Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?

[SkepticThinker]

Which are all caused by things you don't control.

So what?

Your reactions would also be pre determined.

Not necessarily.

Even if they were, so what?

 

[Wildswanderer]

So what?


Not necessarily.

Even if they were, so what?

So, nothing you do is actually you doing it.
So what? So, life is meaningless if we don't actually effect anything. Right and wrong become totally meaningless concepts. You could not blame anyone for being a criminal, for example, and child molesters would be no worse than people who started a charity.

 

[Wildswanderer]

You're the one claiming to know such a realm exists. And not only that, you claim to know some of its properties. How and why do you claim to know this? How do I know you're not just making it up?

Why would I? The appeal of the divine makes no sense in a strictly material universe.

“The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the [lunatic] is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.”

― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

 

[Wildswanderer]

Why do you suppose that he doesn't appeal to miracles, but you do?

Sigh, he does. That's the point.

 

[Wildswanderer]

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.

Someone totally changing their life's course because of their encounter with God is an observed effect. And, yes, you have the same spiritual senses as anyone, you just choose not to pay attention to them.

 

[Wildswanderer]

He can demonstrate what he considers to be factually correct,

So, let him demonstrate that the multi verse exists.

 

[SkepticThinker]

So, nothing you do is actually you doing it.

Of course it is me doing it.

So what? So, life is meaningless if we don't actually effect anything. Right and wrong become totally meaningless concepts. You could not blame anyone for being a criminal, for example, and child molesters would be no worse than people who started a charity.

We do actually effect things, and things effect us.

Right and wrong aren't meaningless. I can explain to you how I determine right from wrong actions, if you'd like, though I think I have before already.

I don't know where you're getting this life is meaningless stuff. It just sounds like religious fluff to me.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Why would I? The appeal of the divine makes no sense in a strictly material universe.

“The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the [lunatic] is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.”

― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

This doesn't come anywhere close to answering my questions to you.

Just say you can't demonstrate the existence of the thing you claim to know exists (as well as it's properties) and be done with it already. You believe on faith. Which I do not view as a pathway to truth, because anything can be believed on faith.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Someone totally changing their life's course because of their encounter with God is an observed effect. And, yes, you have the same spiritual senses as anyone, you just choose not to pay attention to them.

It does nothing to demonstrate any such encounter has occurred. It's just claimed that such an encounter occurred.

People can and do change their lives for all kinds of reasons.

 

[KWED]

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.

So basically you are claiming that you can come up with literally any bonkers explanation for anything, and when questioned on how it works or evidence or any rational argument, you simply smile smugly, say "Magic!" and skip off into the sunset, throwing glitter into the air and believing that you have actually provided an answer.

 

[KWED]

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

So if you cannot show it is there, how do you know it is there?
(Don't tell me, by magic?)

 

[KWED]

Quite a lot of evolution and quantum physics involve speculation. And it's not a scientific veiwpoint if it's speculation.

What elements of observed evolution involve speculation?

 

[KWED]

Possibility? If the infinite can be proven by science that would support belief in God. Is that what you mean to say?

You claim that it is possible for something to exist infinitely, yes?
Therefore it is possible that the stuff of the universe has always existed.
(I'm not claiming that it has, only pointing out that you are obliged to admit that it could. I am also assuming that you aren't going to attempt a special pleading fallacy)

 

[KWED]

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.

To this @Wildswanderer can just play the Magic! trump card.
The technology works because god makes it happen by Magic!, not because of stuff we know about the universe. Without god, computers and planes and antibiotics would not work.
Proof?
Don't need it, cuz Magic!

 

[KWED]

So, nothing you do is actually you doing it.
So what? So, life is meaningless if we don't actually effect anything.

If we think it has meaning, then it has meaning for us. Whether that meaning exists in any objective way is irrelevant.

Right and wrong become totally meaningless concepts.

They are meaningless concepts in the great scheme of things. They only have the meaning we assigned to them as individuals and societies.
That is why "right" and "wrong" are not universal or constant through place and time.

You could not blame anyone for being a criminal, for example, and child molesters would be no worse than people who started a charity.

That is merely your perspective. You think that without a god to tell you not to, you would be killing and raping and stealing (even though god condones quite a bit of killing and raping and stealing). TBH, I think you probably wouldn't, but you know you better than I do.
Rational people have empathy, altruism, the Golden Rule, etc to guide them. Whether life has "meaning" or not, we still know that we don't like feeling pain or sadness or shame or guilt.
There are millions of people who live in a godless world, who accept that life has no "greater purpose", yet they are law-abiding, caring, raise families, do good deeds, etc. All the stuff you believe is impossible without a god making you do it.

 

[KWED]

Why would I? The appeal of the divine makes no sense in a strictly material universe.

That sounds like classic question begging. You can only experience the spiritual world if you believe the spiritual world exists.

“The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the [lunatic] is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.”

― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Are you seriously claiming to be the one who is considering all the possible options based on evidence and rational argument?

Please stop. My sides!

BTW, that quote makes no sense in the context of materialism vs spirituality. Why do you think his opinion on the matter is relevant?

