I feel like I should apologize for making such a pointed comment in saying you are prejudice. To clarify I am not intending to be inflammatory or offensive I am just being honest with you about what I think...

Religious beliefs v. naturalism is a poor heuristic for deciding whether or not someone is trustworthy or a good medical professional. To make this distinction meaningful it is necessary to know what someone believes and why.

There are so many other more meaningful metrics to use when deciding if someone is trustworthy (medically and in general). What is their reputation? Are they emotionally stable? Are they known for excelling in their field?

Yes this person sounds like a nutbar. There are "crazies" in the religious camps and non religious "crazies" (if you will). Of course it is important as we get to know new people to somehow gauge if this person is trustworthy or a nut. I question whether holding religious beliefs is a valuable metric.

It is the same criticism I make so often, lumping so many beliefs into one pile just becomes meaningless. It becomes much more meaningful to say something like fundamental Christians freak me out and heres why...

There are many "everyday" Christians that believe in prayer and healing. I think this is harmful primarily for reasons of giving people false hope. Even as a believer in God the fact remains God rarely (if ever) heals people from illness.

You're being charitable there LZ, maybe too much.

Also given just how much MB distrusts the judgement of theists he seems to spend an inordinate amount of time interacting with them.

However, it's worth noting that he doesn't actually ever accept what any of them say.

But then again, Original Position is not a theist and yet MB doesn't really accept what he says, either. Can one rightfully infer something about MB's judgment based on this?

Heh he doesn't even read what we say. I'm good with leaving you to provide the detailed responses to him while I point and berate. It's not my preferred mode of interaction like but it's as profitable as any other I've had with him.

I think it's notable that of the posts MB has failed to respond to recently the clearest points have been made by Original Position and I think when you are intentionally avoiding the best poster around it says a huge amount. If his posting suggested he'd actually taken those points on board his lack of response would be fine but it seems not.

Like he resumed pretty much exactly where he left making claims regarding religion based on nothing but what he thinks about religion and claiming it's based on reason when empirical analysis does a much better job.

The points made by Orp were impressive to me both in content and how articulate they were. Not to brown nose Orp endlessly but just saying... I was impressed and it made me want to reason better and communicate better.

I think (perhaps wishfully) that often people digest more than they let on. For example, I may not let on that my wifes' advice was correct to her face but later on when she isn't looking I will do what she advised...

Thinking in terms of black and white is a common error, anytime we can move closer toward a nuanced and thinking approach to issues I consider that a "win" (not a "win" for me but a "win" for society at large).

I'd like to share your optimism but MB was gone a week just after Original Positions reply to the post that Aaron linked above, that should have been sufficient to come back having taken some of it on. Given that the mistakes made in this thread resemble so closely the ones referred to in that I'm doubtful.

I like your optimism in general though

And while it may be less than ideal me talking of MB's posts while he has me on ignore, well that's his decision mine is to not let it influence my posting too much.

He has everyone on ignore. He just wants to say what he wants to say and have us all nod.

Is prayer always a trivial thing? How about comparable rites from other religions? Should Christians feel comfortable with nurses offering pagan spells or hexes? Occultist incantations of protection? Shinto communion with the dead?

You might find the comparison absurd, but it is not; the main component is the same, a verbal religious ritual.

I was wondering about that too. Like if it was a wicken nurse saying a wicken prayer how that would go over. Cant imagine well with some Christians.

Actually no I'm not, I was to start with but WN addressed that. In any case I've started to think that asking god for anything is a bit pointless, either he was going to do it anyway, or you're not going to change his mind, so the net result is the same as if you hadn't prayed at all in terms of what it achieves, unless of course you're including what it achieves for you personally (and that includes the effect you're having on other people). However, if the point of prayer it to make yourself feel something, or to prove something to other people, they don't seem like good reasons either.

Honestly I'm starting to wonder if there's a single, good, non-selfish reason to pray.

Do you think that you can personally influence god's decisions? Why do so many people pray for something?

