Don't Click This Link (if you can't handle the truth!)

Very good point. I guess that would obviously be applicable to all of theology.

Seen that dudes work before, great stuff!

wouldn't be fair otherwise

That was the most pedantic, loquacious crap I've ever seen.
First of all, science has actually proven repetitively that when a large group of people get together and pray for something, the result is usually achieved.
For somebody to suggest that becuase God doesn't answer prayers 100% of the time that He doesn't exist, or that Christianity alone is the reason for some huge delusion involving God is incredibly ignorant.
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord your God.

A Deist?

That is the.. there is a creator, he created the earth and man and everything, then split...right?

The "Dead Beat Dad" God....hehe

I don't think you are delusional, in fact, that is the only perspective when it comes to this subject that holds any value what so ever... in favor of a creator, that is.

My opposition lies with those who believe they are nothing more than drolling baboons without the jesus god to pull their puppet strings, now while they ARE drolling baboons, I don't want their beliefs forced on me nor my freedoms taken away in favor of the great puppet master. That is what they try to do and That is where I draw the line. I will fight to the death if need be to keep MY freedom.

proof

i'm at a loss for words...hmmmmm...let me dig some up........hmmmmm......i guess have no opinion.

So with that said, does this mean your are or going Agnostic?

3 out of the first 4 posters in this thread are Jews.

You have been warned.

They will call themselves "Catholic" or whatever but rest assured, they're Jewish.

Jews on GLP, in fact Jews anywhere, live their lives to manipulate information for their benefit.

They have ZERO interest in the truth. The Jewish version of "truth" is whatever serves their cause best.

Nah-just popping out of the ol' proverbial-box to see what else is around (nothing serious.) I'll go to Mass on Sunday and be back to my ol' self again. Don't fret.

Seriously-though, it does make one wonder doesn't it? G-d seems to have made himself and the Heavenly Host practically out of reach to those of us here on earth-reality.

I understand the whole concept about faith and this being a proving ground-so forth and so on but, com' on, G-d has got to know that communication is a two-way street (and, apparently one of the main reasons He created us was for companionship-right?) So, why all the hoops? Why can't we actually-really, verbally, communicate with our Creator? I don't mean via the quasi-crap way television evangelist carry on about (anybody with an IQ bigger than their waist size knows these charlatans are nothing more than two-bit carnies pitching snake-oil salvation.) I'm talking about a normal dialogue just like you would have with your neighbor-not an imaginary discussion (talking to yourself.)

The older I get, the more rips I seem to get in my belief. Sometimes it seems to me that we are basically, being set-up for failure because, no matter how good we live, how sincere our faith, we simply cannot validate our belief (and, G-d certainly doesn't go out of His way to help us in this matter-at least not in my experience.)

I was raised in a home that worshiped G-d so, it's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My journey in search of the truth has led me to abandon my Protestant upbringing and to convert to Catholicism (while, being colored with several other schools of thought in-between) yet, I have never-ever had an encounter that I could say was "personal." An encounter where, in this reality, I spoke to G-d and He spoke back (yes, I have had several dream-encounters that were very "real-like" but, not based in this "awakened-state.")

While I'm no saint, I do consider myself a fairly decent sort so, why does G-d not speak/communicate with me? I read the Bible, pray the Rosary and talk with him through-out the day-every day. The truth be known, I doubt anyone has ever actually had such a relationship where they "really" communicated with G-d in what we would perceive as reality-based dialogue.

I know the stories "recorded" in the Bible where Adam, Moses and others conversed with G-d and I am aware of all the demon-in-drag-television evangelist who claim G-d walks and talks with them on a regular-basis but, the deal is this; we are human-beings designed with "five-senses" from which we are able to decipher what is real and what is not. Based on that simple concept, where is the proof? Where is the proof in "real-time," our time, in the here and the now? You would think with all the religious outlets available to the masses, somewhere-somehow, a "direct-communication" would be witnessed-wouldn't you? I would. But, all you will ever get is "second-hand" claims. Nothing that can be fully validated-only somebody saying something about what somebody else experienced.

