(January 16, 2014 at 9:47 pm)lweisenthal Wrote: Certitude is poison.
Human consciousness is simply organized bioelectrical energy, contained in a mass of mush the size of a loaf of bread. The universe is mostly dark energy and dark matter. String theory posits 11 dimensions, of which we can perceive only 4. Our own universe may be simply one in a trillion (or infinite) number of universes in the multiverse. Other universes may have different physical laws, with different physical constants, not allowing the formation of matter, but allowing for the formation of exotic forms of energy.
If the bioelectric energy of the human brain can organize itself into consciousness, then how can we be certain that the dark energy of our universe and/or the exotic energy of other universes cannot do so, also? Imagine the power of the energy (dark or otherwise) of an entire universe, organized into sentience. It's staggering.
Why think in this way? Good peer review medical research shows that spiritual and religious people are happier and actually live longer than atheists -- an average of two years longer, which would be the population effect of curing all forms of cancer.
How could prayer work, assuming, just for sake of argument, that a universal sentience (let's call it "God") really does exist? Pretty simple; you've seen the MRI images of the human brain, when it is thinking different types of thoughts. One day, I'm sure that we'll have a machine which can translate MRI (and externally monitored EEG and who knows what other sorts of imaging) signals into language. A sentient dark energy, permeating every atom of the universe, would have no trouble doing far more.
Does "God" answer prayers? The evidence is, of course, inconclusive. God may not grant world peace or even cure medical illnesses (much less help Olympic athletes win medals), but virtually every believer has enough personal evidence to convince said believer that "God" helps in the areas of personal courage, comfort, resilience, conviction, morality, and so on.
Religion, like a 9 mm semi-automatic firearm or an SUV or even an iPad can certainly be misused. But a "good" religion, properly "applied" is an unambiguous blessing to those so blessed. This need have nothing at all to do with the Bible, heaven, hell, Satan, Mary, Muhammed, or Jesus. Religion basically comes down to rejecting smug certitude in favor of personal curiosity and finding, for oneself, whether it's possible to believe in God and to find a way to communicate with God, which is meaningful to the individual in question.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Actually - the evidence that prayers are answered is quite convincing. THERE has never been a true scientific study - using a statistically large enough sample to have validity - and published in a peer reviewed scientific journal - that even implies that prayer has ANY effect beyond that of chance. It makes no difference who or what you pray to - the results are always similar.
AS far as your claim as to how a god helps - again - it seems that these are things that INDIVIDUALS claim - for which they can offer NO direct evidence of. Morals and ethics are nice claims but there is NO evidence that people who believe in spooks are any more moral or ethical - than those who do not.
AS far as those studies of who lives longer - they have an obvious medical problem - they do not ELIMINATE other reasons why first. WHEN you only look at the group as a whole - you fail to consider other reasons why some people live longer than others.
There is ANOTHER problem -
IF you could show that those of ONE religion specifically lived measurably LONGER than people of other religions - when YOU eliminate other factors - that would be something worthwhile. However - no one has done that as well. IF a specific god existed - and all the others were false - then one would expect a MAJOR OBVIOUS difference between the groups - but no such thing exists.
