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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 6:57 am
Well of course prayer studies are invalid. With a being like god you can claim absolutely anything to get you out of trouble. Its a nice and easy way to evade contradictions or problems. But the problem we have now is that praying and your god are un-falsifiable claims and these are utterly useless to science. If you have no way to test for something, if you cannot demonstrate it, then what possible justification can you give for believing in it? Personal experience? Anecdotes? Not good enough.
'The more I learn about people the more I like my dog'- Mark Twain
'You can have all the faith you want in spirits, and the afterlife, and heaven and hell, but when it comes to this world, don't be an idiot. Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to put you through the day, but when it comes time to cross the road, I know you look both ways.' - Dr House
“Young earth creationism is essentially the position that all of modern science, 90% of living scientists and 98% of living biologists, all major university biology departments, every major science journal, the American Academy of Sciences, and every major science organization in the world, are all wrong regarding the origins and development of life….but one particular tribe of uneducated, bronze aged, goat herders got it exactly right.” - Chuck Easttom
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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 7:29 am
(This post was last modified: May 17, 2014 at 7:42 am by Heywood.)
(May 17, 2014 at 6:21 am)BlackMason Wrote: Hang on, not so fast. What if a prayer study s done on people that don't believe in god. An experiment done on people that will indicate their religious affiliations among other information. That can ensure their friends don't pray for them. I'm talking about a study of this nature being done in a country with low religious statistics in their population like Norway and such.
Norway is at peace. People in the United States and in other countries pray for world peace. How do you know that if people weren't paying for world peace, Norway would still be at peace? There is simply no way to have a control group which isn't being prayed for because while people pray for specific people, they also pray for all people in general.
Further you have no way of controlling God's actions. Suppose I pray for my dying father. God is egalitarian and bestows some "grace" on my father but also gives an equal amount to everyone else with the same condition even if they have no one praying for him/her. If prayers offered up for individuals have a benefit for all of humanity....you have no practical way of testing this.....yet prayers would have power and benefit.
(May 17, 2014 at 6:05 am)jesus_wept Wrote: (May 17, 2014 at 5:46 am)Heywood Wrote: I said in post 1, sentence 1 of this thread that I don't believe in the power of prayer.....so why should I want to say they could work?
You said in post one, sentence one that you're not a big believer, which implies that you do believe. It certainly doesn't state you dont believe in prayer.
I would bet that if a person is dying from cancer. Prayers will not change the outcome. I don't believe prayers work. I see no need for God to cure a person from cancer just because someone prayed for that person. I said I am not a big believer....not because I believe....but because I could be wrong. Maybe prayers do help people.....I don't think they do....but I'm not going to go out and say for certain that I know they don't help.
(May 17, 2014 at 6:57 am)Bad Wolf Wrote: Well of course prayer studies are invalid. With a being like god you can claim absolutely anything to get you out of trouble. Its a nice and easy way to evade contradictions or problems. But the problem we have now is that praying and your god are un-falsifiable claims and these are utterly useless to science. If you have no way to test for something, if you cannot demonstrate it, then what possible justification can you give for believing in it? Personal experience? Anecdotes? Not good enough.
I have no problem with your statement provided you are consistent and scoff everytime someone shows you a prayer study. If you take the stance above....and then take the stance that science proves prayer doesn't work.....I'm afraid you're a nincompoop.
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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 7:49 am
(May 17, 2014 at 7:29 am)Heywood Wrote: I have no problem with your statement provided you are consistent and scoff everytime someone shows you a prayer study. If you take the stance above....and then take the stance that science proves prayer doesn't work.....I'm afraid you're a nincompoop.
Haven't you been listening? Under the conditions you're placing on this, we don't need science to prove prayer doesn't work; by your own thinking, prayer is a logically invalid concept.
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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 8:01 am
(May 17, 2014 at 7:49 am)Esquilax Wrote: (May 17, 2014 at 7:29 am)Heywood Wrote: I have no problem with your statement provided you are consistent and scoff everytime someone shows you a prayer study. If you take the stance above....and then take the stance that science proves prayer doesn't work.....I'm afraid you're a nincompoop.
Haven't you been listening? Under the conditions you're placing on this, we don't need science to prove prayer doesn't work; by your own thinking, prayer is a logically invalid concept.
Why is it "logically invalid"?
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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 8:36 am
(May 17, 2014 at 8:01 am)Heywood Wrote: (May 17, 2014 at 7:49 am)Esquilax Wrote: Haven't you been listening? Under the conditions you're placing on this, we don't need science to prove prayer doesn't work; by your own thinking, prayer is a logically invalid concept.
Why is it "logically invalid"?
Because it's unfalsifiable: you prayer works? Yay, prayer works! Your prayer doesn't work? Duh, god has his reasons and he didn't want to grant your prayer!
