The Catholic Response to Feuerbach's "Man created God"?

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Forget your brother. Stick with the option of praying for a cure.

In that case, the same dynamic applies.

Are you suggesting that if the sick people who are being prayed for don’t get better then it’s because God wanted them to stay sick? In which case prayers really are a waste of time because God will do what He wants anyway whatever you ask for.

You say that it’s not that you can’t test prayers. You say that they make no discernable difference. Which was my point actually.

At least we agree on that.

 

[Gorgias]

If you support the three options, then at least some of the time the prayers will have been answered. And it actually doesn’t need to be shown that prayers are answered all of the time. Just some of the time.

I would argue that the “three options” approach says that all prayers are answered – it’s just that some times, we don’t get the answer that we might have hoped for.

Here’s the other problem with the experiment as suggested: when a person who has prayed actually experiences healing, how are you to infer that it was the prayer that caused the healing? (In a double-blind experiment, this would correspond to a trial with a ‘placebo’.) The problem with this experiment is that it’s not possible to run a ‘double-blind’ experiment (after all, our Divine Healer not only knows, but also is not part of the experiment per se).

More critically, we’d be absolutely unable to analyze the results. In any experiment with a population of participants, it’s absolutely essential to ensure that there isn’t any skew within the group (i.e., disproportionate numbers of a particular gender / age / ethnicity or other demographic group). Here’s the rub: how could we possibly know whether our population of participants is skewed or not? And, not being able to characterize our population, how could we possibly reach a valid conclusion?

So… no, I don’t agree with you, here; this attempt at conducting an experiment on the efficacy of prayer is at best well-intentioned but naive. (At worst, it’s callously attempting to conceal that the experiment is bound to fail.)

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

If you support the three options, then at least some of the time the prayers will have been answered. And it actually doesn’t need to be shown that prayers are answered all of the time. Just some of the time.

I would argue that the “three options” approach says that all prayers are answered – it’s just that some times, we don’t get the answer that we might have hoped for.

So I say prayer doesn’t work and you say that sometimes it might, sometimes it might not and we can’t tell anyway, because we may get just the opposite of that which we’ve prayed for.

It’s like I ask if a treatement is going to cure me and the doc says: ‘Well sometimes it might. And sometimes it might not. And sometimes it might make things worse. We have no way of knowing’.

Colour me unimpressed.

 

[EZweber]

I’m saying that they do make a difference, but that difference is not always the expected one. God chooses what He knows is best given your prayers and other things. One does not know what is best. There is an effect, it’s just impossible to measure.

 

[Wozza]

I’m saying that they do make a difference, but that difference is not always the expected one. God chooses what He knows is best given your prayers and other things. One does not know what is best. There is an effect, it’s just impossible to measure.

If God knows best and you don’t, then please explain to me the reason for prayer. What He wills will be.

It may make you closer to God but as a means to change a situation to your favour, if is useless. According to your view.

 

[EZweber]

If God knows best and you don’t, then please explain to me the reason for prayer. What He wills will be.

It may make you closer to God but as a means to change a situation to your favour, if is useless. According to your view.

It makes you more receptive to God’s graces.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

If God knows best and you don’t, then please explain to me the reason for prayer. What He wills will be.

It may make you closer to God but as a means to change a situation to your favour, if is useless. According to your view.

It makes you more receptive to God’s graces.

Then prayer is beneficial for those who believe. Just don’t tell me that it works to cure cancer.

 

[EZweber]

Then prayer is beneficial for those who believe. Just don’t tell me that it works to cure cancer.

Well it could, but I recommend chemotherapy.

 

[Gorgias]

It’s like I ask if a treatement is going to cure me and the doc says: ‘Well sometimes it might. And sometimes it might not. And sometimes it might make things worse. We have no way of knowing’.

Think about that for a second. In fact, it’s precisely the opposite! You see, medicine is physical therapy. You should be able to design an experiment to draw a direct line from physical state through physical therapy to physical effect.

Spiritual questions, on the other hand, insert a non-physical dimension which cannot be measured. If you expect this context to work like the physical context… then your analysis is in error. The two cannot be conflated.

Colour me unimpressed.

