Answers to prayers?

[Hope]

In what ways are the methods adopted by researchers studying prayer inadequate: presumably you have critiqued these studies to be able to say this, so what are these researchers missing (methodologically speaking)?

OK, I have read a number of the studies and reports - but none have ever actually specified what the prayer requests being 'tested' actually were.  They generally refer to 'prayers for healing' but, as I've previously pointed out, many such prayers include a variety of levels and forms of healing within them.

[floo]

Hope you have NEVER provided any evidence, only assertions and more assertions!   

[Gordon]

OK, I have read a number of the studies and reports - but none have ever actually specified what the prayer requests being 'tested' actually were.  They generally refer to 'prayers for healing' but, as I've previously pointed out, many such prayers include a variety of levels and forms of healing within them.

So you see an issue involving the categorisation of prayer which, if your concerns are justified, implies two things: first that there are established categoristions of prayer (reflecting these 'levels and forms' you mention) which have been established via research that meets academic standards and, second, that the researchers in the studies you refer to didn't use an established catergorisation.

So which is it? 

[jeremyp]

The problem is that there are occasions when medical science states that a person has no hope of recovery, yet recover they do.

The clue is in the word "science". You can never be 100% certain of anything, but medical science is more often right than not and it undeniably saves lives. It would have done in this case, given the chance.

Are we to take it that medical science isn't to be trusted?

Is anybody saying that?

[Owlswing]

No, all I have to do is provide evidence that indicates that my assertions aren't ridiculous, illogical and unreasonable.

The same applies to Floo and others.

Furthermore, when one refers to verifiability, one has to assume that the means by which we verify claims are actually able to test every possible option.  It is clear that science isn't able to verify non-natural events and issues, despite the fact that life includes such things.  In other words, the scientific method isn't the only, let alone necessarily the best means of verifying things.

Hope

You make me physically sick!

You will say absolutely anything to exonerate your God from blame orresponsibility for NOT doing what he promised his followers.

ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN UNTO YOU - Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find ... "

Moderator: content removed: Moderated content replaced by - Not very good at keeping his promies is he?

your religion stinks and your God even more so!

As a human being you are sadly lacking in any kind of humanity - your God takes absolute precedence over everything and everybody. You care more for your God and his IMAGE than you care for humanity or the suffering of a young child at the hands of your religious beliefs and those who share them.

[jeremyp]

You will say absolutely anything to exonerate your God from blame orresponsibility for NOT doing what he promised his followers.

To be fair, Hope's god has the handicap of being imaginary. That is a pretty good excuse not to be able to do anything.

[Owlswing]

Before anyone has a real go at me for my post above - I am only remaining on this forum until I get resolution of a matter which is in hand and ongoing.

As soon as that resolution is reached I am, much, I am, sure, to the relief of most who are posting on here, leaving the forum.

Some of you I will miss, Shaker and Gordon among them, others I will miss like a very bad case of eczema and haemorrhoids occurring at the same time as a visit from my mother-in-law. Mentioning no names!

[Gordon]

Furthermore, when one refers to verifiability, one has to assume that the means by which we verify claims are actually able to test every possible option.

You once again display your utter ignorance of research methods: for anything to be a 'possible option' implies a appropriate methodology within which evidence can be collected and evaluated, which is where validity and reliability come in (as part of the method). A proposal of 'x' without an appropriate methodology isn't a 'possible option' if there is no methodological basis to evaluate it: it is just white noise.

Before you come lumbering in with your usual claim that science is not the only method, you often been asked to propose an alternative method that will stand scrutiny - how is that progressing?   

It is clear that science isn't able to verify non-natural events and issues, despite the fact that life includes such things.

Explain how you would even know, never mind 'verify', something non-natural: what does this non-naturalism involve in order for you to apprehend its presence or action? You claim 'the fact that life includes such things' - so whatever these things are just choose one and set out the details.

In other words, the scientific method isn't the only, let alone necessarily the best means of verifying things.

Right on cue - here it is! So if science isn't the only approach to verification, as you say, then what alternatives are there?

[Owlswing]

You once again display your utter ignorance of research methods: for anything to be a 'possible option' implies a appropriate methodology within which evidence can be collected and evaluated, which is where validity and reliability come in (as part of the method). A proposal of 'x' without an appropriate methodology isn't a 'possible option' if there is no methodological basis to evaluate it: it is just white noise.

Before you come lumbering in with your usual claim that science is not the only method, you often been asked to propose an alternative method that will stand scrutiny - how is that progressing?   

