What Is The Point Of Prayer?

[Bad Writer]

But we don't go toting around the idea that Socrates was real, the same way we don't do this for Christ. The only things that are real are the written words that are attributed to them, and then we have the choice to accept the words as meaningful; we never accept at face value that the words actually came those individuals. That is the mistake you are making.

[Sword of Christ]

If you're talking about the historical Jesus and what we can know of the man himself that's an academic issue. What matters is that while a historical figure in history he was also the incarnation of the Word or Logos of God as described in the gospel of John. How that can be is a mystery but the doctrine of the Trinity is an attempt at trying to explain it.

As for his supernatural/paranormal capabilities, I think it's limiting to suggest that no such things are even possible at all unless proven beyond all doubt. Some of the things he is said to have done others to some degree have been claimed to be able to do as well. We can assume this nature of power derives in some way from God and is something that is beyond our very limited scientific understanding. Our lack of understanding is no barrier to something that can still happen regardless.

[discipulus]

What do you mean demonstrate the existence of Jesus?

I mean, prove that he existed: there's no extra-biblical accounts of the guy, and even assuming he existed, no reason beyond a pre-existing bias to think he was god made flesh. Why should I take one story that's been written and rewritten as true over countless others, or even over the evidence that, so far, nobody has been able to demonstrate the truth of any form of supernatural claim?

There are no extra biblical accounts of Jesus? Do you have a source or a reference for that?

---

But we don't go toting around the idea that Socrates was real, the same way we don't do this for Christ. The only things that are real are the written words that are attributed to them, and then we have the choice to accept the words as meaningful; we never accept at face value that the words actually came those individuals. That is the mistake you are making.

I have no good reason to doubt Socrates existed and have good reasons to believe he did. Therefore, I believe he existed.

I have no good reason to doubt Jesus existed and have good reasons to believe He did. Therefore I believe He existed.

[Esquilax]

There are no extra biblical accounts of Jesus? Do you have a source or a reference for that?

Do I have a source for the absence of something? That's... not really how existential claims work... We don't generally have professors of non-history, after all...

I have no good reason to doubt Jesus existed and have good reasons to believe He did. Therefore I believe He existed.

Actually, I think I'm getting too bogged down talking about existence, anyway. Whether there was or was not a Jesus, you do have good reason not to believe that he was the son of god and capable of miracles, namely that such things are physically impossible and have never been replicated. It's special pleading; why does this one account get a pass, while competing miracle claims from other religions do not? If someone were to claim he performed a miracle today, in front of you, would you believe him on these same grounds, that you don't have a reason not to?

---

Not really, there are many historical figures for which we don't have 100% entirely complete information of their life, like Socrates or Hannibal of Carthage. Jesus would be more akin to them than to King Arthur, who probably did exist as well though we know practically nothing about him.

Oh, sure! The difference being that the attendant claims for Socrates and Hannibal don't violate the physical laws of the universe. They aren't even in the same ballpark; extraordinary claims necessarily require more evidence than mundane, physically possible ones.

20 years was well within living memory even back then so if Jesus hadn't existed someone would have just said. But no-one argued about Jesus existence only his divinity.

I don't really understand this argument. Do you often find historical documents that tell us about what wasn't happening?

1st century Jews wouldn't have been easily willing to accept God as a man or physical resurrections from the dead before the end times. They weren't necessarily any more gullible than people living today these were intelligent civilised people.

But necessarily lacking our current knowledge of how the world works. It's how humanity has always explained things it doesn't understand: lightning was from Zeus, or it was from Thor. Rough seas were the anger of Poseidon, etc etc...

The gospel accounts had their original source in people who had known Jesus and put his teachings to memory. This was then written down by the first Jewish Christian communities. Within 20 years of Christs crucifixion there were people who believed in Christ so passionately that they were prepared top martyr themselves for it. No-one ever did this over Zeus, Mithras or some mythical figure. Again this was well within living memory of Jesus himself so close enough to contemporary not hundreds of years later.

If they were that passionate about the man- and I agree that seeing his miracles for themselves would be impressive enough to inspire- why did they wait twenty years to begin telling his story? Especially if they thought he was the son of god and that people were doomed to hell without accepting his sacrifice?

Was it just a busy couple of decades for them? Also, how do you know nobody ever martyred themselves for another, older god?

Here we go.

http://carm.org/non-biblical-accounts-ne...dor-people

Well, thanks for that, but I get kind of wary when people point me to places like carm.org, or answers in genesis, or places like that. For one, an apologetics website can hardly be considered unbiased; there's a definite presupposition involved there... not to mention apologists have a proven track record of being liberal with the facts...

