prayer

Harry Marks · Mon May 23, 2011 11:44 am

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: I think you ARE dismissive, in that when I present you with observations about this you revert to discussing whether prayer influences supernatural powers.

I am vocal towards this facet for a reason. It causes pain and suffering, unintentionally. I don't mean prayer causes pain and suffering. I mean; when technology can help you to a greater extent than placebo, and you instead choose to use prayer to heal, you are making a choice that results in a positive net-sum of suffering. Not you specifically, but various others who pray. To place all your chips on the supernatural(like Harold Camping) is destructive behavior, and I truly wish people wouldn't go so far. You can have all the benefits of prayer without taking it so far that you deny the reality around you. You've since said far more than enough to convince me that you don't take it that far. But the threshold is invisible, and people cross it every day without realizing it.

It appears Stahrwe, at least, is of the opinion that prayer "works" by influencing the Almighty, but since he also says God's mind is already made up, and that we may not get what we want, I rather suspect his views on the subject are all over the map, like scriptural treatment. This may be in part because experience shows Christians quickly that they cannot just ask for anything and get it, so they tend to either stop asking or take a deeper view. Thus it becomes non-instrumental behavior even if they keep telling themselves that it "works" like a medical procedure.

Be that as it may, I agree that a lot of harm is done by this "influencing" view. People actually tell others that they are not cured because they didn't ask with enough faith in their heart, or because they have some sin they are hanging on to. That is just cruel.

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: Yet it is clearly a relationship between all of humanity and each of us, which is as multi-sided as one can get.

I do not understand what you mean by a relationship between all of humanity and each of us. We have things in common, and I love people. But I can't fathom your words.

A relationship with what is ultimately worthwhile, or with our ultimate concern, involves the views of everyone else. We do not hold our values in a vacuum - probably we could not even express them without the social tool of language, and all of the concepts that give them content are social, as are the many and subtle processes of evaluation that go into assigning hierarchy to values. Furthermore the whole process is dynamic, and a view we hold today could be overturned tomorrow by a Seinfeld re-run or a development in Myanmar. Western academia has promoted an individualistic model of values in which we autonomously make decisions based on autonomously arrived-at criteria, but a little reflection shows that matters are much more complex. Our decisions and criteria depend partly on symbolisms and emotional attachments that are culture-bound and even family-bound.

Thus we cannot ask, for example, "What does God want for me?" without bringing in what people we respect think, and why they think it, and what people we do not want to be like think, and why they think it. Ultimate values are thus part of a grand dialogue in which everyone participates a little, and anyone can participate a lot.

I said that life interrogates us. It asks us whether we are doing what we think life is for. But that interrogation has the voice of many others in it, and our answers draw on the voices of many others. The dialogue is, IMHO, what life is for. Guess that's why I'm on here.

stahrwe · Mon May 23, 2011 11:44 am

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: I have shown how logic is too flawed to evaluate God.

Where you exposed your inability to see the difference between the objective referrent and your own belief. We have never used logic to examine god. We've used logic to examine the idea of god, and that is precisely where logic should be used(for the tenth time). There is nothing to establish that god is real. The only thing we have to work with is what people believe. These beliefs can be examined using logic.

In fact, we had a thread which dealt with God's Omipotence. To me that is an attribute of God and logic was employed against God's omnipotence. So, logic has been used on BT to examine God and I have demonstrated that some of the greatest logicians in history have exposed logics flaws. Q.E.D.


	interbane wrote: Back to prayer. I don't have to prove a negative to you. Studies have shown that prayer doesn't work. My question is, why do you believe it does work? If you say it's due to the placebo effect, I'll agree with you. If you say god's plan was to not answer prayers during this experiment, then who is to blame? (no one, including the experimenters) Just as he made it conclusively look as though life on earth evolved. Your god sure doesn't want you to believe in him, it's a good thing you have faith.