I thought it mattered, you said "Prayer shows faith, and God is pleased by faith. God is pleased with prayers, they are like incense to him.". I find this to be quite an astonishing claim in it's implications. God knows whether or not you have faith, better than you do in fact, so why would he require displays of it? It makes god sound quite vain and needy. Far more likely IMO is that prayer, like many aspects of organised religion is more about ensuring that believers undertake religious activities that keep their beliefs at the forefront of their minds, for reasons of belief reinforcement. This could be true regardless or not of whether gods actually exist.


No, not at all, it's saying that we might not be special in the way that we'd like to think we are, even if there is a god. What reason do you have to think that we're special to god? Only what the bible says and that is a highly dubious source of information on the subject of the divine, regardless of how historically accurate it may or may not be, that the majority of people don't accept as true.

Yes, 'biblical', but as I said above, I just don't consider that a good enough reason to believe that we're special, I think it's far more likely that it's simply our egocentricity expressing itself.

Actually, I only have two people on ignore and for both of them it's because they had more to say about me personally than my opinions, kinda like what you're doing at the moment. You think I'm stupid, noted, but it would be nice if you could engage on the subject and not make nasty comments. These gratuitous sideswipes are getting kinda weird.

It's not a problem and I'm not offended, if you think I'm being prejudiced, please say so. If you're right, you'll be doing me a favour.

I'm not sure if by 'trustworthy' you mean the same thing that I do. I'm talking about trusting their judgment and/or their commitment. It's not a general comment on how trustworthy they are, or not.

You might lump people/beliefs into specific groups like fundamental Christians who you think have a whacky view of the spiritual but that's because you believe in a god, so obv you're not going to include yourself and people like you, the 'mainstream' normal believers who are ok and have acceptable spiritual beliefs, but I do include you and people like you because I don't have any spiritual beliefs. The entire spectrum of spirituality, or beliefs in the supernatural, are lumped into one category for me, one that contains many subcategories.


Would you ever pray and ask god for something?

Sorry, didn't see this earlier. I don't understand, that part of the prayer seems to just be agreeing that god is in charge, I'm not sure how it's contradicting anything that I've said?

Why would you pray to god and agree that his will be done? What is that achieving? He already knows how you feel on the subject so you don't need to inform him. As I said to NR, I think this sort of religious behaviour is more about belief reinforcement.

Btw, I did see the longer second reply you made and didn't reply simply because I didn't disagree with anything in it.

Either you can't count or someone got a reprieve.

In any case you considered it offensive that I had more to say about you than your posts in a thread where you said you thought Naked_Rectitude would make a good Muslim. That seems very much about him though it says much more about you.

Here is your declaration of why you have me on ignore:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13.../#post38536856

I welcome anyone who cares to check my accusations:

* I'm demonstrating by explicit example of your habit of presenting very bad information as being true
* [I'm demonstrating that you have a habit of] trying to build arguments around faulty premises.
* You cited an example of someone who lived in the BCE as being persecuted by Christians for their scientific thinking.

And my declaration of intent is clear:

* I am going to continue to challenge you on your lack of intellectual honesty.

If you [Mightyboosh] want to continue to believe that these were all "personal attacks," so be it. But you've often used "ad hominem" and "strawman" accusations in places that they just don't work. I can even recall a specific example where you accused me of some unnamed fallacy because you simply didn't agree with me.

It's hard to rewrite narratives when the entire conversation is recorded.

It is hard to say anything about your incorrect opinions without coming across as saying something about you.

The best I could do was the reduction to absurdity that I already did. Maybe also point out that racists also have "reasons."

I'm more interested in whether the person meant well or not. If someone means well, and they do something offensive, I take it with a grain of salt and I will 99% of the time just let it go.

If someone of any religion asks me if I want prayer, and I know they mean well, then why would I be offended? They are showing they care, and even if I don't believe in it, I will be flattered by the sentiment. The last thing I will do is attempt to hurt them.

This goes far beyond religion, I see people get upset at things similar to this all the time, and it's not good for society. I've personally let things slide much worse than this, which is why I find it hard to agree with the patient here.

