It is easy to define what “working” would entail. It is the essence of the Randi challenge. You simply agree that certain outcomes mean it works and other outcomes mean it doesn’t. If you wish to say prayer works, then you say what it means in advance. But unless you can find some way to demonstrate that the outcome satisfied the agreed-upon definition, then the term means nothing.
Well, I guess meaning is relative then. I will just insist that something can work without us knowing how it works...if you believe the earth is billions of years old this is pretty much the way it has *always* been, with the knowledge of how things work being a blip of a blip of a blip. Things have always worked, definitions notwithstanding.
“Truth” is another one of those things like this. You hear people say all the time “It is true for me.” But if truth is not demonstrably true for everyone, how can you possibly call it truth?
And if irrationality (as you and others see it) is not demonstrably irrational for everyone, how can you possibly call it irrationality?
The word to use isn't *can*, because clearly people can call things anything they want. Also, objective truth, imo, doesn't have to be demonstrably true for everyone.
It is NOT irrelevant to the people involved. It would be like saying “write a letter to me and I promise you your son in Iraq will read it.” Yes, you may feel better by doing it, but if it were exposed as a fake, do you not think the people who were told a falsehood would be outraged?
Yes.
No, it is not irrelevant at all if your heartfelt communication with God is not actually reaching its destination and you have no way of telling it.
I guess the analogy breaks down at "if it were exposed as a fake"...also, the heartfelt communication would be independent of outside intervention...as, with the letter, you'd need another *person* to get the letter to the son, whereas with prayer it's about the individual and God and nobody else.
Even after they learn that reindeer can’t fly, and that it would be physically impossible to visit every household in the world (or even a medium sized city) in a single night? You think it would still be rational for them to believe it? Yes, I can see we will never agree on what rational means.
Your phrase..."rational for them to believe it".
That's EXACTLY what I'm saying. Not rational *independent* of the individual, but rational *for* the individual.
Yes. If an encyclpedia proclaimed the true and actual and real existence of Santa Claus, I would think that foolish. However, if an individual believed in the existence of Santa Claus, I'd charitably reckon that it was rational for the individual to have that belief. Again, in your words, "it would still be rational for them". Not indepenedently rational/irrational, but dependently, on the individual.
As I’ve said earlier, we are all rational about some things and irrational about others.
Maybe. Again, I'd prefer right or wrong. Right and wrong are independent of thinking process, which I think is the difference between rational and right/wrong. Rational/irrational is a process, right and wrong just are.
When I say “irrational” I am only referring to the specific topic being discussed. I’m not talking about my irrational fear of cockroaches. If calling you irrational about God is an insult to you, then at least let it be a limited one. You can call me a coward about roaches without me considering that you think I am totally craven.
Understood, you're being very reasonable here.
Um… I’m not sure I see the deal here. I get a posthumous apology from a person who I didn’t wish dead?
I'm trying to determine the vitality of the particular charge of irrationality. That may or may not be relevant. Since I view rationality/irrationality as closely associated with the individual, I'm also interested in the consequences of the matter to the individual.
Yet God satisfies the description of imaginary beings. Not visible to others (as in do you see the same thing)? Check. Not audible (the same way) to others? Check. No objective evidence of His existence? Check.
Of course I accept that God is an imaginary being to some
What does it take for you to consider a thing imaginary?
Good question! I can't recall my/me ever saying, or telling someone, that something is imaginary. I'm sure I have. But nothing is coming to mind. Even with Santa Claus, and I've talked to several kids about Santa Claus...I've never told a kid that Santa Claus is imaginary. You look around and you see Santa Clauses. You talk about it reasonably with the kid...and whaddya know...at a certain age the kid comes to a realization and you don't have to be pedantic about it. No need to label the idea either.
Now, do I consider the idea of Santa Claus (guy living at the North Pole) imagainary? Sure. Do I obsess over that fact? No. I have an opinion about it, and I don't think about it that much. I only think about the fact that Santa Claus is imaginary when I am confronted with that statement on these boards. Believe it or not, most other communities have no need to dwell on that fact.
I don’t consider calling someone “irrational” to be calling them a name.
Fair enough. I don't think you're an ubermensch.
Ya know. Search for truth. That kind of stuff. If it is my weakness to need to know the truth, then that’s my cross to bear (to borrow a metaphor).
With search for truth, I think you'd agree with me that the skeptical person considers him/herself to be continually searching for truth. It doesn't stop. The non-skeptical person, or assuredly religious person, thinks that he/she has found the truth, and there's no need to keep searching. That doesn't mean that a religious person won't search for the truth in other avenues of course (maybe he/she is a detective or an auditor as a profession).