The conclusion of the studies I saw were inconclusive. Certainly there are times when the placebo effect is in play. When I know someone is praying for me I feel better, but that is not an aswer to prayer it is a result of a feeling of kinship or association with another person. I did not say it was God's plan not to answer prayer. My point is that God has a plan for everyone based on the world we live in. If we had studied the Bible together we might have come across the story of a king who was told he was to die. He prayed that God would spare his life and God did, but during the extra time he was given the king made some very bad decisions which hurt his country. We must pray expectantly but fully aware that God has a plan and we can be a part of that plav via prayer but we are not in control. Perhaps an example will help. Suppose everytime we prayed for sick person they got well. What would be the outcome of that? 1) Everyone would claim to be a Christian because Christians don't get sick and die? 2) Christians become a huge burden on social security because they live so long? 3) Christians have a hard time explaining salvation to unsaved because their longevity shows unbelievers that Christians avoid death and so must not believe in Heaven? Why not do an experiment where we play poker and pray for people to get specific poker hands?

stahrwe · Mon May 23, 2011 12:04 pm

Harry Marks wrote:

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: I think you ARE dismissive, in that when I present you with observations about this you revert to discussing whether prayer influences supernatural powers.

I am vocal towards this facet for a reason. It causes pain and suffering, unintentionally. I don't mean prayer causes pain and suffering. I mean; when technology can help you to a greater extent than placebo, and you instead choose to use prayer to heal, you are making a choice that results in a positive net-sum of suffering. Not you specifically, but various others who pray. To place all your chips on the supernatural(like Harold Camping) is destructive behavior, and I truly wish people wouldn't go so far. You can have all the benefits of prayer without taking it so far that you deny the reality around you. You've since said far more than enough to convince me that you don't take it that far. But the threshold is invisible, and people cross it every day without realizing it.

It appears Stahrwe, at least, is of the opinion that prayer "works" by influencing the Almighty, but since he also says God's mind is already made up, and that we may not get what we want, I rather suspect his views on the subject are all over the map, like scriptural treatment. This may be in part because experience shows Christians quickly that they cannot just ask for anything and get it, so they tend to either stop asking or take a deeper view. Thus it becomes non-instrumental behavior even if they keep telling themselves that it "works" like a medical procedure.

There is a big difference between praying for a sick person and only praying for a sick person. On the other hand, how many things in life follow the formula: If, then? Not many so why is it unexpected that prayer doesn't either. Perhaps the real problem is that we listen so little to God that we rarely pray. Remember He is involved in the process, so when someone makes up an experiment where people are grouped and prayed for as a 'test' is it any wonder that the results are not positive?


	Harry Marks wrote: Be that as it may, I agree that a lot of harm is done by this "influencing" view. People actually tell others that they are not cured because they didn't ask with enough faith in their heart, or because they have some sin they are hanging on to. That is just cruel.

I agree with this 100% Saying such things, and even thinking such things is the mark of a very immature Christian.

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: Yet it is clearly a relationship between all of humanity and each of us, which is as multi-sided as one can get.

I do not understand what you mean by a relationship between all of humanity and each of us. We have things in common, and I love people. But I can't fathom your words.


	Harry Marks wrote: A relationship with what is ultimately worthwhile, or with our ultimate concern, involves the views of everyone else. We do not hold our values in a vacuum - probably we could not even express them without the social tool of language, and all of the concepts that give them content are social, as are the many and subtle processes of evaluation that go into assigning hierarchy to values. Furthermore the whole process is dynamic, and a view we hold today could be overturned tomorrow by a Seinfeld re-run or a development in Myanmar. Western academia has promoted an individualistic model of values in which we autonomously make decisions based on autonomously arrived-at criteria, but a little reflection shows that matters are much more complex. Our decisions and criteria depend partly on symbolisms and emotional attachments that are culture-bound and even family-bound.

Sorry, but I think you either misunderstand or made this up. I don't know of anyone who makes decisions based on individualistic model of values. We live our lives based on social constraints, under a code of laws, and in the fabric of our communities, friends, and families. All of which affect our decisions and actions. On the otherhand, if you mean that we are not ants, I agree.


	Harry Marks wrote: Thus we cannot ask, for example, "What does God want for me?" without bringing in what people we respect think, and why they think it, and what people we do not want to be like think, and why they think it. Ultimate values are thus part of a grand dialogue in which everyone participates a little, and anyone can participate a lot. I said that life interrogates us. It asks us whether we are doing what we think life is for. But that interrogation has the voice of many others in it, and our answers draw on the voices of many others. The dialogue is, IMHO, what life is for. Guess that's why I'm on here.

Absolutely the question "What does God want for me?" will impact many around us, but that does not have anything to do with the asking and acting. Ask Rachel Saint, or Elisabeth Elliot.

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