But I took a look anyway. Now, I'm hardly well versed enough to speak with authority here, but the first four references are Josephus, whose authenticity is hardly accepted as true. The fifth is Tacitus, who mentions Christus, not Jesus. Thallus' writings only exist in fragments, Pliny only mentions Christians, not Christ as an existing person. I won't even go into why the Talmud is a bad reference to use, and Lucian was a second century satirist, so hardly a contemporary, either way.

Not to mention, Tacitus, Josephus and Pliny the younger were born decades after the supposed coming of Christ, so... hey.

Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter, regardless; even accepting the existence of a Jesus character- and on balance I'm willing to accept one or many inspirations for this- there's simply no reason to accept the miracle claims associated with him. All the questions I asked Disc apply here, too.

[Silver]

Jesus certainly existed there's no real academic doubt over that.

What theists consider academia is far from anything genuinely perceived as accurate in the academic community. There is plenty of valid academic doubt regarding the existence of Jesus.

[Whateverist]

So let me ask you, do you have any experiences which you attribute to your unconscious mind - dreams, daydreams, bouts of inspiration, etc? If so then at least you comprehend the category in which I am suggesting we place your communing with God experience.

And I could place your "hunch" that your experiences regarding a world of physical objects that you perceive with your five senses in the same category.

Where does that leave us?

Not sure where it leaves us but it leaves me without an answer to my question. So I'll repeat it: would knowing that God was real but only as an aspect of your unconscious mind be enough for you? Creation and grand plan going forward are not well supported this way but you'd still have the satisfaction of communing with God. You in or are you out?

[Silver]

there's no extra-biblical accounts of the guy

Well, there is the Apocrypha, which was intentionally left out of the final editing of which books should make it into the bible due to the fact that the books which were intentionally left out depicted Jesus as more of a mortal man than the divine son of god.

[Sword of Christ]

Oh, sure! The difference being that the attendant claims for Socrates and Hannibal don't violate the physical laws of the universe. They aren't even in the same ballpark; extraordinary claims necessarily require more evidence than mundane, physically possible ones.

If God exists, if he can interact with the universe through humanity, if Jesus was fully one as God himself then Jesus wasn't violating anything at all. Just because we don't know for certain that these things are possible it is not an argument to suggest that such things are impossible or ridiculous. There are many miraculous claims and experience right the way across the world and the right the way through the full extent of human history. Yes they may be comparatively rare for any given individual to experience, yes they may be hard for science to pin down. That in itself is not evidence against these claims and they are therefore reasonable to believe providing they have a rational foundation with a cause that produces an effect.

You have to understand, not use an argument from ignorance, that science has it's limits and even the sciencific knowledge we have so far is fairly shit, we don't even know what 96% of the universe is made from. We're in no position to begin arbitrarily discounting the claims of miracles on a whim, just because they are well outside of everyday experience. I mean we're all going to die some day that's going to be something that will be beyond our everyday experience one way or the other. We're not made Lords of creation itself the moment we have a slither of scientific understanding. This scientific knowledge is something we derived from being made in Gods image as we can rationally understand the universe God made, and he made it for a reason/purpose. This wasn't some kind of random roll of millions of dice and they all happened to turn out at the right numbers, you can forget that.

I don't really understand this argument. Do you often find historical documents that tell us about what wasn't happening?

But we can date and time of the events of Jesus life and the the very first Christians to a very specific geographical location and time period. You can't do that with Thor, Mithras, Krishna or anyone else like that. Jesus or Yeshua as he Hebrew name would have been was a real historical figure there shouldn't be any real doubt about this. Yes we can doubt whether he was divine or not but that's a different subject to his actual existence. To deny his existence is getting into conspiracy theory territory.

But necessarily lacking our current knowledge of how the world works. It's how humanity has always explained things it doesn't understand: lightning was from Zeus, or it was from Thor. Rough seas were the anger of Poseidon, etc etc...

The Bible does not at any point suggest there are any supernatural entities controlling any natural events. There is God and God created the natural order of the universe to be self contained and sufficient, no gods are required just the one. The Bible is not comparable to Greek myths, Jesus is not comparable at all in any way to a Greek god.

If they were that passionate about the man- and I agree that seeing his miracles for themselves would be impressive enough to inspire- why did they wait twenty years to begin telling his story? Especially if they thought he was the son of god and that people were doomed to hell without accepting his sacrifice?