I'm just pointing out that the skeptic actually does believe that they have found the truth, and the truth is that they should continually search for the truth. That is the truth, and they are as dogmatic about that particular truth as religious are dogmatic about their religious truths.
That's what I meant when I brought up need. This need fuels the dogmatic belief that it is good to continually search for the truth and have threshholds for accepting truth and all that. I'm not placing a value judgment on that. I'm just saying that it's a need.
See, the religious think that truth is *unavoidable*. Searching for it...I won't say it's a waste of time...but we're gonna be smacked upside the head with it in the next one. The other aspect is that of faith, which is basically anathema to most here (nevermind that I can prove that there is such a think as a skeptical faith, if only because you need to have faith in the value of being a skeptic to be a skeptic). Not only do we believe that it's good to have faith, but we're also commanded to have faith. And again, that's not talking about *everything*, of course you can be skeptical in worldly matters and non-skeptical in religious matters, although some here are probably skeptical of *that* as well.
Yep. I am limited by my inability to believe myths. Damn cross.
Right. Now, when the Christian says that he/she is bearing a cross, we understand that we share in the suffering of Christ when we do just that. I think you're lacking that particular understanding. I think it's more like "I am what and how I am". You don't really believe it's a cross. I think you're content with your inability to believe myths (I'm not giving into your implication that Christianity is complete myth of course, just working in your framework). For the Christian, you ought not be content with the cross that you bear, and pray that the cross can be transformed, just like Christ used the cross not for complete defeat but total victory.
Try it if you imagine God is imaginary. I can imagine God. Can you imagine the absence of God?
Yes.
Yep. Wasted a lot of your life in a fruitless pursuit. Oh well.
Depends how you define fruit, or fruitless?
If religious people have a dozen kids out of a sense of religious obligation, I think it would be absurd to call that a fruitless pursuit of life. A lot of great books have been written by religious types, great music, even great science.
I think we live lives. When we live, we do things. Wasting time is an external judgment, a subjective estimation. Do dogs and cats waste their lives anymore than people do? How about plants?
Of course you have the right to judge a Christian as having lived a complete waste of a life, but that's best kept to yourself in my opinion. Just an opinion is as welcome as picketting a person's funeral telling the dead that they were this that and the other thing because their worldview failed to correspond to your own.
Even though I disagree with you about everything, I don't think you're wasting your life. How could you be wasting your life? You're living it, and it's not my place to judge you, even if you were the world's biggest procrastinator, because even then you'd be living your life and not wasting it. I guess suicide would qualify as a waste of life, but even then, maybe suicide may bring others to certain levels they wouldn't otherwise reach, I dunno.
As I say, you and I aren’t likely to agree on what is rational. If you’re right, oh well.
Exactly. That's my point. If I'm right, and you're wrong, we're still what we are, nothing has changed, my being right and you're being wrong doesn't change objective reality, and we'll both deal with the ramifications of the existence of God as best we can. If you're right and I'm wrong, we'll both be nothing, and that's about the only perfect equalizer in existence.
Fairly spoken. I have tried to corner you (this being a debate and all). But I will state clearly that I don’t think that your “caring” is an off/on thing. I think you care less than I about this particular issue. You almost certainly care more about other issues that I also agree are important. But in the interest of staying on topic, I present a situation where you can show you care more or you care less. I’d argue that is not truly a dichotomy, but a direction, and relative to this issue only.
I care in my own way, don't you think?
Yet I doubt that you would take the extreme view that prayers have zero connection to results, just as you obviously agree that prayers do not have 100% correlation with results.
You are correct!
You would seem to be somewhere in the middle. I’m admittedly pretty close to the “zero results” pole, but I will argue that my position is based on evidence. Yet I would also agree that I would be willing to shift positions if objective evidence came to light.
I think'll you'll get what you want eventually.
That is not, and has never been my position. I am not trying to force God to do tricks for me. I just want evidence that he does something. Anything. So far, I have seen no evidence whatsoever.
And the religious believe that everything is evidence of God's work. I guess it's contingent on the individual, but that's also basic theology.
I have admitted that one of my own assumptions by which I reason is that real things have evidence for them. I feel that if this assumption were discarded, then there would be no way of telling what is real. I’m funny that way.
But before people had any conception of evidence (ummm...maybe just articulated conception?) they had a good handle on what was real and what wasn't. Also, I see no reason to be content with accepting things in a defined and confined reality, although I recognize that some can only be content with that. Again, it's up to the individual.
-Elliot
Odd, it sure looks like you used the word miracle. Maybe it is just my eyes.
Not all beliefs are equally probable. The more light the more day it is. The more likely the belief to be true the more rational. Noon is daytime and a belief in gravity is rational. Midnight is night and a belief that rabbits feet can alter unconnected events is irrational. 
