The danger of religion. .

[Cyberman]

Hope nobody thinks I'm 'crying off' from this or anything, it's just that I'm not entirely confident in my judgement right at the moment for personal reasons which I'll not burden anyone with. So for now I'll simply make one or two observations rather than a proper dissection, if that's ok.

Stimbo- i could talk to you all day brother I love you.

I try. Then when I've had ten minutes to get my breath back, I try again.

And wow what good questions. Really making me think on this one arent you. Let me start with when you asked if God has a naughty and nice list haha. that is actually funny man I think you may be mixing him up with saint nick there. If we have to take everything so serious, especially ourselves life becomes unfun. In my own experience anyway. And yes unfun is a word because i just said it and you know what it means . No he does not have a naughty and nice list. One of his names is the good shepherd and that would make us (free ammo for everybody here) his sheep.

Wouldn't that be Jesus you're talking about there, not "God"? Besides which, I think you may be mixing him up with Mithras. Regardless, a shepherd does not have the best interests of the sheep at heart, probably on more levels than just the one. Oh, he'll feed you, keep you safe from predators, fleece you (this point alone makes a perfect analogy for religion) and all the other shepherdy goodness. Then money changes hands and he'll dispassionately watch you get taken away to be turned into a Sunday roast.

If a person is not one of his sheep or much less in the green pasture there is no way he can hear them when they call.

Now lets look at the people in the study. We have the people that were doing the praying and the prayees. Just because sombody works for that organization, dosent make them qualified to talk to God. Jobs are scarce and most people will put whatever on their resume to get hired. Could be that the people on both sides had little to no faith that it would actually work. Its written in our bible that faith without works is dead. I can safely determine from that that prayer without faith is nothing more than talking into the air.

Now what about the prayees in the study. What if they were total god-haters. or just didnt believe, or did believe but didnt think he would help them for whatever reason. God cannot be looked at as a lapdog that will do tricks for man whenever asked.

All these rhetorical gymnastics are giving me a headache so I'll call it a night at this point. I'll just ask that you consider all of what you said there in light of all these bible verses in which Mithras Jesus talks about prayer and how to do it:

Matthew 7:7
Matthew 17:20
Matthew 21:21
Mark 11:24
John 14:12-14
Matthew 18:19
James 5:15-16

Stimbo you are a credit to your atheist "family" for lack of a better word. Its sad more cant be like you. Looking forward to hearing from ya man. Peace.

Note to self: must try harder.

Pax tecum.