christian looking to understand athiests

[Thumpalumpacus]

Lmmfao, "Don't blame god for natural aging" ... Talk about thoughtless!

[loganonekenobi]

i see that most of you believe what you do because of lack of evidence that there is a God.  Personally i am a christian because of all the evidence ive seen and the ways ive seen him answer prayers.  ive had people come up to me and pray for problems that i was having that i hadnt told anyone.  ive had many prayers awnsered in ways that could only be explained by God.  I also completely understand everyone heres point of view

I see no difference in prayer and rituals to shiva or cuthulu. If you believe strongly enough then it may be possible to change reality with will alone.
Of course you cant put this in a lab so i would never say "look its real" in the same way that christians do.
However i too have seen rituals done and prayers answered. May be its a power that humans have had all along.
The problem arises when the human does not have the confidence in him/her self to affect reality. This I feel is due to religion saying "you are nothing with out our god".
My point is that it may have worked for you because you truly believe but it would be the same for a devoute hindu or muslem or wiccan.

[Jenny A]

i see that most of you believe what you do because of lack of evidence that there is a God.  Personally i am a christian because of all the evidence ive seen and the ways ive seen him answer prayers.  ive had people come up to me and pray for problems that i was having that i hadnt told anyone.  ive had many prayers awnsered in ways that could only be explained by God.  I also completely understand everyone heres point of view

I see no difference in prayer and rituals to shiva or cuthulu.  If you believe strongly enough then it may be possible to change reality with will alone.
Of course you cant put this in a lab so i would never say "look its real" in the same way that christians do.
However i too have seen rituals done and prayers answered.  May be its a power that humans have had all along.
The problem arises when the human does not have the confidence in him/her self to affect reality.  This I feel is due to religion saying "you are nothing with out our god".
My point is that it may have worked for you because you truly believe but it would be the same for a devoute  hindu or muslem or wiccan.

Wow.  If you can change reality through will alone, I'd sure like to see some evidence of it.  Ought to be easily testable if it's true.

[robvalue]

I'm very sorry to hear you went through that Logan

[loganonekenobi]

I see no difference in prayer and rituals to shiva or cuthulu.  If you believe strongly enough then it may be possible to change reality with will alone.
Of course you cant put this in a lab so i would never say "look its real" in the same way that christians do.
However i too have seen rituals done and prayers answered.  May be its a power that humans have had all along.
The problem arises when the human does not have the confidence in him/her self to affect reality.  This I feel is due to religion saying "you are nothing with out our god".
My point is that it may have worked for you because you truly believe but it would be the same for a devoute  hindu or muslem or wiccan.

Wow.  If you can change reality through will alone, I'd sure like to see some evidence of it.  Ought to be easily testable if it's true.

The problem is that once a person is under the microscope they know it and so doesn't work. Science says something about the act of observation it self can change the outcome of an experiment. This is why we can see it from time to time but can't really test it.

[Cato]

The problem is that once a person is under the microscope they know it and so doesn't work.  Science says something about the act of observation it self can change the outcome of an experiment.  This is why we can see it from time to time but can't really test it.

It's a big stretch to go from observer based wave function collapse in a QM double slit experiment and "If you believe strongly enough then it may be possible to change reality with will alone." Not to mention that 'observer' doesn't necessarily entail consciousness. I recommend caution with this reasoning as it comes across as dangerously close to a Chopraesque interpretation of QM.

[SteelCurtain]

Would you care to discuss it? I've found that vegetarianism is one of the things Christians fear. It's rebellion against god and is one step short of atheism. You can't love god if you don't eat meat.

Also, how the fuck can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

[Alex K]

Yes. Contrary to what the weird weak quantum theory crowd says, the Heisenberg uncertainty does not in any meaningful way have an impact on everyday relations

[Rhondazvous]

I see no difference in prayer and rituals to shiva or cuthulu.  If you believe strongly enough then it may be possible to change reality with will alone.
Of course you cant put this in a lab so i would never say "look its real" in the same way that christians do.
However i too have seen rituals done and prayers answered.  May be its a power that humans have had all along.
The problem arises when the human does not have the confidence in him/her self to affect reality.  This I feel is due to religion saying "you are nothing with out our god".
My point is that it may have worked for you because you truly believe but it would be the same for a devoute  hindu or muslem or wiccan.

This is the same tactic used in commercial advertising. You’re not good enough. You don’t have what it takes and you never will unless you buy what we’re selling.

[Rhondazvous]

Wow.  If you can change reality through will alone, I'd sure like to see some evidence of it.  Ought to be easily testable if it's true.

The problem is that once a person is under the microscope they know it and so doesn't work.  Science says something about the act of observation it self can change the outcome of an experiment.  This is why we can see it from time to time but can't really test it.

I guess it depends on what kind of reality we're talking about. Social reality does change when the object being observed is aware it is being o observed. But physical reality...I'm not so sure. A watched pot boils at the same rate as an unwatched pot. It just seems that it never does because the mind of the observer is more aware of the passage of time. It's time that's being watched, not the pot.