Atheism, and ignoring Jesus

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prodigal-sun said:
Ahhh! come Gump I was so hoping for a better non-ignorant response than to just show me the website where you think all my guestions will be answered.

I prefer not to run and look on websites such this for a few reasons the biggest being that I worry there will be a counter and my visiting this site would lend to its credibility with advertisers.

I’m sure if you really wanted to dialogue you would have brought along all the back-up info I will require from you.

Having said this I do warn anybody going to this site about visit counters and what they are used for.

Peace!
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First off, I highly doubt there are any ‘visit counters’ in place - forbid that the advertisers actually get to know the amount of hits on a site! How dreadful! :eek:

Besides, you can always just pray to God for him to remove a country from that website.
 
Gump said:
First off, I highly doubt there are any ‘visit counters’ in place - forbid that the advertisers actually get to know the amount of hits on a site! How dreadful! :eek:

Besides, you can always just pray to God for him to remove a country from that website.
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This post just shows more of your ignorance than your understanding.

Why not just give us some info and proof on the fact that prayer has been proven a simple fallacy. If you can’t, then just retract the statement as a mistake. A scientific mind like yours, I’m sure, understands the need for all fact to be backed by copius amounts of data. I’m sure you have it, so let’s review it together. In this way we can have a respectable debate over whether prayer is worthwhile (my view) or a simple fallacy, (your view).

Peace!
 
prodigal-sun said:
This post just shows more of your ignorance than your understanding.

Why not just give us some info and proof on the fact that prayer has been proven a simple fallacy. If you can’t, then just retract the statement as a mistake. A scientific mind like yours, I’m sure, understands the need for all fact to be backed by copius amounts of data. I’m sure you have it, so let’s review it together. In this way we can have a respectable debate over whether prayer is worthwhile (my view) or a simple fallacy, (your view).

Peace!
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God never answers any prayers. The entire idea that “God answers prayers” is an illusion created by human imagination.
How do you, prodigal, discover that “answered prayers” are illusions? We simply perform scientific experiments. We ask a group of believers to pray for something and then we watch what happens. What we find, whenever we test the efficacy of prayer scientifically, is that prayer has zero effect:
  • It does not matter who prays.
  • It does not matter if we pray to God, Allah, Vishnu, Zeus, Ra, etc.
  • It does not matter what we pray about.
    If we perform scientific, double-blind tests on prayer, and if the prayers involve something concrete and measurable (for example, healing people with cancer), we know that there is zero effect from prayer. Every single “answered prayer” is nothing more than a coincidence. Both scientific experiments and your everyday observations of the world show this to be the case every single time.
    For example (here’s your ‘proof’), this article says:
    One of the most scientifically rigorous studies yet, published earlier this month, found that the prayers of a distant congregation did not reduce the major complications or death rate in patients hospitalized for heart treatments.
    And: A review of 17 past studies of ‘‘distant healing," published in 2003 by a British researcher, found no significant effect for prayer or other healing methods.
    This article from March, 2006 discusses the fact that the same conclusion was reached in another study:
    In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.
    In this article we find an amazing quote where theologians and religious leaders declare that prayer has no actual effect: Religious leaders will breathe a sigh of relief at the news that so-called intercessory prayer is medically ineffective. In a large and much touted scientific study, one group of patients was told that strangers would pray for them, a second group was told strangers might or might not pray for them, and a third group was not prayed for at all. The $2.4 million study found that the strangers’ prayers did not help patients’ recovery.
    This is a remarkable example of “positive spin” – religious leaders are “breathing a sigh of relief” because prayer has been shown to be meaningless. The fact that prayer is a total waste of time does not matter to them. It does not matter that all of Jesus’s promises about praying and such in the Bible have been proven completely false.
To be fair in my argument (and less ignorant than you seem to throw around) a peer-reviewed scientific study published in 2001 did indicate that prayer works. According to this article:
“On October 2, 2001, the New York Times reported that researchers at prestigious Columbia University Medical Center in New York had discovered something quite extraordinary. Using virtually foolproof scientific methods the researchers had demonstrated that infertile women who were prayed for by Christian prayer groups became pregnant twice as often as those who did not have people praying for them. The study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Even the researchers were shocked. The study’s results could only be described as miraculous.”
This study was later proven to be completely fraudulent. However, everyone who cut out the original article in the NYTimes and posted it on their refrigerators still has that article as “proof” that prayer works. This article entitled A prayer before dying uncovers another case where a “scientific study” of prayer is unmasked as fraudulent.

It’s not just prayer that is ineffective. Not even a hopeful attitude helps. According to this article:
A positive attitude does not improve the chances of surviving cancer and doctors who encourage patients to keep up hope may be burdening them, according to the results of research released Monday.
The dictionary defines the word “superstition” in this way:
An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome. ref]
I’ve tried to be more unbiased in my views as well as providing references to most of my points.
 
All of this information of course does not prove that prayers do not work. I have had many prayers answered, as have many people I know of.

I say this with the most sincerity, I realise I have no proof that they were answered by God, but you have no proof to the opposite. The only overriding factor in this debate is faith, and that sir is the key.

I appreciate the fact you neither believe or understand faith in a spiritual sense so there really is no way to explain it to you. Faith is a gift from God freely given to those who open their hearts to it.

Peace!
 
Why does God not answer all prayers?

Why is it mentioned specifically in the Bible that even the tiniest amount of faith would be more than enough for Jesus to answer your prayers?

He stats so obviously and extremely clearly that if you pray, it will be answered. There is no statement of ‘maybe’ or ‘it is not his will’ etc.