 

[KWED]

Someone totally changing their life's course because of their encounter with God is an observed effect.

People change their life's course after all sorts of events and experiences. You need something that can be pinned down as having the spiritual realm as the only possible explanation.

And, yes, you have the same spiritual senses as anyone, you just choose not to pay attention to them.

NTS.

 

[KWED]

Just say you can't demonstrate the existence of the thing you claim to know exists (as well as it's properties) and be done with it already. You believe on faith. Which I do not view as a pathway to truth, because anything can be believed on faith.

Aw, come on. They probably felt a bit nice and fuzzy after praying once, and then some time after, something good happened.
How can you deny such clear evidence? Magic! is the only possible explanation.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

life is meaningless if we don't actually effect anything.

To you. That's not where meaning comes from to me. So many theists make some kind of statement to the effect that if there were no god or afterlife, life would have no meaning. Now we can add free will to that list. That's a shame, a shame on the religion that teaches them that. You're telling me that your life is meaningless to you except as a stepping stone to something better, something that actually is meaningful. I just don't think like that. I suppose that if I had felt like you, I'd never have left Christianity. Perhaps that's the purpose of inculcating such thoughts in the adherent.

If I knew for a fact that my choices were all determined, the meaning of life wouldn't change at all for me. I've already told you that I consider that a possibility, and it doesn't matter to me if what I have is free will or only the illusion of free will. If I were like you, I'd be denying the possibility because I would find the idea threatening. I'd be afraid that I might discover than my life was meaningless, and committing the fallacy of claiming that something isn't true because the consequences would be undesirable: "Appeal to consequences is a fallacy in which someone concludes that a statement, belief, or hypothesis must be true (or false) simply because it would lead to desirable (or undesirable) consequences if it were so."

Right and wrong become totally meaningless concepts. You could not blame anyone for being a criminal, for example, and child molesters would be no worse than people who started a charity.

Right and wrong never cease being meaningful concepts to one with a healthy conscience, which rewards him for right behavior and causes an unhappy feeling when ignored. Why don't you know that? Do you have not also have innate moral intuitions and a conscience?

But now we're getting to the crux of why Christians fight the idea of free will being an illusion. One needs it to blame someone to justify punishing them, retributive justice, which is the only kind associated with this deity, and something that is not a part of an enlightened view to corrections. Criminals go to prison to be be punished, but to remove a threat from the street, serve as a warning to not repeat or for others to imitate the criminal behavior, and someday perhaps, to rehabilitate. The idea that "You're bad, so you deserve to be made to suffer" is fundamental to to the Christian concept of justice, because it is the justice of their deity.

“The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the [lunatic] is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.” ― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Why do you think that opinion should matter to a humanist? This guy is a theist, like you. Who else scoffingly calls people that won't believe without sufficient reason materialists?

Of course, it's a straw man, since he probably doesn't know what a materialist is in the philosophical sense (most apologists use the word to mean anybody who won't believe by faith even if that person calls himself an idealist or neutral monist) and he doesn't know what the critical thinker is sure of. This guy is just trolling, trying to offend skeptics. I see him as I do CS Lewis, whose opinions I also have no respect for or use for. He also uses coercive language to try to shame or bully people into agreeing with him or at least not publicly disagreeing.
And, of course, he is unwittingly describing himself. It's people who believe by faith that have closed their minds to evidence and doubt.

yes, you have the same spiritual senses as anyone, you just choose not to pay attention to them.

And there you go again revealing that you have no concept of the inner life of the humanist. You equate spirituality with spirits, so, if the skeptic doesn't believe in ghosts, deities, angels, etc., he can't have spiritual experiences. And yes, I have the same senses as you, but I understand what they reveal to me differently than you do. I am familiar with your inner life. I've been there, remember? I know what you are experiencing. I believe that you are misunderstanding your experience, as I once misunderstood the same experience. That's my point. You are not experiencing a spiritual realm. That's the misunderstanding. You are experiencing your own mind, which can generate an endogenous experience of connection, mystery, awe, and gratitude perfectly naturalistically.

Actually, yesterday was a particularly spiritual day for me. I got some bad news about one of my dogs that led to intense, tearful grief. As painful as that was (and still is, albeit less so), I felt all of that. I felt glad to be alive and to have the little guy in my life, how amazing it is that he exists and that we can live together and form a bond, that his decline and loss will take a piece of my heart. Love is a spiritual experience. After that, I just listened to Willie, Johnny, Waylon, and the gang doing songs like Blue Skies, I Walk The Line, Always On My Mind, Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground, Mama Don't Let Your Sons Grow Up To Be Cowboys, and Pancho and Lefty. What kind of experience do you suppose that was in the light of grief?

Now reconsider your comment in the light of that.

 

[Wildswanderer]

People change their life's course after all sorts of events and experiences. You need something that can be pinned down as having the spiritual realm as the only possible explanation.

So if someone tells you God changed them you just assume they are lying? People who have suddenly been freed from lifelong addiction? That's more than willpower.