Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

[unknown soldier]

If there's one issue that keeps apologists busy, it's the issue of unanswered prayer. Skeptics often point out that the hungry children who pray for food often die of starvation. If God exists, then why don't we see better results from prayer? Christian apologist Kyle Butt answers this question on pages 229-244 of A Christian's Guide to Refuting Modern Atheism. He explains that effective prayer must conform to the following:

1. Prayer must be "in the name of Jesus." That is, prayer must be in accord with Jesus' teachings and authority.
2. It is necessary for prayer to be in accord with God's will. God has a way of doing things that no prayer can change.
3. The person praying must believe she will receive what she requests. Otherwise, she won't receive what she requests!
4. The person praying must be a righteous person. So all you sinners, forget it!
5. Prayer won't work if the petitioner prays with selfish desires.
6. Persistence in prayer is important. One or two prayers might not be enough.

I'm eager to read what other members here have to say about these guidelines, but allow me to start out saying that if 1 is true, then anybody who is not a Christian won't benefit from prayer. I wonder if those non-Christians see that their prayers aren't doing any good.

Guideline 2 seems odd. It's like God saying: "I'll do anything you ask as long as I want to do it."

I'd say that 3 can result in a "snowball effect" which is to say that if a doubter's doubt can lead to a prayer not being answered, then the doubter might doubt even more!

Regarding 4, it seems to me that sinners need answered prayer more than the righteous.

Guideline 5 also seems odd because if you're petitioning God for something you want or need, then you are thinking of yourself, and what's wrong with that?

Finally, 6 doesn't explain why God can't just grant the petition with one prayer request, and neither does it tell us how many prayers it takes to succeed. Could it be that the person praying is praying for something that in time she'll get whether she prays or not?

[The Tanager]

1A. Kalam
P1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
P2. The spatio-temporal universe began to exist.
P3. Therefore, the spatio-temporal universe has a cause.
P4. If the spatio-temporal universe had a cause, then that cause would have to be eternal, non-spatial, immaterial, atemporal, and personal.
P5. Therefore, the cause of the spatio-temporal universe is eternal, non-spatial, immaterial, atemporal, and personal (attributes of what we would call a ‘god’).

I have, by presenting the fact that your P2 is devoid of any way to prove to be true.

You shared your thought that this was so. I’ve responded. If you’ve nothing new to add, neither do I.

So you finally see that your P2 is an unconfirmed assumption.

Not sure how you got there. Because you shared a critique that I feel I adequately responded to and you haven’t added anything since then?

Who decides what's reasonable?

Logic shows what is reasonable. Do you think logic is subjective?

[The Tanager]

1C. Moral

P1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
P2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
P3. Therefore, God exists.

First, I think torturing a child is wrong because I was once a child and would not want to be tortured. That's my personal, subjective stance, not anything that is objective from outside of me.

I think we are using ‘wrong’ differently here. To keep with the ice cream analogy, one could say the same thing you just did: “I think eating pistachio flavored ice cream is wrong because I was once a child and would not want to experience the grossness that would be eating that flavor. That’s my personal, subjective stance, not anything that is objective from outside of me.” But this “wrong” is different than the “wrong” of someone who said no one else should eat pistachio ice cream either.

There have been and still are groups of people that seem to have no issue torturing children. These are not the 'occasional abnormal individuals'. Often times it's systemic or cultural and shows that many people have no issue with it.

The groups and individuals that do it, if they admit to doing it, will justify that these children aren’t actually human or that they aren’t innocent or that it’s a necessary evil for the greater good.

So, not even in the Bible do we find the clear objective moral that children should not be tortured.

Again, even assuming you are true here, this is completely irrelevant to my argument. My argument is not that the Bible is the source of all objective morals. My argument is not that the Bible is truthful in all it states.

It is precisely relevant to your argument. You brought up torture of children. This is an example of showing a situations where a religious text says it's ok to bash children on rocks, i.e. torture of children. This demonstrates that it is an emotional appeal, and not objective. Therefore your argument that says torture of children is objective has been falsified.;

If your interpretations are true here, then the conclusion is that the text in question is not the source of objective morals or, at least, that it’s not an infallible source. Okay, what does that have to do with my argument? I didn’t claim either of those things. Throw out what the Bible teaches on what acts are moral and immoral. My argument stays exactly the same.

I won't get into the 'heads I win, tails you lose' argument whereby if Morality is the invention of Humans it has no validity but if God hath written it on our hearts, it is objective.

Given atheism, how do you see morality being objective? An evolutionary account? A platonistic account? Something else? I'm open to hearing why one thinks an atheistic account leads to objective morality, but the only ones I've seen are platonistic and I think platonism fails.

[TRANSPONDER]

TRANSPONDER wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 12:29 pm
I won't get into the 'heads I win, tails you lose' argument whereby if Morality is the invention of Humans it has no validity but if God hath written it on our hearts, it is objective.

