When you prayed did it ever work?

[Kirbmarc]

When your father/mother or any loved one speaks from out of a crowd of people how is it you know thier voice?

Because having heard them before, my brain has stored information about the features of their voice. How is the voice of god different from your inner monologue? Do you hear a voice in your head that tells you what is right? Or do you just label every thought that you feel right as "the voice of god"?

[Minimalist]

When your father/mother or any loved one speaks from out of a crowd of people how is it you know thier voice?

You are fucking crazy, drippy. Are you off your meds?

[Drich]

You're missing the point, which is that you claim that god intends human beings to use a method of attaining knowledge that is well-known to create flawed results, but a very humble and rational person would be justified in dismissing any knowledge obtained in such a manner due to its propensity for producing those flawed results. How would your god justify sending a person to hell that was merely guilty of using the mental faculties given to them?

God is justified in anything He does simply because He does not answer to anyone else.God does not need to follow some standard in order to be found Righteous. Righteousness is the standard derived from the Expressed Will of God. As such He has demanded one to Humble himself before the living God. As it is, you serve the soceity and it's line of logic and reason. Which is in direct conflict with what God has commanded all of us to do. So the question becomes: Do you serve yourself and your soceity by following the rule and reason of soceity? or do you openly choose to serve the Living God? If you choose to serve yourself or your soceity over the Living God, then your master in effect becomes another god. If you serve and choose to worship this other god, you will be condemned. No matter what reason you tell yourself.

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It is funny to me that you have such a deep concern of the accuracy of how your statement was presented, and little to no concern if the statement you presented was even accurate.

I'm not concerned about the accuracy of the statement because I'm too confident that it's correct to worry about it being untrue. If you can provide evidence that I'm wrong about 'counting the hits and ignoring the misses' being a logical fallacy then I'll change my belief.

That's just it, we are not talking about a logical fallacy, the fact that you would demand that I provide you with such a fallacy is a red herring in of itself. Because it dirverts attention away from the fact that I have indeed counted the 'misses' and even spoke of them in my orginal post. I even went so far as to point this out to you by correcting your orginal statement. But none of this matters to you because you have not concerned yourself with facts, when making your arguement. You see an oppertunity to push doubt and have done so even at the expense of the truth I am repersenting.

Your arguement fails because it ignores the circumstances it is supposed to address. If you want a logical fallacy to address then address the Red Herring I pointed out.

[Edwardo Piet]

That's just it, we are not talking about a logical fallacy, the fact that you would demand that I provide you with such a fallacy is a red herring in of itself. [...]

(My bolding).

I didn't demand that you were being fallacious. I just said that that's what I suspected. I said that to me it sounds like that was what you were doing: counting the hits and ignoring the misses. Because it seems to me to be the most likely explanation if you really believe that what I would say is almost certainly coincidental is actually to you evidence of something miraculous.

[Drich]

Never heard god's voice, wouldn't recognize it.

God's voice is not about timber, it is about content. Without knowing the bible, then one can never have the reference point to determine content. In effect rendering you deaf to God's voice.

I assume you are referring to your inner Jiminy Cricket, again...

God is not limited to your 'Jiminy Cricket.' God can use any number of ways to speak to you. You just have to train yourself to hear what He is saying.

Yeah, that's just you, your inner self, not a divine being.

Without doubt.

That said what you are supposed to be A/S/K for is a Measure of the Holy Spirit. What this is, is a literal peice of God that comes to live with in you. It starts with the basic Spiritual fruit, and if you are faithful to what God has given you, you will mature and will be given more. To the point where you can receive direction or even revelation from God.

[Brian37]

I hate the loaded question in the title of this thread. Of course the believer is going to say yes dispite that it is a superstition.

Prayer is merely the act of talking to yourself not Allah or Visnu Or Buddha or Jesus.

The evolutionary flaw that causes this placebo is that we seek patterns, but it is merely retrofitting an outcome to suit ones own desires. The flaw is that it is simply selection bias. The same person who thinks it works doesn't want to take into account all the times they prayed for things they didn't get, or all the humans who pray to the same god or different gods that don't always get what they want.

But this selection bias and sample rate error isn't just about prayer. I had a co worker who swore that customers would magically call in the middle of a smoke break. Even today the cooks I work with do this. The problem is they never notice all the times they get through an entire smoke without getting interupted. So the reality is that they get interupted for the mere reality that we are open and those things happen when you work at a business that is open.

Prayer does not work at all. It may stimulate the pleasure chemicals in the brain, but that is a neurological missfire and credulity and lack of biololgical understanding as to why placebos are falsely seen as real.

There are 5 million deaths worldwide per year that means 50 million in the past decade. From all sorts of things, mostely old age, but also through desease, crime and war. If prayer worked like people would like to believe you could set up control groups and find when it works it would not be the crap shoot life is in reality, it could be used as a scientific tool to maximize output to a greater accuracy than the reality we see.

