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Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?

F1fan

Veteran Member
In a universe with transcendence and meaning (the 'explanatory power of living, if you like) your life is significant - not microbes, not even other people, but you.
There is no such transcendence or meaning. This exposes the arrogance of Abrahamic theists who have been taught to think of humans and their religion as the center of the universe. This lacks the humility that is required for wisdom.

But I understand how these Christian concepts appeal to the fragile ego. It is easy to be drawn into these scenarios as the ego feels significant. The notion that humans were created superior over other forms of life illustrates how effective this religious ignorance has been through history, and into the modern era. People in the first world have every opportunity to be educated and well informed, yet despite to accept and adopt these false views about life and meaning. Ultimately I suspect the person knows this is weak shell of pride and it only causes more insecurity and fear.

We don't live in a geocentric universe, true, each of us lives in a personally centered universe.
That is the ego at work. It takes more evolved and mature minds to see beyond the ego and the personal. Humans even evolved to be social beings and value the community for the sake of the self.

For all you know everything could be an illusion - as physics seems to suggest.
Really? Can you explain any observations by understanding physics that suggest everything could be an illusion?

The sequence of events in Genesis 1 is highly relevant. Over the past twenty years this narrative has become the scientific one.
In 2021 the first evidence of an earth as a dark cloud planet like Venus.
2020 a consensus that life began on land.
2005 discovery of ocean world earth.
Continental evolution ca 1960's.
1871 Darwin's 'warm pond' theory.
An odd claim where Genesis 1 differs from Genesis 2.

But feel free to expand on this claim, complete with reputable links. And then prove that it wasn't coincidence. And then explain why Genesis gets other things wrong, like the A&E myth.
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
Science is firmly rooted in evidence, not faith, which is unjustified belief. What belief in science meets that criterion, unjustified? None. The entirety of the enterprise has been demonstrated by its stellar success to be on a solid foundation that requires no faith to rely on. We know that all of the science and engineering that went into the successful manned moon landings, for example, was correct by that success. It's not unlike what I just told DNB above. Wisdom is the knowledge of what brings happiness. Happiness doesn't arise by luck alone. One must know what the errors that prevent happiness are and how to avoid them. If a person finds happiness through his choices, they were wise. And if the space probe goes to the moon and returns, the science was sound. No faith needed.



This is what's called the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy: "The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is an informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred." You've ignored everywhere the biblical and scientific accounts differ. For example, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" contradicts the science. The "heavens" had been in existence for many billions of years before the earth (it looks like you changed the biblical account to make the creation of the earth later than that of the sun, which is the correct sequence). Genesis has night and day existing before the sun and earth.

The genesis account leaves out much of the scientific account, such as universal expansion and early inflation, or the formation of galaxies.

And yes, the biblical day in these accounts was a literal day. That doesn't change just because we now know that that there were more than six days needed to get from the Big Bang to today and believer want to correct that error by changing the meaning of words as hoc.

Also, there is no day of rest in the scientific account. The universe has been assembling itself every day for billions of years.

You also didn't comment on the discrepancies between the two creation accounts.

Can't go through all these replies, so will quicky add this
Genesis mentions the sun three or four times. The 'heaven and the earth' is in the same sentence in our King James, but I have no idea how it was originally written - words didn't even have gaps between them. WE DO KNOW THE EARLY EARTH WAS DARK, WET AND STERILE. Just as Genesis states.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
No I don't accept these theories.
And is the reason you don't accept them because you are a celebrated expert in the relevant sciences? Or because of your religious beliefs?

From time to time I read articles or listen to videos on the topic. Boils down to
1 - the universe came from an existing universe
2 - the universe has always been here

or some tricky thing where there's no time so there couldn't be a beginning.
I'm not sure what sources you refer to, but there are many models about how things are of the universe we observe. Experts in physics are continuing their investigation and debating. The rest of us are not qualified to have opinions.

Judeao Christian religion doesn't seek to be 'relevant to the natural world' at all. It doesn't care. It speaks about the end of the natural world with these words, no more sea, no more sun and no more time - Revelations.[/quote]
This is blatantly false. Christians work very hard to be relevant and impose their moral beliefs onto society. We see it is these threads. We see it in politics.

And Revelations? Even Christians don';t agree about that. The more extreme Christians believe in some End Times scenario. There is a long history of Christians expecting the End Times. They have been disappointed hundreds of times. Aren't you aware of this?

This list includes all Abrahamic predictions:

List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events - Wikipedia

The only impressive thing about this is how often they are wrong.

Cancers, bacteria, fires, floods, wars --- the idea that God doesn't exist because these do seems specious to me. The bible warns that these things happen, so beware - you aren't here on the earth for a good time.
It isn't Genesis saying 'something from nothing' but science.
I notice you make no attempt to explain why there are cancers, deadly bacteria, and even natural disasters in a world where you believe an interventionist God exists.

