<object height="350" width="425">this is how prayer "works" <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jk6ILZAaAMI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"></object>
there is a topic about this particular video already i believe. on both occasions i havent even attempted to watch all of it, for two reasons: 1. the man speaking sounds like he desperately needs a kleenex. 2. im fully convinced that prayer is certainly not an illusion (in most cases). let me elaborate. yes there most certainly things that i pray for which are answered through natural events (without any Godly interference). but the majority of my prayers that are answered is the direct result of God. now, there are some Christians who pray for ridiculous things, such as: "i pray i get an A on my test." or, "i pray it doesnt snow tomorrow so i will be able to take scruffy for a walk." this is not the way prayer works, and is not a realistic representation. people mostly pray for things such as the desire to do God's will, be more righteous, humble, and holy in the eyes of God, for example. the argument of this video is horrendously flawed.
First off Christianity.com is nothing more than a website, It's not like it represents any whole or generality of the Religion... Personally I've never even heard of the claim that "Yes" "No" and "Wait" is how God answers prayers, and I've been a Christian all my life. The video only has some validity toward that claim but nothing more...what do you say concerning the people who have said that they have been told answers to personal questions or situations given by a dead relative that visited them in a dream? this video is laughable and relies on biased faulty logic notice the websites plug-ins at the end. This was prolly made more as a promotional stunt than anything...how exactly do you test the 'effectiveness' of prayer? that's like testing the effectiveness of pursuing positiveness for good karma. And how can a study be done on the healing methods of humans when we know it is fact that we have no healing attributes? The people that knew that people were praying for them did worse?? first of all, what does one consider worse? and that could be coincidence as well...also what if most were skeptic and not religious at all? the "scientific study" fails to mention that. Unless you "tested" every single individual that prays and doesn't, you can't claim that prayer doesn't have any effect on events or that every successful one is just coincidence... I'm not arguing that prayer can accomplish things, but this video doesn't prove anything and is a joke. it implies that Christians deny and denounce science. Lets look at the name of the one site WhyWontGodHealAmputes.com These people are more convinced that a omnipotent God that doesn't heal people and what not doesn't exist more than the probability of an actual God existing. Which I consider to be just as as biased as claiming the religious are biased in their arguments.
Ad hominem Argument from ignorance, incredulity, belief, conviction... Me, personally? I laugh at superstitious fools. Ad Hominem and an Appeal to motive in one sentence. Most impressive. In the sense that it's testing asinine faithful beliefs, I agree. If you really want to learn more about the study, I would recomend Google. What I wouldn't recomend is making unfounded claims about the validity of the study based on the mind-bogglingly little information you learned about it in this video. One more Ad Hominem attack and Appeal to Motive to close the post out. Brilliant work! You believe you are an intellectual. In reality you are at best a master of Logical Fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies As for the video... it hit the nail on the head.
those are your two reasons? awfully shallow it seems, but i'm not one to judge anybody. the video was laid out like a training video you'd find at work. straight to the point. gave you all the info you needed to know, and nothing more. what i think, is that you haven't watched all the video because every time you start it, you get angry because the thought of being lied to your whole life is just too much.
The only problem I see with it, is that he says it's an illusion just because of what we observe about it and how we can compare it to something else. If the forces behind it cannot be observed and nothing can compare to it, then he can only make a general observation; and not a factual statement like he was making. It looks like an illusion would have been logically correct, but all it is (Perpetual Burn you'll get this one) is arguement from incredulity if he forms a statement from a factual basis and acts like it is logical and reasonable others believe it exactly the way he does. Coincidence could be God, so he just might not see it the way others do, which is very normal. However, acting like it's smart to see that God is imaginary, in those words, is only speaking from authority he doesn't really have or appealing to the authority of science which really doesn't make this completely clear. I understand their frustration with not being able to prove what isn't there, but that doesn't mean they should take it out on others in this way.
Preyer doesn't work. Period. Name me ONE thing you've prayed for that could ONLY have been accomplished by divine intervention. You can't do it. No matter how hard you try, there will always be a possible, earthly, answer for why your "prayer" came true.
