Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?

[Sheldon]

The scientific method only applies to things that enter our senses from the outside. This is how we, as a group, can all verify and agree on external things.

But there are things on the inside, such as hopes and dreams, that the extroverted approach of science is not equipped to deal with. These inner things are not subject to the extroverted approach of science. An external prosthesis approach, for these inner things, is only half baked.

If it is part of the physical world and universe science can examine it, not currently having a full explanation of something, does not in any way suggest science won't ever be able to explain it.

today there are more people with mental health issues, than ever before,

Hahahaha, please offer a citation for that ludicrous sweeping claim, or I will simply have to laugh at such unevidenced bombast.

The push towards simplicity, by many of the voluntary homeless, tries to avoid the materialist approach in favor of finding their inner voice.

That is ludicrously facile, there are many issues why people can become homeless, and mental health issues is just one of those. The idea it's a "push towards simplicity" is simply hilarious, again care to offer anything to support this beyond the assertion itself?

too many still use the extroverted prosthesis of science, via manufactured drugs.

Another risible piece of unevidenced bombast, again please do offer a citation that accurately correlates what percentage of homeless people use recreational drugs, as "too many" is so vague it is utterly facile. Then you could offer some credible citation that explains the link between homelessness and recreational drugs, that doesn't appear to take a ludicrous swipe at science.

Many cannot find religion, since they have been brain washed to tow an atheist line, that they no longer wish to tow, except with the materialism of man made drugs.

Can't find religion in the US, you must be attempting irony? Though again the facile reasoning is matched for hilarity only by the unevidenced nature of the bombast, and the equally hilarious assumption that religion is some sort of panacea for homelessness. Some serious belly laughs in there fair play.

many countries in the developed west have populations that are now almost entirely secular, Scandinavian countries in particular, you might compare the level of poverty and homelessness in such atheist countries when compared to the US, and while you're fact checking your ludicrous assumptions here, compare their relative GDP as well.

Interesting article HERE, here's a snippet:

"atheism is intrinsic to my commitment to social justice because a) it tells us that there is no God or afterlife, meaning b) that the here and now is all that exists, and has ever existed, and we have to make the most of it; and c) it renders it ethically unacceptable that anybody’s short time on this planet be spent in misery, especially d) given the human (rather than divine) nature of the agency that shapes the social and economic structures that generate these unjust outcomes. Hence, the moral urgency of ‘ending homelessness’ is, for me, not rooted in religious belief but rather in the rejection of such belief."

She seems to have nailed my own rationale on this issue quite neatly.

 

[F1fan]

Faith will produce change but that's the result...

Will faith produce change in you? We are waiting for you to accept science and reject the false creationist nonsense you spout. If you can't or won't change your mind on science, then your claim that faith produces change is false. What is true is that faith produces false beliefs in the mind.

not the cause of salvation.

Why would you think salvation is a real phenomenon?

 

[Wildswanderer]

Will faith produce change in you? We are waiting for you to accept science and reject the false creationist nonsense you spout. If you can't or won't change your mind on science, then your claim that faith produces change is false. What is true is that faith produces false beliefs in the mind.

Dumbest conclusion ever! You win the nonsense prize!

 

[Sheldon]

Dumbest conclusion ever! You win the nonsense prize!

Oh I think this sweeping piece of bombast is demonstrably the winner of that prize.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Exactly, and my granny can explain far more than creationism, and she's been dead for over thirty years.

Then she's already experienced the reality of God.

 

[Sheldon]

Then she's already experienced the reality of God.

That there isn't one, yes I'm inclined to agree.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Since science has no explanation for the universe it certainly needs something to explain how it began.

Actually, it doesn't. Science works very well without that answer.

The scientific method is very limited in explaining reality.

We don't need reality explained any better than science explains it. Nor is it possible to usefully describe reality any other way.

I presume that these limited-science comments are intended to make a place for religion by noting what science can't do as if religion can do it. We see this from believers all of the time: science explains how and religion why. No it doesn't. They're nonoverlapping magesteria. Only one generates correct ideas about reality, the other guesses (faith) and call them answers. Religion has nothing to offer in the understanding of reality because it doesn't draw from reality (nonempirical).

