• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

God-DOES-Answer-Your-Prayers

After winning the Masters yesterday Zach Johnson said, “My Christian faith is very important to me. It was very special to win the Masters golf tournament on Easter Sunday. I am very blessed. I would like to thank God. I felt Jesus Christ with me on the golf course every step of the way.”
Click to expand...

So I guess when Tiger wins (most of the time) that must be the work of the devil then? :p
 
Rorgg said:
Unfortunately, there's a stock response to this, which goes something like "well, [God|Jesus] is infinitely [powerful|awesome|uber] that he can do any number of things at the same time. It's totally easy for him to help that nice man win the golf and still keep an eye on the racial cleansing in Africa."

You know, the "Wizards did it" response.
Click to expand...

But that doesn't explain his misplaced priorities.
 
The Atheist said:
Oh, pick an easy one - I can answer that for 10 points:
Click to expand...

Wow, that was pretty good for someone not raised in the church. I could rattle off something similar, but I grew up going to church and was an active Christian through most of college as well. So I can speak Christianese very well. :p
 
Senex said:
Oh my. You have inspired me to do something that will be sure to piss off people I speak with in the future. I have never bitten my tongue from saying in the past "if god helped you(them/whomever) in this competitive event then god chose sides against your opponent."
Click to expand...

This reminds me of "Third Rock from the Sun" when Tommy was trying to make sense of the tradition of praying for victory before a basketball game (paraphrasing):

Tommy: I get it, we'll win if our god is stronger than their god, right?
Coach: It's the same God!
Tommy: Really...? Isn't that a conflict of interest?
 
aggle-rithm said:
This reminds me of "Third Rock from the Sun" when Tommy was trying to make sense of the tradition of praying for victory before a basketball game (paraphrasing):

Tommy: I get it, we'll win if our god is stronger than their god, right?
Coach: It's the same God!
Tommy: Really...? Isn't that a conflict of interest?
Click to expand...

I find that funny and true yet many times I'll decline to make that joke because I don't wish to aggravate a religious person. At this particular moment I wouldn't hesitate because I feel anyone who wishes to throw god my way is offending me. Tomorrow I might be overly tolerant. I'm beginning to think beer consumption and arguing might be related :rolleyes:
 
A little girl is walking with her father.

Little girl, god loves us right.

Father, well yes, of course.

Little girl, then why do people get sick, or hurt.

Father, well, if nobody got sick or hurt how would god be able to make miracles.

Little girl, I guess god would be out of work then.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Last edited:
It's actually pretty simple.

God has issues. He's kinda an attention whore and has self-esteem issues. Why do you think he needs to be praised so much?

The reason that he causes bad stuff to happen and doesn't usually listen to prayers is that if he did, people wouldn't try as hard. Since people know he rarely actually does what they ask, they try to pray harder than the next guy. They beg and beg and beg and tell him how cool he is.

And he likes that because... he's an attention whore.
 
Paulhoff said:
A little girl is walking with her father.

Little girl, god loves us right.

Father, well yes, of course.

Little girl, then why do people get sick, or hurt.

Father, well, if nobody got sick or hurt how would god be able to make miracles.

Little girl, I guess god would be out of work then.

Paul

:) :) :)
Click to expand...
Ha! Sort of like the idea that the anti-virus software companies are actually the ones releasing all the viruses.
 
A_C_C said:
And regarding your second paragraph, I thought that it's impossible to prove a negative.
Click to expand...
Side note - this is often claimed but not entirely correct.

It is often impossible to prove a negative but not always e.g. 'There are no socks in my bedside drawer' would be fairly easy to prove or disprove.
 
Ashles said:
Side note - this is often claimed but not entirely correct.

It is often impossible to prove a negative but not always e.g. 'There are no socks in my bedside drawer' would be fairly easy to prove or disprove.
Click to expand...
Let's see, socks, god, god, socks, yea that idea is equal.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Ashles said:
Side note - this is often claimed but not entirely correct.

It is often impossible to prove a negative but not always e.g. 'There are no socks in my bedside drawer' would be fairly easy to prove or disprove.
Click to expand...

Yep, but it's impossible to do so without looking into the drawer, now, tell me, in what drawer should we look to prove that no prayer is answered?
 
Ashles said:
Side note - this is often claimed but not entirely correct.

