For my Christians Friends

[Yannis]

Quote from DerekD:

Religion asserts that Supernatural beings interact in the natural world. Often those assertions are quite specific.

Yet none of them hold up to scrutiny.

For instance, the power of prayer. Indeed, there is enough evidence to suggest that for the sick, when prayed for in person or told they are being prayed for, often but not always fair better than those who are not prayed for.

Question is, is that supernaturally derived benefit or psychosomatic?

As a control, (known as placebo) a study was performed that suggests that those who are sick when surrounded by loved ones and/or encouraged to think positively and optimistically also tended to fair better than those who did not have this.


As Stu said, the scientific method is the method one would use to properly assess the truth or predictable likelihood of any scenario.

In fact you say religion and logic are not mutually exclusive. And that is true else how would one go about even beginning to understand the precepts and concepts of religion. There is, however, often a logical disconnect in the mind of those who prescribe to religion and who also live in the real world. There are things that must be overlooked because of religion's appeal to emotion such as fear and desire.

The problem here is that your perspective is totally scientific, logical, and all you prove to yourself is that religion doesn't fit in there. I agree.

Is prayer non-existent or impotent? Then why are billions of people praying all over the world? Because they are misinformed? Or could it be that some misinformed scientists are totally wrong? The very fact that you are trying to put prayer in a laboratory kills it, contaminates it, stops the people's hearts from producing it. Prayer belongs in a different sphere and that's where it should be left. If people believe, after experiencing it, that it helps them, they'll keep on doing it. If not, they'll abandon it. And yet, it's been here form the dawn of time and some psudo-scientists don't understand it, that's all.

How many accounts of miracles exist? You may believe that they are fake, it's your prerogative. But putting someone in the lab to "prove" something stops the very phenomenon you are trying to study. All over the world, there are countless people of various religions who have witnessed such phenomena, just leave it at that, you can't go any further by pushing an artificial experiment on this.

 

[stu]

Quote from Yannis:

From what I can tell, your religion is science, congratulations, that's what you believe in, for your personal reasons. I respect that, fine, I know many others who feel the same.

But, to tell me that the only way one could possibly understand whatever is to use the scientific method, is ludicrous. That's not what I know to be true. The scientific method is just one of the many tools we have at our disposal. I am a scientist and a businessman and a religious person, all at the same time. What I say is what I believe to be true.

And, please, drop that "sanctimonious" BS also.

First off, I assume rational scientist businessman and religious person would know when they were being sanctimonious and not call BS just because a person points that fact out. Kindly don't disabuse me further of my belief you are all those three things, and not the self-centered sanctimonious gobshite you sometimes appear.

I didn't say it's the only way. Please LISTEN! ….You can "understand" or understand.

The only way anyone could possibly understand is through the scientific method.
If all you want is to "understand" (you started this " " business not I) then by all means use religion to understand religion. But tou will not understand any further.
If you could it would be scientific or by the application of the scientific method.

As a scientist you would f'kn know that!

 

[Yannis]

Quote from DerekD:

Religion asserts that Supernatural beings interact in the natural world. ...

No serious religion asserts that, only that we don't fully understand the nature of being and the extend to which various beings naturally interact with each other. An athlete runs faster than others without being supernatural. A saint shows more compassion or stronger intuition without being supernatural either.

 

[Yannis]

Quote from stu:

First off, I assume rational scientist businessman and religious person would know when they were being sanctimonious and not call BS just because a person points that fact out. Kindly don't disabuse me further of my belief you are all those three things, and not the self-centered sanctimonious gobshite you sometimes appear.

I didn't say it's the only way. Please LISTEN! ….You can "understand" or understand.

The only way anyone could possibly understand is through the scientific method.
If all you want is to "understand" (you started this " " business not I) then by all means use religion to understand religion. But tou will not understand any further.
If you could it would be scientific or by the application of the scientific method.

As a scientist you would f'kn know that!

You are wrong, but continue in your offensive style, perhaps hoping that I will stop arguing with you. Well, you succeeded for now.

 

[DerekD]

Quote from Yannis:

The problem here is that your perspective is totally scientific, logical, and all you prove to yourself is that religion doesn't fit in there. I agree.

Is prayer non-existent or impotent? Then why are billions of people praying all over the world? Because they are misinformed? Or could it be that some misinformed scientists are totally wrong? The very fact that you are trying to put prayer in a laboratory kills it, contaminates it, stops the people's hearts from producing it. Prayer belongs in a different sphere and that's where it should be left. If people believe, after experiencing it, that it helps them, they'll keep on doing it. If not, they'll abandon it. And yet, it's been here form the dawn of time and some psudo-scientists don't understand it, that's all.

