tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post9068430998488429372..comments2024-03-29T01:14:19.030-07:00Comments on Metacrock's Blog: Prayer Studies vs. Empirical Miracles (atheist problem with Prayer)Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)http://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-77809199276801985652012-07-02T05:35:25.376-07:002012-07-02T05:35:25.376-07:00Excellent work bro. See my blog as well atheismpro...Excellent work bro. See my blog as well atheismproblem [dot] blogspot [dot] com<br /><br />I think I might write about this as well.Problematizerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18378753615061158043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-27902704446769088062012-06-07T04:51:12.762-07:002012-06-07T04:51:12.762-07:00hey thanks man. I appreciate that. I am trying to ...hey thanks man. I appreciate that. I am trying to get my book out by fall. It's on the effects of religoius experience. It deals with a batch of empirical studies in psychology that are not well known to religious people.Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-86697441009836751542012-06-07T01:41:51.403-07:002012-06-07T01:41:51.403-07:00Easily, the publish is really the greatest on this...Easily, the publish is really the greatest on this laudable topic. I concur with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your future updates. Saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the fantastic lucidity in your writing. I will instantly grab your rss feed to stay privy of any updates. Solid work and much success in your business enterprise!miracle healinghttp://www.miracleswithin.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-49182379265241706952012-04-05T18:11:22.090-07:002012-04-05T18:11:22.090-07:00I think we are talking at cross purposes here Dav...I think we are talking at cross purposes here Dave. I didn't advanced the thing about the Tornado as anything more than statement of faith.It's not proof it's not even supposed to warrant belief. I was speaking of Lourdes as warrant for belief.<br /><br />I don't have to prove any statements of faith that I make. I will pray for whomever I choose at whatever moment i fear for them.Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-29507726393163856492012-04-05T16:11:49.809-07:002012-04-05T16:11:49.809-07:00Having no distinction in outcome isn't about p...Having no distinction in outcome isn't about proof, it isn't even enough for a rational warrant, unless that is reduced to simply believing something because no one can absolutely show it isn't true. It is the inversion of the notion that you can't believe something unless someone can absolutely show it is true. <br /><br />I did not say anything about conclusively proving anything, but that doesn't mean one can say "rational warrant" and then precede to claim that personal conviction is sufficient. You don't need a rational warrant to obtain some kind of permission to believe whatever it is you want to believe. The way you are using that term it only means "you can't show why I can't believe something".<br /><br />No, the "infinite" perspective does not swallow up moral questions, and I find that a distasteful tactic used by fundamentalists to justify any horrible thing they want to believe about God. It still an offensive example of special pleading.<br /><br />I don't see any urgent or strongly compelling reasons for presupposing God exists or performs miracles. Nor am I predisposed to believe or disbelieve in either (and calls for others to grow up is something you really ought to avoid). <br /><br />If I were predisposed to be cynical (which is different than skeptical) about the issue, why would I bring up non-theistic/non-Western perspectives on what might explain bizarre occurrences attributed to divine intervention? Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I am ignorant or out to ruin your faith.<br /><br />Whether or not is natural for some people to want to look for help in an emergency from whatever source comes to mind has nothing to do with evidence, rational warrants, or anything of the kind. And the simple fact is, no, I do not feel so compelled to call out to God in times of stress. You can dare me all you like, it doesn't change the fact that I have not and do not do so. I don't see such prayer as good or bad, or that one who does or doesn't engage in them as superior or inferior to one who does the opposite.tinythinkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17137637122776756669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-10137807812871308812012-04-05T12:52:29.514-07:002012-04-05T12:52:29.514-07:00Dave, the second half of your post will be the dis...Dave, the second half of your post will be the discussion in the main section tomorrow.Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-37176351341429665112012-04-05T12:38:33.481-07:002012-04-05T12:38:33.481-07:00Dave:"You haven't personally investigated...Dave:"You haven't personally investigated the Lourdes material, and you assume that there are no honest non-religious people who would have been really interested in it if the evidence were sufficient."<br /><br /><b>I haven't personally gone over there but I have talked to a committee member. I never said there are no unbelievers who are interested.I don't know. I doubt that Van Beema guy is a believer.