Explain how you would even know, never mind 'verify', something non-natural: what does this non-naturalism involve in order for you to apprehend its presence or action? You claim 'the fact that life includes such things' - so whatever these things are just choose one and set out the details.

Right on cue - here it is! So if science isn't the only approach to verification, as you say, then what alternatives are there?

Gordon

Why do you and others keep trying to explain to Hope the many errors in his arguments? Why waste the time?

You know as well as I do that he will not give an inch, he cannot understand that his arguments are to rational argument what Stalin was to Conservative politics, what Christine Keeler was to Catholic moral values, and what Donald Trump is to sanity! 

It is like trying to convince Victoria Beckham that to smile will not crack her face into a thousand pieces - which would, on balance, be an improvement.

[Sebastian Toe]

As has been pointed out in the past, God works through people.

He was working through the parents then............

[Owlswing]

He was working through the parents then............

 . . . unfortunately that possibility does not fit into Hope's view of the situation, because the boy died, God MUST have been working through the Doctors in order the "his will be done".

If he had been working through the parents the boy would have lived as they requested in their prayers!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hope,

Sorry, bhs; Floo made a statement.  I have asked for evidence in support of that statement.  That is not the NPF.

Nope. The statement was that there is no evidence for the claims you (and some others) make for the efficacy of prayer. That's a true statement, just as "there is no evidence for an orbiting teapot" is a true statement. That's not to say that, at some future time, evidence for either necessarily cannot emerge but it is to say that in each case there's been none so far.

Incidentally, I have provided evidence earlier in the thread for why a belief in the efficacy of prayer is logical and reasonable.

No you haven't.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hope,

No, all I have to do is provide evidence that indicates that my assertions aren't ridiculous, illogical and unreasonable.

Then, finally, why not at least attempt to do so?

The same applies to Floo and others.

Which isn't a problem. The "evidence" or, more properly, the logic is that there's no reason to think there to be a god because no such reasoning has ever been produced in a cogent, coherent, or logically sound manner.

Furthermore, when one refers to verifiability, one has to assume that the means by which we verify claims are actually able to test every possible option.  It is clear that science isn't able to verify non-natural events and issues, despite the fact that life includes such things.  In other words, the scientific method isn't the only, let alone necessarily the best means of verifying things.

Your problem here isn't that "science isn't able to verify non-natural events and issues", but rather that you need to demonstrate that there are "non-natural events and issues" to be verified in the first place. You have in other words just committed the reification fallacy again.

You may think that the scientific method isn't the only or the best means of verifying everything, but you have all your work ahead of you still to propose a method of any kind to use in its place.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hope,

I think that you misunderstand what many people pray for, Floo.  Whilst some will pray, exclusively, for healing (and often from selfish motives) most will pray that God will do what is best for the person concerned.  That might be a full recovery, it might be death, it might be for somewhere in between.  At the same time, healing can take a whole range of aspects.  It can be physical, it can be mental; it can have to do with the attitude of the sick person towards themselves or towards others - ie who is to blame for the situation they find themselves in; it can be to do with how they have treated themselves or how others have treated them, etc.

Prayer is seldom as simplistic as you, and most prayer-research, like to make out.

Nope. All that means is that, no matter what happens, it happened "because God knew best". That's called casuistry - you're dressing up the outcome that's exactly the one you'd expect to see if there was no god at all by claiming it all to be a divine plan beyond our ken.

And yes, prayer is "simplistic" inasmuch as the results are just as you'd expect them to be if there was no praying done at all. Pointing to personal anecdotes and trying to draw general conclusions from them doesn't work because your sample size is too small and because you just ignore or dress up the prayers that don't work (see above). If you want to demonstrate the supposed efficacy of prayer you need sample sizes that are statistically meaningful and you need to deal with the silent evidence problem of failures.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hope,

The problem is that there are occasions when medical science states that a person has no hope of recovery, yet recover they do.  Are we to take it that medical science isn't to be trusted?

No. What we are to think though is that you've constructed a straw man version of science, which actually claims neither omniscience nor infallibility. Of course there are things that science doesn't understand - that's why people still do it. And of course it gets things wrong sometimes - especially medical science given the complexity of the multiple and interacting systems of the human body. Neither fact though gives you licence to describe some phenomena as "supernatural" and to drop in your personal faith beliefs as the explanations for them.

You are in other words back into, "it must be Thor then" territory.   

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

I  At the same time, healing can take a whole range of aspects.  It can be physical, it can be mental; it can have to do with the attitude of the sick person towards themselves or towards others - ie who is to blame for the situation they find themselves in; it can be to do with how they have treated themselves or how others have treated them, etc.