It is often impossible to prove a negative but not always e.g. 'There are no socks in my bedside drawer' would be fairly easy to prove or disprove.
Click to expand...


Unless, they were invisible pink socks...
 
DRBUZZ0 said:
It's actually pretty simple.

God has issues. He's kinda an attention whore and has self-esteem issues. Why do you think he needs to be praised so much?

The reason that he causes bad stuff to happen and doesn't usually listen to prayers is that if he did, people wouldn't try as hard. Since people know he rarely actually does what they ask, they try to pray harder than the next guy. They beg and beg and beg and tell him how cool he is.

And he likes that because... he's an attention whore.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not impressed with his omniscience. Any self-respecting attention whore would know not to make himself invisible and indistinguishable from from a schizophrenic delusion.
 
DRBUZZ0 said:
It's actually pretty simple.

God has issues. He's kinda an attention whore and has self-esteem issues. Why do you think he needs to be praised so much?

The reason that he causes bad stuff to happen and doesn't usually listen to prayers is that if he did, people wouldn't try as hard. Since people know he rarely actually does what they ask, they try to pray harder than the next guy. They beg and beg and beg and tell him how cool he is.

And he likes that because... he's an attention whore.
Click to expand...

I just wanted this quoted because its so bloody TRUE!

That said, if someone prayed to a god before God existed (ie, before the Bible books were written), were their prayers answered? Does Allah answer prayers? Actually I think we need to define what or who can and/or will answer prayers before setting off to debunk the whole "yes-God-answers-prayers"-thingie.
 
Here's what I posted at both, Science Blog, and Mercola.com:

Bad science, take a closer look.

I went to a lot of trouble to look at that meta-analysis on the effects of prayer. The included studies were either poorly done, not blinded let alone double blinded, sample sizes of 10 give or take a few, claimed conclusions not supported by the evidence, and there was self selected bias in the meta-analysis not addressed. You can read the specific issues in this thread, Meta-Analysis Indicates Prayer Effective, on the JREF forum.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77095&highlight=answers+prayers

The thread is short and includes very specific criticisms of each study included in the meta-analysis. Needless to say, it's unfortunate such a poorly done analysis was included in a peer reviewed publication. The authors apparently made no effort to include only valid studies and/or conclusions. Even if any of the studies had revealed true positive results, the reviewers missed the most obvious, science 101, glaring error. If you do the end math and you have 10 studies with no effect and 1 study with an effect, what will your analysis show? A positive effect! They counted "no effect" as zero rather than a negative number.

Here we have more fodder for the cannons of the wishful thinkers who prefer fake/bad science which supports their beliefs rather than looking at what the evidence actually shows. And naturally, a review of this meta-analysis which is critical of it is tagged with the usual false premise, science has a bias against religion.

No, science isn't biased against religion, it is biased against bad science.

Science Blog posted it right away, Dr Mercola seems to have put it away for prior screening. We'll see.

Logging on to the Dr Mercola site was suspicious. They immediately went to data collecting on my practice. They even have the incredible request for my provider license numbers. What educated provider would put such information on a blog registration form. Then you were supposed to not just read some crap, but listen to a 10 minute spiel by Dr Mercola about the evils of the established medical community.

I don't know whether we should bother with these sites. Do we have any influence on their readers when we debunk the woo? It's great some of the members here monitor the stuff. But I wonder if there would be any benefit in a more systematic approach?
 
A_C_C said:
Yep, but it's impossible to do so without looking into the drawer, now, tell me, in what drawer should we look to prove that no prayer is answered?
Click to expand...
Tell me what does the person who believes in prayer claim the effects should be?

Praying is supposed to have an impact on something. Identify it, test to see if you get an effect, and look at the results.

You are mixing up proving a negative with proving a claim made by people who pray. Proving a negative would be proving there is no life anywhere in the Universe except on Earth. You can't test for life in every possible place in the Universe.

But if someone claims prayer has an effect, you test for the effect. You don't find it, their claim was not substantiated. There is no negative to prove, you never had anything to start with.
 
Rorgg said:
Unfortunately, there's a stock response to this, which goes something like "well, [God|Jesus] is infinitely [powerful|awesome|uber] that he can do any number of things at the same time. It's totally easy for him to help that nice man win the golf and still keep an eye on the racial cleansing in Africa."....
Click to expand...
Perhaps this explains why the world is in such a mess.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom