Atheists Saying Prayer Is Stupid

[Aloysius]

actually, it makes perfect sense, because each individual case is different. for one thing, there is no way to statistically measure "events prayed for" vs "events not prayed for"; and besides that, the fact that someone is healed by prayer who might not otherwise have been healed will not at all change any statistic. all statistics show is how many people recover from any given illness, they don't show whether that person would have or would not have recovered based on whether they had been prayed for. the given data can be explained either way.

[stevil]

It could be statistically proven.
They could surmise that people belonging to Christian families are more likely to be prayed for thus a higher percentage of these people should get better when compared with people belonging to Atheist families or other religions (I assume you believe that praying to a "false" god will not deliver results)

[Aloysius]

again, while some people may be healed by prayer, it would not produce a statistical difference. take 20 people all with the same illness, say 10 of them are being prayed for and 10 of them are not. of the people prayed for, say 1 person gets better by miracle. it's entirely possible that out of the 10 people not being prayed for that perhaps only 1 would get better or maybe 6 would get better. whether the 1 or 6 get better doesn't have any connection to or effect upon the 1 person who got better by prayer. in theory, out of the 10 people being prayed for, perhaps in addition to the 1 that gets better by miracle, maybe 5 others were going to get better either way, regardless of whether they were prayed for.

so ultimately, one could find that out of those being prayed for 1 is healed and out of those not being prayed for 1 is healed. or out of those not being prayed for 6 are healed and out of those not being prayed for 6 are healed. the same number results, because people who are prayed for are not more or less likely to be healed. who's more likely to be healed? those whom God wishes to be healed. He may wish some people to be healed in cooperation with those praying for that person, ie He wants to heal that person through that person's prayers. He may wish to heal others without such intervention.

people being healed by prayer doesn't affect the statistics because each individual case is unique. and again, that's what one EXPECTS if one insists upon a personal God with a sovereign free will. if one believed in a divine healing force that humans had the power to tap into, one would expect a statistical increase in healing among those it was used upon. but a personal will which may answer supplications would not produce any statistical difference, nor would we expect it to..

Edited October 15, 2011 by Aloysius

[stevil]

I don't agree with you.
If you have a large enough sample size and with all things being equal apart from the prayer, you will find there is no statistical difference between the prayer group and the control group. Prayer offers no measurable advantage.

The results show either:
A - There is no god
B - Even if there is a god, prayers are never answered
C - Answered prayer is rare that it hardly registers with regards to statistical probability
D - The god only answers prayers that are non measurable or in a way that is not measurable (e.g. you can prayer that someone goes to heaven, maybe god answers that, we can't measure it of course)

[KnightofChrist]

God hides His face. Also on earth God blesses the good and the evil and for lack of better terms Christians anonymously pray for any one that is sick or some how harmed. There would be no real way to assure a control group is actually controlled. So I disagree with your disagreement because there could ever be a untainted controlled sample group. At least no way of truly knowing if it was controlled or only seemed that way.

[stevil]

OK, good point. Lets define this as option E

E - Everyone is prayed for and hence there is no-one belonging to a group of people not prayed for.

Here are a couple more options as well:

F - God has full knowledge of the past, present and future. God would ensure that any measurements would give results consistent with random probability and hence give the illusion that prayer is not measurably answered.

G - God doesn't just grant prayer, god exchanges situations, e.g. if a Christian is prayed for to recover from cancer then as a condition of granting this prayer god takes away the recovery of another Christian, this ensures the statistics balance out


The problem with E is that if everyone is prayed for then this makes new prayer redundant.
It also raises many questions about what prayer is and what are the factors involved with regards to whether it gets answered.
- Can prayer be made from one person to cover the entire population of the earth?
- Does prayer need to be personal to the person making the prayer? e.g. can you prayer for a complete stranger?
- Are only prayers that involve everyone eligible for answer, and hence appear statistically consistent across the board regardless of religious demographic?
- does prayer have a time limit? Can you pray for something that has already happened, given that god transcends time, can you pray for something in perpetuity and hence the prayer stays in effect long after you have died?

The problem with F is that god is being deceitful.

The problem with G is that as well as praying that someone lives, you are inadvertently praying that someone dies.