MB, read your response, I'll reply to you a bit later.

Christians do believe that if they ask God for something in Prayer, that He may do it, or in some way respond, or that in some sense the practice of Prayer changes things both for themselves and others. What they don't (or at least shouldn't!) believe is that it's automatic or simple, which was the point I originally made. But if we say that "either He was going to do it anyway or you're not going to change his mind", that is not really a Christian understanding. Now, at best the relation between asking and receiving is mysterious, and you are welcome at this point to interject again that there is no evidence for the efficacy of prayer in certain contexts where it's been tested scientifically, and I accept that, but nevertheless Christians generally believe that in prayer they are participating in what God is doing, without necessarily knowing what He would or would not do anyway, or exactly how it works or doesn't work.

I say participating in allusion to (for example) the stories of the Loaves and Fishes (Jesus said "you give them something to eat") or Paul referring to Christians as synergoi with God in their work. I think the way of thinking that looks at Prayer separate from any other Christian almsgiving and as something where the person praying is passive and God either responds by doing the thing asked for or not is still over-simplified, albeit its fair enough to say many Christians also oversimplify it in their practice, imo. If we say "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" it is not only an acknowledgement that God is in charge, it is also a commitment to helping bring about that state of affairs. A zealous pharisee might have seen that in terms of throwing off foreign rulers or instituting a theocracy by force, and some Christian fundamentalists may think about it in similar terms, but the Christian ethic, in response to the idea that Jesus is the Crucified Lord, should turn it upside down and say that it is brought about by love, and showing mercy, and self-sacrifice, and through Prayer, which is related to all of those.

I also think with regard to "non-selfish" reasons you should allow room for something to be for one's own benefit without being selfish in a morally prohibited way. If a fundamental statement of Christian ethics is to "love your neighbor as your self", it already assumes that you do in fact love yourself. Really it assumes that human nature can't help but love itself and see itself as primary. Christian ethics suggests that this should be turned upside down in a lot of respects, but not so much so that it is considered wrong to do something which is good for yourself. There is also the injunction to "be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect."

You had said this:

I was pointing out that the bolded was false, that in fact Christians do pray for God to do what he wills (hence the part of the Lord's Prayer that says "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.").

I think you are mixing up two modalities of talking about prayer here. You speculate here that the real reason so many religious people pray is because prayer is a social practice that reinforces the beliefs of that religion. Thus, religions that encourage their members to pray will tend to outlast those religions that don't.

This is plausible enough, although it doesn't really explain how prayer reinforces belief (The costly signaling theory of Sosis is more convincing in my view (PDF). However, that is a theory about the function of prayer across religion. That doesn't describe what people are doing when they pray, or why they are doing it (that is, what motivates people to pray). It is this latter question that people are answering here, so when you say, well, it just seems like belief reinforcement--you are addressing a different question from what they are talking about.

Let me try to be clearer, because I think you make this mistake in other places as well. Let's assume that you are right and the reason that people pray is as a means to belief reinforcement. Does that answer the question of why religious people pray? Well, it doesn't explain their motives for praying. While belief reinforcement (what they might call increasing their faith) could be part of why they want to pray, they also want to pray for other reasons, such as to ask God to intervene on their behalf, for comfort from God in times of difficulty, to obey the command of God to pray, as a means of connecting with other co-religionists, or just to experience the positive feelings they associate with communing with God.

Claiming that the function of prayer is belief reinforcement in no way contradicts people having these as their motive for prayer. As we know from the example of natural selection, function is not the same thing as intention.* That is, the function of prayer in religion might be to reinforce the beliefs of that religion, but that doesn't mean that when people want to pray that the reason they want to do so is to reinforce their beliefs.**

Ultimately, this means that the question here, "Why do religious people pray?" is equivocal. You could be asking, "What is the functional cause of prayer in religion?" or you might be asking, "What kinds of motives do religious people have for praying?"