Matthew 7:7
Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
If “every one who asks receives”, then if we ask for cancer to be cured, it should be cured. Right? If “our Father who is in heaven gives good things to those who ask him”, then if we ask him to cure cancer, he should cure it. Right? And yet nothing happens. Matthew 17:20

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.
If “nothing will be impossible to you”, then if we ask to cure cancer tonight, cancer should disappear. Right? Yet nothing happens. Note that if we take the Bible less-than-literally here, the statement “nothing will be impossible to you” becomes “lots of things will be impossible to you,” and that would mean that Jesus is lying. Matthew 21:21:
I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
If “you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer”, then if we ask to cure cancer tonight, cancer should dissappear. Right? Yet nothing happens. Note again that there is not a non-literal way to interpret “you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer”, unless you replace “whatever” with “nothing” or “little.”

Mark 11:24:
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
If God says, “believe that you have received it, and it will be yours,” and if we believe in God and his power, then what should happen if we pray to cure cancer tonight? It should be cured. Either that, or God is lying. In John chapter 14, verses 12 through 14, Jesus tells all of us just how easy prayer can be:
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” ref]
Look at how direct this statement is: “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” This is the “Son of God” speaking. Have we taken him “too literally?” No. This is a simple, unambiguous statement. Have we taken his statement “out of context?” No - Jesus uses the word anyone. Yet Jesus’ statement is obviously false. Because when we ask God to cure cancer tonight, nothing happens. We see the same thing over and over again…
In Matthew 18:19 Jesus says:
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
In James 5:15-16 the Bible says: And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
In Mark 9:23: All things are possible to him who believes.
In Luke 1:37: For with God nothing will be impossible.
Why is it that, regardless of your answered prayers, prayer does not always work?
 
Prayers are answered in many ways. Many times the answer brings one closer to God, which is the reason we exist.

If you are, excuse the pun, hellbent on rendering yourself apart from God for eternity, you are on the right path. But why then, do you research the topic so much, and spend so much time trying to convince others that you are right? I think you are a closet believer (and you may not know it yet). In fact, I know you are.

When you get it, pray for me because you’ll be as passionate that way as you are this way - actually a blessing from God.
 
Disregarding your part about closet believing - as I’ve stated before I challenge things that I find interesting and/or up for debate. The fact that ‘prayers are answered in many ways’ is a delusion created by your mind. Jesus states in the bible very clearly that if you pray, you receive what you ask for. Not what he thinks you asked for.
 
Gump said:
Disregarding your part about closet believing - as I’ve stated before I challenge things that I find interesting and/or up for debate. The fact that ‘prayers are answered in many ways’ is a delusion created by your mind. Jesus states in the bible very clearly that if you pray, you receive what you ask for. Not what he thinks you asked for.
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Uh huh.
 
Gump said:
Jesus states in the bible very clearly that if you pray, you receive what you ask for. Not what he thinks you asked for.
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Hello Gump

This statement is true. Jesus Plainly said in the gospels if you pray it will be answered.

But, prayers are not answered. I don’t see how one could come to any other conclusion. Jesus lied.

les
 
lkddav said:
Hi Veronica

What do you understand about my actions and behaviors.

les
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Hi Les,

I haven’t seen much from you except maybe some attention seeking behaviors. You appear to come into a “doers” conversation after much has been done vis-a-vis discussion, and add fairly nothing. So I pulled your name and saw that this is pretty much normal Method of Operation for you. You also appear to like to throw out questions (mostly absurd) after a convo has been established, expecting a rise out of somebody - more attention seeking.

So, okie dokie…you appear to be lonely, not getting much in the area of conversation with others, and perhaps in a job where you are bored and do not get to make many decisions. But, I’m no fortune teller, just telling you what I think from your behavior in this forum. I could be waaaaaay wrong. As I said, it’s just my opinion. I hope I’m wrong and you’re a brain surgeon or something way cool. Where you lack the passion and stamina of Gump, I’m sure you make up with your own unique strengths.
 
Veronica7978 said:
Hi Les,

I haven’t seen much from you except maybe some attention seeking behaviors. You appear to come into a “doers” conversation after much has been done vis-a-vis discussion, and add fairly nothing. So I pulled your name and saw that this is pretty much normal Method of Operation for you. You also appear to like to throw out questions (mostly absurd) after a convo has been established, expecting a rise out of somebody - more attention seeking.

So, okie dokie…you appear to be lonely, not getting much in the area of conversation with others, and perhaps in a job where you are bored and do not get to make many decisions. But, I’m no fortune teller, just telling you what I think from your behavior in this forum. I could be waaaaaay wrong. As I said, it’s just my opinion. I hope I’m wrong and you’re a brain surgeon or something way cool. Where you lack the passion and stamina of Gump, I’m sure you make up with your own unique strengths.
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Hi Veronica

I could responde to this line for line but I am not. Honey, no offence, but you are talking out of your ***.

les
 
I didn’t want insults or fighting. I wanted a more…peaceful…debate. Can we please stay on topic?
 
Gump said:
Again, as I said before, why would God give time to send me to a Catholic internet online forum when he could be saving those little innocent babies?
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This is interesting miscomprehension. When Jesus met to a cripled man he said to him that his sins have been forgiven. When other people had bad thoughts about this he said, how much more harder it is to forgive sins then to make a man walk, but to proof his points he said to the man take your bed with you and walk home and he did. Mark 2.6-2.12.

The miscomprehension is that saving a human life is somehow wonderful, but there is much more grace in the world to come, and if God forgivess the sins of these babies he has done something much more then if he concentrates on saving their lifes by contradicting himself.
 
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