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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 15, 2011 at 8:06 pm
AngelThMan Wrote:Within a clinical study, yes.
How about 'no different than not praying at any time for anyone under any circumstance.'
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 15, 2011 at 8:40 pm
TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:AngelThMan Wrote:Within a clinical study, yes.
How about 'no different than not praying at any time for anyone under any circumstance.' That hasn't been my experience.
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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 15, 2011 at 9:02 pm
AngelThMan Wrote:TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:AngelThMan Wrote:Within a clinical study, yes. How about 'no different than not praying at any time for anyone under any circumstance.' That hasn't been my experience.
I'm certain you think so. I'm also certain that whatever experiences you had wouldn't be different with or without praying at all or even praying to something or someone else.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 16, 2011 at 12:58 am
TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:AngelThMan Wrote:TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:AngelThMan Wrote:Within a clinical study, yes. How about 'no different than not praying at any time for anyone under any circumstance.' That hasn't been my experience. I'm certain you think so. I'm also certain that whatever experiences you had wouldn't be different with or without praying at all or even praying to something or someone else. Do you even listen? I've said that when I've prayed as a test my prayers weren't answered, but that when I've prayed with faith they have been answered. How do you explain that?
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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 16, 2011 at 1:54 am
Quote:How do you explain that?
Self-delusion.
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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 16, 2011 at 2:02 am
(This post was last modified: January 16, 2011 at 2:02 am by TheDarkestOfAngels.)
AngelThMan Wrote:Do you even listen? I've said that when I've prayed as a test my prayers weren't answered, but that when I've prayed with faith they have been answered. How do you explain that?
Have you ever heard of the self-fufilling prophecy? The placebo effect?
You pray and hope that it is answered and you interpret events in a manner befitting the manner to which you think the supernatural entities you believe to exist work.
You pray as a test to see if the prayer is answered and you don't find an arbitrary sign, you assume it was a failure.
In other words, all of it was your imagination and none of it was supernatural.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 16, 2011 at 2:38 am
Quote:Have you ever heard of the self-fufilling prophecy? The placebo effect?
Not to mention confirmation bias.
Along with miracles, I've seen no evidence that prayer 'works' . I suspect this may be possibly due to there being no one listening. Or perhaps whatever is there doesn't give a flying fuck. OR Perhaps it is indeed YHWH and he's just been sulking for a few thousand years, that would be totally in character.
@ Angel; I'm terribly sorry,but your personal anecdotes are not evidence except to you and perhaps a few others who share the same superstitions..
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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 16, 2011 at 3:35 am
(This post was last modified: January 16, 2011 at 3:41 am by AngelThMan.)
TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:AngelThMan Wrote:Do you even listen? I've said that when I've prayed as a test my prayers weren't answered, but that when I've prayed with faith they have been answered. How do you explain that? TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:Have you ever heard of the self-fufilling prophecy? The placebo effect?
You pray and hope that it is answered and you interpret events in a manner befitting the manner to which you think the supernatural entities you believe to exist work.
You pray as a test to see if the prayer is answered and you don't find an arbitrary sign, you assume it was a failure. Wrong! When I prayed to test whether there was a God or not I was an atheist. And like you, I felt there was no one listening because usually nothing happened.
It was only after I became a Christian and prayed with faith that the percentage of my prayers being answered rose significantly. God doesn't grant every request, but there was a definite, tangible change once I had faith.
padraic Wrote:[...I'm terribly sorry,but your personal anecdotes are not evidence except to you... To a degree you're right. Faith is very personal. But if you don't at least try it you're missing out.
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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 16, 2011 at 4:21 am
(This post was last modified: January 16, 2011 at 4:22 am by Regens Küchl.)
AngelThMan Wrote:TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:AngelThMan Wrote:Do you even listen? I've said that when I've prayed as a test my prayers weren't answered, but that when I've prayed with faith they have been answered. How do you explain that? TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:Have you ever heard of the self-fufilling prophecy? The placebo effect?
You pray and hope that it is answered and you interpret events in a manner befitting the manner to which you think the supernatural entities you believe to exist work.
You pray as a test to see if the prayer is answered and you don't find an arbitrary sign, you assume it was a failure. Wrong! When I prayed to test whether there was a God or not I was an atheist. And like you, I felt there was no one listening because usually nothing happened.
It was only after I became a Christian and prayed with faith that the percentage of my prayers being answered rose significantly. God doesn't grant every request, but there was a definite, tangible change once I had faith.
That description proves that it really works the way TheDarkestOfAngels explained it to you.
Being a christian you had no choice but to be open to self-suggestion that your prayer had somehow worked, or else you would have been unfaithful. You tricked yourself with your own circular reasoning.
If an absolute unbeliever prays for replacement of a lost limb and bang his limb grows back instantly - now that would be something you could offer as evidence 
AngelThMan Wrote:padraic Wrote:[...I'm terribly sorry,but your personal anecdotes are not evidence except to you... To a degree you're right. Faith is very personal. But if you don't at least try it you're missing out. The greatest problem in trying faith is that it is garbage, because faith in what ?????
For there are neverending possibilities and to be fair one had to spend wasting his entyre life trying one faith after another :
Faith in Vampyres, Werewolves, dwarfs, leprechauns, your small laughable hateful yewish wargod, Allah, Jehovah (god of his child-molesting witnesses), Mickey Mouse, Pink Unicorn, Russels Teapot . . .
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RE: Evidence God Exists
January 16, 2011 at 4:54 am
AngelThMan Wrote:Wrong! When I prayed to test whether there was a God or not I was an atheist. And like you, I felt there was no one listening because usually nothing happened.
It was only after I became a Christian and prayed with faith that the percentage of my prayers being answered rose significantly. God doesn't grant every request, but there was a definite, tangible change once I had faith.
Regardless of what you were and what you are now, the only thing that's changed is your ability to convince yourself of what you believe to be a change. You've just told me, essentially, just how I explained it to you. You only believe it works because you want to believe it works.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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