They didn't wait 20 years to tell the story that was just when Saint Paul put the story they were telling to parchment. Hell is a separation from God through sin and through Christ our sin is washed entirely clean. You may be able to accept this gift after you die as C.S Lewis suggested but you can accept it just as easily as well this side of eternity as well. And this would be a positive life changing experience for you.

Was it just a busy couple of decades for them? Also, how do you know nobody ever martyred themselves for another, older god?

I think it would be up to you to provide evidence for this actually happening. No-one gave up their lives willing for the pagan gods with the exception of human sacrifice, say when a servant girl was killed to be with her master in the next life. But this isn't what Christians did so it isn't really comparable.

Well, thanks for that, but I get kind of wary when people point me to places like carm.org, or answers in genesis, or places like that. For one, an apologetics website can hardly be considered unbiased; there's a definite presupposition involved there... not to mention apologists have a proven track record of being liberal with the facts...

So what you're saying is that a non-Christian or atheist site would have no bias at all?

But I took a look anyway. Now, I'm hardly well versed enough to speak with authority here, but the first four references are Josephus, whose authenticity is hardly accepted as true. The fifth is Tacitus, who mentions Christus, not Jesus. Thallus' writings only exist in fragments, Pliny only mentions Christians, not Christ as an existing person. I won't even go into why the Talmud is a bad reference to use, and Lucian was a second century satirist, so hardly a contemporary, either way.

None of these guys were Christians or supported Christianity and they lived in a time when the events of Jesus life was still fresh in living memory not thousands of years later. It would have been so easy for them to undermine Christianity by suggesting that Jesus didn't exist to begin with, if there was ever any doubt. Apparently there wasn't as it didn't occur to anyone to mention it.

Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter, regardless; even accepting the existence of a Jesus character- and on balance I'm willing to accept one or many inspirations for this- there's simply no reason to accept the miracle claims associated with him. All the questions I asked Disc apply here, too.

If you do what Jefferson did and cut away all the miracles from the story you're not left anything much at all. It doesn't mean all of the claims are true but certainly he must have had healing and some other paranormal capabilities to some extraordinary degree. What he is said to have done goes well beyond what David Blaine could do, these won't have been conjuring tricks. And certainly Jesus doesn't appear to have been trying to fabricate or deceive for his own benefit he was entirely selfless to the point that he gave up his own life. He was raised back to life afterwards by God yes but so will we all be that's the point.

[Gil Gaudia]

Why do you pray? (This is mainly for the theists, obviously.)

It seems to me that prayer, broadly speaking, falls into two general catagories: intercessory prayer (where you ask God to effect a change for you or for someone else) and supplicatory prayer (where you tell God how wonderful he is, or how thankful you are, or some such).

Why bother? If everything which happens is according to God's plan (or God's will, or Divine Providence, or whatever the current buzzword is), then an intercessory prayer cannot possible affect the outcome - what is going to happen has been decided already by God. Furthermore (apos to Ambrose Bierce), isn't it rather arrogant of you to ask God to alter his plans on your behalf, when you've already admitted that you're unworthy to have him do so?

And, since God is omniscient, he already knows that's he terrific and how thankful you are - why do you need to tell him? Seems kind of like if every passenger were to walk up to the bus conductor every two seconds and tell him, 'This is the Number 4 bus.'

That in mind, what is the point of prayer?

Boru

Please tell me if it is inappropriate to direct you to an article I wrote.

Gil

[removed link]

We are exhorted to pray at every turn. We have National Days of Prayer, prayer breakfasts, prayer vigils, legal cases brought to allow prayer to be returned to the public schools and thousands of clergy in houses of worship throughout the country beseeching God to answer their prayers daily. Yet when someone actually demonstrates that they believe strongly enough to put their child’s life on the line, they are accused of murder!
The prosecution of Herbert and Catherine Schaible whose children died after they prayed for their illness to be cured is a wonderful example of the hypocrisy of those who are reverently referred to as the “religious” in America (as opposed to those of us atheists who recognize that it is all a myth).
They are accused of murder for doing exactly what every politician, clergyman and religious person, from the President of the United States on down, advocates whenever the country or any of its citizens faces danger.
The Judeo-Christian, God-glorifying tale of Abraham offering his son as a sacrifice is the ultimate example of trusting in God enough to put your child’s life on the line.
So Abraham is glorified for putting his faith in God ahead of his child’s life and Herbert and Catherine Schaible are accused of murder for doing essentially the same thing.
To the hundreds of millions of hypocrites who claim to believe in the power of prayer (and of course, God) Do you believe in God and his powers or don’t you?

