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[Muz]

Most things I've prayed for I haven't gotten.

A sincere, humble one? Not a "if you want me to believe in you, give me (this stuff)"? Whether or not it's worded that way, an omniscient being can sense your intentions.

It's in essence, just a request from a divine being. It's up to God(s) whether or not they want to meet that request. And showing a little effort for the thing you asked for helps. If you ask for something just to see if you'd get it, I'm pretty sure anyone would reject that.

IMO, the typical 'religious' person's approach of "I can't help you but I'll pray for you" is very insulting to a supreme being. It's a spoiled attitude when you expect a God to do stuff for you if you're not willing to sacrifice some effort for it yourself.

[10ebbor10]

IMO, the typical 'religious' person's approach of "I can't help you but I'll pray for you" is very insulting to a supreme being. It's a spoiled attitude when you expect a God to do stuff for you if you're not willing to sacrifice some effort for it yourself.

Depends on the situation. It could also mean, I can't help you, but I would if I could.

[Owlbread]

Most things I've prayed for I haven't gotten.

A sincere, humble one? Not a "if you want me to believe in you, give me (this stuff)"? Whether or not it's worded that way, an omniscient being can sense your intentions.

It's in essence, just a request from a divine being. It's up to God(s) whether or not they want to meet that request. And showing a little effort for the thing you asked for helps. If you ask for something just to see if you'd get it, I'm pretty sure anyone would reject that.

IMO, the typical 'religious' person's approach of "I can't help you but I'll pray for you" is very insulting to a supreme being. It's a spoiled attitude when you expect a God to do stuff for you if you're not willing to sacrifice some effort for it yourself.

Yep. I still didn't get it, very rarely have.

[Darvi]

Spoiler: Relevant (click to show/hide)

[Leafsnail]

The fact that everything can be done through secular means is not an argument against religion. The fact that he got his banana is not because [Insert Diety here] gave him one from Heaven, but because someone else did so, while being motivated by his scriptures.

It wouldn't. Humans are humans. They'd find another excuse to justify their hate.

This is my favourite argument.  "Good things?  Yeah, they're all caused by religion.  Bad things?  Oh no, humans are humans, they're nothing to do with religion".

You keep acting like problems only exist in fundamentalist interpretations wheras actually the lack of basis problem is present in pretty much every interpretation of every religion (in fact it's the fundamentalist interpretations such as creationism that at least attempt to have a basis sometimes, although the evidence they turn to is usually flawed or incorrect).

[alexandertnt]

Because I get everything I prayed for. I was once in the middle of a desert, had a craving for a banana, so I made a lengthy sincere prayer for a banana. The next day, someone gave me a banana. I get about 90% of the things I pray for, and the rest can be classified as pending.

Possibly a classic case of correlation != causation. In other words, coincidence. I would be curious as to what it is you prayed for and under what circumstances you aquired them. I am also not sure why any God(s) would concern themselves with someones craving for bananas why people are dying and praying much harder.

Prayer has not shown any effect with any studies done. Some people (a response which fustrates me) may just claim that "oh, but you can't study prayer". Why not? Does it hide itself when it is studied? is it intelligent now? Unfalsifiability is an indicator of something very faulty. If prayer works, it will have a noticible effect in the world (if it works it has to do something. If it has a noticible effect it can be studied).

Spoiler: Relevant (click to show/hide)

This. It pretty much explains prayer (at least the first image).

If it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, I'd rather live on prayer placebos than have it fail out of disbelief.

So you would rather live blindly then understand the mechanics behind how it works? One does not just "disbelieve", they apply logic to a given situation to get what they want instead of blindly "hope". You get a banana from prayer. Someone who casts doubt on prayer comes to the conclusion that a better solution is to grow a banana plant. Or perhaps become aware of their like for banana's and bring some with them. If someone focuses their efforts on aquiring what they want through reasonable and logical decisions, they will end up with much more done much more reliably than someone who prayes for the same thing. In my opinion at least, prayer blinds people to superior solutions to problems.

Because of Pascal's Wager.

So, one of the major criticisms of Pascal's Wager is that belief in religion is to a minor disadvantage to the individual and a major disadvantage to society. But the society I live in is greatly enhanced by religion - lots of people sharing their wealth, giving aid and education to the poor, flooding donations in the name of God to disaster victims. No disadvantages; things like stem cell research is on full steam (with a lot of highly religious people participating), and there are no restrictions on alcohol or pork or whatever.

