Skeptic Michael Shermer: Skepticism shaken to its core

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Bradski said:
And according to you, that will make them suffer less before they died. Utterly bizarre…
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By what objective standard do you call a thing truly bizarre? Or are you describing your personal taste?
 
GodMadeMe said:
By what objective standard do you call a thing truly bizarre? Or are you describing your personal taste?
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You don’t think that someone believing that prayer will make someone feel better after they are dead is bizarre? Tony refuses to suggest how this could work. Maybe you could explain this:

You have been sick. In serious pain. You are better now, but you remember being in pain. Then somebody prays for you, after you recover. Tony is saying that, assuming the prayer works, you will have suffered less. What on earth do you remember now?

Now how would you describe that? Entirely natural? A little odd? Surreal? Pythonesque? I vote bizarre.
 
Not only is it bizarre, it sounds like tony is making this up as he goes along. Thankfully his ideas on this do not represent official Catholic teaching (I hope).
 
Bradski said:
And according to you, that will make them suffer less before they died. Utterly bizarre…
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That remark of yours comes as no surprise because according to you all prayer is bizarre. I find far more bizarre your faith in the blind Goddess who doesn’t even know what she’s doing but succeeds in giving birth to great saints, artists, scientists and philosophers. According to Jacques Monod, her lover was Necessity but in spite of his Nobel Prize he had his doubts. He obviously didn’t like the thought of his prodigious intellect being derived from their undignified primeval soup… Can you blame him? 😉
 
SonOfMan said:
Not only is it bizarre, it sounds like tony is making this up as he goes along. Thankfully his ideas on this do not represent official Catholic teaching (I hope).
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You hope Catholics don’t pray for their deceased relatives?No wonder you’re unsure about the teaching of the Church! 🙂
 
tonyrey said:
That remark of yours comes as no surprise because according to you all prayer is bizarre.
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So let’s assume for the purpose of this discussion that prayer works. You remember being in pain after recovering from an illness. According to you, prayer after you have recovered will lessen the pain that you have already experienced. What do you remember, Tony?

And please, no comments about materialism and senseless molecules and such. Just answer the question if you could.
 
Bradski said:
You don’t think that someone believing that prayer will make someone feel better after they are dead is bizarre?.
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Did he really say that? What do you mean by dead?

What do you mean by bizarre? Out of the ordinary spectrum of human experience?

God is outside of time and so it is not hard to imagine in that context how a prayer after the fact might actually influence events before the fact. But this is speculative.
 
SonOfMan said:
You hope Catholics don’t pray for their deceased relatives?No wonder you’re unsure about the teaching of the Church!
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I have no idea who they are but the fact remains that Catholics pray for their relatives who have died - which implies that the efficacy of prayer is not restricted to the present and the future. God’s power and love is not so parochial: it embraces the whole of Creation from start to finish. There is a very good book by J B Philips online: helodermatous.netfast.org/your-god-is-too-small-pdf-epub/
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GodMadeMe said:
Did he really say that? What do you mean by dead?

What do you mean by bizarre? Out of the ordinary spectrum of human experience?

God is outside of time and so it is not hard to imagine in that context how a prayer after the fact might actually influence events before the fact. But this is speculative.
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God’s power is not speculative! 🙂
 
tonyrey said:
…the fact remains that Catholics pray for their relatives who have died - which implies that the efficacy of prayer is not restricted to the present and the future.
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Oh no you don’t. You don’t slide out of this that easily. ‘Catholics pray for their dead relatives – therefore it must affect the past’. Bulldust.

You have explicitly stated that prayer has an effect on people who were ill in the past. You need to explain how this happens or retract it. Answer the question that has been asked at least twice in the last few posts, please.
 
Bradski said:
That remark of yours comes as no surprise because according to you all prayer is bizarre.
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I remember being in pain and I have no way of knowing whether it could have been less severe if some one had prayed for me but I don’t rule out the possibility on principle. A loving God would surely not ignore our requests and I don’t see why He would be powerless as far as the past is concerned.
And please, no comments about materialism and senseless molecules and such. Just answer the question if you could.
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The context is all-important, Brad. How can we have a credible opinion on the efficacy or futility of prayer if we have no idea of what we are and why we are here?
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tonyrey said:
. . . Catholics pray for their relatives who have died - which implies that the efficacy of prayer is not restricted to the present and the future. God’s power and love is not so parochial: it embraces the whole of Creation from start to finish. . .
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When we pray, we are united with all the angels and saints, who within the Beatific Vision are in direct communion with God.
Beyond time and space, witness to His glory, we join in singing our praises to our Father from whom all good things come - the ultimate reality.
 
