Atheist looking for religious debate. Any religion. Let's see if I can be convinced.

[Tiberius]

I'd be careful not to assert that unless you can prove it. If you cannot prove it it is a bald assertion.

There have been many studies done on the efficacy of prayer.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I already told you what the evidence is so I see no point posting it again. No confirmation bias is involved when one independently looks at the evidence and assesses to determine what it means.

There are ways to test religious claim but there is no test such as the kind you want.

Proofs of Prophethood​

Bahá’u’lláh asked no one to accept His statements and His tokens blindly. On the contrary, He put in the very forefront of His teachings emphatic warnings against blind acceptance of authority, and urged all to open their eyes and ears, and use their own judgement, independently and fearlessly, in order to ascertain the truth. He enjoined the fullest investigation and never concealed Himself, offering, as the supreme proofs of His Prophethood, His words and works and their effects in transforming the lives and characters of men. The tests He proposed are the same as those laid down by His great predecessors. Moses said:—

When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.—Deut. xviii, 22.

Christ put His test just as plainly, and appealed to it in proof of His own claim. He said:—

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. … Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.—Matt. vii, 15–17, 20

In the chapters that follow, we shall endeavor to show whether Bahá’u’lláh’s claim to Prophethood stands or falls by application of these tests: whether the things that He had spoken have followed and come to pass, and whether His fruits have been good or evil; in other words, whether His prophecies are being fulfilled and His ordinances established, and whether His lifework has contributed to the education and upliftment of humanity and the betterment of morals, or the contrary.”

Proofs of Prophethood, Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, pp. 8-9

Sorry, those are very very weak tests. They only lead to confirmation bias. It makes your religion no more believable than any other.

 

[Trailblazer]

Are you not attempting to show that your belief is correct?

No, why would you think that? I just enjoy the company of atheists.

And as I have repeatedly mentioned, that is not true.

We can figure out at what rate prayers would be "answered" if it was just left up to random chance. We can look at the rate that prayers are actually "answered". If the rate predicted by random chance and the rate we actually see are the same, then we can safely conclude that God answered none of the prayers.

I do not believe that is a reliable way to know, so I am done arguing about it. Believe what you want to.

Then what kind of things do you pray for?

I prayed that I would not be fired in October because of the vaccine mandate and God answered with an answer that was better than I had ever expected. I only expected to get a temporary reprieve but I got a medical accommodation that has no time limits so I can keep my job and not be vaccinated as long as I can continue to do my job at home as I have been doing.. Even my counselor said she was surprised because most people who applied did not get the accommodation. You might not believe that God had anything to with it but I do.

 

[Trailblazer]

Once again you are using that trick of trying to derail the conversation, this time by pretending you don't know what an analogy is. I can only conclude that it's because anything else would put you in the position of revealing your double standard - that this line of reasoning is valid if it supports what you believe, but is invalid if it's used to support something you don't believe.

Special pleading. This is nothing more than crying, "But we shouldn't hold religion to the same rules as science, because religion's different!"

So you'll understand when I say that religious beliefs are NOT logical, no matter how much you believe they are.

Falsifiable is not the same thing as falsified.

If it's not falsifiable, then it's not evidence.

I see nothing that I need to respond to here, so moving right along.....

 

[Trailblazer]

Sorry, those are very very weak tests. They only lead to confirmation bias. It makes your religion no more believable than any other.

Those are the only tests available and they are the best ones. How do you think people can avoid being biased? Everyone has a bias because of their life history and educational background. I am biased towards believing is a religion that makes logical sense to me, a religion that has what humanity needs in this age, and that is one reason why I became a Baha'i, after looking at the evidence.

 

[Trailblazer]

Then I can't for the life of me come up with another reason why you do not understand the point I am trying to make.

Because I am not trying to understand it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Those are the only tests available and they are the best ones. How do you think people can avoid being biased? Everyone has a bias because of their life history and educational background. I am biased towards believing is a religion that makes logical sense to me, a religion that has what humanity needs in this age, and that is one reason why I became a Baha'i, after looking at the evidence.

If the "best tests" are rather worthless ones it does not reflect well on your basis of belief.

 

[Trailblazer]

But you can't claim that it's an objective fact that your beliefs are true.

I never said it was an objective fact that my beliefs are true. All I ever said is that there are objective facts that can be researched regarding the person and life of Baha'u'llah and the history of His mission on earth.

Yeah, I've already explained how this is contradicting itself.

I do not agree and I don't want to go down that road again so I am moving on along the road.

I was a believer for the first 20 years of my life, you know, so don't start telling me what I've done, okay? You'll find many atheists in the same boat, believers when younger, but they left religion when they started thinking about it.

I am not telling you what you have done, only you know that, but I doubt you really understand what the Baha'i Faith actually teaches, from what you have said.

