MarkB4

Perhaps from your eyes, Julian. But I would think that a site devoted to a belief system that includes secular humanism would have enough respect for another's belief system to not make the statements that many of you do. I am relentlessly hard on those in my faith community that say and do stupid things, especially when it includes stepping on someone elses expression of belief. Of all places where I thought that would be true, I would expect it here. Discussion and debate are fine, but this often seems like a forum for Christian hating.

As to evidence, we don't acknowledge the same data. I have compelling evidence in my life, but being personal you reject that - and I can accept that.

Mark

Pendaric

Tell me, what do you think went wrong with the prayers of the many Christians who died in the tsunami? I'm sure there must have been more than a few who fervently prayed for divine intervention.

When the Pope was dying the prayers of millions were offered for his recovery. His death did not seem to be in any way affected by this. What went wrong?

And I've asked you in a couple of threads - where are the superhuman powers that Christians are supposedly able to demonstrate?

MarkB4

baldbantam - you won't find any superhuman powers here! When I was younger, I was a pretty tough Rugby player, but that's all there is.

Like any request a child might make to you - there is more than one answer; no, yes, later. God is not allowed the same? You have a different view of God's requirement to answer prayer.

I am not a Catholic by the way. The Reformation meant something. People who were fed up with the indulgences, papal decrees and legalism of the Catholic church said no. They were resisted to the point of death by the Catholic Church - Martin Luther himself was pursued. They tried to reform from the inside but the Catholic Church wouldn't. Protetsants continue in conversation, but the things done by the Catholic Church were rejected by the Reformers.

TransverseWave

Hiya. Weak atheist, uncertain metaphysical naturalist, and apostate evangelical here.

I don't say that there's no possibility that a relationship might form, since I don't say I'm certain there's no deity of any sort. But getting results that didn't differ significantly from talking to the wall is one of the things that led me to abandon Christianity.

Came a point when I was praying for relief from temptation, and (as usual) nothing happened; and I said, "Well, it isn't working again," and then followed it up with "Hey, this never works. Ever. There is not one single occasion on which I have been vouchsafed any relief or plainly granted any of the spiritual resources I'm supposed to have available to me that I can remember. I'm always succeeding or failing based on whether I can successfully tough it out or not, or divert my attention, or whatever -- I've never gotten a 'yes.'

"How the blazes can I possibly be asking amiss if what I'm asking for is help not to sin? If I'm supposed to sanctified from above, and incapable of achieving righteousness myself, and if I'm supposed to be relying on the Spirit and not my own human effort -- how could I be getting results like this? Because if I'm not asking in the right way -- if I have to find the right way to plead effectively -- or if I have to force my thoughts into the right channels myself, then it's my actions that determine my success. Then I deserve all the blame when I fail; but, equally, I deserve all the credit when I succeed."

That is to say: I would have to regard my Christian life as a pragmatic failure, and a pragmatic disconfirmation of the truth of Christianity. I might set aside my strictly intellectual objections if the practice of Christianity had been a pragmatic success, figuring that I didn't correctly understand the revelation or something; I can't very well set aside failure at the heart of the Christian walk.

Prayers that whatever deity may exist would reveal itself to me in some way whose credibility doesn't depend on my having faith already likewise go repeatedly unanswered. That doesn't stop me from trying again every so often. It probably never will stop me. But.

In every other part of the world, if I kept calling someone and they never answered the phone, kept writing to them and they never wrote back, kept knocking on their door and they never opened it, I would conclude that they most definitely did not want any kind of a relationship with me.

And the above analogy is flawed in that I know that the party in question exists -- they have a known address that mail doesn't get returned from, and a telephone that isn't disconnected. In fact, my trying to have relationship with the Christian God impresses me as being something like trying to have a relationship with Bigfoot. For all the results I get from prayer, I could be leaving notes in the woods and calling payphones in national parks.

Pendaric

I'm very familiar with the history of Christianity and the Reformation thanks Mark. Still - do you not consider Catholics to be Christians?

I was expecting the 'more than one answer to prayer' response - it's a fairly standard issue dodge when prayer patently fails to have any more effect than random chance would dictate.

Still, these passages still seem to me to be relatively straightforward:

Has no Christian in modern times had sufficient faith to 'do what Jesus had been doing'?

TomboyMom

Could you please explain what you mean by this? Specifically, when you say that prayer "works," how is that different from prayer not working?

btw, I have never met you, and have no way of knowing whether you are a reliable informant. For that reason, it would be much more convincing to provide me with some evidence that I can verify myself, instead of relying on your word. If I say, "Prayer fails, I've seen it," would you believe me? By the same token, I need some evidence I can evaluate independently, rather than taking your word for it.

MarkB4

I gotta get back to work - but balbantam - the context for saying faith to move a mountain was standing in front of Herodium - which is itself an interesting story and worth checking out. Sometimes hitsorical bridges help context.

Worldtraveller

Followed shortly after by:
Smug? Arrogant? I beleive the other word I'm looking for is hypocrit. There's a quote about beams and motes in eyes that I'm sure is applicable here....

So tell me Mark, when Hindus pray to Shiva, are their prayers answered? What about Vishnu? When Muslims pray to Allah, are their prayers answered? Many Catholics pray to Mary, and the various saints (hell, I still have a St. Christopher cross in my car...it was a gift, and I keep it in the intent it was meant.). When they pray to the saints, are their prayers answered?

Also, do me a favor. Write down the last ten (or the next ten if your memory is hazy) things you pray(ed) for. We'll keep track of them for you. To help eliminate and confirmation bias. Also, we should be able to readily determine things that are natural and things that are truly the result of divine intervention.

It should be a fun experiment. Maybe I'll start a new thread....

Cheers,
Lane

Alter

As self-introspection, sure, it works. It's like meditation. And if you want the conscious-you to pray to the conscience-you that you have labeled as "god", while I instead just reflect on the situation and access my conscience directly, well, go for it.

We each have "god" within our brains, it's just an internal compartment for our conscience and our sense of wrong and right. I just treat it as what it is, sympathy for other human beings, instead of giving some other name to it. But it still works fine, and I call on it and reflect on what it says to me. "Do unto others..." is probably the best bible verse there is, for it embodies human altruism, and whether you believe in the bible or not, you have to believe in the sentiment of that passage to be truly human.

EricK

This combined with the fact that scientific studies have shown that there is no overall effect of prayer on outcomes forces you to hold a rather peculiar belief:

To say that prayer works is to say that some individual outcomes are different to what they would have been without prayer. But if this is the case, and if studies can find no overall effect, then God must be altering as many favourable outcomes to unfavourable ones as he is unfavourable outcomes to favourable ones. It is not just saying that God doesn't answer some prayers or answers them with a "no"; it is saying that he deliberately affects some outcomes so that what the person is praying for doesn't happen, whereas it would have happened without prayer. And this is a strange belief to have of a God, IMO.