[Esquilax]

If God exists, if he can interact with the universe through humanity, if Jesus was fully one as God himself then Jesus wasn't violating anything at all. Just because we don't know for certain that these things are possible it is not an argument to suggest that such things are impossible or ridiculous.

I'll stop you right there and say that while I agree with the sentiment, I disagree with your conclusions. I am open to the possibility of the supernatural, but the time to believe one actually exists is when it is demonstrated to be true. Having it written in an old book that you want to believe just doesn't cut it.

This wasn't some kind of random roll of millions of dice and they all happened to turn out at the right numbers, you can forget that.

Odd bit of anthropomorphizing here: from the perspective of a universe not made for life, there are no "right" numbers. If there's no design, then this argument of probabilities has no meaning, because there was nothing aiming for this situation at all. It just turned out this way because that's where things fell; if I roll a hundred die, the combination of numbers that come up will be very uncommon, but that doesn't imply a designer pulling the strings to come up with those numbers, no matter the odds.

In short, without a designer, there's no optimal set of circumstances, and thus no reason to think that these specific ones were being aimed for.

But we can date and time of the events of Jesus life and the the very first Christians to a very specific geographical location and time period. You can't do that with Thor, Mithras, Krishna or anyone else like that. Jesus or Yeshua as he Hebrew name would have been was a real historical figure there shouldn't be any real doubt about this. Yes we can doubt whether he was divine or not but that's a different subject to his actual existence. To deny his existence is getting into conspiracy theory territory.

I don't outright deny it. He could have been one real man, one fictional man, several real men combined into a gestalt for the purposes of narrative, or one real man embellished. There's plenty of possibilities beyond the binary exist/does not exist, and none of them are discounted by the evidence we have, either.

The Bible does not at any point suggest there are any supernatural entities controlling any natural events. There is God and God created the natural order of the universe to be self contained and sufficient, no gods are required just the one. The Bible is not comparable to Greek myths, Jesus is not comparable at all in any way to a Greek god.

Um, no: rainbows were a distinct act from god, so you're at least partially wrong. But also, so what? All that means is that the bible answers one question those primitive people didn't know an answer to, rather than many. How does that refute anything I actually said?

I think it would be up to you to provide evidence for this actually happening. No-one gave up their lives willing for the pagan gods with the exception of human sacrifice, say when a servant girl was killed to be with her master in the next life. But this isn't what Christians did so it isn't really comparable.

So, except for the instances in which a person did willingly sacrifice themselves to an older god, nobody sacrificed themselves to an older god? Okay, got it.

So what you're saying is that a non-Christian or atheist site would have no bias at all?

No, but I am saying that many apologists are on record as playing fast and loose with the facts, spinning things to suit their agenda, and working from an established bias at a much higher rate than atheist sites.

None of these guys were Christians or supported Christianity and they lived in a time when the events of Jesus life was still fresh in living memory not thousands of years later. It would have been so easy for them to undermine Christianity by suggesting that Jesus didn't exist to begin with, if there was ever any doubt. Apparently there wasn't as it didn't occur to anyone to mention it.

Sure, but also, none of them were alive when Jesus was, so you can hardly call them contemporary. Lucius in particular was alive over a hundred and fifty years after Jesus' coming. Everything they wrote were reports from others, and as I pointed out, several of them never mentioned Jesus even in the passages pointed out as mentioning Jesus. Essentially, you have a single "contemporary" source in Josephus, and the authenticity of his works is still debatable.

If you do what Jefferson did and cut away all the miracles from the story you're not left anything much at all. It doesn't mean all of the claims are true but certainly he must have had healing and some other paranormal capabilities to some extraordinary degree.

Or the story was embellished to the point that it no longer reflected the truth. Or the witnesses saw something they didn't understand and ascribed a miraculous or magical source to it. Or the entire thing was fiction. Or Jesus is a composite character made up of many different people, and so each individual claim could come from a different source.

All possible. Stop leaping to the conclusion you want to be true, and start looking at the facts objectively.

What he is said to have done goes well beyond what David Blaine could do, these won't have been conjuring tricks. And certainly Jesus doesn't appear to have been trying to fabricate or deceive for his own benefit he was entirely selfless to the point that he gave up his own life. He was raised back to life afterwards by God yes but so will we all be that's the point.

Sure, but fictional characters can be selfless too. And manipulated accounts can be too. Again, you're leading the evidence and assuming the bible is true, which isn't rational.