The Tanager » Fri Jun 17, 2022 4:00 pm
Given atheism, how do you see morality being objective? An evolutionary account? A platonistic account? Something else? I'm open to hearing why one thinks an atheistic account leads to objective morality, but the only ones I've seen are platonistic and I think platonism fails. atheism, how do you see morality being objective? An evolutionary account? A platonistic account? Something else? I'm open to hearing why one thinks an atheistic account leads to objective morality, but the only ones I've seen are platonistic and I think platonism fails.

Why should morality be objective? That is, any more than a consensus of ethical codes that are open to revision but with human welfare as the best objective basis we have? Evolutionary in being instinct at base and social evolution to deal with an increasingly complex society. You seem to be demanding that there is some unshakeable reliable moral law that never changes and is never open to question, but (I'd argue is the reality) there isn't one. We have to make the best of the situation that life gives us. Just because it seems less good to you than a perfect being issuing a perfect law, that is not what we have. Certainly the horrors and fallacious morals of the Bible aren't it. And Christianity makes it worse by insisting that it can't be changed, all the while quietly changing it to keep pace with human morals.

I see nothing fail more than the attempt to argue from Biblical morality.

[JoeyKnothead]

P2. The spatio-temporal universe began to exist.

So you finally see that your P2 is an unconfirmed assumption.

Not sure how you got there.

That's that eighth grade education. Somewhere along the way they musta taught me that just saying something doesn't make it true.

Because you shared a critique that I feel I adequately responded to and you haven’t added anything since then?

I added how proud I was you learnt you the error in your P2.

Who decides what's reasonable?

Logic shows what is reasonable. Do you think logic is subjective?

And here I thought logic showed what was logicable.

When using the term "reasonable" regarding you and Kalam's argument there, you're at best showing us it's only "reasonable" to conclude you still don't understand why your P2 is an assumption, and not shown to be fact.

I can assume all unicorns only have em the one of em, and that'd be "reasonable", only don't it beat all, soon as I then conclude unicorns're factual, then I gotta go back to the group home and hope they got butterscotch pudding instead of that nasty yogurt they wanna push for afternoon snack and a nap.

[The Tanager]

1C. Moral

P1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
P2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
P3. Therefore, God exists.

Why should morality be objective? That is, any more than a consensus of ethical codes that are open to revision but with human welfare as the best objective basis we have? Evolutionary in being instinct at base and social evolution to deal with an increasingly complex society. You seem to be demanding that there is some unshakeable reliable moral law that never changes and is never open to question, but (I'd argue is the reality) there isn't one. We have to make the best of the situation that life gives us. Just because it seems less good to you than a perfect being issuing a perfect law, that is not what we have. Certainly the horrors and fallacious morals of the Bible aren't it. And Christianity makes it worse by insisting that it can't be changed, all the while quietly changing it to keep pace with human morals.

I see nothing fail more than the attempt to argue from Biblical morality.

I haven’t argued from Biblical morality and have said nothing about the history of Christian morality. Fine topics, but irrelevant to my arguments.

I do believe morality is objectively true, that it never changes (regardless of how human moral views change), and so isn’t “open to question” in that sense, although I believe we have free will to question and disagree with it.

I’m unclear if you are saying your view is still “objective” or if you are saying it’s “subjective” and “what’s wrong with that”? If you can clarify that, I can respond further.

[TRANSPONDER]

1C. Moral

P1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
P2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
P3. Therefore, God exists.

Why should morality be objective? That is, any more than a consensus of ethical codes that are open to revision but with human welfare as the best objective basis we have? Evolutionary in being instinct at base and social evolution to deal with an increasingly complex society. You seem to be demanding that there is some unshakeable reliable moral law that never changes and is never open to question, but (I'd argue is the reality) there isn't one. We have to make the best of the situation that life gives us. Just because it seems less good to you than a perfect being issuing a perfect law, that is not what we have. Certainly the horrors and fallacious morals of the Bible aren't it. And Christianity makes it worse by insisting that it can't be changed, all the while quietly changing it to keep pace with human morals.

I see nothing fail more than the attempt to argue from Biblical morality.

I haven’t argued from Biblical morality and have said nothing about the history of Christian morality. Fine topics, but irrelevant to my arguments.

I do believe morality is objectively true, that it never changes (regardless of how human moral views change), and so isn’t “open to question” in that sense, although I believe we have free will to question and disagree with it.

I’m unclear if you are saying your view is still “objective” or if you are saying it’s “subjective” and “what’s wrong with that”? If you can clarify that, I can respond further.

The only objective aspect of morality is what is good for the species, the tribe and the individual. Which of course isn't always to the good of other individuals tribes and species. This well being for the person or pack has evolved in packs as prehistoric study has shown in evidence of pack socialising and even looking out for pack members. This is further enhanced by human reasoning and complex society. Morality absolutely has changed and generally for the better If you are not pointing to a particular religion or Holy Book as the arbiter of morals, then I'd say you are mistaking an educated instinct that society has passed onto us for some kind of Universal law of morality. There isn't one.