With something as valuable as our salvation in the balance, you would think that every possible ways and means would be in place to ensure our conversion and fidelity to the faith but, what we have is a second-rate system, not far removed from two tin-cans attached by string, strung along a grapevine! Seriously-how can we be held liable via such an archaic device? The whole idea of having a relationship is to create a bond and enjoy encouragement-it is a necessary device in maintaining a union.

My point is, I just wish that G-d would care as much about communicating with us as we do Him. It's mighty discouraging to pray, only to have your words fall to the floor as fast as they leave your mouth. I'm just saying...........

Dismas

ps - I write G-d this way out of respect for our Jewish friends and because, I was befriended by an old Jewish man who taught me to do it this way as respect to our Creator. I am Catholic-not a Jew incognito!

The OP is wrong that prayer has no effects.

There is the eggs at Princeton, that show the effects.

I personally concluded that the only thing that is worth anything in all of religion is only prayer, so I'm convinced.

Using logic only goes so far in proving hypothesis.

But, he is right in showing that God, that imaginary entity outside of ourselves, is NOT the prayer answering power. What actually happens is that your prayer enters into the inner psyche, which communicates with the earth, a larger organism of higher intelligence and the earth communicates with the sun, which is a larger organism of even higher intelligence and the sun communicates with the other suns and the universe. A larger organism of higher intelligence can be defined as 'a planet, sun or human being that gathers information, the larger the organism, the larger is the information it gathers, therefore, the more intelligent it is".

Then the response come back through this chain, eventually, because for every action of thought, there is an equal and opposite reaction to the action, which means the sun reads the return info backwards, the earth gets it flipped and your psyche reads the info backwards again and your normal brain reads it right side up again. So you get the answer.

What the OP should realize is that this chain of communication is not God, so one can say that it is your psyche, the heaven of the occult, that answers prayers rather than an unknown, invisible entity called God.

And the only prayer that actually works right is that kind that you first imagine is true, then the universe will adapt your prayer just for you. This is called symbiosis.
Your prayer will work on you personally, so you change, hopefully improve. It does not work correctly so that you can change the world, even prayers en-masse'. All mass prayers do is to reduce the Holy Quantum Human unit to a mass psychology and base common action called a gang.

Sounds like a lot like law of attraction hocus pocus to me. But, hey-that's just me. Tell you what prove me wrong-pray for something and show me how the universe will come together for little ol' me! Of course, I'm counting on your integrity here-taking for granted that you are the honest sort and all that. Let me know when Luke Skywalker delivers your blessing! Good luck-and, I mean that with all sincerity.

WRONG!
----------------

Prayer Does Not Work. Sorry.

Once again, it's all in your mind...

Prayer & Healing

The Verdict is in and the Results are Null

by Michael Shermer
eSkeptic
April 2006

In a long-awaited comprehensive scientific study on the effects of intercessory prayer on the health and recovery of 1,802 patients undergoing coronary bypass surgery in six different hospitals, prayers offered by strangers had no effect. In fact, contrary to common belief, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications such as abnormal heart rhythms, possibly the result of anxiety caused by learning that they were being prayed for and thus their condition was more serious than anticipated.

The study, which cost $2.4 million (most of which came from the John Templeton Foundation), was begun almost a decade ago and was directed by Harvard University Medical School cardiologist Dr. Herbert Benson and published in The American Heart Journal, was by far the most rigorous and comprehensive study on the effects of intercessory prayer on the health and recovery of patients ever conducted. In addition to the numerous methodological flaws in the previous research corrected for in the Benson study, Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of the forthcoming book, Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine, explained:

The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion.

The 1,802 patients were divided into three groups, two of which were prayed for by members of three congregations: St. Paul’s Monastery in St. Paul, Minnesota; the Community of Teresian Carmelites in Worcester, Massachusetts; and Silent Unity, a Missouri prayer ministry near Kansas City. The prayers were allowed to pray in their own manner, but they were instructed to include the following phrase in their prayers: “for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications.” Prayers began the night before the surgery and continued daily for two weeks after. Half the prayer-recipient patients were told that they were being prayed for while the other half were told that they might or might not receive prayers. The researchers monitored the patients for 30 days after the operations.