How many accounts of miracles exist? You may believe that they are fake, it's your prerogative. But putting someone in the lab to "prove" something stops the very phenomenon you are trying to study. All over the world, there are countless people of various religions who have witnessed such phenomena, just leave it at that, you can't go any further by pushing an artificial experiment on this.

My god man!

No but seriously. You have to see the obvious flaw in your thinking.

Here's an example to illustrate. Many Muslims believe that if you die in the struggle for Allah (jihad), you will be pulled out of hell and taken to paradise where one awaits x amount of virgins to delight oneself with. Now, there is no known way to test for this sort of thing given that the entire assertion takes place in an extra-material world or realm. But how many people have suffered for this untested belief? A belief that predicates on the validity of Koran.

If there's a claim that the supernatural world has bearing on the natural world, then shouldn't it be put to the test for validity? I mean, what if I told you that the high spirit Boogaloo-shatza is ultimately responsible for good fortune in trading. Woudn't you want know what it is and how it is responsible? Moreover, how you can evoke its good fortune bestowing power? I could show you a bunch of testimonials. And you might bite. Then what happens when you follow my doctrine and things don't pan out quite according to what I said and more importantly how the testimonies implied? Will you not then be evoking the scientific method to determine whether or not I'm full of doo-doo?

What questions would you ask?

 

[stu]

Quote from Yannis:

You are wrong, but continue in your offensive style, perhaps hoping that I will stop arguing with you. Well, you succeeded for now.

If all you can see is offensive style rather than the Please LISTEN! then I suggest you do indeed stop and carry on with your religious analysis of everything rather than any rational one you might think you can offer..

If your scientific arguments fall over as easily as your religious ones then I suggest a change of description before making a total ass of yourself with other scientist contemporaries..

 

[DerekD]

Quote from Yannis:

No serious religion asserts that, only that we don't fully understand the nature of being and the extend to which various beings naturally interact with each other. An athlete runs faster than others without being supernatural. A saint shows more compassion or stronger intuition without being supernatural either.

All religions assert that.

Prayer is an example of trying to evoke supernatural power to affect a material(natural) circumstance. That would be the supernatural interacting in the material world.

All religions believe that the material world was created by a supernatural being(s). Another example of the supernatural interacting in the material world.

And so on and so forth.

 

[Turok]

Yannis:
>The very fact that you are trying to put prayer in
>a laboratory kills it, contaminates it, stops the
>people's hearts from producing it.

Just because you say so?

You're taking a position that is FAR different from the overwhelming majority of the worlds religions. One of the widely held tenets of prayer is that it can be done anywhere. That it can be done any time and under any circumstances. That no one can control your ability to do so. That god will listen always.

Your conclusion is just fine for you, but don't attempt to present that your position is anything other than a narrow slice of religions belief.

>Prayer belongs in a different sphere and that's
>where it should be left.

Because you say so? OK, head in the sand apparently works for you.

>But putting someone in the lab to "prove" something
>stops the very phenomenon you are trying to study.

And you know this how? Did some little birdy tell you this? A simple statement of opinion without anything whatsoever to back it up.

JB

 

[Turok]

DD:
>Religion asserts that Supernatural beings
>interact in the natural world. ...


Yannis:
>No serious religion asserts that, ...

OMG ... every freakin' (major) serious religion asserts such over and over and over.

For the moment I will assume that you misspoke. If not, you are truly a deluded soul.

JB

 

[smilingsynic]

Quote from Turok:

The scientific method has proven to be the best devised so far for the confirmation of claims.

If one's religion is entirely internal (meaning no claims are made about its ability to work for others), I personally find no *need* for this method to be involved.

Once external claims of action are made, they are quite easily proved or disproved by this method and I find that extremely appropriate.

JB

Imagine a scientific test of the proposition, "Prayer changes things."

One would have to define "prayer", "changes" and "things."

The praying would claim that prayed to their God, and then God took away their illness and healed them.

Of course, if they had lost their leg in an accident, and the leg was not able to be reattached, would they pray that God would make it able for them to grow a new one?

I grew up in a fundamentalist home, graduated summa cum laude with a minor in Bible from a fundamentalist Christian university, and for year attended Sunday school, Sunday morning worship, Sunday EVENING worship, and Wednesday prayer meetings, and in all those years never ONCE heard someone pray that God would help someone grow another leg, finger, toe, testicle (actually, one can regrow hair without prayer), or any other body part.

Meanwhile, certain amphibians lose a leg, and without praying, grow a new one.

Of course the claims religions make are often testable, but those who are most religious have no interest in reason. They have faith, and that's all they (feel they) need.