One of the major arguments is think if you look at the sheer quantity of religions out there, and the various prerequisits to get to heaven/reincarnation/whatever, this would seem pretty silly. Which God(s) have you gambled your afterlife on (or lack of gods, as a few religions have it)?

Pascal's Wager is belief from fear. How many God(s) will let you in if you only believed them "to be safe rather than sorry"?

Most things I've prayed for I haven't gotten.

A sincere, humble one? Not a "if you want me to believe in you, give me (this stuff)"? Whether or not it's worded that way, an omniscient being can sense your intentions.

It's in essence, just a request from a divine being. It's up to God(s) whether or not they want to meet that request. And showing a little effort for the thing you asked for helps. If you ask for something just to see if you'd get it, I'm pretty sure anyone would reject that.

IMO, the typical 'religious' person's approach of "I can't help you but I'll pray for you" is very insulting to a supreme being. It's a spoiled attitude when you expect a God to do stuff for you if you're not willing to sacrifice some effort for it yourself.

Too many questions...

What is a sincere and humble prayer? How does one meet this criteria? What intentions do you have to have? Perhaps I have to sacrifice an animal to make in sincere?

Maby the Religion of the Lazy God is True, and showing effort hinders responses from the Lazy God.

Do all God(s) respond to prayer/equivelant? Which one should I pray to?

Why not invest that effort into aquiring that thing with proven methods?

How can you have an opinion that "a supreme being" would find that insulting? To do this you would have to have some idea about what this supreme being is, but this term is usually applied in a completely generic fashion. Maby the True Supreme Being like rewarding spoilt people?

When people try to refer to religion in a generic way, they almost always just replace God with Supreme Being and continue to act as if the Abrahamic religions are the scaffholding for all religions. They have not really generalised it at all. I am not a fan of arguments that argue on behalf of religion as a whole, since religions tend to be contradictory and poorly defined. People often seem to fill in gaps needed for an argument with assumptions that are no longer generalised (such as the assumption that showing effort helps prayer, despite this not being defined as part of "religion").

Secondly, now that we're talking about Africa. There's hundreds thousands of missionaries there, trying to make the place better.

I'd like to see you back that up. I've met several missionaries, and generally they're doing good work.

It depends on the person, not the fact that they are missionaries. There are plenty of good people out there doing good (that may or may not be missionaries) and plenty of bad people (again, missionary or not).  Any missionary status does not imply that they are doing good or bad. I would be interested in seeing the correlation between missionaries and good/bad work done, versus the average population however, this might reveal some interesting information.



Also, Hello! My first post in this thread. Background: I was raised by non-religious parents (as in no mention of religion, not "raised to believe against religion") and have not seen a need for it. I understand the functions of the world quite clearly enough to not be confused by anything around me, and have had the ability to achieve and aquire what I have wanted reliabily and predictably through reasoning and work. I do not understand belief in belief (How can one do so? If you believe in belief as opposed to actual regular belief that seems to me to be basically admitting that it is false. That ain't getting you into heaven/whatever).

[Reelya]

Besides, it's not like science is so clean too. Look at Taylorism and see what it did to workers in the 19^the century. And is still doing today, in many countries.

This is wrong for several reasons.

First, Taylorism specifically was NOT the cause of industrial hardship in the 19^th century, it was only pioneered right at the end of that century, so that makes it an aspect of the 20^th century, not the 19^th. The term "scientific management" itself wasn't coined until 1910 (over 20 years into the period Taylor was working on the ideas), and Taylor picked up the term in 1911.

Second: It could be easily argued that the study and standardization of jobs under Taylorism actually improved safety by creating standard operating procedures, the massive per-worker productivity boosts made the life-style everyone enjoys today, whilst unemployment has NOT risen since Taylorism was introduced and factory workers almost anywhere today are better-off than factory workers in the 1870's, before Taylorism even existed. In fact, it was Taylor who invented "rest breaks" through the same studies that increased efficiency:

by observing workers, he decided that labor should include rest breaks so that the worker has time to recover from fatigue, either physical (as in shoveling or lifting) or mental (as in the ball inspection case). Workers were taught to take more rests during work, and as a result production "paradoxically" increased.