Results showed no statistically significant differences between the prayed-for and non-prayed-for groups. Although the following findings were not statistically significant, 59% of patients who knew that they were being prayed for suffered complications, compared with 51% of those who were uncertain whether they were being prayed for or not; and 18% in the uninformed prayer group suffered major complications such as heart attack or stroke, compared with 13% in the group that received no prayers.

This study is particularly significant because Herbert Benson has long been sympathetic to the possibility that intercessory prayer can positively influence the health of patients. His team’s rigorous methodologies overcame the numerous flaws that called into question previously published studies. The most commonly cited study in support of the connection between prayer and healing is:

Randolph C. Byrd, “Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population,” Southern Medical Journal 81 (1998): 826–829.

The two best studies on the methodological problems with prayer and healing include the following:

Richard Sloan, E. Bagiella, and T. Powell. 1999. “Religion, Spirituality, and Medicine,” The Lancet. Feb. 20, Vol. 353: 664–667; and,

John T. Chibnall, Joseph M. Jeral, Michael Cerullo. 2001. “Experiments on Distant Intercessory Prayer.” Archives of Internal Medicine, Nov. 26, Vol. 161: 2529–2536. www.archinternmed.com

The most significant flaws in all such studies include the following:

Fraud
In 2001, the Journal of Reproductive Medicine published a study by three Columbia University researchers claiming that prayer for women undergoing in-vitro fertilization resulted in a pregnancy rate of 50%, double that of women who did not receive prayer. Media coverage was extensive. ABC News medical correspondent Dr. Timothy Johnson, for example, reported, “A new study on the power of prayer over pregnancy reports surprising results; but many physicians remain skeptical.” One of those skeptics was a University of California Clinical Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics named Bruce Flamm, who not only found numerous methodological errors in the experiment, but also discovered that one of the study’s authors, Daniel Wirth (AKA “John Wayne Truelove”), is not an M.D., but an M.S. in parapsychology who has since been indicted on felony charges for mail fraud and theft, for which he pled guilty. The other two authors have refused comment, and after three years of inquires from Flamm the journal removed the study from its website and Columbia University launched an investigation.

Lack of Controls
Many of these studies failed to control for such intervening variables as age, sex, education, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, marital standing, degree of religiosity, and the fact that most religions have sanctions against such insalubrious behaviors as sexual promiscuity, alcohol and drug abuse, and smoking. When such variables are controlled for, the formerly significant results disappear. One study on recovery from hip surgery in elderly women failed to control for age; another study on church attendance and illness recovery did not consider that people in poorer health are less likely to attend church; a related study failed to control for levels of exercise.

Outcome Differences
In one of the most highly publicized studies of cardiac patients prayed for by born-again Christians, 29 outcome variables were measured but on only six did the prayed-for group show improvement. In related studies, different outcome measures were significant. To be meaningful, the same measures need to be significant across studies, because if enough outcomes are measured some will show significant correlations by chance.

File-Drawer Problem
In several studies on the relationship between religiosity and mortality (religious people allegedly live longer), a number of religious variables were used, but only those with significant correlations were reported. Meanwhile, other studies using the same religiosity variables found different correlations and, of course, only reported those. The rest were filed away in the drawer of non-significant findings. When all variables are factored in together, religiosity and mortality show no relationship.

Operational Definitions
When experimenting on the effects of prayer, what, precisely, is being studied? For example, what type of prayer is being employed? (Are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, and Shaman prayers equal?) Who or what is being prayed to? (Are God, Jesus, and a universal life force equivalent?) What is the length and frequency of the prayer? (Are two 10-minute prayers equal to one 20-minute prayer?) How many people are praying and does their status in the religion matter? (Is one priestly prayer identical to ten parishioner prayers?) Most prayer studies either lack such operational definitions, or there is no consistency across studies in such definitions.

Theological Implications
The ultimate fallacy of all such studies is theological. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, He should not need to be reminded or inveigled that someone needs healing. Scientific prayer makes God a celestial lab rat, leading to bad science and worse religion

Prayer 'no aid to heart patients'

Praying for patients undergoing heart operations does not improve their outcomes, a US study suggests.

BBC News
15 July 2005

A study found those who were prayed for were as likely to have a setback in hospital, be re-admitted, or die within six months as those not prayed for.