Bradski said:
Oh no you don’t. You don’t slide out of this that easily. ‘Catholics pray for their dead relatives – therefore it must affect the past’. Bulldust.

You have explicitly stated that prayer has an effect on people who were ill in the past. You need to explain how this happens or retract it. Answer the question that has been asked at least twice in the last few posts, please.
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Bradski-

Let’s assume for a moment that Tonyrey misspoke or simply erred when he wrote that. Okay, fine. It happens. He learns and moves on.

The take-home for you is that prayer is efficacious for the dead IN PURGATORY.

Those in heaven do not need our prayers, and those in hell cannot benefit from them. However, those who are still undergoing a purgative cleansing prior to entering heaven may have their experience shortened/lessened by the application of grace that comes through the Church’s treasury of merits - which include the prayers of the Church Militant (that’s us here on earth).

Hope this helps. 👍
 
tonyrey said:
. . . A loving God would surely not ignore our requests and I don’t see why He would be powerless as far as the past is concerned. . .
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As you have yourself stated, there is no past for God. All time is being brought into existence from the One Centre of all time.

What the study shows that seems to be confusing the Atheists, and probably Deists:
God is intimately involved with our lives and He speaks to us.
He is in complete control of everything beyond our limited free will.
He is in the past as He is in the present, as He is in the future.
God knows who at a later time is praying for whom in a previous time.
As the Source of all causality, He influences every time that will ever exist, from outside of time.
Thus He influences the recovery of those in the earlier time because of the prayers of those in the later time.
The causal relationships in time that determine its flow, are governed by His will, and thus can be changed at His prerogative as Creator.
There is but one reality; the past and future happen as they happen and do not change.
God is not a genie, not a puppet, not a force; He is the transcendent being who creates us.
It is His will, not our will that is to be done.
The study to me is a powerful statement concerning God’s omniscience and omnipotence.

While we tend to pray anyway in hope of a positive outcome,
in situations where it has not yet been ascertained,
it may also be helpful to make our pleadings heard,
as God does relent sometimes and
those prayers will influence the course of events.
A sort of Schroedinger’s cat situation, perhaps.

Clearly, there is no changing what has happened. That is what makes it the past to our present.

:twocents:
 
This is definitely the strangest thread I have ever encountered. To change the past is one of the obvious examples that God is not able to do, along the other logical contradictions.

Tony said: A loving God would surely not ignore our requests and I don’t see why He would be powerless as far as the past is concerned.
So let’s put it into practice. I urge you all to start praying to God to make the Holocaust retroactively nonexistent. As tony said: “A loving God would surely not ignore our requests…” and I challenge him to put his money where his mouth is. I can already foresee his objection: “God is not a vending machine”… which contradicts his other observation: “A loving God would surely not ignore our requests…” The sad thing is that such self-contradictions are all over the place. The even sadder thing is that no one (from your side) challenges it.
 
Randy_Carson said:
Bradski-

Let’s assume for a moment that Tonyrey misspoke or simply erred when he wrote that. Okay, fine. It happens. He learns and moves on.

The take-home for you is that prayer is efficacious for the dead IN PURGATORY.
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I think we both know that he has erred. I think we both know that he knows that as well. I do try to correct my mistakes, or at least admit them. Good for the soul, I guess.

I’d like Tony to do the same. He has a track record of avoiding doing so. It would be nice to see a change of heart.
 
Bradski said:
I think we both know that he has erred. I think we both know that he knows that as well. I do try to correct my mistakes, or at least admit them. Good for the soul, I guess.

I’d like Tony to do the same. He has a track record of avoiding doing so. It would be nice to see a change of heart.
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I feel the same about you. 👍

If I’m able to show you some convincing arguments in favor of theism, Christianity or Catholicism along the way, you will let me know, won’t you? 😉
 
Randy_Carson said:
I feel the same about you. 👍

If I’m able to show you some convincing arguments in favor of theism, Christianity or Catholicism along the way, you will let me know, won’t you? 😉
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I assume that you mean convincing arguments that I haven’t heard many times before and have already rejected? You might want to know that my position is not one arrived at overnight and it started with a Christian upbringing. I am no recent convert to the New Atheism.

I’ve studied religion (not just Christianity and not just Catholicism) for many years. If that is also the case with you, then you’re off to a good start.

But again, go for your life.
 
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