So the reality is that it is nothing more than wishful thinking, and the only real thing about wishful thinking, just like a kid has pleasent thoughts and pleasent chemicals stimulating their brain at the thought of Santa giving them gifts. Prayer is merely false hope and is as useful as praying to the Egyptian sun god.

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God's voice is not about timber

There is no "God's voice" anymore than Allah talks to people. The talk is you and the talk is merely wisfhul thinking in your head.

There is no such thing as a disimbodied magical being wispering to you. You are merely talking to yourself pretending to talk to a god.

[Drich]

When your father/mother or any loved one speaks from out of a crowd of people how is it you know thier voice?

Because having heard them before, my brain has stored information about the features of their voice. How is the voice of god different from your inner monologue?

One's inner monologue doesn't usally quote scripture one is not aware of.

Do you hear a voice in your head that tells you what is right?

Some times I hear a sermon, or Hear something on the radio that directly speaks to something I an dealing with that gives me direction. Or again if one of you asks a unrelated question and I am researching it I will find something that directly speaks to the issue I am having. There are also other times when people come out of the blue and offer a word or several as in the case of this guy: http://atheistforums.org/thread-13378.html Other times when in extreme distress, I can literal feel a presents, and the warmth and comfort that comes from someone watching over you. Words fail me far too easily for me to describe what God offers. In the simplest terms I was missing something before i knew God now I am not. Whatever my lot, I am content and complete. It is with this 'feeling' of contentment that a biblical revelation is communicated.

Or do you just label every thought that you feel right as "the voice of god"?

No, for not every 'right feeling' is of God. Mohamad, and Joseph Smith can atest to that.

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[quote='Brian37' pid='357520' dateline='1351791016']
There is no "God's voice" anymore than Allah talks to people.

Allah does not offer a personal relationship with 'people,' and therefore has nothing to say to them. Allah only ever issued commands through 'phrophets.'

There is no such thing as a disimbodied magical being wispering to you. You are merely talking to yourself pretending to talk to a god.

Otherwise you would be in some deep crap when your life was over. So, yeah I can see why you try and dismiss what you are not prepared to answer for.

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:

When your father/mother or any loved one speaks from out of a crowd of people how is it you know thier voice?

You are fucking crazy, drippy. Are you off your meds?

[fr0d0]

It is funny to me that you have such a deep concern of the accuracy of how your statement was presented, and little to no concern if the statement you presented was even accurate.

This

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I'll rephrase my question then: how can you know his will 'as you test it [his will] against your knowledge of him' if you need to know his will before you can test his will 'against your knowledge of him' in the first place?

Semantics from you. As above, you need to address the question.

You know it's God as you have a measure to compare it to. The same way you could separate bits of wood of different lengths with a ruler.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Nope... we can know what's from God, and know it so well that we can write it down. We trust our sources as exhaustively tested by our peers and ourselves. No one is forcing anything on us as with human laws. You accept the highway code and cannot question it. We scrutinise what is presented to us. Our guide book has that caveat built in. But most importantly of all, this is a live, living relationship of love that inspires.

[Faith No More]

God is justified in anything He does simply because He does not answer to anyone else.God does not need to follow some standard in order to be found Righteous. Righteousness is the standard derived from the Expressed Will of God. As such He has demanded one to Humble himself before the living God. As it is, you serve the soceity and it's line of logic and reason. Which is in direct conflict with what God has commanded all of us to do. So the question becomes: Do you serve yourself and your soceity by following the rule and reason of soceity? or do you openly choose to serve the Living God? If you choose to serve yourself or your soceity over the Living God, then your master in effect becomes another god. If you serve and choose to worship this other god, you will be condemned. No matter what reason you tell yourself.

Yeah, I'm afraid "might makes right" isn't a very convincing answer. Such a "god" is unworthy of the title.

Also, you seem to have created a false dichotomy that anyone that doesn't serve your god simply serves themself. Does telling yourself that all of the non-believers are selfish make you feel better about god sending people to hell?

[Edwardo Piet]

[...]This

I responded to his quote. He claimed that I demanded something that I suspected. I also notice that you removed the word "demand" from what he had said, you changed the quote in a way that makes it not apply.

Semantics from you. As above, you need to address the question.

I don't see what the problem with my question is. You claim to know god's will by testing his will against himself. But how can you test his will against himself in order to know his will? That makes no sense.

You know it's God as you have a measure to compare it to. The same way you could separate bits of wood of different lengths with a ruler.

Measurements for god? We're talking evidence now? What measurements?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

What is the relevance of this statement?

Nope... we can know what's from God, and know it so well that we can write it down.

You haven't explained how.

We trust our sources as exhaustively tested by our peers and ourselves.

What sources point to God?

Our guide book has that caveat built in.

How is the Bible a source that points to the likelihood of God existing?