Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
No the universe created those things by chance when it accidentally created you. You are just a cog in a wheel.
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Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?
- Thread starter Kenny
- Start date
1. What makes you think the laws were created?
2. Why would you think laws would create meaning in any case?
3. What do you mean by free will?
4. What makes you think free will as you define it exists?
Free will is a tricky concept. I happen to disagree with this quote, but I am more of a compatibilist when it comes to free will. i also don't hold that the laws of nature are deterministic.
Meaning is another matter: it exists locally, but not globally.
Well, yes, it was chance that one sperm was lucky and not a different one. But I fail to see how that eliminates meaning or a compatibilist version of free will.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Compatibalism is self contradictory. It's just a smoke screen for determinism.
That is incorrect. Atheism is quite consistent with an independently existing reality (objective reality) that we are only imperfectly able to view. That *we* only have our perception doesn't negate the existence of an objective reality.
No, it is a version of determinism. It is one that says that free will and determinism are compatible.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
They can't. That's the point. Unless they are given by a higher authority.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Which is hogwash.
And I think that you are so enmeshed in your mythology that you can't see the alternatives.
We are conscious beings because of the way our brains work. The universe is not deterministic, but even if it were, free will is consistent with determinism. But you have to really analyze what the term 'free will' means.
And why would that give meaning?
My point is that *we* are the ones that give meaning, not the laws, nor any authority. Conscious beings like us. And we can do that because things are meaningful *to us*.
Funny, most philosophers today disagree with you.
Exactly what do you mean by the term 'free will'? Be specific. Then we shall see if it is compatible with determinism.
This is an absurd question. Reason IS reliable, period. The reliability is demonstrated in the sound and valid conclusions.
Naturally some theists have a problem with reason as a tool for humans because it exposes the weakness of faith in contrast. Of course we can see that faith is unreliable itself given it's many invalid conclusions.
Just don't tell the person, otherwise it will be harmful.EXACTLY! And prayer is also better than doing nothing
Then clear it up for us, can your God miraculously cure cancer in people? If it can, we see no signs of your God curing anyone of cancer.That was a BIIIIIG stretch.
I think this isn't a "defending God" OP since it is about a poorly created Double-Blind test on prayer.
But you can look at it however you want
And to make the case worse for your, or anyone's God, why does your God create children with the genes that cause cancers in their childhood? Can you explain why your God does this?
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
From Wikipedia.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is a biographical gospel about the childhood of Jesus, believed to date at the latest to the second century.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas was thought to be Gnostic in origin because of references (by Hippolytus of Rome and Origen of Alexandria)
to a "Gospel of Thomas", but those works are not referencing this Infancy Gospel, as many scholars had thought, but rather to the wholly
different Gospel of Thomas.
Proto-orthodox Christians regarded the Infancy Gospel of Thomas as inauthentic and heretical. Eusebius rejected it as a heretical "fiction"
in the third book of his fourth-century Church History, and Pope Gelasius I included it in his list of heretical books in the fifth century.
At the time when the New Testament was compiled there was already a long standing tradition about what was authentic and what wasn't.
KWED
Scratching head, scratching knee
Not absurd at all.
Imagine the scenario - a powerful and revered man visits a teenage girl and tells her he is going to have sex with her. Any "consent" she grants would be considered meaningless in law and he would be convicted of rape.
Why should god not be held to the same standards?
joelr
Well-Known Member
How do you know a deity answered your prayer?
Well God is fiction. There is no actual evidence of any God?
If you are going to put it that way it's you who seems to not want prayers to be answered.
"it would make the test invalid."
"If these people are included in the prayer test, it would make the test invalid."
Why would any of these make a test invalid? You just said God may answer ALL prayers? Then go on to nit-pick the technique of the prayer and claim the prayer "invalid"??? So which is it? Does this God answer prayer, even from non-Christians which may contain improper form? OR do these so called errors make the prayer "invalid"
Well I'm not the one saying "invalid" ..."these people make it invalid", that would be you. So, if you want to put it that way, the someone who thinks this God doesn't love the world, that would be you?
Do you think King David may have used improper form? He may have, and yet....his prayer was NOT INVALID????
You are continuing to dodge the question?
I do not think any Gods love any worlds because Gods are fictional characters in religions.
joelr
Well-Known Member
There was not. Elaine Pagels has a book - The Lost Gospels. She goes over the letters of Ignatius as well as the found Gospels and other information from the 2nd century. Ignatius wanted only bloodline to be able to read, interpret and teach scripture. He wanted power and a hiearchary. There were as many Gnostic sects and they all considered each other heretics. There was no tradition about what was authentic. It was at least 50% Gnostic so what was actually authentic (probably none of it) will never be known.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Not if she was 18 and consented, but this doesn't involve sex and it's not a man so your idea doesn't apply.
I was not talking about the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. That is yet a different book. The one I am talking about falls more under 'wisdom literature' than anything else and is clearly based on the same ideas as Matthew and Mark.
And, since you brought it up, there is more than one Infancy Gospel. There are also Infancy gospels of James, and one attributed to Matthew.
There are also numerous other gospels, like those attributed to Bartholemew and Nicodemus, a secret gospel of Mark, a gospel of the Hebrews, and one of the Ebionites.
There are also multiple books of Acts, like those of John, of Peter, and of Andrew.
And of course, various Apocalypses in addition to the one of John in the Bible.
The point is that the Bible was selected from a LOT of available books, often with quite good history (the gospel of Thomas is one of the earliest gospels we have--certainly before that of John). And the contents were chosen for *political* reasons hundreds of years after the actual events. Most of the early church father used a different selection of sacred writings than what we now have (Origen, for example, but also Eusebius), clearly had other books they considered to be valid).