That’s the whole point: if you point to an apple and say ‘orange’, you’re naturally going to be unimpressed with its orange-ness…

 

[LateCatholic]

Just a clarification that you have probably already received, the Church does not teach that having homosexual inclinations is sinful. Encouraging them or engaging in homosexual actions is.

Right, I know. But it still makes no sense.
I know I’m in the minority in this forum, but it’s crazy to claim two people loving each other, regardless of their sex, to be sinful.
I would never, ever, ever dissuade one of my family or friends from pursuing their happiness if they were gay. I know many gay couples, some with children, and they are awesome people.
I’m fine with the Church saying the sacrament of marriage is between a man and a woman, and that gay marriage is not recognized. In fact, probably makes sense. Gay marriage should be secular.
But taking away a person’s innate drive to love someone? Never. Church is wrong on that one.

 

[LateCatholic]

Are you suggesting that if the sick people who are being prayed for don’t get better then it’s because God wanted them to stay sick? In which case prayers really are a waste of time because God will do what He wants anyway whatever you ask for.

This has always bothered me. Why should we pray for something? Consider:

1. Are we trying to change God’s mind? How arrogant is that?
2. Since God is omniscient and perfect, whatever he decides, regardless of our prayers, is going to happen anyway, right?

The whole concept of prayer doesn’t make much sense, other than a psychological crutch to get someone passed the feeling of helplessness.
I almost lost one of my adopted children to a legal challenge. I prayed so much.
And it turned out OK.
But did my prayers work? Did I change God’s mind? Or did I not have to pray at all? Or if I didn’t pray, would God have taken away my child out of spite?

NONE of the answers are good.

 

[EZweber]

Never. Church is wrong on that one.

I would be happy to discuss this with you - on a different thread. Obviously, I disagree.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

It’s like I ask if a treatement is going to cure me and the doc says: ‘Well sometimes it might. And sometimes it might not. And sometimes it might make things worse. We have no way of knowing’.

Think about that for a second. In fact, it’s precisely the opposite! You see, medicine is physical therapy. You should be able to design an experiment to draw a direct line from physical state through physical therapy to physical effect.

Spiritual questions, on the other hand, insert a non-physical dimension which cannot be measured. If you expect this context to work like the physical context… then your analysis is in error. The two cannot be conflated.

Colour me unimpressed.

That’s the whole point: if you point to an apple and say ‘orange’, you’re naturally going to be unimpressed with its orange-ness…

I know you’re not missing the analogy. Suffice to say if we have no way of knowing if prayer works then to all intents and purposes, it doesn’t. But if it makes you feel closer to God, then it has a purpose.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Are you suggesting that if the sick people who are being prayed for don’t get better then it’s because God wanted them to stay sick? In which case prayers really are a waste of time because God will do what He wants anyway whatever you ask for.

This has always bothered me. Why should we pray for something? Consider:

1. Are we trying to change God’s mind? How arrogant is that?
2. Since God is omniscient and perfect, whatever he decides, regardless of our prayers, is going to happen anyway, right?

The whole concept of prayer doesn’t make much sense, other than a psychological crutch to get someone passed the feeling of helplessness.
I almost lost one of my adopted children to a legal challenge. I prayed so much.
And it turned out OK.
But did my prayers work? Did I change God’s mind? Or did I not have to pray at all? Or if I didn’t pray, would God have taken away my child out of spite?

NONE of the answers are good.

I remember my mother praying so hard when my dad was really sick. It really helped her I think. It didn’t help him…

 

[Gorgias]

Suffice to say if we have no way of knowing if prayer works then to all intents and purposes, it doesn’t.

The problem is in the definition of what it means for a prayer to “work”. If your definition is “I got what I asked for”, then you misunderstand what prayer is. That leads you to conclude that “we can’t know if prayer ‘works’”, or worse, that “prayer doesn’t work.”

From the nonbeliever’s perspective, of course, the only possible measure for prayer really is “did you get what you asked for?”, and therefore, the only answer they can perceive is “nope; prayer doesn’t work; it’s just arbitrary and non-causal.”

I know you’re not missing the analogy.

I’m not. I’m denying its validity.

 

[LateCatholic]

Never. Church is wrong on that one.