Just explain why your God created cancers that affect children, and then, as we observe, does nothing to miraculously cure these children. If you were God, would you do that? Would you cause cancer in a child and then stand by as it suffers through illness and treatment?
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
This is what's called the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy: "The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is an informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred." You've ignored everywhere the biblical and scientific accounts differ. For example, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" contradicts the science. The "heavens" had been in existence for many billions of years before the earth (it looks like you changed the biblical account to make the creation of the earth later than that of the sun, which is the correct sequence). Genesis has night and day existing before the sun and earth. The genesis account leaves out much of the scientific account, such as universal expansion and early inflation, or the formation of galaxies. And yes, the biblical day in these accounts was a literal day. That doesn't change just because we now know that that there were more than six days needed to get from the Big Bang to today and believer want to correct that error by changing the meaning of words as hoc. Also, there is no day of rest in the scientific account. The universe has been assembling itself every day for billions of years. You also didn't comment on the discrepancies between the two creation accounts.

WE DO KNOW THE EARLY EARTH WAS DARK, WET AND STERILE. Just as Genesis states.

Nope. Only the last is correct, sterile.

The early earth was lit and had no surface water. It also glowed like lava. The sun already existed when the earth formed, and earth was too hot to be wet (Hadean eon). From When did oceans form on Earth?

"For many it would be difficult to envision an Earth without its blue blanket of oceans. However this is precisely what the early stages of our planet were like. An ocean-free Earth existed, perhaps for several hundred million years as a consequence of extremely high surface temperatures following planetary accretion. The formation of oceans on Earth represents no less than a global-scale cooling of Earth's surface to temperatures at which water is stable as a liquid phase."

This is what early earth looked like before the crust hardened and the oceans formed. There is H2O there, but not liquid surface water. It is believed that much (but not all) of that water arrived later in asteroids and comets during the 200 million years known as the late heavy bombardment.

33fcb8a90964fc1ab67da54efdd3e0a2.jpeg


Not surprisingly, you didn't try to rebut any of the above, presumably because you can't. You cannot rebut a sound argument. If you can successfully rebut an argument, you have shown that it was unsound. Let me remind you of what rebuttal is. It's a counterargument to a claim or argument that, if correct, makes the rebutted statements incorrect. So, for example, when you say that the Genesis accounts accurately anticipated the scientific account, my naming discrepancies between them makes your claim wrong unless you can show that mine is wrong. If you cannot show that my counterargument is flawed, then you have been demonstrated to be incorrect.

That's where things stand now, and will continue to stand, since you have no counterargument to any of those claims. You can't demonstrate, for example, that you haven't committed the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy and come to a fallacious conclusion, because you have.

Did you want to address any of that in a way that indicates that you understood it and either agree with it or show why it cannot be correct, or will you now also ignore the rebuttal to your claim of the early earth being dark and wet? I believe that what I wrote is correct. If so, it cannot itself be rebutted. But it would be nice if you acknowledged that you have no rebuttal. It would illustrate that you have understood the argument and understood what a rebuttal is.
 

KWED

Scratching head, scratching knee
The 'magic' lay in the appearance of something from nothing. Evolution follows basic laws of physics, or more accurately, chemistry.
So everything after the existence of the singularity is down to natural process, not god. So Genesis is wrong.

Something from nothing is not scientific at all.
How many commonplace things today were once thought to be scientifically impossible?
If we don't know an explanation for something, the best approach is to keep looking and studying and researching and experimenting and thinking.
It is not to just shrug and say "well, it must be magic". Imagine where we would be if everyone had said that about everything? Living in caves, scared of the wind.
 

Sheldon

Veteran Member
In a universe with transcendence and meaning (the 'explanatory power of living, if you like) your life is significant - not microbes, not even other people, but you.

Begging the question fallacy, to create a circular reasoning fallacy.

We don't live in a geocentric universe,

I know, that was my point.

The sequence of events in Genesis 1 is highly relevant.

Indeed, that was my point, since claiming it is a message derived from a deity with limitless intelligence to create a message and limitless power to communicate it, is at odds with the fact it is errant nonsense, that gets the most basic facts and chronology of events wrong.

Over the past twenty years this narrative has become the scientific one.

No it hasn't.

In 2021 the first evidence of an earth as a dark cloud planet like Venus. 2020 a consensus that life began on land. 2005 discovery of ocean world earth. Continental evolution ca 1960's.1871 Darwin's 'warm pond' theory.

I have no idea what point you're trying to make here sorry? Or what any of that has to do with the errancy of the biblical creation myth?
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
What, like an unexplained god creating the universe from nothing by magic?
Or dead people coming back to life?
Or a flood that covered all the habitable mountains of the earth?
etc...
You don't understand why those things are outside the realm of science? Yes I believe in miracles, you don't, so you don't have the option of appealing to miracles like eternal matter.
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
You may not have intended to say that, but that is how it reads, creationists always do this, they know at some level they're holding an empty bag, so they attack science, in the mistaken belief this lends any credence to unevidenced archaic myths.

quod grātīs asseritur, grātīs negātur, you ought really to understand what that means for your endless unevidenced claims.
It means we both have belief systems.... but you claim you have facts.
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
You simply reject the scientific viewpoint when it disagrees with yours.