Sure, you will find plenty of atheists who were formerly Christians but you will be hard pressed to find an atheist who was formerly a Baha'i. I (don't) wonder why.

 

[Trailblazer]

There have been many studies done on the efficacy of prayer.

I am not overly optimistic about those kinds of studies.

 

[Truthseeker]

Yes and my ex who was in Islam and another in Hinduism both knew that through their personal relationship they were following the correct religion and others were completely wrong. Lord Krishna was always there giving spiritual support and speaking through feelings and emotions. I've known people who say the same about Seth the entity Jane Roberts channeled. It's a fact that beliefs in a higher power will create these feelings. You could do it with Thor or Superman. It's part of human psychology. I have done it myself with beliefs I once had and even with things I knew were not real.
It's definitely not evidence for anything outside of our minds.

Studies have been done on prayer and sick people, the results were not good.

But you can just look at mortality rates of illness. If a disease kills 45% of all people who have it in the US, and you sample a high enough group it will always be what statistics predicts. Unless an advance in medical science happens. Always. So that means that no one extra is being saved by any outside means. Unless you postulate that the disease really kills 55% and the other 10% is healed a deity. Which is absurd, as if a God is like "oh, I can't save anyone else I just hit my 10% quota on this illness"?
If prayer worked you would see the data skewed radically in one religion. Unfortunately things are playing out by probability. This is studied very closely in every field.

It's saying spiritual words, I think, that invokes feelings like that. I said nothing about Baha'i in my post. I made no claim about healing specifically for Baha'i prayers, either.

I do however think that there are heights that Baha'is can achieve spiritually according to our receptivity through prayer that most religions can't match. The prayers are revealed by the Bab, Baha'u'llah, and 'Abdu'l-Baha and all of the words have special spiritual significance. There are many of them to suit each person.

 

[Trailblazer]

If the "best tests" are rather worthless ones it does not reflect well on your basis of belief.

They are not worthless.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I am not overly optimistic about those kinds of studies.

Why not? The ones where the strived to eliminate personal bias are the ones that tend to show no effect.

Just because one's own beliefs are shown to be wrong is never a valid reason to doubt a study.

 

[Subduction Zone]

They are not worthless.

As you have posted them they are . Your "tests" are loaded with confirmation bias. A much more reliable test is one that could possibly show your beliefs to be wrong. But you appear to be afraid to devise such a test. You improperly tried to push off that duty upon others. The problem is that if others did this for you the odds are very high that you would claim "strawman argument" Which of course it would not be. If you are afraid to devise a proper test and ask others to design a test for you then it cannot be a strawman argument.

 

[Truthseeker]

For a Baha'i then, do you think that it could be that the purer the person, the more spiritual energy flows through them and the prayer has more of an effect?

Then the other question would be, since people believing most anything, maybe even toasters, can tap into some sort of spiritual energy, does it matter what the beliefs is, or is it more in the beliefs and faith that person has that the power is there and is real and opens themselves up to that power?

It depends on the purity of the heart of person, Baha'i or not, how well they will respond to their own prayer. Also if a person says spiritual invoking words, it doesn't matter where they come from. However, I will say, in my opinion, the Bab, Baha'u'llah, and 'Abdu'l-Baha have a lot of spiritual invoking words in prayers they revealed.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It depends on the purity of the heart of person, Baha'i or not, how well they will respond to their own prayer. Also if a person says spiritual invoking words, it doesn't matter where they come from. However, I will say, in my opinion, the Bab, Baha'u'llah, and 'Abdu'l-Baha have a lot of spiritual invoking words in prayers they revealed.

And how would you properly test this claim?

 

[Truthseeker]

And even the New King James has "they". "In that day they shall come to you From Assyria..." So how reliable is the KJV? And why would so many of the other translations have "They" instead of "He"?

Also, a lot of translation don't have the "fortified cities" which is used as prophesying that Baha'u'llah would be taken to Constantinople and whatever other place he was taken along the way. But this translation, and others go from Assyria to Egypt. Then from Egypt to a river... not a "fortress" to a river. So the whole fulfilled prophecy is totally dependent on one translation. And who knows what the Hebrew means. But we could find out.

The whole prophecy thing is an unreliable way to determine the truth of any religion.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The whole prophecy thing is an unreliable way to determine the truth of any religion.

And yet so many of them fall for it.

 

[Truthseeker]

And how would you properly test this claim?

It's just my opinion, I should have added that. Judge for yourself. Look at Baha'i prayers.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It's just my opinion, I should have added that. Judge for yourself. Look at Baha'i prayers.

Your claim, your burden of proof. Ducking it is akin to admitting that one was wrong.

 

[Truthseeker]

Your claim, your burden of proof. Ducking it is akin to admitting that one was wrong.

I'm not ducking anything. It's up to each person to judge something like this for themselves, it is inherently subjective. I'm not interested in winning an argument with you.