SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Instead of just repeating it over and over, try explaining why you think that is the case.
God's opinions aren't objective either, so your point doesn't really make sense.
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Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?
- Thread starter Kenny
- Start date
God's opinions aren't objective either, so your point doesn't really make sense.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Are you for real?
Sorry but I fail to see how this addresses the point at hand. Cancer treatments are testable via the scientific method. Their efficacy is demonstrated in the results they produce. That's why we can roughly calculate survival rates for various cancers and various treatments. If they worked only at the rate of chance, they'd be deemed ineffective.
But none of this address the problem with God's refusal to answer the prayers of amputees and parents of starving and/or sick children all across the globe. If you are saying prayer works at the rate of chance, then you are essentially saying they're useless.
Oh wait, I see now, you're trying to obfuscate the point so you don't have to answer my questions.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Sigh... you aren't being consistent with your atheist beliefs. You don't create anything if you are just a product of chance. You just think what evolution programs you to think.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Still doesn't make sense.
I'm still experiencing thoughts and having reactions to stimuli.
"You don't create anything if you are a product of chance" doesn't mean anything.
My brain creates all kinds of things. I can create all kinds of things.
OK... I think we have a definite on this one!
#428
I don't want to go circular on this one.
If you would like to take it in a better and different direction?
That usually just amounts to the longing to belong and to feel special.
But are those other studies double blind? No.
And yes, of course there *could* be variables not addressed. If you think that makes a difference, determine those variables, control for them, and do another double blind study.
Could there be variables not addressed for any failed treatment? Sure, of course. That doesn't make it reasonable to explain away the results until such variables have been identified and the other studies done.
Of course there can be objective reasoning in a godless universe and it can even be done by meat robots.
All that needs to happen is that there be an objective reality that the meat robots have some access to and the ability to find regularities and to test their ideas.
What supernatural? Give actual evidence that there is such that is anywhere close to as good as the existence of a dog in my room.
And that is why I have to be skeptical and realize the possibility of hallucinations. Further testing can be done.
You seem to be caught up in the problem of solipsism and think that the only way out is via theism. That I deny.
You seem to be fixated on meat robots. And why a meat robot could not be self-actualized is not explained or how a supernatural gets around that problem.
Once again, the phrase 'just a product of chance' is not descriptive of a universe governed by natural laws. yes, I am a product of natural laws that allow for sensitive dependence on initial conditions. That is NOT chance.
Evolution doesn't program at that refined of a level. It allows for a LOT of variation because of individual circumstances and that is where self-actualization (because of different desires) occurs. I *am* a physical being and so my desires and goals are part of the functioning of my physical brain. So, yes, what I want can be realized by what I do. That is self-actualization.
Agreed....
That being said, I have listed 3 easy ones that weren't part of the equation and thus shouldn't be quoted as a standard.
(of course, it was a Christian prayer study and thus I am stating it as such)
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KWED
Scratching head, scratching knee
Except that I am not making any claims of weird stuff happening.
And again, design a study that addresses those objections and we can do it over and see what happens.
But until then, you cannot say that prayer is effective because the best study so far simply doesn't show that. in fact, it shows the opposite. this is no different than someone claiming a cancer study showing a drug doesn't work is invalid because the procedure isn't right. Perhaps, but we don't know that. Design a study taking the objection into consideration and redo the work and see what happens.
Depends on which study you look at.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
You still don't get it. Your perception of reality is weird to most of the human race.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Nonsense. Laws created by chance can't be said to create meaning or free will.
"There’s a desperate charm to that idea, but we’re quite beyond it now. The mechanisms of decision making, the chemistry of empathy, the physics of neural plasticity, each gnaws away every day at the few remaining supports of a free will model of individuality. We are forced to either redefine free will to something existent but meaningless, or chuck the idea altogether and make peace with finding the subtle joys of our exquisite programmability."
(Atheist Dale DeBakcsy )
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
You are still in denial. That's understandable but not consistent with your beliefs.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
There's no objective reality available in atheism. Your perception is all you have.