Those "possible, earthly answers" could all be divine intervention as well. The milk jug could be God- It's just an argument from personal incredulity, he doesn't accept some people believe coincidence is God. If he's talking about just Christians than I can't really interject, but it was a blanket statement. If he said "prayer can appear as an illusion", that would be fine. But "prayer IS an illusion"? Sorry, everything may be an illusion... Just because that is true doesn't mean 'something' divine isn't behind it all. Some prefer to place a personification on it is all. That's OK, until they say you are going to hell if you don't believe it though I guess. LOL
I suppose you could say he's appealing to an authority figure... An authority figure being any intelligent human (all of us,) that bases it's knowledge of this world on proof and facts. He then proceeded to prove how prayer is no more effective to a God than a jug of milk. It is only by having a religious predisposition that this is challenging any set of belief system one may have. He only proved how prayer is not really an optical illusion, but rather a delusion... which is the underlying message. Which of course, only scares the blindly faithful. In what way? This guy sounded about as nice and comforting as humanly possible. Seriously, if he was any less attacking on belief in prayer (Religion,) he couldn't have made the video. I think this video serves a good purpose on a few levels. On the very unlikely chance that a blind believer will open their minds up a degree of Agnosticism. On the more likely chance that an Agnostic faithful become fully blown Agnostic. On even more likely chance that an Agnostic would become an Atheist. And on the very likely chance that a full blown Atheist could become Anti-Theist. If that offends you. Good. It's time that you start acknowledging that science, facts, logic, and reason or going to rule this World soon enough. Evolve or die. And I am not saying that anyone is going to have to be killed in this death... for it is simply the death of an ideology. An ideology that is dying based on Science more often than not in spite of "God."
Way to look like you don't give a fuck about freedom of thought... It doesn't offend me, it's just not as 'factual' as it leads on to be. It's opinionated. He can think what he wants, but trying to use logic on something that is not logical isn't going to prove anything but that he really feels that way. Coincidence could be God. All he proved is that it can be viewed as an illusion; nothing more. In fact, he doesn't even have the chance to prove it, because what he is trying to prove is irrational. But they can keep on tryin, just like how people of faith do... It's the same exact story- they hope to convert another to their side. ORLY? Someone so skilled at picking out fallacies shouldn't use them. Arguement from authority... No truth in that at all logically speaking- prove it? To me, you sound like someone who preaches about God... Only you preach about a lack of one...
No, ad hom is specifically addressing a person rather than their argument. ' Christianity.com is nothing more than a website, It's not like it represents any whole or generality of the Religion' is a completely valid statement, not an ad hom. In fact, it's most likely accurate. An ad hom would look more like: 'The author of christianity.com is a moron imbecile half-wit, don't listen to him.' Got any evidence to the contrary? Ah, now there's an ad hom. Christians who pray and believe that some prayers may be answered are superstitious fools, got it. Ad hom? Right.. here's studies where prayer was found to have positive net effects: http://gerontologist.gerontologyjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/38/5/591 http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/6/867 \t<meta http-equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 2.2 (Linux)"><meta name="AUTHOR" content="reid"><meta name="CREATED" content="20070911;18465800"><meta name="CHANGED" content="16010101;0"> \t \t \t \t \t \t<style type="text/css"> \t \t</style> Wirth, \tDP. The significance of belief and expectancy within the spiritual \thealing encounter. Soc \tSci Med \t1995;41(2):249-260. \t Wirth, \tDP. Complementary healing intervention and dermal wound \treepithelialization: An overview. Int \tJ Psychosomatics \t1995;42:48-53. \t that's just a handful, I did not conduct a thorough review. Nor did the video author either apparently, he cited newspapers, instead of peer reviewed journals. Also, the video maker doesn't know what an optical illusion is, this is definitely not one of them. In fact, the whole video is just begging the question: god=jug of milk jug of milk doesn't answer your prayers therefore, god doesn't answer your prayers. (which relies on god=jug of milk) Also regarding science studying the effectiveness of prayer, it is still very much an open question. We could simply be praying to the wrong god, duh. This installment of 'Fisking gone wrong' is concluded.