</b><br /><br /><br /> "There are all sorts of non-God explanations possible for weird phenomena, and there is plenty of evidence of the importance of interpersonal theories of disease and healing as opposed to strictly biomechanical and biochemical frameworks accepted by many academics."<br /><br /><b>we would have to examine the specifics to see if they hold up. It's not a matter of proof it's a matter of warranting belief.</b><br /><br />"As for the morality argument, it boils down to unequal response. A God that can "choose" to save everyone but doesn't is putting something else over the value of human life, and generally speaking putting other motives ahead of the health and well-being of sentient beings is considered immoral."<br /><br /><b>I just have a little feeling that if you hand an infinite perspective the question might look a bit different.</b><br /><br />"That's why, to rephrase something from my previous comment, it boils down to whether one is already predisposed to believe, because one can claim God doesn't answer every such prayer for some unknown reason, which is also how some people avoid the issue of reliability of prayer."<br /><br /><b>If you are predisposed to disbelieve so if you see in front of your face you will explain it away.</b><br /><br /><br />"If you can't see that your prayer to avoid fatalities in the storm has no objective and demonstrable connection to whether or not fatalities occurred, then you would never ever see any example of prayer that you favored as being answered. You would simply say "God said yes" or "God said no." There would be no criteria to distinguish that from prayer having no effect whatsoever."<br /><br /><b>I answered that by saying it's not a matter of proof. why can't you understand that? my arguments do not rest on proving that it's rue. I never asi 'If you can prove that it's true that proves it unless you do that you can't believe." I didn't argue I can prove this I didn't say My argument rest on this. grow up. stop trying to play big bad skeptic. there's good reason to assume that God works miracle. no course you can't prove it. you can't prove anything. almost nothing can be proved. proof is real hard to come by science doesn't do it.<br /><br />why can't you understand the warrant issue? Its' snot about proof it's permission. get it. permission not proof. A REASON TO BELIVe that's it not proof.</b><br /><br /><b>that's not really a valid way to think no one is going to care about that when 13 tornadoes are on their way to their house. I dare you not to pray under that condition. When your father is on his death I dare to say "I can't pray about this look at the other fathers he wont save today. I can't ask him to save my Dad."</b><br /><br />"I listed a potential alternative to a "personal God" perspective and predictably you launched into a reply about how I want to "take God away from you" or to "destroy your relationship with God." It's the same thing, minus the profanity, that you did when I suggested you were being hypocritical or at least inconsistent in trying to have God as transpersonal in theory but highly personal in practice."<br /><br /><br /><b>you contradicted it yourself as well.</b>Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-25160386768971585462012-04-05T10:50:54.187-07:002012-04-05T10:50:54.187-07:00You haven't personally investigated the Lourde...You haven't personally investigated the Lourdes material, and you assume that there are no honest non-religious people who would have been really interested in it if the evidence were sufficient. There are all sorts of non-God explanations possible for weird phenomena, and there is plenty of evidence of the importance of interpersonal theories of disease and healing as opposed to strictly biomechanical and biochemical frameworks accepted by many academics.<br /><br />As for the morality argument, it boils down to unequal response. A God that can "choose" to save everyone but doesn't is putting something else over the value of human life, and generally speaking putting other motives ahead of the health and well-being of sentient beings is considered immoral.<br /><br />That's why, to rephrase something from my previous comment, it boils down to whether one is already predisposed to believe, because one can claim God doesn't answer every such prayer for some unknown reason, which is also how some people avoid the issue of reliability of prayer.<br /><br />If you can't see that your prayer to avoid fatalities in the storm has no objective and demonstrable connection to whether or not fatalities occurred, then you would never ever see any example of prayer that you favored as being answered. You would simply say "God said yes" or "God said no." There would be no criteria to distinguish that from prayer having no effect whatsoever.<br /><br />I listed a potential alternative to a "personal God" perspective and predictably you launched into a reply about how I want to "take God away from you" or to "destroy your relationship with God." It's the same thing, minus the profanity, that you did when I suggested you were being hypocritical or at least inconsistent in trying to have God as transpersonal in theory but highly personal in practice.