Prayer

[POI]

For Debate: Is prayer just talking to yourself? If not, why not? Sure, prayer may make one feel satisfied/other, but there is likely no agency, on the other side, facilitating such desired response(s).

**********************************

People pray to many differing god(s) and/or other. Statistically speaking, many god(s) and/or other aren't answering, as many of these god(s) and/or other likely do not even exist. Hence, at least in part, many are merely talking to themselves in prayer. If many of the desired result(s) can happen in prayer, without any agency actually responding, because such agency does not exist, then it's quite plausible this is the case for all prayer.

[TRANSPONDER]

Mae No, it is not.

POI LOL! Tell that to Transponder, as well. I, myself, will let the readers see.

Mae It varys. These matters are not as simple as you assume. But best talk to them and then you might know. How many people who prayed to Hindu gods or Allah have you talked to recently?

POI In my line of work, I speak to all of them. They all believe they are speaking to their true god(s). But enough with my anecdotal claims, which likely mean nothing to you. You believe you are speaking to the one true god, right? How do you KNOW you are not merely only speaking to yourself in prayer?

What line of work is that? And you are, again, wrong about your experience meaning nothing to me. That is Ts and the general atheist position. When a person's experience disagrees with their position, it is deemed "ancedotal" and discredited. If it agrees, then it is "evidence."

But since you deem personal experience "anecdotal" my personal experience as to how I KNOW that God is answering will likely mean nothing to you. There is probably no way to answer that question that will be of value to you, is there?

Sorry about that. I know it must be annoying to post a claim and have the bloke at the other end say "I cannot accept anecdotal claims as evidence". The fact is that I have no way to validate the claim. I don't know what factors you may have left out or misremembered (time to post the vid on the relevant thinking again)

But one is forced to do this or anyone could claim anything. You would hardly accept it if I said that Vishnu came on a mental visit and told me Christianity was not true. Even if you credited that I was saying what I thought was the truth, you might think I was just mistaken.

Personal experience claims do not cut it as valid evidence.

Now, when I talk about voices in the head, I am refereeing not only to my own experience and those related by others, about how they came to realise they were praying to themselves, and I have no reason to suppose others who pray to other gods are not doing the same.

In short, the ball is in your court to validate your contention that Your interpretation of prayer is true.

You do realize that your experience of realising that you and others were praying to themselves is a personal experience and "does not cut it as valid evidence" right? Your statement discrediting personal experience just cut off the branch upon which you were sitting.

So I have the right to claim that your experience of realizing you were just hearing your own voice is not valid. Which is convenient because that is exactly my position. It might be you just heard yourself and could not hear God, but that does not mean that God does not speak to others and they hear Him. You personal experience of only hearing you does not trump my personal experience of hearing Him as well as my own voice. You see, I hear my own voice as well as His and I know the difference.

Now hearing anyone from your sibling to your boss to your sweetheart is a personal experience and generally speaking, we do not invalidate that communication experience because we personally hear with our own senses. Just so, I know when God is speaking to me, and He does so frequently, because what He says is nothing I would have thought of saying. The understanding He gives me is outside of my ability to think of myself.

To be truthful, I share this because you are respectful of me as a person and not insulting. THe particulars I am loath to share just as I would not share the sweet things my husband said to me yesterday. You might just dismiss them as personal experience (which they are) and therefore no evidence of that which I know to be true.

The problem we are facing is this. Walking with the One True God is a deeply personal experience. While your side values and validates your own experience of a lack of an awareness of Him, (that is not called anecdotal), any one who does walk with God and trys to share this is dismissed simply because their experience is invalid. Your experience is valid but my experience is not, in your eyes. I do not see how anyone can overcome these two different standards of measure.

The other point is that a personal relationship with God or a spiritual being is unique to the Jewish faith and Christianity. You can blithely insert the words used in Hinduism or Islam for their gods in the sentence, but those faiths do not teach nor expect a personal relationship. Their gods do not speak to them and they do not say they do. No Hindu gods come and visit the Hindu. They do not expect this. So you used Christian language in a religion that does not teach those concepts. They do not have that experience and do not say they do.

Now you were in the faith and maybe heard people claim God spoke to them, evaluated this, as you should, and found it to be self-delusion. I This is actually quite common so I can see who you can draw that conclusion that the whole thing is bunk. It is not but I admit is it rare to find believers who know the difference between God speaking and them talking to themselves. I have heard claims it was God speaking to them but clearly, to anyone who knows God, it was not. It did not meet the test. So maybe this contributed to your view.

Well argued, but the usual problem - ignoring the evidence. Prayer is common to people of all faiths, so even if (as I once thought might be) prayer (meditation) would get to the Ultimat, it isn't tyhe god of any one religion. The evidence is against that..