I think most people here are answering the second question here (mostly because you seem to keep disagreeing with the answers they're giving you), but the answer you've given is to the first question. But these are answers to different questions--both you and Naked_Rectitude might be right.

*Not understanding this is one of the main reasons why so many religious people reject evolution--they look at a natural organism like the eye and conclude--rightly--that you can't understand it correctly without seeing that it has a purpose--to see. Then, they infer from this fact that there must be some mind guiding its creation whose purpose this is and think that if you are denying the existence of this mind that you are denying that the eye has a function at all, that you are just claiming that it is a jumble of parts that improbably happened to be arranged such that it can see.

**Nor does it mean that there is some wizard behind the curtain, such as the religion's founders or leaders, that is making sure that their religion includes prayer because it reinforces belief--an example of why I don't think looking at the intentions of a religion's founders is a very useful way of understanding the function of religious practices like prayer.

That's fine, I don't expect you to reply to everything.

You should try harder.

I won't address you point for point, since well named and Original Position covered a lot of this, I think.

There are a lot of points here, and I think Original Position is right in that there are two separate questions here, and we're in danger of speaking past each other. From what you're saying, I believe you don't quite understand the biblical emphasis of prayer, and it's relation to God's will. I'm curious as to whether you've read the NT? I think you would benefit from giving it a read, or another read, just so that you're more familiar with the text. There are some key books that you could read in a few hours.

It's already been mentioned, but I think this is key - that the Lord's prayer asks God's will to be done on earth. I mentioned this before, if it is not God's will that people perish, yet people do, we can conclude that not everything God wants to have happen, actually happens. The missing piece of the puzzle is our own will, and that it's often in conflict with God's will. Think of Jesus praying in Gethsemane, when he prays "your will be done", he is essentially asking for strength to do what's right. The same can be seen when Jesus tells Peter to pray that he he doesn't fall into temptation. Again, it's a plea for strength of the will.

All in all, I think you're misunderstanding the doctrine of faith, and that without it, is impossible to please God. Think of Christ not performing miracles in the areas where people had no faith, and demanded signs from him, contrasted with the miracles he did for people who did have faith. God is not entirely different, that he does not always intervene when there is a lack of faith. You seem to think that God does in fact carry on regardless of the circumstance, and "can't change his mind", but this is not accurate. The things we do matter, if they did not, free will would be inconsequential.

Putting the biblical God aside, and just speaking about some generic deity, it would be strange to think that he created life, and then somehow lost interest in it. That seems like a human attribute, at least in the sense that there are too many other things to be concerned for, since God would not be limited in concentration or concern. For all intents, even if God created an infinite amount of things, he should be able to concern himself with all of them as if they were his sole focus.

Hmmm. well I am not really sure what I believe, I am influx I guess you could say. I feel stymied by the "large questions" and lack of answers. In the above you make it sound like the only reason to delineate different subsets of beliefs is to look down on others. I disagree with this in principal. I think it is a matter of respect to actually take the time to understand what different people believe and why.

I have a colleague who is a JW who is a really nice and responsible guy, I would consider him a friend. I don't look down on him because he believes things which I think are incorrect. Similarly I don't look down my nose at Buddhists, Sikhs, Muslims, or atheists. People have different world views/beliefs for a variety of reasons, many of which are culturally rooted.

Also fwiw my background is more or less fundamental Christian so I do kind of include myself in that sub-group. I think there is lots to be said about that sub-culture but the point is that conversation should be nuanced and address what they actually believe and how those beliefs effect their actions positively/negatively.

In that case, I do think you are prejudice to those with religious beliefs.

I'll never tell

I should. I sometimes even do.

See, you're doing it again, getting personal instead of engaging on the subject. Maybe you can't tell when you're doing it, or it's just your normal mode of conversation, who knows. I'm doing it right now, but not for much longer, it doesn't interest me at all to discuss what I think of you and what you think of me. Your comment about me and WN swapping places was just nasty and uncalled for and I prefer to discuss things with people who don't get personal. There are plenty here who seem to manage that without any problems, you might try taking a leaf from their book.