<br /><br />Specifically, you wrote: "I will throw away the experienced I hd. I had both. I expedience the void and I know the void loves me. if you snot' get it too bad...I am not going to think of God a a dead ipersonal force that neither loves nor cares. I'm not going t accept the idea that he's just an an amplifed notion of man."<br /><br />Ironically, my whole point was that only the personified image of God was an amplified notion of humanity, but in any case, based on what you've written over the years, I can't help but see this as part of a larger pattern. It's as if you really just want to believe in a loving old man in the sky who personally hears you and takes care of you, God as an individual, a person. <br /><br />Yet you realize that this image is culturally and psychologically constructed and too simplistic to be the grand and mysterious higher power worthy of the idea of God. Thus the appeal of a God that is beyond words and concepts, a God that is immune from simply being labeled as a human projection and all of the criticism that invites.<br /><br />It's like the philosophical material is a cover, a way to convince others or perhaps yourself that it's OK to believe in the God you really want to believe in, if only you can just juggle enough concepts and arguments at once and make it all fit together. Any criticism is deflected by switching back to the argument that the personified individual God you talk about is really just a convenient shorthand. When that is called into question, you become very upset and abandon logic or philosophy for claims that your faith is being attacked.<br /><br />I am not attacking your faith, I am questioning your assumptions and arguments. If that disturbs you, just ignore my comments or ask me to stop posting them.tinythinkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17137637122776756669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-1000313557758422842012-04-05T05:58:15.248-07:002012-04-05T05:58:15.248-07:00Dave, I don't really mean to say that voicing ...Dave, I don't really mean to say that voicing your opinion about prayer is aggressive. I've woke up. come on!Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-155050060186025082012-04-05T05:40:54.040-07:002012-04-05T05:40:54.040-07:00Dave part 2:
"But it is doubtful one is ever...<b>Dave part 2:</b><br /><br />"But it is doubtful one is ever going to have the proper circumstances for the kind of continual monitoring and scans and the like to actually document a miraculous healing in progress, which means that the evidence is always going to be suspect."<br /><br /><b>That's why empirical approach is better than double blind. Why do you ave to document it in progress? That's a useless criterion. that's like saying historian can't access the causes of the American involvement in Vietnam because we didn't monitor them as they unfolded.</b><br /><br /> "In any case, there is also a moral argument against intercessory prayer for healing or protection being answered (why do only some prayers go unanswered) and this brings up the same response to all such challenges -- that human can't judge God and therefore moral criticisms are not allowed. But that is just an evasion."<br /><br /><b>I doubt that you can pull such an argument. Nothing immoral about god setting up criteria for action. Anything God does to bend the envelope of possible happenings is over and above what we should expect form nature. that its' not equally distributed is not a moral issue, because it's not withheld on grounds of race, creed, or gender or the like.</b><br /><br /> "A simpler answer is that God is a construction, not a being (even when framed as Being itself but then reduced again to a being anyway in practice). That humans have access to a larger store of potential to alter things than most realize, and some are better at accessing it than others."<br /><br /><b>trying to re label and re describe trnaspersonal as "reduced to anthropomorphism" or whatever is extremely unfair and strikes me as hostile and aggressive. you are really saying "I will Take God away form you. I'll destroy your relationship with God."<br /><br />No logical reason why trnspersonal is anything other than trnaspoersonal. The only problem is understand weahter it means transcendent or transcendental.<br /><br />I think it means transcendent, but understood correctly the transcendent includes the things it reaches beyond.</b><br /><br /> "The difference between that and the general atheist position is whether any credence is given to actual accounts of things changing. Personally I don't believe prayer has an external effect outside of interpersonal pathways,"<br /><br /><b>that strikes me as a contradiction. wouldn't international pathways be "reduced" anthropomorphism?</b> <br /><br /><br />"nor that some guy praying kept anyone from dying. Since there is nothing supremely extraordinary about the lack of fatalities, there is no evidence for the prayer's effectiveness"<br /><br /><b>have you researched statistics of the death given the swath of destruction, the intesity of the tornadoes the number and so on?<br /><br />you are making an unscientific statement.<br /><br />I haven't researched it either but the last time Lankester was trashed by Tornado about 8 people died. It was trashed the other day with about 10 other communities in the general area, all trashed as badly. no one died.</b>Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-16574253632332640292012-04-05T05:29:27.171-07:002012-04-05T05:29:27.171-07:00Dave said...