The Duke University Medical Center study of 700 patients, in the Lancet, said music, image and touch therapy did appear to reduce patients' distress.

Heart experts said patients could benefit from feeling more optimistic.

Further evidence is emerging that people with a more positive outlook appear to be less affected by stressful events, such as having surgery
Dr Charmaine Griffiths, British Heart Foundation

Therapies such as prayer and homeopathy are widely used, although past studies looking at the impact of care on patients' health have had mixed results.

The results of this study contradict earlier findings from the same team which suggested a drop of a quarter or more in "adverse outcomes" - including death, heart failure or heart attack.

However, that trial involved only 150 patients. Other research since has found no evidence of any benefits.

This study looked at 700 patients undergoing angiograms (an X-ray of the blood vessels) or other heart operations at nine hospitals across the US.

Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist prayer groups were assigned to pray for 371 of the patients. The rest had no prayer group.

In addition, 374 of the patients were assigned MIT therapy and the rest none.

MIT involved teaching the patients relaxed breathing techniques and playing them easy listening, classical, or country music during their procedure.

The researchers found that neither therapy alone, or combined, showed any measurable treatment effect on serious cardiovascular events, hospital readmission or death.

But those given music, imagery and touch therapy had less emotional distress and had a lower death rate after six months, though this was not seen as statistically significant.

'Proper subjects'

Dr Mitchell Krucoff, who led the study, said: "If we want to understand the role of human capacities and resources in the midst of our most advanced medical technologies, we have to do good science.

"With no notion of the actual mechanisms involved in ancient healing practices such as prayer or touch or music, structured outcomes research allows us to collect data that we can learn from in many ways."

A Lancet editorial on the paper said it would be premature to rule out the use of such therapies in modern medicine.

It added: "The contribution that hope and belief make to a personal understanding of illness cannot be dismissed so lightly.

"They are proper subjects for science, even while transcending its known bounds."

Dr Charmaine Griffiths, spokesperson for the British Heart Foundation, said: "While this research suggests that prayer and alternative therapies do not improve the clinical outcome for patients undergoing heart procedures, there is increasing interest in the possibility that positive emotional states are beneficial to heart health."

She said associations had been seen between positive emotional states and low levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

"Further evidence is emerging that people with a more positive outlook appear to be less affected by stressful events, such as having surgery."

She added: "Patients learning to relax by using breathing techniques and listening to music, and being aware that others are thinking of them may contribute to a more optimistic outlook.

"Whether these effects are significant remains unproven."
'No health benefit' from prayer
The world's largest study into the effects of prayer on patients undergoing heart surgery has found it appears to make no difference.

15 October 2003

The MANTRA study, run from Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, involved 750 patients.

Before their operations, they were randomly split into two groups, and half were prayed for by Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims.

However, checks revealed they had fared no better than those not prayed for.

The results of the controversial study contradict earlier findings from the same team which suggested a drop of a quarter or more in "adverse outcomes" - including death, heart failure or heart attack.

However, that trial involved only 150 patients, and the more extensive research, completed this year, found no evidence of any benefits.

The study is the subject of a BBC "Everyman" documentary to be broadcast next week.

Prayer teams from various denominations and faiths were alerted by email to start intercessory prayer as soon as possible after the patient was enrolled on the trial. Neither hospital staff, the patients, or their relatives had any idea which patients' were receiving prayer, to prevent any chance of the results being skewed.

After the patients had undergone an angioplasty procedure, in which a balloon is insterted into a heart artery and inflated to clear an obstruction, they were followed for six months to see how they progressed.

'Unwise test'

Many theologians say that, even if you believe in the power of intercessory prayer, such a trial is doomed to failure because it "puts God to the test" - and there are clear instructions in the Bible not to do this.

The Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Tom Wright, said: "Prayer is not a penny in the slot machine. "You can't just put in a coin and get out a chocolate bar.

"This is like setting an exam for God to see if God will pass it or not."

Other experts are highly critical of the concept that the benefits of prayer might be "dose-dependent" - that is, that the benefits might increase as the number of people praying went up.

This is particularly important, as Duke University is at the centre of the US "Bible belt" - and many of the trial participants, regardless of whether they were randomised to receive prayer during the trial, would be getting it from relatives and friends - and of course themselves.