The scientific method only applies to things that enter our senses from the outside. This is how we, as a group, can all verify and agree on external things. But there are things on the inside, such as hopes and dreams, that the extroverted approach of science is not equipped to deal with. These inner things are not subject to the extroverted approach of science.

I deal with subjective reality empirically just as I do our common reality - empirically. Is a given food reproducibly nauseating or a given passage of music reproducibly pleasant? If so, one can control outcomes with that knowledge just as he can with knowledge about our common reality. Do we not also use the scientific method to arrive at these personal, reproducible, predictable truths? We generalize on observations in order to predict future outcomes and then confirm them empirically by demonstrating that they do that.

 

[F1fan]

Dumbest conclusion ever! You win the nonsense prize!

You win the irony gold medal.

 

[F1fan]

Then she's already experienced the reality of God.

No one ever experiences a God they didn’t hear about from other beliers first. It’s called mimicry. Copying behavior is a very typical human trait.

 

[metis]

No one is saved by works of any kind, however.

By themselves, yes, but the Parable of the Sheep & Goats makes it clear that we are go do good works under Jesus' teachings thus not just talking-the-talk. The Goats believed about Jesus but not in Jesus as the Sheep did, thus there's the difference.

Gandhi lamented that too many Christians he experienced "...forget his [Jesus'] message" because they believed they were already "saved". The "once saved, always saved" is contrary to the Gospel and is very dangerous.

 

[Wildswanderer]

By themselves, yes, but the Parable of the Sheep & Goats makes it clear that we are go do good works under Jesus' teachings thus not just talking-the-talk. The Goats believed about Jesus but not in Jesus as the Sheep did, thus there's the difference.

Gandhi lamented that too many Christians he experienced "...forget his [Jesus'] message" because they believed they were already "saved". The "once saved, always saved" is contrary to the Gospel and is very dangerous.

I tend to argue with both extreme camps on this one. On the one side you have people who think we can "lose" our salvation through certain sins. On the other hand, you have people who think we can never become apostates. Both are wrong, IMO. You can't "lose" your salvation but you can fall into false beliefs and give it back.

 

[Wildswanderer]

No one ever experiences a God they didn’t hear about from other beliers first. It’s called mimicry. Copying behavior is a very typical human trait.

If that were true religion would never have been a thing. Think about it.

 

[Wildswanderer]

We don't need reality explained any better than science explains it

Most people disagree.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Religion has nothing to offer in the understanding of reality because it doesn't draw from reality (nonempirical).

Atheists: if you aren't in our little club, you are irrational! Kind of remind me of 3rd graders.

 

[F1fan]

If that were true religion would never have been a thing. Think about it.

How about you explain what you mean. I'm not going to guess what you mean here.

 

[Wildswanderer]

How about you explain what you mean. I'm not going to guess what you mean here.

How did the first believers hear from other believers?

 

[PruePhillip]

↑
science ultimately ends in faith - that science created the universe, b.e.f.o.r.e...t.h.e.r.e...w.a.s...s.c.i.e.n.c.e.....
↑
That literally makes no sense.

True, it doesn't. By 'science' I meant here the 'natural' world of physics and maths and space time etc.. Everything which yields its secrets to science at one point, some point, did not exist. It was either CREATED or it appeared BY ITSELF, LIKE MAGIC.
Take your pick, a Creator or Magic. I don't buy the arguments that the universe was here forever, that avoids the question of how it got here - and saying there's some trick with time not beginning so the universe not beginning rah rah rah I find dubious. Things have a REASON for being in this universe - the universe itself has no reason ?????? Come on.

 

[Subduction Zone]

How did the first believers hear from other believers?

A story was told, and it grew with the telling.

 

[Wildswanderer]

A story was told, and it grew with the telling.

That not answering the question.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That not answering the question.

Why not? Just because it is not the answer that you want does not mean that it does not answer the question.