Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?

[KWED]

There is no such standard if we are meat robots. There's only what we are programmed to do. You can't blame a robot for carrying out its program. If it's program is to torture kittens, I can't say that's wrong or right. It has no other option.

You keep making this claim, yet there are many millions of people who live in a completely godless world and who accept that we have no "greater purpose". Most of these people not only have a completely reasonable and rational idea of "right and wrong", but it is often far "better" than those held by religionists.

So, instead of repeating the same debunked claim, try addressing the actual issue.
People can have excellent moral values without god or purpose. How do you explain that?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Because the world obviously didn't happen by accident and I find God the best explanation...

Why?
How is your god explanation better then an alien explanation?
In what specific way?

That's a reason to initially believe, but once you experience God personally you don't have to question which God is real.

yeah... alien abductees say that about aliens.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Again everything could be an illusion. But I believe what I experience because it's the only way to interpret life. And my experiences of God are just as real to me as knowing where I'm sitting at the moment. If I'm wrong about both, oh well!

So are the experiences of abduction to alien abductees.
So are the experiences of those who believe that they are the reincarnation of Napoleon.
So are the experiences of those who hear voices or see people that aren't actually there.

It's like you literally refuse to understand this.

 

[KWED]

Because as already stated multiple times, you all claim not to operate on faith, yet in many cases you do.

Even if it were true (which it isn't - any idiot knows that science is based on testable, repeatable observations and results. Computers don't work because we "believe" they will ), that doesn't explain why you don't apply the same standards of scrutiny to your beliefs as you do to science.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I can't prove a lot of things that are real. Neither can you. You can say you love someone but you can't prove it because it's not measurable with instruments. Does that make it less real?

You can support the case that someone loves someone through evidence.
By how they act, how they treat that person, by watching their brains under a scanner when they are shown pictures of the person they claim to love, etc...

Love is an emotion with physical underpinnings. Very demonstrable.

 

[KWED]

You are not getting it. If you are programmed by prior events, your attempt to reprogram is just part of the original program.. you are still assuming free will.

So just to be clear, you believe that every action and choice is predetermined and inevitable in every detail. We have no ability to do anything outside the "predefined plan"?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I can demonstrate that God exists by how he changes people... it's called evidence.

You can demonstrate that people can change as a result of their beliefs.

It's the beliefs themselves that do this.

Or do you think Allah and Visjnoe are also changing people?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The same way that I rule out everything that I think I'm experiencing in life actually being an elaborate video game played by aliens.
Could be, but it's highly unlikely, and if it were, what would be the point of believing it was? Either life experiences are real or not and I choose to believe they are...if I'm wrong, nothing matters anyway.

Now we are getting somewhere. The difference is to me that is unknown whether we live in fair objective reality or in a fake one.
That has not to do with you being Christian and me being an atheist.

So here are 3 versions.
I believe we live in fair objective reality, therefore it is natural.
I believe we live in fair objective reality, therefore it is from God.
I believe we live in fair objective reality, but I don't know what it is in metaphysical sense.

Now comes the joke. All 3 can be observed here on this forum, but only one is right and that is mine, thus you are really nothing. You are not in reality, you are worthless, meaningless, irrelevant and so on. But you don't accept that and I understand that. You do it differently than me, yet I can't do it differently than you, because that is not really real, right?
You are doing a double standard. You made a first person argument to how you cope, but you don't accept that other people cope differently, but if that is reversed, you claim, that it doesn't apply to you. It only applies to everybody else.

 

[KWED]

Nonsense. We all choose what to believe.

So how did you get on with your day genuinely believing in Hinduism?

Certainly we may weigh the evidence but we still choose.

No. If the evidence convinces us it determines what we believe.
Your next homework is to weigh up the evidence for whether you can fly, and then choose to believe that you can.
Let me know how you get on.

Rebellion against God is usually because someone doesn't want to follow what he says so they decide they no longer believe.

You still don't get it, do you. For people who lose their faith there comes a point where they can no longer ignore or deny the evidence against their belief, or they experience an event that fundamentally changes how they think about god, so their belief disappears. There are plenty of religious people who ignore or deny elements of their faith but still "believe".

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So how did you get on with your day genuinely believing in Hinduism?

No. If the evidence convinces us it determines what we believe.
Your next homework is to weigh up the evidence for whether you can fly, and then choose to believe that you can.
Let me know how you get on.