Third, the term "Scientific management" has almost nothing to do with the scientific method, or theories arising from science. The term was purely adopted for marketing reasons.

Fourth, "Increased industrial efficiency" is not a specific goal of the scientific method. Empirical methods can be applied to optimize ANY measurable aspect of a system, it is 100% neutral to specific goals. e.g. "design processes to maximize worker's happiness" is just as scientific as increasing productivity. It's the value system of the factory owner which dictates how rationalism is applied. Science doesn't dictate values, it's a tool. Attacking science because of one persons use of mathematics to measure things, is like attacking bricks, hammers and nails because they were also used to create Auschwitz. "See what horrors architecture has wrought!".

Anyway, the most grave factory conditions are in places which DO NOT conduct "Scientific management" in the form of time-and-motion studies and analysis of how many rest breaks are the optimum, what sort of lighting is best for workers etc. What you find in the very worst factory conditions is that they conduct almost no actual studies AT ALL, and most of their slave-driver methods are the PRE-TAYLOR methods.

Finally, you yourself said that science and religion aren't incompatible, now you say "science did it too!" as an apology for something religion did.

[Micro102]

I would like a religious person to tell me why they believe in their chosen god.

Because I get everything I prayed for. I was once in the middle of a desert, had a craving for a banana, so I made a lengthy sincere prayer for a banana. The next day, someone gave me a banana. I get about 90% of the things I pray for, and the rest can be classified as pending.

If it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, I'd rather live on prayer placebos than have it fail out of disbelief.

Because there's nothing disproving it.

Because of Pascal's Wager.

So, one of the major criticisms of Pascal's Wager is that belief in religion is to a minor disadvantage to the individual and a major disadvantage to society. But the society I live in is greatly enhanced by religion - lots of people sharing their wealth, giving aid and education to the poor, flooding donations in the name of God to disaster victims. No disadvantages; things like stem cell research is on full steam (with a lot of highly religious people participating), and there are no restrictions on alcohol or pork or whatever.

The only time when followed my religious principles strictly, rather than relying on someone else's interpretations, they went from a single city state to an empire in 29 years. Whether that's a consequence of a lot of collective prayer or principles applied or just plain hard work and motivation, it works for me.

Well for one thing, none of the good things you have mentioned are special to religion. Everything can be done be secular means as well. How has religion enhanced these things? Was there no religion beforehand? And while I'm glad wherever you are from has such open minded religious people, it more then likely they are so open minded because they do not actually follow their holy book and are "insert religion here" only in name.

Secondly, try praying for all pain, hunger, disease, and death in Africa to go away. Bet you it won't. Despite the millions that probably do pray for it. But nope....God is too busy getting you a banana. I think you get why I don't think prayer works.

And finally, ignorance is bliss, but the truth will set you free. Relying on prayer to get everything for you will cause technology to stagnate. Religion hasn't provided any benefit to humanity.

See, a problem with most Atheists is that they too think that the evangelist / fundamentalist/ ... intrepretations are the only correct ones. Again, they seem to think that science and religion are mutually exclusive, that they are succesive phases in a search for knowledge. Everyone who doesn't agree with them is not a true [Insert Religion Here]. Probably this happens because of the fact that we're mostly dealing with Americans here, where there's a greater animosity between theists and atheists.

The fact that everything can be done through secular means is not an argument against religion. The fact that he got his banana is not because [Insert Diety here] gave him one from Heaven, but because someone else did so, while being motivated by his scriptures. Many religions don't preach the existence of an almighty diety doing everything for you, but an image from an ideal society. Some even say that the insights to be gotten from that are so refreshing, that they must have come from a higher being. Wherether that's true or not, I dunno?

Secondly, now that we're talking about Africa. There's hundreds thousands of missionaries there, trying to make the place better. With small expense, the situation could be dramitically improved, but it's not done because everyone wants his things cheap. Besides, it's not like science is so clean too. Look at Taylorism and see what it did to workers in the 19^the century. And is still doing today, in many countries.

