I took one semester of Ethics, enough to know not to get involved in this discussion. Still, I'd like to throw in my two cents-€ about my personal point of view.

'It's not god I dislike, it's his fan club that I can't stand.'

With all due respect and no offense meant at all, but people like Feud argueing the way they do always creep me out.

Actually, I've found this discussion to be remarkably calm and friendly. I'll admit that I have found some people's logic to be a bit shaky, but that's to be expected given the inherent nature of discussing belief vs. knowledge.

ElWhop0, can you prove to us that you are not a Drengin?

A very strange experience could bring about a change.

Devoting a great amount of time researching with a truly open mind could also effect a change.

Thing is, once a decision has been made - especially if based on both of the above - the open mind necessarily becomes closed (one way, or the other).

I'm sorry, I never meant to offend. What I meant is when you talk about God people usually think you are weird and a freak nowadays. This is evidenced by the above quote. I know that no offence was meant but in no other conversation someone will call one a freak just because they are trying to say what they think and trying to give their own evidence( even though the other person will not think that it's evidence.) I'm all for going against the grain, nobody likes being average, but going against it just to go against it doesn't make sense.

About the study being wrong, and me not answering, I'm sorry, but I'm located in a different time zone and had to sleep and do some work as well. I am very busy during this period, and in fact I wouldn't join this discussion if it was something else since I would be wasting time; it's just that I felt strongly about the subject and felt that I wanted to contribute.


The study says:
"The results of a long-awaited scientific study aimed at measuring the effect of third-party prayer for hospitalized patients not only did not match the expectations of those conducting the study, but also may have raised more questions for researchers than it answered. Among them: Can even the most carefully designed trial measure prayer's effects?"

It seems that they are not sure what their experiments did. When I first read on NewScientist, I thought that they said that it helped, but obviously they reached ambivalent results. But as the authors say:

"The authors were careful to point out the limited conclusions that could be drawn from their study. "Private or family prayer is widely believed to influence recovery from illness, and the results of this study do not challenge this belief," the authors wrote. "Our study focused only on intercessory prayer as provided in this trial and was never intended to and cannot address a large number of religious questions, such as whether God exists, whether God answers intercessory prayers, or whether prayers from one religious group work in the same way as prayers from other groups.""

The Orthodox church is Apostolic as well, since the the Patriarchs and all the priests receive Ordain which descended from when the Apostles ordained new priests.



You forgot to add why some prayers are answered with a no, and Feud also said that some of the prayers they made for that case were answered with a yes.

I didn't understand what you meant exactly with the second phrase, but if you don't wish to join back in the conversation then I respect your wishes.
I know that a prayer not only soothes the one that makes it, it helps other people as well. I know that I pray for people I see in the road and I don't know. I'm not saying to show off and receive a "Well done" and such but to show that prayer can be directed to people you know and love and even unknown people and undirected asking for help for the whole world. It may be difficult to measure in an experiment, as we saw already but that doesn't change things. Maybe it was my mistake bringing up an ambivalent study. Maybe the study shows that undirected prayer helps everyone. I know that I have prayed for all (heart or not) patients and ask God to make everyone ok. But of course that wouldn't stand in a scientific court for eveidence. Mind you I am studying science as well, and I think that science and Church (you call it religion) do not contradict.

My sincere prayers go out for all you here.

Actually, eye witness accounts are notoriously inaccurate, especially when they've been filtered by the media, theological purges, simple error, wishful thinking, delusion, or the influence of authority. Consider that when enough people believe a cult (Heaven's Gate) becomes a religion (Christianity, Mormonism, fill-in-the-blank). Cultists are generally considered as delusional or have deviant values, which changes once there is a critical mass of believers that forces societal acceptance.

Also, the belief of many people might be Truth but it certainly isn't truth. If truth were a democracy based on belief then, as had been believed for millennia, the earth would be flat and the sun would revolve around the earth. It is good thing that science set that issue straight, and it is too bad the church crispy fried a few deviants to prove their Truth was right.

Hydro

I just find it sad that someone would not believe in SOME type of "afterlife" or God. The most depressing thing I can think of is that there is nothing beyond or better than the life you have now. Some would argue that "nothingness" after death is no problem, and I would venture to say those people have had a very tough life or are extremely wore out with the day to day grind of living. Claiming there is no God and nothing but blackness as your brain shuts down when you die is still faith. Its faith in nothing, and that is sad. Having belief that there is a God or an afterlife gives me incredible hope. It seems your life would be very empty and shallow not having that hope. It creates denial, hatred, rage, isolationism, extreme pride, intolerance and many other things. Life is hard and there are basically two paths to follow.
One, you choose to have faith, believe in something, greater than you, who has a plan for your life, and a plan for you after life. This tends to breed hope, positive outlooks, and an ability to cope with difficult times. You dont understand everything around you, but thats OK, you hold tight to your faith. AS a side note, faith in something that ISNT there hurts nothing in the end, after all its not there. Faith in nothing when something is there will surely lead to trouble.
Two, you choose to second path. Outrage at what happens to you, denial that someone greater than you would let this happen (how could they let it?!?). Funny enough this tends to lead to EXTREME intellectualism. Science is the end all be all answer. There is no God, only some rational explanation that hasnt been discovered yet. Blind dumb luck that energy somehow formed a body, with a thinking mind, has led us to the point we are at now. Some even consider death a blessing, they can be done with this world and enter oblivion. That is extremely disheartening to me. Feel free to flame, but hope placed in faith of something greater than myself and those around me on Earth seems a far better option than belief in nothing but what I can prove around me.