Dr Richard Sloan, from the New York Presbyterian Hospital, described the concept of a prayer "dose" as "absurd".

He said: "It requires us to abandon our understanding of the physical universe."

Story originally from BBC NEWS:
[link to news.bbc.co.uk]

Published: 2003/10/15 11:23:23 GMT

That creative intelligence doesn't answer prayers 100% of the time? YOU are answered ALL the time. It's what you allow yourself to have! If you negate the process by being negative, you don't allow it. We should be careful what we ask for. Some are very impatient and expect results immediately, but when we are patient and believe in what we DESIRE, we will receive.

Understand, we are always answered, but people still believe they are separate from the god source, which is not possible. We are the divine spark and it's within us, not outside.

Bargaining doesn't work, because the negative cancels the positive or the desire is canceled out of a lack of faith. Focus.

i mean when it really comes down to it, if im wrong and youre right, then hey it's over...im happy with the life im living (lived) and im a decayed piece of crap then...but if im right and youre wrong then...

check out "zeitgeist" on google video........ if you can handle the truth.

point taken-even Spock would agree!

Good video, the end of Christianity is near

like that other poster above saRobert W. Hawkinsatch the movie zeitguist and go to those sites that show there is no historical references to jesus.

pretty soon, christianity will be completely ended. thank god

Oh, yea of little faith............

Did Jesus exist? If not, then there's not much to talk about. If he did, he called himself Lord. This means that either:

He was Lord,
He was a liar, or
He was a lunatic.
It's unlikely he was a liar, given his morals as described in the Bible, and his behavior doesn't sound like that of a lunatic. So surely we must conclude that he was Lord?"

Firstly, note that this argument hinges on the assumption that Jesus did in fact exist. This is at least debatable.

Secondly, the argument attempts a logical fallacy which we might call "trifurcation", by analogy with "bifurcation" (see the "Constructing a Logical Argument" document). That is, the argument attempts to restrict us to three possibilities, when in fact there are many more.

Two of the more likely alternatives are:

He was misquoted in the Bible, and did not claim to be Lord.
The stories about him were made up, or embroidered with fictitious material by the early Christians.
Note that in the New Testament Jesus does not say that he is God, although John 10:30 claims that he said "I and my father are one". The claim that Jesus was God was first made after the death of Jesus and his twelve disciples.

Finally, note that the possibility that he was a "lunatic" is not easily discountable. Even today in the western world there are numerous people who have managed to convince hundreds or thousands of followers that they are the Lord or his One True Prophet. People like L. Ron Hubbard, Sun Myung Moon, Jim Jones and David Koresh continue to peddle their divinity. In more superstitious countries, there are literally hundreds of present-day messiahs.

Incidentally, the "Lord, Liar or Lunatic" argument is based on arguments in the book "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis, the well known author and committed Christian. He wrote many books containing Christian apologia, and also a number of fantasy and SF novels influenced by Christian themes. His most famous books, the Narnia series of novels, are a fantasy retelling of many aspects of Christian faith, with Aslan taking the place of Jesus. Amusingly, some Christian fundamentalists in the USA have attempted to have Lewis's books banned from schools, alleging that they are "Satanic" in influence.

Ah-now.....................

The following comes from "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck,"The Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 26, 1929, p. 17. The questions are posed by Viereck; the reply to each is by Einstein. Since the interview was conducted in Berlin and both Viereck and Einstein had German as their mother tongue, the interview was likely conducted in German and then translated into English by Viereck.

Some portions of this interview might seem questionable, but this portion of the interview was explicitly confirmed by Einstein. When asked about a clipping from a magazine article (likely the Saturday Evening Post) reporting Einstein's comments on Christianity taken down by Viereck, Einstein carefully read the clipping and replied, "That is what I believe." See Brian pp. 277 - 278.


Einstein on Jesus


"To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?"

"As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."

"Have you read Emil Ludwig's book on Jesus?

"Emil Ludwig's Jesus," replied Einstein, "is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot."

"You accept the historical existence of Jesus?"

"Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus."

"Ludwig Lewisohn, in one of his recent books, claims that many of the sayings of Jesus paraphrase the sayings of other prophets."

"No man," Einstein replied, "can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he."