[The Tanager]

The only objective aspect of morality is what is good for the species, the tribe and the individual. Which of course isn't always to the good of other individuals tribes and species. This well being for the person or pack has evolved in packs as prehistoric study has shown in evidence of pack socialising and even looking out for pack members. This is further enhanced by human reasoning and complex society.

How do you determine what is objectively good for the species/tribe/individual?

Morality absolutely has changed and generally for the better

Objectively ‘better’? If morality is subjective, then there is no better (or worse), just different. If it is objectively better, than what is the objective standard to judge that something ‘better’ meets it?

If you are not pointing to a particular religion or Holy Book as the arbiter of morals, then I'd say you are mistaking an educated instinct that society has passed onto us for some kind of Universal law of morality. There isn't one.

I’m not sure why you think I’m mistaking an educated instinct for a universal law of morality. I think the general agreement remains through educated and uneducated, throughout the history of cultures.

[TRANSPONDER]

The only objective aspect of morality is what is good for the species, the tribe and the individual. Which of course isn't always to the good of other individuals tribes and species. This well being for the person or pack has evolved in packs as prehistoric study has shown in evidence of pack socialising and even looking out for pack members. This is further enhanced by human reasoning and complex society.

How do you determine what is objectively good for the species/tribe/individual?

Morality absolutely has changed and generally for the better

Objectively ‘better’? If morality is subjective, then there is no better (or worse), just different. If it is objectively better, than what is the objective standard to judge that something ‘better’ meets it?

If you are not pointing to a particular religion or Holy Book as the arbiter of morals, then I'd say you are mistaking an educated instinct that society has passed onto us for some kind of Universal law of morality. There isn't one.

I’m not sure why you think I’m mistaking an educated instinct for a universal law of morality. I think the general agreement remains through educated and uneducated, throughout the history of cultures.

What enables a species to survive and prosper is what is good for the species.It is the most 'objective' good that you are going to get. It would do no good to insist that you want more objective good and bad than that. There isn't one. And I already said that Biblical or Theist objective morality, based on the religion is not objective but the opinions of the religious or their gods. Just saying to dispose of that, even if you weren't going to argue from that point.

Objectively better (as much as it is) is what is good for the species the groups and the individuals. That is as objective as you are going to get. And I reckon you are indeed mistaking an 'educated instinct' which is social passing on of social mores and ethics until it becomes instinctive, for some objective morality that exists without humans. It exists without humans no more than art, music or literature exists without humans - it doesn't.

And I think morality and ethics are demonstrably better. Education, individual rights, respect for others, concern for other species and our environment, living conditions, even animals welfare. These things were unheard of when I was a kid. It is true - only too true - that they aren't always observed. But they are moral progress that has been made.

[The Tanager]

What enables a species to survive and prosper is what is good for the species.

How do we judge what it means to “prosper”? There are different ideas of prospering. Those who forced sterilization on certain segments of the population did it in the name of prospering the human race. As far as survival goes, there is so much complexity and unknown, that how do we know what will help a species survive better than alternative choices?

It is the most 'objective' good that you are going to get. It would do no good to insist that you want more objective good and bad than that. There isn't one.

There is not a sliding scale of objectivity. It’s either objective or it’s not.

And I already said that Biblical or Theist objective morality, based on the religion is not objective but the opinions of the religious or their gods. Just saying to dispose of that, even if you weren't going to argue from that point.

The moral claims in the Bible or any other code, religious or secular, are beliefs or opinions, yes. That doesn’t mean they can’t match objective truth. I am of the opinion that the Earth is not flat. It’s also objectively true that the Earth is not flat.

I think you misunderstand what the existence of a Creator God means for the objectivity of our morality. If God exists and created humans for a purpose, then that God would know what is objectively good for humans. That God’s view of how humans should act would be objectively true.

And I think morality and ethics are demonstrably better. Education, individual rights, respect for others, concern for other species and our environment, living conditions, even animals welfare. These things were unheard of when I was a kid. It is true - only too true - that they aren't always observed. But they are moral progress that has been made.

If morality is not objective, then these things logically cannot be objectively better. If they are objectively better, then morality is objective. Evolution cannot give us objective morality, however.

[brunumb]

If morality is not objective, then these things logically cannot be objectively better. If they are objectively better, then morality is objective. Evolution cannot give us objective morality, however.

Morality is not objective. Things may be subjectively better. An outcome that is better for some may be regarded as worse for others. Evolution does not give us morality. We construct it based on our understanding of what is good or bad for ourselves and humanity in the long term. If there is some objective morality, please enlighten us on what it is, where it comes from and how we can determine that it is not merely our own subjective view of what morality should be.
[Edit: gr & sp]