The evidence is also common that people (including myself) have realized that the god in the head is ourselves, and the single proof - that if you change your religious opinions, so does God, is evidence that this is what's going on and your dismissal or ignoring of that, and never mind the very arguable idea that only the Judaeo - Christians have personal relations with the god in the head, when everything from Tibetan Buddhism to the Tao is absolutely about contact with 'God' merely shows that your views and beliefs about the whole matter could do with some expansion.

But of course, it is not about what you understand or beleive, but about the case, and (if the public are looking in and their minds are open) they must see that your case is based on differences that make no differences, and evidence ignored and dismissed that they are the same instinct in humanity.

And I have a Theory... ...that if we have an instinct, it is there for a survival purpose, not a purpose of telling us about Cosmic reality.

[Mae von H]

Mae No, it is not.

POI LOL! Tell that to Transponder, as well. I, myself, will let the readers see.

Mae It varys. These matters are not as simple as you assume. But best talk to them and then you might know. How many people who prayed to Hindu gods or Allah have you talked to recently?

POI In my line of work, I speak to all of them. They all believe they are speaking to their true god(s). But enough with my anecdotal claims, which likely mean nothing to you. You believe you are speaking to the one true god, right? How do you KNOW you are not merely only speaking to yourself in prayer?

What line of work is that? And you are, again, wrong about your experience meaning nothing to me. That is Ts and the general atheist position. When a person's experience disagrees with their position, it is deemed "ancedotal" and discredited. If it agrees, then it is "evidence."

But since you deem personal experience "anecdotal" my personal experience as to how I KNOW that God is answering will likely mean nothing to you. There is probably no way to answer that question that will be of value to you, is there?

Sorry about that. I know it must be annoying to post a claim and have the bloke at the other end say "I cannot accept anecdotal claims as evidence". The fact is that I have no way to validate the claim. I don't know what factors you may have left out or misremembered (time to post the vid on the relevant thinking again)

But one is forced to do this or anyone could claim anything. You would hardly accept it if I said that Vishnu came on a mental visit and told me Christianity was not true. Even if you credited that I was saying what I thought was the truth, you might think I was just mistaken.

Personal experience claims do not cut it as valid evidence.

Now, when I talk about voices in the head, I am refereeing not only to my own experience and those related by others, about how they came to realise they were praying to themselves, and I have no reason to suppose others who pray to other gods are not doing the same.

In short, the ball is in your court to validate your contention that Your interpretation of prayer is true.

You do realize that your experience of realising that you and others were praying to themselves is a personal experience and "does not cut it as valid evidence" right? Your statement discrediting personal experience just cut off the branch upon which you were sitting.

So I have the right to claim that your experience of realizing you were just hearing your own voice is not valid. Which is convenient because that is exactly my position. It might be you just heard yourself and could not hear God, but that does not mean that God does not speak to others and they hear Him. You personal experience of only hearing you does not trump my personal experience of hearing Him as well as my own voice. You see, I hear my own voice as well as His and I know the difference.

Now hearing anyone from your sibling to your boss to your sweetheart is a personal experience and generally speaking, we do not invalidate that communication experience because we personally hear with our own senses. Just so, I know when God is speaking to me, and He does so frequently, because what He says is nothing I would have thought of saying. The understanding He gives me is outside of my ability to think of myself.

To be truthful, I share this because you are respectful of me as a person and not insulting. THe particulars I am loath to share just as I would not share the sweet things my husband said to me yesterday. You might just dismiss them as personal experience (which they are) and therefore no evidence of that which I know to be true.

The problem we are facing is this. Walking with the One True God is a deeply personal experience. While your side values and validates your own experience of a lack of an awareness of Him, (that is not called anecdotal), any one who does walk with God and trys to share this is dismissed simply because their experience is invalid. Your experience is valid but my experience is not, in your eyes. I do not see how anyone can overcome these two different standards of measure.

The other point is that a personal relationship with God or a spiritual being is unique to the Jewish faith and Christianity. You can blithely insert the words used in Hinduism or Islam for their gods in the sentence, but those faiths do not teach nor expect a personal relationship. Their gods do not speak to them and they do not say they do. No Hindu gods come and visit the Hindu. They do not expect this. So you used Christian language in a religion that does not teach those concepts. They do not have that experience and do not say they do.

Now you were in the faith and maybe heard people claim God spoke to them, evaluated this, as you should, and found it to be self-delusion. I This is actually quite common so I can see who you can draw that conclusion that the whole thing is bunk. It is not but I admit is it rare to find believers who know the difference between God speaking and them talking to themselves. I have heard claims it was God speaking to them but clearly, to anyone who knows God, it was not. It did not meet the test. So maybe this contributed to your view.

