Freethought & Rationalism Archive

luvluv · 01-20-2003, 06:56 PM

You're probably the only one who's SEEN Son of Sam.

(I was assuming you were talking about the movie.)

Amergin · 01-20-2003, 07:00 PM

After the American article on the possible effectiveness of prayer was published, and counter article was published in Lancet (UK). Science keeping secrets is ludricous. Science is all about exposing causes not hiding them.

Prayer does work. It works if people know that they are being prayed for as opposed to not knowing that, at least among Americans, the most religious people in the world. But in studies in Europe and a later one in America (I have to search out the reference), when people were randomly selected and none of them told that half of them were being prayed for, there was no significant difference in the outcome of the prayed for versus the not-prayed for groups (actully a slight edge in survival went to the not-prayed for group, but not felt to be satistically signifcant.) When people were told that they were part of an experiment, but not told if they were in the prayed group or the placebo group the results were not statistically different.

Again, I am biased as a Neurologist who has had to watch my patients with bad diseases get worse, and suffer despite their families praying at bedside. This has included far too many children with inoperable brain tumours, MELAS syndome, Werdnig-Hoffman, and glycogen storage diseases. None survived. God must not be able to cure those diseases or listened to none of those crying parent's pleas. He (God) answers some prayers like getting Bubba a winning lotto ticket or Irish Sweepstakes win.

I haven''t even touched on my adult patient population and the numbers (hundreds of thousands) of ineffective prayers rendured.

Prayer's only benefit is a psychological one. Some people who believe in it are more positive and attitude does have a benefit in some curable illnesses. Unfortunately I have too large a population of incurable patients in whom my only aid is to relieve their pain, counter their nausea, stop their seizures, and treat complications like pressure ulcers and urinary infections.

I need some really strong irrefutable evidence that prayer works apart from psychological, or that God does magical cures.

Amergin

Jackalope · 01-20-2003, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ipa68

So, how do you explain this? Maybe the protestant God intercepted my prayers to the "forces of the universe"? Why did he do nothing when I was praying to the catholic one? Just to confuse me perhaps...

Hey, you're in Brazil. Maybe Oshun answered you prayers. She's certainly more likely to answer a prayer for a husband than either of the christian varieties of god.

--Lee

Biff the unclean · 01-20-2003, 09:27 PM

I was assuming you were talking about the movie

No, I'm talking about the serial killer David Berkowitz. Son of Sam was his neighbors dog. Berkowitz heard the dog in his mind. The dog gave him information he said he had no way of otherwise knowing. He claimed that other people couldn't hear the dog because there was something wrong with them.
The two differences I see in your story is you aren't being ordered to kill people,

and there actually was a real dog

I urge you to see your family doctor and confide in him what you've told us here about these messages from God

Jobar · 01-20-2003, 10:04 PM

Biff the unclean, you are not being fair to luvluv IMO. Even if it were true that the delusions Berkowitz suffered were of a similar *type* to what luvluv is saying he experiences- which I do *not* stipulate- the intensity and consequences are so vastly different that your statements are unduly insulting. While it might possibly be fair to mention Berkowitz as an extreme example, you should have taken care to express it in a more civil way.

I feel you owe the man an apology. J.

Jobar · 01-20-2003, 10:25 PM

And, while on the subject of apologies-

So if you are asserting of my truth claim: "God talks to me" that you believe it to be false, you must provide evidence. Particularly if you are going as far as Jobar and diagnosing me, you certainly must provide evidence.

Luvluv, I should have put a strategic "IMO" alongside my statement that the experiences you say are 'from God' are instead from your subconscious.

BUT- I too have had experiences which sound exactly similar to the ones you ascribe to God. "Feelings" that I should slow down before I round a curve, and there in the middle of the road is a deer. "Something tells me" I should avoid a certain person, and it turns out they are a thief. Aha, but I have also awakened in a near panic, *knowing* that my parents have been involved in a car wreck, and find out I'm just trippin'.

And other false premonitions, by the carload.

I recognize my own experiences are consequences of the fact that our minds are like icebergs, and only a small percentage of them show as conscious attention, and the rest is subconscious. There are parts of our brains which have nothing to do with words or conscious attention, but are plenty savvy and aware nonetheless. Left and right brain, conscious, subconscious, unconscious- our minds are enchanted looms, and weave strange cloth.

I may start using a new abbreviation- "IMOVSACO" for 'in my own very strong and certain opinion.'

emur · 01-21-2003, 05:53 AM

Posted by luvluv:

Quote:

Well, I like to think I am at least an amateur apologist now! I would be one for the Christian God.