/end thread I don't have too much to add except I'm not referring to the superstitious, read it again. I'm talking about the people who receive information from what they claim was a dead relative who 'visited' them in a dream. How can they be delusional or mental when they have no way of possessing the information other than outside influences? basically that translated to: you yourself have no clue either. Claiming those biased studies "scientific" is like me claiming my cat is a lamp. Also how can information be both mind boggling and little? It's sad you feel the need to personally attack my points just because i bashed your ziegeist movie which you constantly use as a structure to support your ridiculous claims and pathetic arguments. It's pretty childish, so is the neg rep you gave me for no legitimate reason. You claim that Christians get their arguments from the fairy tales of the Bible, yet you basically worship your biased zeitgeist propaganda-like documentary, you're nothing but a hypocrite. And if you're going to throw some wikipedia terms at me in place of an argument at least read the terms you're using Whether effective or not, what's the harm in prayer? does one have anything to lose in attempting it?
I saw that stupid video before too, it was on this "50 reason why God isn't real" website. All of his arguments are nonsense, and this one is too. You don't pray to prove that God exists. You pray already knowing that God exists. God makes things happen through natural events, and also works in people to do his will whether they like it or not. If you're praying to prove that God exists, then you've started from a faulty premise to begin with. Recognition of God starts with the recognition of his eternal nature which he has given us knoledge of in our hearts. It's just nonsense and really scurrious, the video noverbally tries to brainwash you into believing that prayer to God is the same as praying to a milkjug. Of course the milkjug can't do anything, it's a milkjug. But God can do a whole lot.
<object width="425" height="353"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TsvEkPNitdQ"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TsvEkPNitdQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="353"></embed></object> ^ though i just pasted this to accompany another thread i just made... i like it so much and thought it relevent to this thread too, so viola. although, on reflection, this is probably more appropriate considering the rest of the content. <object width="425" height="353"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fDp7pkEcJVQ"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fDp7pkEcJVQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="353"></embed></object> rather disgusting, this perversion of truth, that this thing called "god" is this seperate fella who is there to be begged to for the bestowel of gifts and pleaded with and pandered to lest you suffer its wrath. some would call it blasphemous, to consider yourself as seperate from the great everything. ach, who knows eh. maybe Brahma literally is a bloke in the clouds.
All "information" learned in a dream is purely created by the interworkings of the brain... not "outside influences." I said mind bogglingly little. It was/is a grammatically correct English sentence. I do not worship Zeitgeist The Movie. I do net even remotely base my ideologies on Religion, God or anything on that movie. It's simply a fire starter. What it seems, to me anyway, that religious people tend to do is think that when people base their lack of belief in something on certain information, that they believe or "worship" that information. A prime example of this would be calling Evolutionists Darwinists... nobody worships or "believes" in Darwin in the way that modern Christians worship Christ (well, I suppose some do but not the majority.)For now, in an Evolutionary sense, Darwin is ancient history. It's not prayer that's the problem. It's Religion. It's only through social stigma that prayer has become so widely considered a religious act. In reality, prayer is simply hope with a direction. I'm afraid that I cannot reply to the rest of your post or the others in this thread. It would simply take too long and be a repeat of my initial reply to you. If anyone seriously needs help in seeing the illogicality in their post, I will help... but you've all got the list of fallacies, now. Apply them.
I thought the video made a good point. I do not think it was begging the question. I do not doubt that prayer might help some sick people, because it is very possible a positive mental state can be a very good thing. God does answer prayer in that way, you either get a yes, a no, or a wait. God's timing and all that jazz. You can pray to anything with the same results, I have tried it, same results... No answers. Praying to be made more humble and becoming humbler does not mean that your prayer was answered, you were probably working towards that goal anyway and thus, naturally, became humbler. It works for all sorts of things. If prayer worked, this world would actually be a better place... Right until the time God unleashed hell upon us all of course.