"The original article cited...<b>Dave said...</b><br /><br /> "The original article cited does sound like an absurd rationalization -- the idea that the lack of difference between the two groups indicates that both groups were equally "blessed" should rightly be derided. Don't you agree?"<br /><br /><br /><b>>>>it's not "proof" they were blessed but it doesn't disprove prayer. it only we can't control for outside prayer. hypothetically the control group could have been getting "illicit outside" prayers. so both groups could be the result of prayer. that's the argument not that they prove both are blessed. that doesn't disprove prayer.</b><br /><br /> "Two other things stand out in your blog post. One is you assume Christian theology is what is relevant. But even if it were, it is so broad you can make whatever you want out of it anyway."<br /><br /><b>>>what does htat mean? I don't recall saying "Christian theology is what stands out." I'm not sure to what you are refering.</b><br /><br /> "The other is that if "God" is picky about which prayers are answered, there is no way to be able to say what is answered prayer and what isn't."<br /><br /><b>Putting it in terms of "picky" is redescring the argument in unfair terms. My theory is that God allows a world where pain and death are ever present because he wants to search for truth. I'll forgoes explaining again why. The point is that God is willing to allow supernatural effects but only in certain limited circumstances. Not that he's being picky just that he can't be too obvious.</b><br /><br /> "That only leave unequivocal evidence of something extraordinary. The Lourdes material is interesting but not sufficient." <br /><br /><b>I don't see why not. If we count the saint making miracles too the growing back lungs cover night is not a cheap parlor trick. Some of those healings are of incurable diseases. If if it's a healing and its inexplicable that's the criteria it doesn't matter if less dramatic than other things.</b>Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-36907494748066762462012-04-05T05:18:52.321-07:002012-04-05T05:18:52.321-07:00Thanks Anne, good to hear from you.
looking at al...Thanks Anne, good to hear from you.<br /><br />looking at all the damage it really is a miracle no one was killed.Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-30651694478273923632012-04-04T19:03:22.904-07:002012-04-04T19:03:22.904-07:00Hey I was hoping you were ok. Worried about it; gl...Hey I was hoping you were ok. Worried about it; glad to hear that nobody was killed. <br /><br />And ... just in case ... glad you were praying. :) <br /><br />Take care & God bless<br />AnneWeekend Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10425001168670801073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-19424659101025310262012-04-04T19:00:43.749-07:002012-04-04T19:00:43.749-07:00The original article cited does sound like an absu...The original article cited does sound like an absurd rationalization -- the idea that the lack of difference between the two groups indicates that both groups were equally "blessed" should rightly be derided. Don't you agree?<br /><br />Two other things stand out in your blog post. One is you assume Christian theology is what is relevant. But even if it were, it is so broad you can make whatever you want out of it anyway. The other is that if "God" is picky about which prayers are answered, there is no way to be able to say what is answered prayer and what isn't.<br /><br />That only leave unequivocal evidence of something extraordinary. The Lourdes material is interesting but not sufficient. But it is doubtful one is ever going to have the proper circumstances for the kind of continual monitoring and scans and the like to actually document a miraculous healing in progress, which means that the evidence is always going to be suspect.<br /><br />In any case, there is also a moral argument against intercessory prayer for healing or protection being answered (why do only some prayers go unanswered) and this brings up the same response to all such challenges -- that human can't judge God and therefore moral criticisms are not allowed. But that is just an evasion.<br /><br />A simpler answer is that God is a construction, not a being (even when framed as Being itself but then reduced again to a being anyway in practice). That humans have access to a larger store of potential to alter things than most realize, and some are better at accessing it than others.<br /><br />The difference between that and the general atheist position is whether any credence is given to actual accounts of things changing. Personally I don't believe prayer has an external effect outside of interpersonal pathways, nor that some guy praying kept anyone from dying. Since there is nothing supremely extraordinary about the lack of fatalities, there is no evidence for the prayer's effectivenesstinythinkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17137637122776756669noreply@blogger.com