Yes, the specific argument of religious experience is not really one that can work only for the Christian (though in my view various religious experiences are not all that problematic for the Christian worldview). I would probably never use any argument from religious experience except as a justification of my own faith. I am just defending their veracity, not claiming that others should believe on the basis of them. As I said I think the main point of them is to help the person who already believes. I've got other arguments to use for attempting to persuade people.

Religious experience actually argues against any one particular view of God. Being that you believe you hear from the Christian God, how can you claim that the Hindu hears from the Hindu God and still need to persuade him/her of the Christian God?

If someone of another faith hears from their God, are they really hearing from God or are they deluded (or hearing from the devil and they just think they are hearing from God). And if they are deluded or hearing from the devil, how do you know you are not?

Seems to me that it is disengenious to put so much stock in experiences of hearing God and then get involved in apologetics, which will result in you trying to tell others that they are not hearing God correctly because they don't believe in the Christian God. And then to believe that it was God who told you to be an apologist!

Why does God "speak" to people of different faiths and make himself known to them (which assures them that their view of God is correct), and then send you out to show them that only one view of God is correct (in your view, the Christian God)?

I hope you see the problem with this.

Mel

Clutch · 01-21-2003, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Inference leads me to a rationally justified doubt of their claims, and that is enough.

Mirabile dictu! We've achieved a breakthrough.

Again: I think your claims are false because they are claims about a god intervening in your life, and I believe there are no gods -- at least, not the one you think there is. But the point at issue is whether your personal experience is good evidence for the prospect that a god intervenes in your life. I am rationally justified, for reasons already expressed, in regarding your judgement -- that various events in your life are divinely influenced -- as mistaken, as based on a host of familiar fallacies of personal experience.

As for this little tantrum:

Quote:

Are you one of the one in a million people who keep empirical records of your "event-significance"?

Please!

Do you apply any of this to yourself? Or does being an atheist make you magically give the proper amount of signifigance to all of your beliefs? Could this apply in reverse? Could your atheistic leanings cause you to discount how OFTEN something potentially spiritually significant is happening in your life? How do you know?

Of course I apply this to myself; the odds are very good that I have many, many beliefs that are based on personal experience, significance judgements, memories, and so forth, that would not pass muster if analyzed objectively. Heck, I know the myth of the "hot hand", but I still find myself expecting the guy who's made his last three baskets to make the next one as part of the (non-existent) trend!

But your last question here betrays your misunderstanding of the workings of biased inference. The fact is, people don't have a general and empirically confirmed tendency to read too little significance into events. Yes, it could indeed be the case that I'm systematically overlooking spiritual significance. (Especially since this notion is gloriously ill-defined; maybe when any little thing goes well for me, it's divine, and when things go crap, it's chance.)

But there are no independent reasons to think that I'm disposed to make this kind of mistake, while there are very substantial independent reasons to think that I (like you, and everyone else) am disposed to see random events, trends, regression effects, and suchlike, as having personal significance when they do not. Feel free not to like it, but them's the facts. When you appeal to personal experience, especially on a question of your personal judgement of the significance or special meaning of events, you give nothing that it is rational to regard as evidence.

Biff the unclean · 01-21-2003, 08:56 AM

Yes, admittedly the reference to David Berkowitz is a very harsh one and I do apologize for my insensitivity in making it. And I do hope that Luvluv will except my apology.

However I also hope that he takes my suggestion of seeing his doctor to heart. The inability to recognize ones thoughts as being ones own can be a symptom of several problems. Cloaking it in religious terms makes it no less of a symptom. That it should become the topic of web thread should attest to just how vivid it is.

Baloo · 01-21-2003, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Biff the unclean
Yes, admittedly the reference to David Berkowitz is a very harsh one and I do apologize for my insensitivity in making it. And I do hope that Luvluv will except my apology.

However I also hope that he takes my suggestion of seeing his doctor to heart. The inability to recognize ones thoughts as being ones own can be a symptom of several problems. Cloaking it in religious terms makes it no less of a symptom. That it should become the topic of web thread should attest to just how vivid it is.

Personally, I find the story of Abraham to be amongst the most horrific in the bible... to think that a man would be exemplified for hearing a voice in his head, attributing it to his deity, and unquestionable following its direction to stab his own child to death... sick, just sick.

Fortunately, we live in a modern society where nobody takes that kind of crap seriously.

Luvluv, do you understand how your insistence on interpretting any particular impulsive thought that flashes across your mind as a message from an omniscient deity to whom you swear undying obedience might make others around you a bit nervous?