The more I delve into prayer it seems to me that prayer is not well understood. (I certainly don't understand it)
It is not clear what is considered a good prayer or a bad prayer.
It is not clear which prayers get answered whether yes or no and which don't get answered.
It is not clear whether prayer has time constraints
It is not clear whether prayer has personal constraints, e.g. does there need to be an emotional bond between the person making the prayer and the person being prayed for?
It is not clear if the success of a prayer is dependent on the person making the prayer or the person being prayed for
It is not clear why prayer cannot be measured statistically

[Aloysius]

you're talking about prayer like it's magic, like it's some healing force we tap into. it is not, which is why it is not operating the way that you expect it to.

not because of F or G, God's not tinkering with the statistics, the statistics simply show what we would expect: God causeth the rain to fail on the good and the bad, and whoever is healed by prayer cannot be identified distinctly from those who are not healed by prayer. in any given period of time, it may be that every single healing on earth was a result of prayer, or that no healing on earth was a result of prayer.

there is no redundancy in E because again, prayer is not magic.

anyway, we're all talking statistics without, to my knowledge, any actual citations. here's a compilation of a couple studies from some biased website (but it cites its sources) that seems to think prayer does statistically help: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/prayer.html it explains away one study that offered evidence that prayer doesn't offer statistical difference by citing a problem with this: "Unlike in previous studies, the intercessors were not allowed to pray their own prayers. The prayers were given to them by the study coordinators to "standardize" the prayers." while it evaluates that from its own protestant perspective, that one fact simply shows that in the study they were treating prayer like magic, pray some magic formula and see if it is effective or not. obviously it wasn't effective because prayer is not magic.

anyway, the thing being taken for granted, that "prayer doesn't affect statistical outcomes", is not necessarily true. I have explained why I wouldn't even expect it to affect statistical outcomes anyway, because I think it MAY or MAY NOT affect statistical outcomes in any given evaluated situation or study, depending upon the sovereign Free Will of God. one study might find a huge statistical advantage whereas another study might find no statistical advantage whereas another study might find that those prayed for fair out worse than those not prayed for, because each prayer is an individual supplication for an individual case with unique factors and so each unique case is decided uniquely by God. one year 100% of prayers might be answered positively, the next year perhaps 0% of prayers are answered positively, so those prayed for are not "statistically more likely to be healed" because of that sovereign free will with which God answers prayers.

[Papist]

stevil,
Prayer is not synonymous with asking God to grant you a wish, only used when in trouble or hurting. Prayer is a conversation with God. In a conversation there are always an ‘I' and a ‘thou' or ‘you.' In this case the ‘Thou' is with a capital ‘T'. If at first the ‘I' seems to be the most important element in prayer, prayer teaches that the situation is actually different. The 'Thou' is more important, because our prayer begins with God. In prayer, then, the true protagonist is God. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ: to get to know him, love him, and being united to him. We learn what prayer is by reviewing the life of Christ. He taught us how to pray. When Jesus prayed to his Father, he was already teaching us how to pray.

[stevil]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1318861980' post='2322653']
Prayer is not synonymous with asking God to grant you a wish,
[/quote]
I'm just trying to work out what it is and what constraints are associated with it.
Is it possible that many Christians and or Catholics are not aligned with regards to their understanding of prayer?
I'm getting conflicting answers. I assume prayer is an important, almost daily activity for many Christians, so I am surprised there is this much confusion on it.

Your statement "Prayer is a conversation with God" is much more aligned with my current thinking. Of course as an Atheist I see this more as a perceived conversation with God, but that is by the by, I don't want to argue in this thread whether god exists or not.

My current understanding is that the god, as believed by the believers, does not interact with the world in a measurable way. It's interaction is purely in the realm of metaphysical, philosophical. Prayer could potentially risk breaking the barrier between metaphysical and physical hence Atheists, whom like to measure the physical world, have an interest in this.

[kamiller42]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1318404511' post='2320006']
But of course god does not heal people in response to prayer. That could be statistacally measured however there are no studies which suggest that sick people who are prayed for are more likely to heal.
[/quote]
The bigger question is if such a study existed, would you believe it? I suspect most atheists would not because they are not seeking the truth. Nothing short of a pillar of fire and smoke from the sky and speaking in a deep voice will convince many atheists. Their dogma is firmly planted.