Scientists are pretty good at saying which views are speculative and which are not.

Early stages of the Big Bang and anything prior are pure speculation. Nucleosyhtnthesis and after is not. Evolution is not speculation. Some of the mechanisms of evolution are. Quantum mechanics is not speculation. String theory is.
Quite a lot of evolution and quantum physics involve speculation. And it's not a scientific veiwpoint if it's speculation.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Quite a lot of evolution and quantum physics involve speculation. And it's not a scientific veiwpoint if it's speculation.

Actually, of course, speculation is the origin of all scientific concepts: it is what is known as hypothesis formation.

But, and this is crucial, that speculation needs to be tested. There needs to be an active program to see where and when the speculation is *wrong*. And, after repeated attempts to show it *wrong*, it still passes every test, then we can have some confidence in it.

Quantum mechanics, at the basic level, is not speculation. We *know* that interference, superpositions, and entanglement are true because we have measured them over the course of decades. We *know* that there is anti-matter because we have made it and use it on a daily basis.

We *know* that species change over time because we have multiple independent lines of evidence showing exactly that, including direct observation of speciation.

So, what were originally speculations, hypotheses, are now established scientific knowns. In many cases, they have even turned into the basis of day-to-day technology.

So, keep telling yourself it is all speculation and what isn't is in agreement with your mythology. You have that right. But others also have the right to regard your position as unproven and, in fact, disproven.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Who would I have to demonstrate something using physical laws when it's not a physical realm?

So show how to demonstrate it in any other reliable way.

Give evidence that can be observed even by skeptics. Otherwise, it is reasonable to think it is just a figment of your imagination.

So, for example, mathematics is not physical. But there is a well described way to tell when a mathematical argument is valid or not. That is done via the application of assumed laws of logic and assumed axioms for sets and defining and deducing properties from that starting point. People who disagree can establish who is wrong and even who is right (if either).

In science, we look to observation and testing of all hypotheses and require that all hypotheses *be* testable in a very specific way. No assumption of physicality is actually required: just the method to determine who is wrong between those who disagree: find an observation that would distinguish between the two views and do the test. That will at least eliminate one falsehood.

What does religion have to offer? if two people disagree (say one likes the Bible and the other the Koran), how do you go about determining which one is *wrong*? If one person believes in the trinity and another does not, what process is used to determine which one is *wrong*?
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Possibility? If the infinite can be proven by science that would support belief in God. Is that what you mean to say?

Why would that have anything to do with a creator of the universe? An infinite amount of time is not enough to establish that there was a mind that imagined and then created the universe.

So, no, showing that there is something infinite (meaning not finite) does not establish any position on God or Gods.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
You don't understand why those things are outside the realm of science? Yes I believe in miracles, you don't, so you don't have the option of appealing to miracles like eternal matter.

Why do you suppose that he doesn't appeal to miracles, but you do? He could if he wanted to, but he chooses not to, and for a very good reason - the lack of evidence for the possibility. That's the discipline of critical thinking that we have discussed previously. Valid reasoning is a constrained path connecting evidence and premises to sound conclusions. Anybody who want to take the express to Soundsville needs to be on the tracks leading there and remain on them until he reaches his sound destination. On the other hand, when one allows faith into the process, he goes of the reasoning track and ends up with unsound conclusions.

Who would I have to demonstrate something using physical laws when it's not a physical realm?

Use whatever it is you used to detect this spiritual realm. We all have the same neural mechanisms as you. Did you smell the spiritual realm? If so, others can smell it as well. If you can detect it, so can anybody else with a normal nervous system.

So far, nothing outside of nature has been discovered by any means, so it is reasonable to treat all things to exist in undetectable realms as nonexistent. There is no difference between nonexistent and producing no discernible effect. After all, what are the characteristics of the existent that distinguish it from the nonexistent? What do all nonexistent things have in common? They're undetectable. They are never causes of any observed effect.

I was specifically referring to the multi verse theory.

So you think that the multiverse hypothesis is believed by faith? Maybe by some, but none in my experience. I've never heard anybody call it a fact, just a hypothesis. You've seem my take on the multiverse. Did you find any unjustified belief there? Can you repeat my position?

There is no unjustified belief in science, nor with sound critical thought. If there were, you could demonstrate that, couldn't you? You would be able to show something declared to be correct by science without supporting evidence, such as your claim that a spiritual realm exists.

It means we both have belief systems.... but you claim you have facts.

He does have facts. It's the faith-based thinker lacking facts. He can demonstrate what he considers to be factually correct, which is why he calls them facts. What the faith-based thinker calls facts are insufficiently supported and undemonstrable, thus not facts.
 
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