So we are obviously going to get on a tangent here, but avoiding the concept of “gay being wrong”, I find it inconsistent and therefore indefensible that the Church claims that the THOUGHT of committing a sinful act is acceptable, yet committing the act itself is NOT acceptable.

This is completely contrary to Catholic dogma. Only with homosexuality is the exception made. Perhaps you can come up with another example.
For example, “Thou shall not covet the neighbors goods”. Not only is stealing wrong, the THOUGHT of stealing is wrong. Say I want to kill someone. Literally murder them. That certainly is not an “acceptable inclination” as you put it.
So why does the Church now make the exception for homosexuality? It didn’t in the past. This is new. When I was growing up (as seen in my post), even THINKING about being gay was wrong. It is nice that things have changed, but it makes NO sense whatsoever.
The fact remains that gays love each other. They do. And if the Church wants to say such love is actually EVIL because of what components a person has between their legs, I personally think that is horrible. Just horrible.

 

[Elf01]

So we are obviously going to get on a tangent here, but avoiding the concept of “gay being wrong”, I find it inconsistent and therefore indefensible that the Church claims that the THOUGHT of committing a sinful act is acceptable, yet committing the act itself is NOT acceptable.

Actually the Church teaches is that we are responsible for what we can control. We can’t control our attractions so they are not a sin. We can control how we respond to them and that may be sinful. Lustful thoughts are sinful regardless of whether the person you are thinking about is the same sex as you or not.

 

[LateCatholic]

Actually the Church teaches is that we are responsible for what we can control. We can’t control our attractions so they are not a sin. We can control how we respond to them and that may be sinful. Lustful thoughts are sinful regardless of whether the person you are thinking about is the same sex as you or not.

A total cop-out that makes no sense. The commandment literally is a thought crime: “Do not covet”. You are saying my feelings of lust for my wife were a sin the 30 seconds before I said my vows but were not the 30 seconds after I said them? Simply because I can control them? I can’t control those thoughts. So I needed to somehow subvert my thoughts of lust or I am sinning?
Please. Ridiculous.

The point is that the Church is trying to soothe the bigotry inherent in its dogma. We all know it. It used to be that even having that attraction was sinful. At least that was consistent.

 

[FredBloggs]

Hi everyone!

Quick question from a college philosophy major struggling to reconcile an interesting topic we learned about in class.

We briefly covered Feuerbach and his Hegelian-rooted philosophy of “man created God”. Or in other words, man objectified his subjective nature and called this objectified nature “God”.

The results of this thesis seem to me, for the most part, to bear substantial credence that religion could be entirely man-made.

For instance, the way I’ve come to learn of how our faith in God affects us is that God gives us what we need, and then everything we do comes from us. In other words, if I walk to my fridge to get food, I was the one doing the action–it came from me–by using my strength which was given to me by God.

If we take out the last part of that statement, we could essentially have the same result: I walked to the fridge (using the strength within me, and the source of this strength could be biological, etc. I would imagine it wouldn’t matter for someone not in interested in faith).

So, where does God become a crucial part of this argument, or more specifically, in the conclusion of a scenario such as the one I described? In other words, if we can achieve the results(getting to the fridge), why is it worth debating about how we got there?

What is the right argument here, rooted in logic (since to be clear, this isn’t a crisis of faith for me, I simply like to prepare myself for an apologetics argument for someone who maybe doesn’t have a faith life, and a lot of answers can simply come back to faith), that can be used to refute these ideas?

There could also be a chance I’m a little “too in my head” here: I’ve been taking in a whole lot of philosophy lately

Thanks so much in advance!

I think you’re likely to lose (whether you accept the loss or not) such an argument. None of the logical proofs of God stand up to scrutiny; and there are no other proofs offered.

I haven’t read all the comments, so apologies if this has already been said, but if your god created man rather than the other way around, then you’re effectively saying, “Man created every god except my god.”

Which is a difficult statement to defend.

 

[Elf01]

The point is that the Church is trying to soothe the bigotry inherent in its dogma. We all know it. It used to be that even having that attraction was sinful. At least that was consistent.

The teaching is consistint. Wgat’s not is identifying with a religion (however limited) that you find bigoted.