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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@UnKnown
1) "How would a test go?" That is just the point. Just because YOU claim that you talked to god doesn't make it true. Even if you believe it to be true.
2) No comment needed.
3) I have PTSD. Courage doesn't come from any god. It comes from yourself! God doesn't cure anxiety or OCD. I doubt you suffer severely unless you are taking drugs for it.
"I have PTSD. Courage doesn't come from any god. It comes from yourself! God doesn't cure anxiety or OCD. I doubt you suffer severely unless you are taking drugs for it."
1. Then thank you for you service.
2. Now I got courage to go out of my comfort zone. I believe God is behind everything, so he was behind that. Now did the prayer have any difference. If I didn't pray, would I still go to those activities, I don't know.
3. I take two tablets daily, and go to three people to help treat me.
4. I asked God to help me with my anxiety and OCD. There have been extreme drops in the occurrence and severity. Now, I know God was behind, but whether the prayer made any difference, I don't know.
Why has no religious group have/has a measurable increase in good fortune over another group, or atheist? Prayer offers zero advantage over those that do not pray, other than "good feelings."
I would not be surprised if people who do not pray tend to lead better lives as a whole, because instead of praying they realize they themselves need to do action to improve their fortune. It is difficult to measure however. Where and who you were born to has such a powerful influence on general life good fortune, it is hard to separate out.
1. "Why has no religious group have/has a measurable increase in good fortune over another group, or atheist? " - Because God hasn't promised to.
2. "other than "good feelings."" - You'd be surprised how much that helps.
3. "I would not be surprised if people who do not pray tend to lead better lives as a whole, because instead of praying they realize they themselves need to do action to improve their fortune." - If any Christian believes that they must do nothing because God will hand it to them on a platter, they are wrong.
4. "It is difficult to measure however. Where and who you were born to has such a powerful influence on general life good fortune, it is hard to separate out." - Although you could point out the fact that poorer places have more religion and richer places have less.
Well dang, all those people that said "I will pray for you" were not really offering to do anything at all to help my situation!
But I knew that already :)
If I had the choice of donating money myself to help someone, or pray to God, donating will have a nigh-certain effect, while praying doesn't. However, if, for some reason you won't/can't, praying is always an option. Sure there is no certainty, but on those rare occasions, it is worth it.
@UnKnown
Prayer doesn't work.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2009/05/15/study-concludes-...
I know the link is to a blog but the references cited are relevant and factual.
Also, prayer could be harmful, especially if people turn to prayer and ignore real medical help. It also promotes false hope instead of confronting the facts.
The biggest problem with prayer is that people try to make it mandatory.
So as a whole prayer is destructive.
I said before that prayers aren't always answered yes to. More often then not, they are denied. But there are other things to take into account. First, prayer only happens if the person praying is a Christian. Another thing is that if the ulterior is if they are being paid to do so. BTW I can't actually load up the survey itself, so I don't know if the people were being paid to do so.
unknown
So only christians can pray? No other religion has prayer?
Non-Christians can pray, but, according to the christian religion, only Christian prayers are answered.
So, I take it we agree, prayer offers nothing over random chance, all it does is make people feel good.
We agree for the most part then.
Question is, other than maybe feeling good, why bother pray? Why do people pray for others? To make themselves feel good while talking to themselves?
1. "So, I take it we agree, prayer offers nothing over random chance, all it does is make people feel good." - Prayers answered yes aren't random chance, just small chance.
2. "why bother pray? Why do people pray for others? To make themselves feel good while talking to themselves?" - We should pray because it humbles us, changes us and to glorify God. Prayer is always asking for things. It is praising and thanking God for what we have.
Apparently small enough chance that it is not statistically measurable. There have been several large studies, I can link them if you want, where they saw no increase in better fortunes from people that pray to different gods or atheist. Large enough studies, that if "god's" small chance thing, it is less than 1% difference above random chance.
1. Yeah can you link me these studies.
2. God never promised, no the "less than 1% difference above random chance." doesn't surprise me.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/opinion/faithbased-medicine.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-02-09-cancer_x.htm
https://www.livescience.com/4882-faith-prayer-kills-children.html
http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2005/07/25/... (behind a paywall, but briefly it is about: "One of the most scientifically rigorous studies yet, published earlier this month, found that the prayers of a distant congregation did not reduce the major complications or death rate in patients hospitalized for heart treatments."
This is just a quick run down to get you started, I am sure I can find the actual journal articles of the studies with a google search. If the above is not enough for you I suppose I can take a few minutes to put that together for you.
Okay, two points about prayer:
1. God is behind everything. If someone is healed/not healed, God is behind.
2. God hasn't promised to do as we ask/pray for (except for forgiveness). Prayer isn't all about asking, it is about praising, thanking and asking for forgiveness.
But you do agree praying for good fortune is pretty much a waste of time, god already has a plan and already going to heal or not heal.
(Obviously never heal missing limbs because that is not subtle enough.)
God's Plan is basically, Armageddon is going to happen at x time, y people will go to heaven, but z people won't. Any prayer that goes against this won't be answered yes to. Anything that doesn't go against this may or may not happen due to the prayer. The answering of prayer you find on Christian sites could have already been planned to happen, but the prayer didn't make it happen (Sorry it's a bit confusing, but you get the gist). God hasn't promised to answer yes to these questions. According to Christianity, it took several years, maybe generations, for prayers to be answered in the book of Judges and other places. Now in response to "But you do agree praying for good fortune is pretty much a waste of time" - Good fortune may take years, it may not be answered 'yes' to, or it may not happen. Most cases the latter.
So apparently, healing amputees (or praying for the healing of amputees) interferes with Armageddon?
@Unknown
"Good fortune may take years, it may not be answered 'yes' to, or it may not happen. Most cases the latter."
So yes, it is mostly a waste of time to pray for good fortune.
Cool, we mostly agree :)
I also say it is a waste to talk to an imaginary guy that is not there as well, but we been over that already.
@unknown - but you likely had the courage inside of you, the entire time. :)
I am not denying that.
Unknown:
I've given my time and treasure for similar purposes over many years without praying, and without believing in god. I do those things because I believe they're right, and because I believe in paying it forward.
" I do those things because I believe they're right, and because I believe in paying it forward." - As any of us should.
Then he's not much help really, is he? Perhaps it's because he's too busy not existing.
You "know" there is a god and it answers prayers?? Cool. Would you mind providing the awesome proof you have that this is true - please??
Then how is he omnibenevolent?
How does him not answering prayers make him omnibenevolent.
That's my question. If he's all good and all powerful, then why doesn't he give us what we want all the time especially for righteous things. Such as the healing of a loved one, at our request?
Because we are not owed the righteous things that we ask God for.
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