(April 27, 2011 at 11:32 pm)Red_Baron Wrote: I’m going to turn a copper coin into gold. If “god” is real this should work.
Why?
Quote:I’m Atheist and I’m proud of it which began in 6th grade. I almost got kicked out of my house because of religion because I didn’t want to go to church. I’ve hated religion with a passion now it is up to “god” to defend it.
Your life story is not necessary, implies bias. Your hatred towards religion is a stated bias, if you want people to take your study seriously you should, ya know, leave that part out.
Quote:Research
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a god or spirit through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of a hymn, incantation, formal creed, or a spontaneous utterance in the praying person. There are different forms of prayer such as petitionary prayer, prayers of supplication, thanksgiving, and worship/praise. Prayer may be directed towards a deity, spirit, deceased person, or lofty idea, for the purpose of worshipping, requesting guidance, requesting assistance, confessing sins or to express one's thoughts and emotions. Thus, people pray for many reasons such as personal benefit or for the sake of others.
The question is… does it really work?
There is no point in asking if it works when you have not described what is claimed to work. "Does prayer work?" on it's own could be met with the response "yes" in a number of circumstances, such as "does it work in offering one comfort?" etc. You need to specifically state something like "Is prayer by an atheist to an unspecific deity sufficient to transform a copper coin into gold"
Quote:Hypothesis
I think the pennies will not turn into gold because it is scientifically impossible. You would have to be a religious nut to think it will work.
1. Stated biases, again, you presuppose the result.
2. You state another yet another bias in presupposing that those who believe the hypothesis as "nuts"
3. You still have not stated what you expect to work.
Quote:Procedure
Materials: 3 pennies, a prayer, and a lucky item (like a horseshoe).
Step 1: I will leave one penny alone as a control.
Step 2: Take the second penny and pray to “god” asking him to turn it to gold for 5 minutes. “Almighty “god” please turn thy penny into gold.” Wait for results. Do this for 2 days.
Step 3: Take the third penny and ask the lucky horseshoe to turn it into gold. “Almighty horseshoe please turn thy penny into gold.” Wait for results. Do this for 2 days.
This seems fine, though you can easily be called out because you do not genuinely believe it will happen, you have not controlled for intent in other words. Find a person who believes it will work if you can....
Quote:Results
For 2 days I prayed to “god” to turn the penny into gold. On the first day nothing happened 0% gold. I came back on the second day and prayed again and still nothing happened after I prayed for the final time still 0% gold. The results are 0. I studied the penny and found 0% traces of gold.
The next 2 days I got out the lucky horseshoe. First day I asked the lucky horseshoe for 5 minutes to turn this second penny into gold. Nothing happened resulting in 0% gold. Second day I asked the lucky horseshoe again but still 0% gold.
I checked the control experiment for 2 days as well and it turned into 100% gold. I’m joking it didn’t do anything.
Conclusion
As I suspected nothing happened. Therefore “god” isn’t real and the lucky horseshoe has the same effect as “god.” Some might argue that you can’t test “god” but that was probably put in to create a loop hole. This also proves that prayer doesn’t work.
And you have a complete non-sequitur, you have only "proven" that:
Prayers by a person who does not believe in the power of gods/magic horseshoes to an unnamed god and/or a magic horseshoe is not sufficient for a god and/or magic horseshoe, should such a thing exist, to transform the material in question into gold.
Fail. Absolutely unscientific.
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