonged to them and gave the name of the finder, and that they should claim it.

 

[RandFan]

What you can be sure of is that God is right, just, and fair.

Platitude. God is no more right, just and fair as a gallon of milk.

Perhaps there is some cosmic justice. Perhaps there is a god. I seriously doubt it but let's get something straight. Christians die at the same rate as Muslims, Jews, Hindus, atheists, etc., given similar socio-economic status. The fact that a person prays is not a predictor of anything. Period. It doesn't work. If god exists she might just well be right, just and fair but your chance of dying, or suffering or wining the lottery is no different than anyone else's.

 

[Ethnikos]

You are an anecdote. You don't prove anything.

That is right, these are anecdotes and do not prove anything.
My last resort pitch was the fire story. You can interpret it any way you want, but you have to accept the existence of at least one supernatural being.
There are more details to the story, involving the circumstances.
He was messing with a powerful Indian Spirit who just happened to have lived, right where this happened. My friend was abusing a sacred rite of the Indians, for his own purposes. He thought he could gain power over the spirits to get what he wanted.
My (former) friend has a friend named Miguel who is full blooded Indian and can by right, collect peyote in the desert. He gave my friend a big sack of fresh buttons. He fasted on water for three days and then ate nothing but peyote for another three days. He claimed that he would be given the power to fly, to a large group of people who were gathered for a musical event. That was earlier in the day. That night, he did fly, under spirit power, but not the way he wanted to.
I was standing right there, about three or four feet away from him, when this happened. It was far from being anything natural and he did not do it to himself. He was actually trying to resist it and was not helping, getting thrown in. Think about what you could do, if you were laid out, with one arm, fully extending, in front of you, your face up against the fire. Nothing. But he flew, back-wards, about ten feet, and rolled another twenty.(down hill)
I was not high or anything. I could not stand those at all and it seemed like nothing but poison, to me.

 

[RandFan]

...but you have to accept the existence of at least one supernatural being.

No. I've been involved in the skeptical community for far too long. To "accept" I need evidence. BTW, I'm happy to accept should you provide that evidence. I'm not here simply to tell you that you are wrong and that I'll never believe.

There are more details to the story, involving the circumstances.
He was messing with a powerful Indian Spirit who just happened to have lived, right where this happened. My friend was abusing a sacred rite of the Indians, for his own purposes. He thought he could gain power over the spirits to get what he wanted.
My (former) friend has a friend named Miguel who is full blooded Indian and can by right, collect peyote in the desert. He gave my friend a big sack of fresh buttons. He fasted on water for three days and then ate nothing but peyote for another three days. He claimed that he would be given the power to fly, to a large group of people who were gathered for a musical event. That was earlier in the day. That night, he did fly, under spirit power, but not the way he wanted to.
I was standing right there, about three or four feet away from him, when this happened. It was far from being anything natural and he did not do it to himself. He was actually trying to resist it and was not helping, getting thrown in. Think about what you could do, if you were laid out, with one arm, fully extending, in front of you, your face up against the fire. Nothing. But he flew, back-wards, about ten feet, and rolled another twenty.(down hill)

I was not high or anything. I could not stand those at all and it seemed like nothing but poison, to me.

I can enumerate 3 options.

1. This was a superntural event.
2. You are mistaken and it was an illusion, dillusion or there is another prosaic answer that you are not allowing yourself to see and I lack sufficent data to offer. These types of anecodtes are legion and are often debunked when there is sufficent data to examine. You can find many such examples in the JREF archive or many skeptical forums like The Skeptic's Guide to The Universe.
3. You are lying.

I don't have any evidence other than your testimony. I have no way to gauge your credibility. That said, given what we know about such anecdotes I'm willing to go with #2. Do you have video? If not could your freind repeat the experiment? If not then until I get further information I'm forced to stick with #2.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" --Carl Sagan

 

[Ethnikos]

Then if you cannot explain why God did what he did, how about considering the possibility that maybe there's a better, easier explanation for what happened? Considering you don't actually have an evidence that there is a God at all in the first place.
How does considering the possibility that there is no God make you feel? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

You seem to have a different standard of acceptance of evidence than I do.
And it may depend on what you might consider as a god.
My evidence for my own use, comes from my own personal experience.
I will concede that it does not prove anything about there being a God on a throne in a cloud with a white beard, directing and judging the universe.
Let's say that my internal evidence is good enough to convince myself, beyond a doubt, that there are spirit beings who can take human form or do things within our plane of existence, without taking form.
That would leave me free to consider that these things or phenomenon are just a natural part of the universe but operate on a different dimensional existence. It makes me feel curious. The thing is, I would still try to create some sort of order out of it and probably decide that there needs to be something or someone to have ultimate control. That is human nature.