[stevil]

[quote name='kamiller42' timestamp='1318887952' post='2322884']
The bigger question is if such a study existed, would you believe it? I suspect most atheists would not because they are not seeking the truth. Nothing short of a pillar of fire and smoke from the sky and speaking in a deep voice will convince many atheists. Their dogma is firmly planted.
[/quote]
Actually, Atheist tend to seek the truth.
That is why we are so interested in science and the scientific method.
If a theory accurately models real world observations and accurately predicts future observations. Then this is seen as a likely candidate for the truth.
Where a theory is unsubstantiated by real world observations then it is not seen as the truth, just merely a theory

[stevil]

[quote name='kamiller42' timestamp='1318887952' post='2322884']
The bigger question is if such a study existed, would you believe it?
[/quote]
If the study exists it would need thorough scrutiny. The study needs to be repeatable with consistent results. It needs to be performed by many people from various world views. The method needs to be scrutinised and the results scrutinised. If the study meets all this and it shows clear benefits for people that are prayed for then how can an Atheist deny it?

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1318891323' post='2322909']
If the study exists it would need thorough scrutiny. The study needs to be repeatable with consistent results. It needs to be performed by many people from various world views. The method needs to be scrutinised and the results scrutinised. If the study meets all this and it shows clear benefits for people that are prayed for then how can an Atheist deny it?
[/quote]

All the disbelievers asked of Christ at the time of his crucifixion was that he save himself and come down from the cross. So they could see and believe. He did not prove himself to them no more than he is likely to prove himself in a prayer exam. If our knowledge of God where like our knowledge that fire is hot and ice is cold, or that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Faith in God would not exist. Everyone would be forced and compelled to believe, freewill would be greatly harmed if not non-existent. Because God did not create a mechanical universe he allows us to say “no”, which gives more power and charm to faith when we freely chose by faith to say “yes” and believe. God gave us power to rebel from him that there would be meaning and honor in our allegiance when we freely choose to believe in him.

[color=#808080][i]note that most of that are words of Bishop Sheen I've recalled by memory.[/i][/color]

Edited October 18, 2011 by KnightofChrist

[Aloysius]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1318891323' post='2322909']
If the study exists it would need thorough scrutiny. The study needs to be repeatable with consistent results. It needs to be performed by many people from various world views. The method needs to be scrutinised and the results scrutinised. If the study meets all this and it shows clear benefits for people that are prayed for then how can an Atheist deny it?
[/quote]
and this is what I'm trying to tell you: no such study would be repeatable. imagine a group of children have determined to do a study on their father, seeking to find out whether their father will give them cookies when asked.

on the first day, all the children that ask receive a cookie. the findings are published in the children's scientific journal, the news spreads to all the children: ask for a cookie, and you'll get a cookie. but there is one skeptical child who demands that the study be repeated. the study is attempted again, but on that day none of the children are allowed to have a cookie. it is noted by the skeptical child that there are also many occasions when some of the children are offered cookies when they hadn't even asked for them!

the children don't understand the complicated reasoning behind why they received a cookie one day, but not on another day. the father was certainly looking out for their well-being, and through many wise reasonings had determined that on the one day a cookie would be good for the children, but due to other circumstances on another day it wasn't good for them. perhaps they were just about to be offered a great meal that day and the Father didn't want to ruin their appetite (perhaps someone who is not healed is just about to be called to the Banquet of Heaven and the Heavenly Father doesn't want them to wait for eternal bliss any longer), perhaps one or the other of the children that asked had been bad that day, or perhaps they asked with the wrong tone (perhaps some people praying for a miracle are seeking to control God as the pagans of old believed they could control their gods and God must teach them humility and not answer their petition positively).

but you are the skeptical child who has published in the Children's scientific journal: "asking father for cookies does not increase likelihood of getting cookies, THERE IS NO DAD!"

if prayer were some healing force to be tapped into, you would see statistical differences among those prayed for vs. those not prayed for. but because it is supplication to a sovereign will, there is not necessarily a statistical advantage to prayer. if you did a hundred studies you'd come up with some that showed more healing among those prayed for and some that showed less healing among those prayed for, because God chooses to heal based upon the specific merits of each petition and the specific needs of each person praying and being prayed for.

Edited October 18, 2011 by Aloysius

[Papist]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1318886164' post='2322869']
Is it possible that many Christians and or Catholics are not aligned with regards to their understanding of prayer?
[/quote]
Absolutely. Sadly, many people only go to prayer when in crisis. But that doesn't invalidate prayer.



[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1318886164' post='2322869']
My current understanding is that the god, as believed by the believers, does not interact with the world in a measurable way. It's interaction is purely in the realm of metaphysical, philosophical. Prayer could potentially risk breaking the barrier between metaphysical and physical hence Atheists, whom like to measure the physical world, have an interest in this.
[/quote]
"measurable". There's the disconnect. Perhaps what you require for prayer to be measurable is not legitimate. Prayer is not a test for God.