Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?

[Wildswanderer]

I agree that the "free will" we experience is guided to a degree by a whole raft of elements, including genetics, environment, culture, expectation, etc. Not sure why this state of affairs is so impossible. It seems to be the way things actually work.

Ironically, this is the state of affairs under an infallibly omniscient god who determines our destiny by his will and decree.

So you don't actually believe free will exists.

 

[Sheldon]

If someone didn't inspire writers for 2,000 years to build this image then it was extraordinary amount of co-incidence.

Like the Iliad and the legends of Hercules. This doesn't make them true of course.

 

[Polymath257]

It is in your world where those laws came about through chance.

No, the laws do not come about through chance. They simply exist. They are not caused.

 

[Sheldon]

It is in your world where those laws came about through chance.

The laws of physics are man made, they are our attempt to understand how the material universe works, they are therefore descriptive, not prescriptive. Creationists often make this basic error in reasoning.

 

[Sheldon]

You are claiming that the current Bible is true because it is popular and the omitted gospels are fake because they are not. That is a classic fallacy. To the unbiased observer, all the gospels sound unlikely and display all the hallmarks of ancient mythology. It is just confirmation bias that makes you think one set is reasonable while the others are not.

Precisely correct, orthodoxy has generally been established by violence, bloodshed, and murder, and appealing to popularity, is the definition of an argumentum ad populum fallacy.

I am reminded of this from the late Christopher Hitchens, which sums it up pretty accurately:

"Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

Orthodoxy isn't about a reliable method of substantiating the authenticity of texts, throughout the history of Christianity heresy was not reasoned away, it was persecuted with the torture chambers of the Inquisition, and burned at the stake.

 

[Polymath257]

I presented to you a human centered universe, as people once thought it was.
Any evidence that it human centric? No.
Any evidence that the universe is NOT human centered? No.

Yes, absolutely. We live on a small planet orbiting a small and ordinary star in one out of hundreds of billions of galaxies. There is nothing pointing to us being anywhere close to the center.

The one thing we HAVE figure out is that yes, humans ARE the center of the universe and the sun DOES go around us,
only it's not just 'us' but YOU. That's relativity.

Um, no it isn't. Since we are not in an inertial frame, the non-inertial frame at which we are at rest has limited extent. In fact, it breaks down within our solar system.

 

[Polymath257]

We should use faith for a relationship with God, where we prove things for ourselves as individuals.
Anyone wanting faith to cause it to rain is missing the point of faith.
If the universe is HERE NOW then there must have been a point WHEN IT WASN'T HERE. But WHY did it appear?

All sorts of assumptions there that are known to be faulty.

Why *must* there have been a 'point' *when* it wasn't 'here'?

Your question is littered with space time words, and space time is *part of the universe*.

In other words, whenever there is space or time, the universe exists.

 

[Sheldon]

Firstly, most people do not think that god has spoken to them. They simply follow a cultural tradition.
Second, that's just another ad pop fallacy. It is irrelevant how many people suffer delusions - they are still delusions.

It is as you say a bare appeal to numbers, what's worse, Christians are not in the majority, he's misrepresented this fact, as so many apologists do, when they conflate wildly different theistic beliefs in very different deities and religions, as an homogenous group or belief. When of course they palpably are not. There are only 2.38 billion Christians from a global population of almost 8 billion, and then there is the fact that Christianity has around 45k different sects and denominations globally, so again whichever one @Wildswanderer belongs to, his belief is nowhere near a majority.

 

[PruePhillip]

Yes, absolutely. We live on a small planet orbiting a small and ordinary star in one out of hundreds of billions of galaxies. There is nothing pointing to us being anywhere close to the center.



Um, no it isn't. Since we are not in an inertial frame, the non-inertial frame at which we are at rest has limited extent. In fact, it breaks down within our solar system.

YOU, the observer, are at the center of the universe. Not the sun, not your neighbor, not your cat - you.
Many Christians ASSUMED the bible told them they were the center of the universe, but Copernicus
upset that notion. No matter - there is no 'real' center without an observer.
It could be that whole universes exist for a single observer. Remember the rule, the universe is weirder
than you CAN think. Be humble about that - like the bible says.

 

[Polymath257]

Maybe your problem is that you deny that the spiritual realm is just as real as the physical realm.

What makes that a problem when there is no evidence of a spirit realm at all?

 

[Polymath257]

It's boring in my experience. We are so much more than our bodies.

