God: No magic required

[max-greece]

With respect to the "technology" of prayer, I simply used MRI and EEG as examples. I personally think that it's highly plausible that these and other non-invasive monitoring technologies, combined with ever-more-sophisticated computer algorithms, will allow future interrogators to eschew waterboarding, as it will one day be possible to literally read minds. Neutrinos (trillions of them) permeate every cubic millimeter of our bodies, including our brains. We can barely detect neutrinos and we can't detect dark energy (i.e. most of the energy in our universe). We are hardly in a position to assert the impossibility that such energy may be organized in such a fashion as to possess sentience and to be fully capable of monitoring, in real time, the thoughts of every other sentient being in the universe.

Possible that we will be able to read thought processes externally? I suppose it is - lets hope not, however, as privacy has taken too much of a hit already. As for the Neutrino thing - sounds like crap to me. Neutrinos appear to pass through all mass in the universe without interacting in any way - its one of the reasons they were so hard to prove in the first place.

As for our inability to assert that energy and sentience are unrelated this is an argument from ignorance. We are equally unable to assert that this energy and farting are unrelated.

Why would such a dark energy sentience (let's call it "God," for convenience) be at all interested in monitoring us and hearing our thoughts? Why is the NSA interested in monitoring everything it can about everything it can? Do you have a cat or dog or goldfish? Would you have any curiosity about what it was thinking? If it was thinking that it wanted to be petted, would you pet it? Did you ever own a terrarium? They are very interesting little microcosms. Why do scientists run millions of computer simulations? What if the earth is simply one of a hundred billion "simulations" in our universe or one of an infinite number of "simulations" in the multiverse? So "God" provides some sort of kick start to life and then monitors how it evolves and what happens to each planet over infinite periods of time. What else is God going to do? Just sit around and contemplate his navel? I'd say that God would have a lot of reasons for wanting to be engaged (i.e. to be theistic, as opposed to deistic).

Comparing your God to the NSA ought to be sending shivers up your spine - it does mine. What does a cat, dog, goldfish think? Well probably not alot (hungry, horny, tired, WALK etc.) and certainly nothing that would hold your interest for long. Surely that is the point. A universe creating deity would have less in common with us than does an ant.

What's God doing if he's (!) not following us? OK - logical problem here - God is infinite. God existed for an infinite amount of time before he "invented" the universe. What was he doing then? Or, the universe is 13.72 billion years old - we are 200,000 years old. What was he doing for the 13.72 billion years prior to our arrival?

With respect to atheism being "theism-1," well...no. Who in the world said anything about "one true religion," in the present conversation? I personally look at religion like I look at language. Languages are simply mechanisms for communication between people. Religions are mechanisms for communication with God. I think that virtually all human societies, since the beginning of humanity, have had religions and that most (obviously not all) of these religions have been of positive value for the lives of the people in those societies. Religion has passed the test of time; that's why it endures. Talks of the death of religion are premature. At one time, the Soviet Union was almost entirely atheistic. Atheism is popular now in Europe and, increasingly so, in the USA. Yet, a declaration of victory would be just more in the way of certitude. But I digress.

So all religions are versions of the truth but atheism isn't? Non-belief is probably as old as humanity itself as much as belief is. Works too.

And why, if all religions contribute something, do all religions go out of their way to tell you all other religions are wrong?

No religion isn't dead, yet. Sadly neither is astrology, palm reading, phrenology, the belief in the power of crystals.....

A couple of people have said that there is no evidence that prayer works. That's certainly not true. I've already stated that I don't necessarily believe that God stops wars, brings rain, or cures cancer. I don't know for sure that he's never done any of those things. but I don't think that there's any real evidence that God ever did any of those things. But prayer certainly provides comfort, courage, perseverance, escape from substance abuse, improved performance with regard to personal responsibility and morality, and so on. Whether this is owing to divine intervention or is "placebo effect" is quite beside the point. Prayer works. Unambiguously works. It's worked for billions of people in the history of the world. It has certainly worked for me. It's why I keep doing it.

When we say prayer doesn't appear to work its on the basis of peer reviewed research - not the feel good factor. With your argument a rabbit's foot for luck probably works too. You mentioned the heart patient study in another post, acknowledging that praying for someone when they know it actually appears to make the situation worse. What you did not acknowledge is that praying for someone when they don't know appears to have ZERO effect.

Here's a challenge, which I'm sure that everyone will reject, a priori (but maybe not forever; just keep it at the back of your mind for possible future use).

This really isn't about me, personally, but I can use myself as an example. I was a pretty hard core secular agnostic most of my life. But I'm a cancer doctor and a health nut (haven't eaten red meat for 40 years; work out; etc.etc.). I was impressed by the studies indicating a longevity advantage to religion/spirituality with the population equivalent to curing all forms of cancer. I also developed a personal morality problem which was refractory to self-help.

I made the decision to proceed with a "clinical trial." Was it possible for me to develop belief in God, and could I find a religion which would foster said belief, and, if so, would this make a positive difference in my life?

What I did was to pick out three different religions. For the better part of a year, I attended services in each of the three religions. While in each service, I suspended belief, in the same fashion as if I were attending a stage play in which there were audience participation. I did everything that the other people did. When they stood, I stood. When they sang, I sang. When they prayed, I prayed (though not initially sure that anyone was listening). I kept my heart open to everything; I rejected nothing.

At a certain point, I got to feeling that someone out there was listening to me and, later on, that someone out there was engaging in a conversation with me. Why would God do that? Again, for the same sort of reason that I might talk to a cat, if said cat could talk to me. Lots of perfectly logical reasons.

What is the challenge? I didn't understand it. Is it to try religion for a while and see if we get it? Remember most atheists start as theists.

Conversely - try atheism - imagine there is no God - then try to understand what freedom that brings to the mind.

One final thing - in one of your other posts you mentioned belief in atheism. That's belief in non-belief. Its not how it works. Atheism is a lack of belief in a God. It is categorically not the same as Catholicism. I don't "not believe" in Judaism more than I don't "not believe" in Catholicism, Buddhism or the tooth fairy.