You and a lot of other christians strive to set up situations like this, thinking that they're sure fire, no-lose scenarios for your side, but truthfully you've just broken any hope of keeping your beliefs rationally justifiable. Once again: your moving goalposts aren't anyone else's problem.
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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 9:43 am
(May 17, 2014 at 7:29 am)Heywood Wrote: Further you have no way of controlling God's actions.
Yet, that is precisely what theists do. Theists have no evidence to even support god's existence, yet they control him as though his existence is a fact despite the underwhelming evidence.
(May 17, 2014 at 7:29 am)Heywood Wrote: Suppose I pray for my dying father.
That is what it all boils down to, is it not? Suppose. One must suppose that god exists, for you have no evidence to provide for his existence. If one can suppose something exists without evidence, then one can equally, though more logically, suppose that something does not exist when there is no evidence to support its existence.
You must think me dreadfully dull to continually refer back to proving that god exists, but I refuse to argue anymore in regards to something that has absolutely no proof to support its existence. If you want to debate a subject, I will suggest, not suppose, that you must first prove the subject of your argument exists before infringing upon logic for the sake of an absurd claim.
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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 5:52 pm
(This post was last modified: May 17, 2014 at 5:56 pm by Heywood.)
(May 17, 2014 at 8:36 am)Esquilax Wrote: (May 17, 2014 at 8:01 am)Heywood Wrote: Why is it "logically invalid"?
Because it's unfalsifiable: you prayer works? Yay, prayer works! Your prayer doesn't work? Duh, god has his reasons and he didn't want to grant your prayer!
You and a lot of other christians strive to set up situations like this, thinking that they're sure fire, no-lose scenarios for your side, but truthfully you've just broken any hope of keeping your beliefs rationally justifiable. Once again: your moving goalposts aren't anyone else's problem.
Just because something is un-falsifiable doesn't mean it is logically invalid. You will have to do better.
You are the one changing the goal posts. This thread is about the validity of prayer studies....you want to change it into a thread about whether prayer works or not.
(May 17, 2014 at 9:43 am)Kitanetos Wrote: You must think me dreadfully dull to continually refer back to proving that god exists, but I refuse to argue anymore in regards to something that has absolutely no proof to support its existence. If you want to debate a subject, I will suggest, not suppose, that you must first prove the subject of your argument exists before infringing upon logic for the sake of an absurd claim.
I don't think you dreadfully dull. I think you don't have a counter argument against my argument that shows prayer studies are fatally flawed so you want to talk about God's existence instead.
Look, God's existence has nothing to do with whether or not prayer studies are scientifically sound. They are unsound whether or not God exists.
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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 6:26 pm
(May 16, 2014 at 9:09 pm)Heywood Wrote: I'm not a big believer in the power of prayer for reasons that have nothing to do with the results of prayer studies. That being said, I often hear atheists claim that scientific studies of prayer show that it doesn't work. I cringe that people actually put faith in studies which are obviously fatally flawed. How do you test God? How do you control that variable? You don't, because you can't. Researchers cannot even realistically determine what a "successful" prayer is, since theists determine that after the fact and based on a number of non-testable claims. And if all else fails, theists simply remind us that there are some things science cannot test.
I keep hoping that one of those tests will turn up a result in favor of prayer that is just significant enough to get theists to claim "SEE! THEY PROVED IT SCIENTIFICALLY!!!" Then non-theists can be the ones making the objections to the testing methodology and so on.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 7:06 pm
(May 17, 2014 at 4:57 am)Heywood Wrote: (May 17, 2014 at 4:52 am)jesus_wept Wrote: We don't need any studies to see its bullshit.
Isn't this thread basically just an attempt by you to shift the burden of proof and claim we cannot prove prayers aren't real?
You cannot show with a scientific study that prayer doesn't work. There is no shifting of the burden of proof....there is only the reality of the situation.
Yes, we can. There is no flaw unless you presuppose the existence of a god with the particular attribute of not wanting to be tested.
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Science is not a subject, but a method.
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RE: Prayer Studies
May 17, 2014 at 7:10 pm
(This post was last modified: May 17, 2014 at 7:11 pm by Heywood.)
(May 17, 2014 at 6:26 pm)Tonus Wrote: You don't, because you can't. Researchers cannot even realistically determine what a "successful" prayer is, since theists determine that after the fact and based on a number of non-testable claims. And if all else fails, theists simply remind us that there are some things science cannot test.
I keep hoping that one of those tests will turn up a result in favor of prayer that is just significant enough to get theists to claim "SEE! THEY PROVED IT SCIENTIFICALLY!!!" Then non-theists can be the ones making the objections to the testing methodology and so on.
The only prayer studies I might believe are ones that test first person effects that do not require intercession from God. For instance does praying the roasary increase baroreflex sensitivity(the ability of the body to maintain a constant blood pressure). Any studies which try to test for God, I simply ignore as being unsound.
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