Nice Prayer Sites

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Does your boss always give you a raise when you ask for it? Do you always have to ask to receive a raise?

But its a shame God wont give us a raise.

Originally posted by Conrau K
But its a shame God wont give us a raise.

Why do you say that?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Why do you say that?

Read sonhouse's link.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I suppose the recent evidence for the failure of prayer to help someone sick would be completely ignored by the religious community. After all its just science and what is science when up against the infinitude of a god.

Without science we would not know god.

God ows science his livelyhood.

BTW if prayer makes it more likely they die then obviously god has listend, and is rewarding them be sending them to heaven prematurley.

Originally posted by Conrau K
Read sonhouse's link.

I have. Neither it, nor what you've said, answers my question.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I have. Neither it, nor what you've said, answers my question.

Considering that Sonhouse's link demonstrates that prayer has absolutely no efficacy, how can you assert that God "gives raises"?

Happy Easter. 🙂

Originally posted by sonhouse
Recent large scale study of the effects of prayer on heart bypass patients shows no help and if the patients know, the complications go up slightly. here is the link:
http://www.livescience.com/othernews/ap_060330_prayer.html

It proves God is not Santa Claus. A very illuminating study, both for theists and non-theists.

Originally posted by ivanhoe
It proves God is not Santa Claus. A very illuminating study, both for theists and non-theists.

Or alternatively, it says maybe there is no god, and all you theists are sadly deluded. The thing is, theism makes you feel better about your life which is the one positive about the concept. The fact that it makes you feel good and gives you that warm fuzzy feeling of certainty, does not, in itself, force it to be real. You stand a very great chance of simply being deluded.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Or alternatively, it says maybe there is no god, and all you theists are sadly deluded. The thing is, theism makes you feel better about your life which is the one positive about the concept. The fact that it makes you feel good and gives you that warm fuzzy feeling of certainty, does not, in itself, force it to be real. You stand a very great chance of simply being deluded.

Taking up one's cross doesn't give one a warm fuzzy feeling and that is exactly what God asks us to do .... Santa Claus however does not ask such a thing .....

You reject God in the immature image He is presented to you, namely the image of Santa Claus.

Originally posted by Conrau K
Considering that Sonhouse's link demonstrates that prayer has absolutely no efficacy, how can you assert that God "gives raises"?

Happy Easter. 🙂

You too. 🙂

Btw, where did I assert that God "gives raises"? I'm sure both of you got the point of my analogy, so I'll have to assume you're just trying to wind me up.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Btw, where did I assert that God "gives raises"? I'm sure both of you got the point of my analogy, so I'll have to assume you're just trying to wind me up.

I don't think your analogy works, or at least it doesn't work the way you want. People ask for a raise because there is a reasonable chance that the raise will be granted. If you would do a study with two groups, one where people would ask for a raise from time to time and one where people would never ask for a raise, I would expect that it would show that on average, people in group 1 would get more raises. If I knew that this were not the case, and there were no difference between group 1 and 2, I would probably stop asking. And if I knew that it was actually group 2 which had more raises, I would definitely stop asking. It doesn't have to work every time to be a good strategy, but it has to raise the chance of success. That was not the case in the study sonhouse linked to.

Originally posted by Nordlys
I don't think your analogy works, or at least it doesn't work the way you want. People ask for a raise because there is a reasonable chance that the raise will be granted. If you would do a study with two groups, one where people would ask for a raise from time to time and one where people would never ask for a raise, I would expect that it would show that o it has to raise the chance of success. That was not the case in the study sonhouse linked to.

People have been asking for raises long before psychologists studied the statistical efficacy of asking for one; and will no doubt continue to do so even if the statistics show otherwise (unless there is a massive negative correlation).

Besides, the study cited does not actually disprove the null hypothesis that prayer has medical efficacy. Assuming reproducibility of the study (something I have yet to see) in other populations with similar and dissimilar medical conditions etc., it simply shows that, when studied, prayer does not seem to have increased medical efficacy. This is analogous to the "Hawthorne Effect" in management studies.