01-20-2003, 07:00 PM	#82
Amergin Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Tir na nOg Posts: 37	Effectiveness of Prayer After the American article on the possible effectiveness of prayer was published, and counter article was published in Lancet (UK). Science keeping secrets is ludricous. Science is all about exposing causes not hiding them. Prayer does work. It works if people know that they are being prayed for as opposed to not knowing that, at least among Americans, the most religious people in the world. But in studies in Europe and a later one in America (I have to search out the reference), when people were randomly selected and none of them told that half of them were being prayed for, there was no significant difference in the outcome of the prayed for versus the not-prayed for groups (actully a slight edge in survival went to the not-prayed for group, but not felt to be satistically signifcant.) When people were told that they were part of an experiment, but not told if they were in the prayed group or the placebo group the results were not statistically different. Again, I am biased as a Neurologist who has had to watch my patients with bad diseases get worse, and suffer despite their families praying at bedside. This has included far too many children with inoperable brain tumours, MELAS syndome, Werdnig-Hoffman, and glycogen storage diseases. None survived. God must not be able to cure those diseases or listened to none of those crying parent's pleas. He (God) answers some prayers like getting Bubba a winning lotto ticket or Irish Sweepstakes win. I haven''t even touched on my adult patient population and the numbers (hundreds of thousands) of ineffective prayers rendured. Prayer's only benefit is a psychological one. Some people who believe in it are more positive and attitude does have a benefit in some curable illnesses. Unfortunately I have too large a population of incurable patients in whom my only aid is to relieve their pain, counter their nausea, stop their seizures, and treat complications like pressure ulcers and urinary infections. I need some really strong irrefutable evidence that prayer works apart from psychological, or that God does magical cures. Amergin

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01-20-2003, 06:56 PM	#81
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	You're probably the only one who's SEEN Son of Sam. (I was assuming you were talking about the movie.)

01-20-2003, 09:27 PM	#84
Biff the unclean Banned Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: an inaccessible island fortress Posts: 10,638	I was assuming you were talking about the movie No, I'm talking about the serial killer David Berkowitz. Son of Sam was his neighbors dog. Berkowitz heard the dog in his mind. The dog gave him information he said he had no way of otherwise knowing. He claimed that other people couldn't hear the dog because there was something wrong with them. The two differences I see in your story is you aren't being ordered to kill people, and there actually was a real dog I urge you to see your family doctor and confide in him what you've told us here about these messages from God

01-20-2003, 10:04 PM	#85
Jobar Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: secularcafe.org Posts: 9,525	Biff the unclean, you are not being fair to luvluv IMO. Even if it were true that the delusions Berkowitz suffered were of a similar type to what luvluv is saying he experiences- which I do not stipulate- the intensity and consequences are so vastly different that your statements are unduly insulting. While it might possibly be fair to mention Berkowitz as an extreme example, you should have taken care to express it in a more civil way. I feel you owe the man an apology. J.

01-20-2003, 10:25 PM	#86
Jobar Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: secularcafe.org Posts: 9,525	And, while on the subject of apologies- So if you are asserting of my truth claim: "God talks to me" that you believe it to be false, you must provide evidence. Particularly if you are going as far as Jobar and diagnosing me, you certainly must provide evidence. Luvluv, I should have put a strategic "IMO" alongside my statement that the experiences you say are 'from God' are instead from your subconscious. BUT- I too have had experiences which sound exactly similar to the ones you ascribe to God. "Feelings" that I should slow down before I round a curve, and there in the middle of the road is a deer. "Something tells me" I should avoid a certain person, and it turns out they are a thief. Aha, but I have also awakened in a near panic, knowing that my parents have been involved in a car wreck, and find out I'm just trippin'. And other false premonitions, by the carload. I recognize my own experiences are consequences of the fact that our minds are like icebergs, and only a small percentage of them show as conscious attention, and the rest is subconscious. There are parts of our brains which have nothing to do with words or conscious attention, but are plenty savvy and aware nonetheless. Left and right brain, conscious, subconscious, unconscious- our minds are enchanted looms, and weave strange cloth. I may start using a new abbreviation- "IMOVSACO" for 'in my own very strong and certain opinion.'

01-21-2003, 08:56 AM	#89
Biff the unclean Banned Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: an inaccessible island fortress Posts: 10,638	Yes, admittedly the reference to David Berkowitz is a very harsh one and I do apologize for my insensitivity in making it. And I do hope that Luvluv will except my apology. However I also hope that he takes my suggestion of seeing his doctor to heart. The inability to recognize ones thoughts as being ones own can be a symptom of several problems. Cloaking it in religious terms makes it no less of a symptom. That it should become the topic of web thread should attest to just how vivid it is.

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