Generic Religion

[A_Nony_Mouse]

http://www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alex ... igion.html

All religion is based upon two principles. The first is catastrophic change is rare. The second is the placebo effect.

The rarity of catastrophic events makes the basic success of religion a near certainty. Pray for a successful hunt or a bountiful harvest and in most cases the results will be roughly average. That seems obvious. Singing a ditty from a TV commercial is just as effective.

In practice a religion may pray for a mild winter and has an even chance of it being milder than average. Without good record keeping any winter short of catastrophic can be sold as mild. A religion must never pray for no winter at all as that will not happen. Thus religions must always bet on the obvious, on the lowest risk outcome.

... rest at link

[johnlitteral]

Christian prayer is basically designed for us to conform to what God wants instead of our own will. We should pray for God's will in whatever situation and be willing to accept whatever answer He chooses. I have seen God do things in my life that are nothing but supernatural, but as you point out by your skeptic post there has been those voices in my own head that speak over time to make me doubt what God actually has done. Time will do that sometimes when our faith gets weak. But I, as well as many other people, cannot be intellectually honest if we deny what God has actually done in our lives as evidence that the supernatural exists. On a road of doubt I prayed over time for God to just let me have some kind of sign to strengthen my fading faith, in which I prayed many nights. One night while I was praying, I had a voice like a woman speaking to me in a language that I did not understand. The voice kept speaking for a couple of minutes. The room was dark and I was frightened. After it stopped I felt I was given an answer to my prayers. I was fortunate to have that happen because God did not have to do that and usually doesn't, but I think He understand how desperate I was.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Christian prayer is basically designed for us to conform to what God wants instead of our own will.

What is this, designed FOR us, stuff? Priests and preachers are people too. We have met the prayer designer and he be us.

We should pray for God's will in whatever situation and be willing to accept whatever answer He chooses.

Pardon if I do not remember any "smash us with your hurricanes if that is your will" in all my years in Florida. Can you give me an example of what you are talking about? As to, willing to accept, I don't see much choice in the matter, sort of a total waste of prayer.

However should and should not is not what I am discussing. I am discussing what is in prayer including Christian prayer. Now if you have invented a little niche belief in what prayer should be to avoid the statistics and placebo effect you need to tell me exactly what it is so I can tell you how you are deluding yourself.

I have seen God do things in my life that are nothing but supernatural, but as you point out by your skeptic post there has been those voices in my own head that speak over time to make me doubt what God actually has done.

There was a time not so many hundreds of years ago when the sun rising in the east and in fact all the movement in the heavens was supernatural. Much more recently most of our recoveries from diseases was supernatural. And my recent total recovery from a heart attack has impressed even my attending cardiologist so I am certain it would be a candidate for supernatural had prayer been added.

So exactly what did you observe which you are declaring supernatural and what did you do to eliminate it from being a statistical extreme? There are always statistical extremes.

Time will do that sometimes when our faith gets weak.

Faith in statistics and the placebo effect?

But I, as well as many other people, cannot be intellectually honest if we deny what God has actually done in our lives as evidence that the supernatural exists. On a road of doubt I prayed over time for God to just let me have some kind of sign to strengthen my fading faith, in which I prayed many nights. One night while I was praying, I had a voice like a woman speaking to me in a language that I did not understand. The voice kept speaking for a couple of minutes. The room was dark and I was frightened. After it stopped I felt I was given an answer to my prayers. I was fortunate to have that happen because God did not have to do that and usually doesn't, but I think He understand how desperate I was.

You declare a dream was supernatural. And the dream some how strengthened your faith in something or other. Ancient history is strewn with gods and messengers appearing in dreams. It appears a goddess spoke to you in a dream. That is less common but not unheardof.

On the other hand all the time people are working to achieve or improve certain skills from intellectual to athletic to video game scores among many others. People often put a great deal of effort into gaining these skills. No one is surprised when they achieve their goals. It is not declared supernatural.

You say you put a lot of effort into achieving some kind of attitude towards some god. Why are you so surprised your efforts paid off and you succeeded? How is that supernatural? Seems no different from achieving any other goal to me.

Did someone tell you faith is different? Who told you that and why did you believe them? You have just demonstrated to yourself it is not different.

[Andrew]

But I, as well as many other people, cannot be intellectually honest if we deny what God has actually done in our lives as evidence that the supernatural exists. On a road of doubt I prayed over time for God to just let me have some kind of sign to strengthen my fading faith, in which I prayed many nights. One night while I was praying, I had a voice like a woman speaking to me in a language that I did not understand. The voice kept speaking for a couple of minutes. The room was dark and I was frightened. After it stopped I felt I was given an answer to my prayers. I was fortunate to have that happen because God did not have to do that and usually doesn't, but I think He understand how desperate I was.

You declare a dream was supernatural. And the dream some how strengthened your faith in something or other. Ancient history is strewn with gods and messengers appearing in dreams. It appears a goddess spoke to you in a dream. That is less common but not unheardof.

He didn't say he was dreaming, he said he was praying.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

But I, as well as many other people, cannot be intellectually honest if we deny what God has actually done in our lives as evidence that the supernatural exists. On a road of doubt I prayed over time for God to just let me have some kind of sign to strengthen my fading faith, in which I prayed many nights. One night while I was praying, I had a voice like a woman speaking to me in a language that I did not understand. The voice kept speaking for a couple of minutes. The room was dark and I was frightened. After it stopped I felt I was given an answer to my prayers. I was fortunate to have that happen because God did not have to do that and usually doesn't, but I think He understand how desperate I was.

You declare a dream was supernatural. And the dream some how strengthened your faith in something or other. Ancient history is strewn with gods and messengers appearing in dreams. It appears a goddess spoke to you in a dream. That is less common but not unheardof.

He didn't say he was dreaming, he said he was praying.

We have either a hallucination, a dream or an incomprehensible personal non-revelation from a goddess. Your call. Despite Victoria's Secret the messengers of the Jewish and Christian gods are uniformly portrayed as male.

I read what appeared to be a sincere post a few years ago. The man said he was in a bad situation in combat and he prayed to Odin and that Odin appeared and comforted him telling him he would survive the battle. Should we take that on face value also or does the involvement of Odin demand a different explanation?

Let us see if he comes back and clarifies what happened.