Wow. Seven years. I'm 48. Seven-years is just a blip when it comes to discovering truth.

Ok - So the OP believes in God. Why the hell does everybody feel the need to feel the need to challenge him and change his mind? Face it, there have been believers and non-believers for years. Your dumb comments on 2p2 isn't going to change it. Why don't you just start another thread as opposed to hijack this one?

Because this is RGT. Welcome to the forum!

I haven't said anything about discovering any truth. Now you're definitely extrapolating on what I am saying to prove some point that isn't valid. I was talking about being respectful and tolerant of other's beliefs. I don't see how growing older would cause me to move backwards from that position at all. If you're saying I am supposed to grow less tolerant as I near my 50s and treat everyone poorly because they do not share my beliefs. Then you are just wrong.

Ok I'll respect that. It isn't even about winning and one of us emerging victorious in our debate in to how to treat others in talking about religion. I just wanted share my ideas and opinions with you, and you are free to do with it as you would like. Your avatar still remains cool lol.

I am only positing the notion that given that a search has taken place and given that enough time has passed for the police to now be searching for a body, it's more likely than not that the child was outside of the necessary distance for the group's intercessory prayer to have a deciding effect on the child's initial decision to come home.

(Holy **** that has got to be a run-on sentence...Oh well.)

Then why are you here?

Still here, still pointing out the same types of errors.

If you go back and read the conversation, you'll see that the whole question is on how one establishes what is most likely. Simply asserting it doesn't make it so.

And if you have found the truth in your 48 wise years of age, then why are you *still*here?

See what I did there?

Bolded: Yes, I see that this is your assertion. What I don't see is how you support this assertion.

Underlined: Think about what you mean by this. Which straw breaks the camel's back? (At a certain level, if prayer is efficacious it needs only have some contribution on the outcome. In other words, as long as the straw is in the bundle...)

It's quite impressive.

I have no idea "what you did there". I have no doubt I will die still searching for truth.

I guess I possibly misunderstood your post then. I took it as a sarcastic response saying that if I am on this forum then I must not have faith the way I claim to. I guess it was a genuine question? If so, my apologies.

I am here on 2p2 initially because poker interests me. Then I happened to stumble across this smaller forum talking religion. Religion and God interests me. So here I am. Most of the "Other Topic" forums interest me a lot too. I frequently read those as well. I'm not sure what other justification you are really asking for.

"It's more likely than not that the child was outside of the necessary distance for the group's intercessory prayer to have a deciding effect on the child's initial decision to come home."

Number of miles traveled from home (runaways: 1,682,900)

• 1 or less: 8-percent
  More than 1 but no more than 10: 30-percent
  More than 10 but no more than 50: 31-percent
  More than 50 but no more than 100: 10-percent
  More than 100: 13-percent
  No information: 9-percent

If the child were still in "runaway mode" at the time of the prayer it's greater than 50-percent that the child would be out of the prerequisite range.

However, given my lack of mathematical prowess, I'm unsure how to interpret the data given that the child *was* in the prerequisite range, so maybe you can help with that.

In order to remove the vagueness of the efficacy of prayer I'm treating it not unlike mind control (just for this thought experiment). In other words, at the end of the prayer the child would immediately feel compelled to return home in spite of any outside factors.

Also, for clarity, I'm not considering the possibility that child had chosen to come home, perhaps an hour earlier, and that the prayer "kept him on his path" or something else tangential to his initial decision to come home.

What do you mean by "necessary distance"? I didn't understand it earlier (which is why I pointed out time as being a factor for police involvement).

I might be able to clarify after you answer the question above.

This is fine. As long as your cognitively aware that these are simplifying assumptions that affect the outcome of the final model, and the conclusions which one can draw from that model.

No, you're still here making up random bull-**** in a minute that takes a logical, rational person hours to refute.

Then you just ignore it, and move on to the next random bull-**** statement.

Quite a scam you have going on.

Assuming the prayer works as laid out earlier (and a 4 MPH walking speed) the child must of been within 1-mile walking distance. So, for the child to return home in a memorably short amount of time he necessarily must have been close, which only occurs 8-percent of the time (and I contend less since he had been searched for, and not found).