Yes, it is very depressing, most people can't and don't want to deal with this, they flee into religion.
However, as depressing as the lack of an afterlife is, it means one thing: We have to make sure that we and everyone else on this planet can enjoy our short, meaningless lives as much as possible.

I didn't think that I was arguing, and if I was tehn I did so by accident (I've always thought or an argument as having hostile or aggressive feelings, I thought of this more as a discussoin).

I must say though that I find the line hillarious, "no offense or disrespect, but you creep me out". Thanks, that is the funniest thing I"ve read in a long while!   

I guess it comes with speaking English only as second language. Glad I could liven up your day.

For me, 'to argue' means civil discussion using logical points (arguments). What you describe, I would call a fight or similar. But it's one of the instances where I find that I could make a much better and finer distinction in German. So, I boldly put forward the motion to move this argument to German!

*ducks and runs for cover'

Why would not having belief result from a tough day? Or the grind of living? And why is not having belief that sad? I find it very satisfying to say “I don’t know” to some the big questions, but also love the beauty that is around me, wonder at the vastness and complexity of the universe, work to improve the society in which I live and help those around me, and do my best to look for answers. I find it sad that some people who don’t have answers retreat to a Black Box called mysticism and then stop looking for answers or are content – or combative in defending – with Truth that are clearly wrong.

I would hardly call this a shallow life filled with rage and intolerance. Saying “I Don’t Know” and looking for answers is not pride, nor is it denial – to me this is the ultimate in humility. For me the Black Box of religion is pride (I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG) and denial (creationism, ID, etc).



Faith in Truth that blinds you to truth is likely to cause problems. And faith in a false Truth can certainly hurt, depending on the circumstances.



No, no flames. Discourse so far has been civil and enlightening, and I really appreciate the level headed and polite discussions.

Perhaps my general philosophy (such as it is) can be summed up by Carl Sagan’s well known phrase: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. For me this goes for both science and religion – everything, really. If someone tells me they have an omniscient, omnipotent pink dragon in their garage then I’m likely to ask for some proof. If someone tells me they have developed Cold Fusion then, well, they’d better demonstrate they can do it. I’m not likely to take their word for it, and my level of skepticism increases with the magnitude of the claim. Religion makes an enormous number of amazing, unsubstantiated and inherently un-provable claims and claims that are just plain false, so I am pretty darn skeptical.

Science certainly doesn’t have all the answers, but so far it has been pretty good at ferreting out how our environment works – certainly better than the various religious texts written and edited by tribal or medieval peoples who thought the world was flat and the sun revolved around the earth. For all its flaws the scientific method is self correcting. A given Truth, by definition, is immutable (unless it is edited by various Councils of Nicaea, a new religious faction, or an upcoming cult).

So for me the universe isn’t blind luck, or a terrifying one way trip to oblivion. What I know is that my genes have been around for hundreds of millions of years and will live on, that whatever understanding I have will be built upon by others (unless humans exterminate ourselves), and that my good works will be my legacy. And beyond that I’m perfectly happy to say “I don’t know”.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Its interesting to hear (not the first or last time for me) someone say that a belief in no afterlife (I'll let the no god thing slide) is sad or disturbing to them and that it promotes the ills of society and is also a product of those ills. I find it can have the opposite effect just as reasonably. If you believe that this is your only shot and that the most important thing you can do here on this big blue rock is to raise your children to do better than you and to leave a good legacy so that humanity will be better off from having you around, what you believe about what happens after you die seems irrelevant. If on the other hand you believe the world or even the entire physical universe is inherently flawed and that all physical desires are meant to be suppressed then I can understand why you might think death and what happens after are your only shot at true happiness. But you still need to prove to me that the physical world is flawed. Just because everyone else says sex without babies is evil and if I fornicate (have sex with someone without a ritual to a deity saying we will never have sex with anyone else) I am up the brown river without a paddle in the afterlife doesn't convince me of it.
Ahh the problem of evil is an interesting side note here as well. Its a word that gets tossed around a lot with little explanation. Here is my argument that got me kicked out of a sunday school class when I was 16. If god is infinitely good and creator of all then did he create evil and if so is evil good? Isn't satan one of gods angels and since humanity was given free will by god and the angels where not then wasn't Satan just doing what god made him do? Needless to say after studying the origins of the devil I found my own answers but my Sunday school teacher was just angry that I would ask such a heretical question in the first place.

Prayer is an interesting subject. I like to think of it as magic. What is the difference between a voodoo practitioner sacrificing a chicken to a Loa in order to heal a sick friend and an old lady praying in church for the same reason? Who can claim to have the most authority? If the sick friend gets better can either of them say it was because of their prayer or ritual and not the others? If a man goes to a hospital for lesions on his lungs (most likely cancer) and his wife who is a witch casts a spell for him to heal while at the same time his family prays that he will die peacefully since they believe it to be his time to go, who gets answered? Just so happens the man in question gets his tests done again before scheduling a biopsy surgery and the lesions are gone. The doctor tells him this is one in a million but once in a blue moon this happens. Was it god? Was it the will to live? Was it the witchcraft? Point is no one can say for sure and faith can be equally applied to all these people. The man had faith he would live, the witch had faith her pagan gods would help, the family had faith that god cared. For anyone to value their faith above any other type is pretty egotistical really and once faith gets to the point that you disregard the faith of others as being equally effective to your own you aren't talking about faith so much as you are talking about the superiority of your beleifs over those of another.