People who are already empathetic to human suffering give to charity without having to believe in God. "Gods word" means whatever you damn well want it too and charity is only required if you are already the kind of person who things charity should be required. But then on the other side whenever someone holds an opinion that's simultaneously massively hateful and illogical from a secular standpoint they can hold onto it completely by just saying the magic words "God said so".

They can? Religion is just an excuse here, it's not at fault. People can find many more reasons to justify their opinion if need be. Taking away the excuse of religion would not solve nor aid to solve the problem.

Where do you live where that happens?

The part of the world that is not America? Really, if you look around you find that the fundies account for only a small fraction of the religious population. Like 5-10% or so.

OK, I'm an American Atheist, and have never met another atheist who acts as you say most do. Where are you getting these "most"s from? Where are your statistics?

And removing religion would help. They have charities but think about the massive amount of money that is donated to the church itself. Some people spend over 30% of their income on church donations. That money could be going to hungry people.

Missionaries are helping Africans? Great. Do what nonreligious people can do, but preach to them about your religion in exchange. O, BTW, the Pope decided that Africans shouldn't use condoms, or anything that can prevent AIDS in an AIDS heavy continent. So yes, getting rid of religion would help a lot.

Taylorism? Really? What does a cruel person's ideology have to do with science or God?

That's a bold statement to make. I've never seen religion actually stagnate anything (aside from maybe in the US). I suspect you're just taking pot shots at Christian conservatives/traditionalists.

ummmm.... Islam? You know, the place where they take everything in their Holy book as scientific knowledge. They are taught that salt water cannot mix with fresh water, and this is all enforced by their religious government. People who speak out against it can be arrested and even executed. You think this hasn't happened in the past with other religions? You think it isn't happening now to a lessee degree? Creationists have tried to get their ideas taught in schools. If these ideas weren't shot down, how many future scientists would be spending their time trying to prove creationism? I'd rather have that cure for cancer 10 years earlier.

[majikero]

I believe in the non-existant God. Does this make an Atheist for not believing in the existance of God or a religious person for believing in the teachings of the god that does not exist?

[Reelya]

I believe in the Quantum God who both exists and does not exist, at the same time. Since God is transcendent, nothing is beyond him, even this. Only a pissy little God would be bound by classical human logic.

[majikero]

Someone said that the USA is decended from the Protestant English but everyone right now identifies as Roman Catholic. When did this conversion happened?

[fqllve]

ummmm.... Islam? You know, the place where they take everything in their Holy book as scientific knowledge. They are taught that salt water cannot mix with fresh water, and this is all enforced by their religious government.

Islam? You mean the religion that is responsible for algebra, optics, and the preservation of many Greek texts? The civilization that was the light of wisdom during the Middle Ages? Certainly religion has its methods of impeding progress, but I would be surprised to learn that there were many curious and scientific minds who were lured into such a trap and I think we call all agree that theists are very good and taking what is convenient from their holy books and leaving the rest.

The push for Creationism in schools is a problem, but I doubt you could even convince most Christians of its veracity. ID is more problematic but I don't see how it inhibits progress, more that it introduces questions into science that science has no business addressing.

[Owlbread]

Someone said that the USA is decended from the Protestant English but everyone right now identifies as Roman Catholic. When did this conversion happened?

Protestant British people, not just English.

[Reelya]

Someone said that the USA is decended from the Protestant English but everyone right now identifies as Roman Catholic. When did this conversion happened?

Well, the "conversion" didn't happen at all. Half the USA was full of French and Spanish catholics even before the Protestants arrived, and the British brought a hell of a lot of Irish catholics and many others over (think about how many Italians are in the USA).

[miauw62]

Secondly, now that we're talking about Africa. There's hundreds thousands of missionaries there, trying to make the place better.

Hahah. You didn't write this seriously, did you? Because missionaries are (almost without exception) seriously like the most terrible people imaginable, and (generally) engage in doing terrible, destructive, unforgiveable things, and African missionaries (in particular) are renowned for, on average, being the worst of the worst. I'm certainly not one of those folks who's hostile to religion in general, but if you are going to start extolling the virtues of THAT particular for for destruction, I think we might have to part ways.

I'd like to see you back that up. I've met several missionaries, and generally they're doing good work.

There was a TV-show here in Belgium about (generally old) missionaries (mainly in Africa and places like Haiti, of wich i can't remember the location), and these people generally seemed to be doing good work.