[I'm having a hard time intelligibly phrasing this argument, so forgive me as I've edited this post about 1000 ****ing times]

Let's try this one more time...

Assume (1) all runaways travel exactly 10 miles away from their homes and (2) all runaways walk at 4 MPH. Now, given the 'mind control' model of prayer given earlier we can state that if a child returns home within 5-7 minutes of a given prayer, then that prayer had nothing to do with the runaway's initial decision to come home.

However, I'm unsure how to alter the above premise given the distance distribution given earlier and the fact that 77% of runaways 'naturally' return home within a week.

I think the lack of testimony from the suicidal kid in this story is more telling than working out that he could only have been 600 yards from home when they prayer started.

Sigh.... so much for the original topic. And so much ridiculousness in this thread...

Couple brief things as I`m half awake and need to go back to bed.

1. I did not know the suicidal kid, other than the first name the officer gave me, I had no way of getting any "testimony", that and I`m pretty sure that he was admitted to some sort of psych ward or kids facility immediately after...

2. His suicide letter I was told was very graphic and explicit. The officer didn't "read it" to me. The officer was convinced by the tone of the letter that in his experience this was an extremely distressing, serious, and urgent situation.

3. I`m going to shoot myself for saying this because its goign to open up 65 more useless to the OP posts about another debate about God but... All of this math garbage is assuming that God works in the same understanding of time that we did.


AFTER ALLL OF THIS...

I still contend that:

1. Christian Poker Players can benefit from grouping together and being organized. They can help each other to stick to their morals, encourage and challenge each other to be the best they can be, and help each other be better Christians, Better Poker Players, Better People.

2. Non Christian Poker Players can benefit from Christians grouping together and be organized. One of your biggest opponents is the conservative Christian movement. It certainly isn`t the only one, but it is a big opponent, and there are a TON of Christians who let their opinion on poker be defined by whatever they are hearing and could easily be swayed by someone coming and saying, you know what, this isn`t actually wrong in and of it self.

Secondly the positive things that would come from an organized Christian movement amongst poker players could and would benefit the poker community. I can still remember HerschelW a few years back gathering a bunch of pros to donate 10% of their winnings for 1 month to a house building project in a third world country. The poker community needs to be doing more of this, and CERTAINLY you do not have to be a Christian to do this nor partake, but an organized Christian group done right could help start projects like this and find easy ways for Christians and Non Christians alike to work together on charity work to make sure that poker players arent getting scammed(like many of these "charity poker tournaments") all while bettering the world around us.

I have received multiple PMs already from users who have been chastised and condemned for their views on poker by Christians and relatives alike. I know there are many more out there who either haven`t responded yet or have not seen this post. This is a real issue, and I still think it warrents this OP. The one good thing that all of the banter is doing is keeping this topic at the top of RGT, and I can only hope and pray that as that continues to be the case that I do get to connect with some more people.

You're welcome.

i thought i was threw with this thread, but maybe i can work on my educating skills...

i got news for you lilprog...what you're talking about organizing is not a Christian group

you've created something that uses the names/phrases from the bible to then promote something (and center around something) that God never said anything about - bad idea

So what do you do to accomplish your goals? That's something worth ironing out in this thread.

Lilprog, you talk a lot about belief being a choice.
Can I ask why you choose to believe what you do? What is it, for example that makes you choose the explanation "god did it" in relation to your story about the suicidal kid?

God said all kinds of things about this. You need to go read the book of acts. Christianity in its intended form was never supposed to be segregated from culture nor society.

There is some separation. There has got to be.

Because evil ideas are easily transferable.

That's one reason why there have been so many church failures throughout history.

While good is trying to overcome evil, evil is trying to overcome good.

You have got to have a new heart and a new spirit: Ezekiel 18.

And then you've got to protect it from re-contamination.

Before you do anything you better be sure you're fully regenerate or your efforts could be doomed to failure.

1)are you even open to the idea/possiblility that you may be wrong? i am, that's why i post obv. maybe i'm way to separated/jaded...

2)are you even open to the idea of working up other ways to accomplish your goals?

1)?

2)?