Fantasies are often more fun than reality. That doesn't make them true.

 

[Sheldon]

It's boring in my experience. We are so much more than our bodies.

Your lack of imagination aside, that has not been my experience, nor is it supported by any atheist I have spoken to. The last sentence is a straw man of course, you seem to love these irrational fallacies in informal logic.

 

[Polymath257]

So you don't actually believe free will exists.

I need a clear definition of the term 'free will'.

 

[PruePhillip]

All sorts of assumptions there that are known to be faulty.

Why *must* there have been a 'point' *when* it wasn't 'here'?

Your question is littered with space time words, and space time is *part of the universe*.

In other words, whenever there is space or time, the universe exists.

I must ponder this, "Your question is littered with space time words"
Kind of neat...
Space time is part of the universe, or creation if you like.
Things popping up in space time, like alternate universes, are still a 'part' of everything we know.
What lay BEFORE all this is another matter.

 

[Polymath257]

YOU, the observer, are at the center of the universe. Not the sun, not your neighbor, not your cat - you.
Many Christians ASSUMED the bible told them they were the center of the universe, but Copernicus
upset that notion. No matter - there is no 'real' center without an observer.
It could be that whole universes exist for a single observer. Remember the rule, the universe is weirder
than you CAN think. Be humble about that - like the bible says.

Nope. That is a *complete* misreading of relativity.

The universe does NOT exist 'for' a single observer. And, yes, there is no center of the expansion of the universe.

Relativity does not support solipsism or having an ego to the point that we are special.

 

[PruePhillip]

Like the Iliad and the legends of Hercules. This doesn't make them true of course.

Have been reading Psalm 22. King David's psalm. David is a symbol of the rejected and reigning king, like Jesus.
David gave us the image of the crucifixion - before it was invented by the Persians. He who will be crucified but
will raise again, "They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it."
And Jacob, half a millenium earlier, spoke of the end of the Jewish nation when this Messiah comes.

Comparing these stories to the Ilyad is false equivalency.

 

[PruePhillip]

Nope. That is a *complete* misreading of relativity.

The universe does NOT exist 'for' a single observer. And, yes, there is no center of the expansion of the universe.

Relativity does not support solipsism or having an ego to the point that we are special.

You know the old science school routine - mark tiny dots all over a limp balloon, blow it up and watch the dots expand.
Which dot is the 'center' ? This SURFACE is the universe, not the interior of the balloon. The center is everywhere but
nowhere. YOUR point of view is as valid as any other. You are ALL the 'center' if you like.
Relativity gives us the primacy of the observer. That's my point.

 

[PruePhillip]

Nope. That is a *complete* misreading of relativity.

The universe does NOT exist 'for' a single observer. And, yes, there is no center of the expansion of the universe.

Relativity does not support solipsism or having an ego to the point that we are special.

So if I open that famous Schrodinger cat box the cat is alive or dead. My observation determines the cat's fate.
Aren't I creating two universes, one for the alive cat and one for the dead? If so I have 'created' an entire
universe. That's my reading of this stuff.

 

[Polymath257]

You, the observer, are a part of the universe. You cannot prove that this universe 'doesn't change' when you observe it
(re quantum double slit experiment)
Nor can anyone demonstrate how a universe could create itself from nothing, and for no reason whatsoever.
Science will take you only so far.

This is a common, but wrong, opinion about quantum mechanics.

The universe changes when we *interact* with it. So, in the double-slit experiment, to detect the 'which way path' information, you need to have something (like light* bounce off the particles going through the slits. That affects the motion of those particles, destroying the interference pattern.

But, if you set of to *detect* that which way information, your actually looking at the experiment doesn't affect it. What affects the existence or non-existence of the interference pattern is whether or not there is *another* particle that interacts to give the required measurement.

 

[Polymath257]

You know the old science school routine - mark tiny dots all over a limp balloon, blow it up and watch the dots expand.
Which dot is the 'center' ? This SURFACE is the universe, not the interior of the balloon. The center is everywhere but
nowhere. YOUR point of view is as valid as any other. You are ALL the 'center' if you like.
Relativity gives us the primacy of the observer. That's my point.

No, it shows precisely that the observer is NOT primary. NONE of the spots is the center. So NONE of them is special. Each has a distorted view because it is working from its perspective. It is only by stepping back that you get a full picture. It is the geometry of the whole that is important in relativity, not the view from any one spot. Relativity tells how to translate between the views of different spots by describing the geometry as a whole. That is my point.