More fundamental contradictions in the various positions you hold.

When we discussed a while ago about God commanding genocide, I asked you why he could not have found a more peaceful means of settling the situation rather than the wholesale slaughter of tribes.

I suggested that he might change the minds of the people who might perpetrate atrocities. You rejected this idea on the grounds that it would violate free-will and make people robots.

Yet recently you have suggested that God could have had a hand in determining the recent referendum vote. And above you also suggest that he can change the attitudes of people in order to obtain a certain outcome.

For me it clearly shows that if God can change minds and attitudes then he committed/ordered genocide in the past. If he can't change minds then he can't have had a say in the referendum or in the healing that you refer to.

Which is it?

 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Stephen,

More fundamental contradictions in the various positions you hold.

Well, yes. That's what happens when you step off the firm ground of logical thinking and onto well, what? Wishful thinking? Personal opinion? Hope even?

That's the odd thing about Hope. If he'd just stop pretending that there's any sort of reasoning to support him and instead said something like, "look, I can't support these contentions in any way but I really, really think and hope they're true nonetheless" then we'd all say "fair enough" and leave him to it. The moment though he tries to hide under the cloak of rationalism, it all comes falling down around his ears as you've pointed out. 

[ippy]

Through my working life I've had to deal with all kinds of people, people of all sorts, holding all sorts of jobs, professions etc, including teachers, I've got teachers in my own family, now of all the professions I've had to deal with, teachers it seems to me that a considerable amount of them, not all, have this mistaken idea that now they they have acquired their teaching degree and at the same time by some miraculous piece of fate they have also acquired the entire knowledge of the universe; you don't need to look very far on the forum to find an example of this phenomenon.

ippy

[john]

Just to note that, in an interview with today's Sunday Telegraph, prospective Tory leader and Prime Minister Andrea Leadsom tells us she's a "very committed Christian" who prays "a lot".

Oh great. And there was me thinking things couldn't get much worse. Imagine the scene: Trump and Putin squaring off, the world in mortal danger and UN Security Council member and nuclear power the UK has to decide how to respond. A calm head, deep understanding of the issues and exceptional judgment are essential here, and where's a our putative leader at this critical time?

Yup, on her knees praying to her imaginary friend for her orders.

Terrific eh?

Are you talking about Tony Blair?

Tony Blair !!!

[bluehillside Retd.]

John,

Are you talking about Tony Blair?

No. As I said, the i'view was with Andrea Leadsom.

[john]

I know you were but the situation seems similar to the Bush / Blair pray in before the Gulf war.

I expect a politician to have the skill to weigh up facts before deciding what to do. To kneel and pray to God to be told what to do seems like a cop out to me. When incorrect decisions go bad they can simply claim "God told me to do it, so there". Unacceptable!     

[bluehillside Retd.]

john,

I know you were but the situation seems similar to the Bush / Blair pray in before the Gulf war.

I expect a politician to have the skill to weigh up facts before deciding what to do. To kneel and pray to God to be told what to do seems like a cop out to me. When incorrect decisions go bad they can simply claim "God told me to do it, so there". Unacceptable!     

Quite so. I think TB's enthusiastic support for faith schools could well be one of the more damning aspects of his legacy.

[Brownie]

His kids went to the Oratory from what I remember and that's probably his idea of a faith school, or was.  I expect he knows different now.  Indeed, when I first heard talk about 'faith schools' I assumed they were like the innocuous girls' convent school in Bromley, the 'Christ the King' comprehensive sixth form college at Sidcup and the CofE primary near where my mum lived.  I was naive and, of course, quite wrong.  A faith school is often a place where very narrow views are indoctrinated into kids, evolution didn't happen, anyone on the outside is spawn of the devil, goodness knows what else.  Scary.  I know I exaggerate here but all sorts go on behind closed doors, despite OFSTED.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Explain how you would even know, never mind 'verify', something non-natural: what does this non-naturalism involve in order for you to apprehend its presence or action? You claim 'the fact that life includes such things' - so whatever these things are just choose one and set out the details.

iirc they include:

1) Speed limits.
2) Right and wrong.

We have yet to be shown how he knows these things to be non-natural.

I think part of the problem is that Hope seems to define as non-natural any aspect of life that isn't within the remit of science.

He is of course wrong in that in both the above examples the debate can be informed by application of science.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

  To use this as an argument that prayer doesn't work is a pretty poor argument. 

I didn't use it as an argument that prayer doesn't work, although that is one explanation.