You still don't get it, do you. For people who lose their faith there comes a point where they can no longer ignore or deny the evidence against their belief, or they experience an event that fundamentally changes how they think about god, so their belief disappears. There are plenty of religious people who ignore or deny elements of their faith but still "believe".

I never lost faith. I just got the faith that objective reality is epistemologically fair and stopped believing in all positive metaphysics for all versions and not just idealism.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There's no such thing as objective evidence for your experiences...

Well, that kind of depends on the experiences, right?

Consider the experience of being abducted by aliens vs the experience of falling to earth instead of shooting into space.

I'ld say the latter has objective evidence while the first doesn't.

What you use to prove God isn't real,

Nobody here is trying to "prove" that god "isn't real".
In fact, one can't do that by definition because unfalsifiable claims are unfalsifiable

More importantly, this is a blatant shift of the burden of proof.
It's upto those who claim that gods exist to support those claims.

Failing to do so, means that people get to dismiss your bare claim at face value.

I don't require evidence to dismiss claims that are asserted without evidence.

is also based on what your mind perceives as real. It's still subjective.

No.

It's an objective fact that you have no valid evidence to support your unfalsifiable claims.
That, in and of itself, is more then enough to reasonably reject your claims.

As the late Hitch so famously said:

What is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

OK... we have established that you simply don't believe... sooo...

back to the OP.

If they are going to do the test on the efficacy of Christian prayers, they must follow the guidelines of the same... which they did not.

So the double-blind test is incorrect.

Who's version of the "christian guidelines"? Yours?

Also, may I remind you that you have also said in this very thread that God doesn't necessarily care about those "guidelines" as you have gone on record that he'll answer a muslim's prayers as well.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Again, the only way we interpret evidence is through our perceptions.
In a godless universe our perceptions are no more reliable than the way an ant percieves the world. Only if there is objective truth can anything be said to be reliable.

Hidden in there, is the ludicrous claim/assumption that if there is no god, there is no objective truth.

That is so ridiculous, I don't even know how to respond to such drivel.

In truth, objective facts exist regardless of gods existing or not.

 

[KWED]

You ever noticed that organizations like AA include a higher power in their program? Why? Because overall they get more successful results.

Well, AA was originally a religiously inspired organisation - although it wasn't very popular until it reduced the emphasis on god and put more on the science of addiction and abstinence.

However, it is no secret or mystery that people who have gone through personal trauma or psychotic events are more likely to "find god" than happy, comfortable, well-adjusted people. Same applies to therapy or counselling.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So we should doubt all studies that claim to be true also.

YES.

And the way to remove doubt is objective evidence.

This is precisely the entire point of the scientific method.

ie: you don't trust other people's reported results. This is why you repeat the experiments and review the methods. You don't trust people's word for it either.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Well, AA was originally a religiously inspired organisation - although it wasn't very popular until it reduced the emphasis on god and put more on the science of addiction and abstinence.

However, it is no secret or mystery that people who have gone through personal trauma or psychotic events are more likely to "find god" than happy, comfortable, well-adjusted people. Same applies to therapy or counselling.

Cut it out! At least some non-religious people believe in a version of rationality that is not anymore real than God.
Some use God as a crutch and others use rationality as a crutch. Both are cultural ideas and can be used to cope.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

YES.

And the way to remove doubt is objective evidence.

This is precisely the entire point of the scientific method.

ie: you don't trust other people's reported results. This is why you repeat the experiments and review the methods. You don't trust people's word for it either.

Well, now remove this. Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

God doesn't force himself on anyone as far as I can tell. He could, but that wouldn't be love.

But eternal damnation for the "crime" of refusing to believe unfalsifiable, undefendable, unsupported myths, IS an example of "love"????

Meanwhile types like Adolf Hitler having a sincere "death bed conversion" who then receive eternal reward, is ALSO an example of "love"????

Strange definition of "love" you got there.

 

[Sheldon]

Hogwash. You have just convinced yourself you aren't making decisions that's you actually are making.

So you could decide a deity doesn't exist then, it's just a subjective choice? I can only examine the evidence or more accurately note the dearth of objective evidence, and the fact no rational arguments exist for any deity. I can't really choose whether to believe or not, that is determined by the facts.

 

[Sheldon]

God doesn't force himself on anyone as far as I can tell. He could, but that wouldn't be love.

The bible suggests otherwise in multiple myths and narratives, not that I believe it to be a trustworthy source, but odd that you do, and yet make such an obviously false claim?