SRB

So is it your view that if we took truth serum and lie detectors to the churches, mosques and synagogues of the world, and interrogated the professed believers, we would amazingly find that the people there do not really believe what they say they believe: that prayer works?

Do you think that religious people ever pray in private? If so, why would they do such a thing if they don't believe it works?

I was once religious and I really thought that prayer works. How do you explain that? Was I a rare exception? Or do you suspect that I am still lying?

Does this conspiracy go further: beyond beliefs about prayer? For example, billions of people around the world claim that they believe that a higher power rules the universe and influences human affairs (i.e. God). Would you say that those people are truthfully reporting what they believe? Or are they also dishonestly telling lies about what they believe?

SRB

Amie

No No No Dearest Ronin there is no lack of confidence in myself, I face reality everyday. I pray but I dont sit in my room and expect things to just happen for themselves, I still have to do my part.
There were times in my life where I prayed out of desperation but that is not the norm for my time spent in prayer.

Ronin I am going to have to ask you to alter your posts so that they conform to my egotistical, self righteous, superior way of thinking. Thank you for your cooperation on this matter

Amie

Hi SRB
How are you?
I read how you were at one time religious and you believed that prayer worked. What was it about prayers that brought you to that conclusion at the time? was it something you were taught or was it something you yourself experienced? And after you became an atheist of course you thought differently but what do you attribute your thoughts of prayers working at the time you were a believer? simply your faith and nothing else?

philechat

I made a similar point before in the same thread. However, there seemed to be some logical flaws (as bg-from-kg pointed out). I am still working out some theories that may overcome this flaw, and finding a more accurate description on the (possible) incompatibility of God's omnibenevolence/omniscience and the problem of prayer.

"If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers?"
(taken from Shelley's essay on the topic)

Tercel

Hi bd-from-kg,

Do you agree with everything Swartz says?
I think he makes some very good points initially. But then when he says halfway down page 3: "My own view is that the error occurs in premise 2 of Argument #1. I will argue (below) that it is false that causal determinism makes free will nonexistent." he and I part company from then on, and IMO the rest of his discussion is largely without merit. Contrary to him I hold the position that Physical Determinism is inconsistent with Free Will.
I'm curious to know what you think.

Reference:
Norman Swartz’s Lecture Notes on Free Will and Determinism

diana

It's a little clearer. Still not crystal. But...this is one of those things I'll obviously have to have explained to me be several different people with several different examples before it "clicks."

bd-from-kg,

A and B both look like they're saying the same thing to me. But I kinda get Clutch's last sentence as the crux of my problem.

Thanks,

d

Ptarmigan

Think of prayer as bunch of mail or faxes being awaited to being read and respond.

7thangel

Not really, simply because God knows and I don't.

Prayer, in the Bible, simply means to ask. If I know what would really happen why should I ask indeed. That simply mean that my though are not God's thought.

Another meaning of prayer, as like when the bible says "pray without ceasing," is to put into life the hopefulness.

Paul said we are saved by hope, so it is just right to ecourage our brethren to live in hopefulness. Our salvation is about eternal life, unless we expereince that eternal life, or in the state of living eternally, we are still hoping. So we pray without ceasing.

Or should we live in fear? that will be stupid, right?

7thangel

Let me give you another one:

Good and evil existed so that you can have knowledge of good and evil. You can watch what good christian does, so you will know what a good christian is. But you can also see in yourself that you'll never learn anything from them. Because you are not a good christian. Or, you can know that God did not predestined you to be a good christian. Or you may not realize at all.

lunachick

Errr, what does good christian do? Are only christians good people; or can, say, a muslim or a buddhist or an atheist be a good person, too? And what about the role of prayer in all this? Hint: any benefit from prayer is purely psychological - nothing more.