Well argued, but the usual problem - ignoring the evidence. Prayer is common to people of all faiths, so even if (as I once thought might be) prayer (meditation) would get to the Ultimat, it isn't tyhe god of any one religion. The evidence is against that..

This should be discussed. It remains to be seen whether all prayer in all faiths is common. I recall the Catholic bead counting prayers I’ve heard and they’re nothing like what protestants pray. No resemblance. They might be like Muslim prayers that count beads too. Hindus and Muslims do not pray for healing that I’m aware of, let alone experience it. So I think your lumping them altogether is invalid.

The evidence is also common that people (including myself) have realized that the god in the head is ourselves, and the single proof - that if you change your religious opinions, so does God, is evidence that this is what's going on and your dismissal or ignoring of that, and never mind the very arguable idea that only the Judaeo - Christians have personal relations with the god in the head, when everything from Tibetan Buddhism to the Tao is absolutely about contact with 'God' merely shows that your views and beliefs about the whole matter could do with some expansion.

You need to provide evidence of Buddhists having contact with a god. My understanding of the faith does not include that teaching. You’re applying strictly Christian theology to faiths that don’t teach that.

But of course, it is not about what you understand or beleive, but about the case, and (if the public are looking in and their minds are open) they must see that your case is based on differences that make no differences, and evidence ignored and dismissed that they are the same instinct in humanity.

In my awareness of comparative religions, they aren’t at all the same. The differences are, in fact, glaring. I think you’re imagining similarities that aren’t there.

And I have a Theory... ...that if we have an instinct, it is there for a survival purpose, not a purpose of telling us about Cosmic reality.

Anecdotal at best but since it’s all in your head, it isn’t as valid as anecdotal, But I’m going to look into this more.

Thanks for the challenge.

[TRANSPONDER]

There's a basic thing you are missing. The act and method of prayer (often called 'Meditation' anyway) is so common to all religions, that one has to suppose the mental effect is the same.

As to my personalexperience, this just validates for me, what others have described.

The burden of proof really falls on you to show why the prayer/meditation you do is contact with a god, while the others, just because theology and dogma differs a bit, is not.

[POI]

Mae “Anecdotal”reports by definition have no validity. That you allow yourself to call testimony “anecdotal” means you will dismiss it. Witnesses in a trial can only offer anecdotal evidence and yet no one calls it that. My entire family life is built on anecdotal experiences. It’s extremely satisfying, but that too is merely anecdotal to you.

POI It depends on the claim. If I told you I speak to dead people, without any other facts and evidence, I think you would dismiss it too. Your starting position would be one of great doubt, and rightfully so.

A lawyer usually also has other facts and evidence to validate or dismiss the said story from a said witness on the witness stand. Is all you have is your said story? If so, I guess we can examine all the given details and see where this goes? But yes, my starting position is one of great doubt. Let's see if you have anything which can turn my current position around?

Mae You will have to think. Take, for example, the emotionally charged insulting words some atheists here use. That’s a perfect example of completely subjective posting. Dismiss it. They WANT their position to be correct rather than think it is so.

POI ???? Anyways, let's go ahead and flesh out your claim, if this is all you have?

Mae Can’t you read between the lines?

POI I think we all do that, all the time. So far, my position is that you are talking to yourself in prayer. But maybe your given story/other will change that position for me?

Mae And yes, I have solid intellectual reasons for my position gleaned over decades.

POI Are they subjective or objective reasons? Bring them, I'm ready.

Mae Your judging Him wrong and accusing Him of character faults shows that you demanded an answer in the form you decided. You also
put a time limit it seems. He won’t comply.

POI Or, maybe the more logical and statistical answer is that God is not really there. If God wants a relationship with all of his creation, he will not perpetually skip some and immediately contact others.

Mae Wrong understanding and that’s not what I said. I said the RELATIONSHIP is built on what you call “anecdotal.”

POI I've given you the right understanding. I do not question that you have actual relationships with your husband and children. Why? For the aforementioned reasons I already gave. I already know humans exist. Having spouses and kids is an actual objective thing. I'm questioning the 'relationship' you claim you have with God. I instead currently think there is no real or actual relationship there at all, because I doubt he is actually there. Sorry, but this "relationship" is instead currently in line with that of an imaginary friend. It's completely one-sided.

Mae My relationship with God is built on exactly the same. It’s unseen, immaterial and yet solid.

POI I'm not doubting the feelings. I'm doubting the one on the other side, God. I know you have feelings for your spouse, kids, and God. But the 'relationship' with God is likely completely one-sided, (like with an imaginary friend).

Mae Statistical odds. Will you accept them?

POI I cannot say until you lay them on me? What do you got?

Mae I told you, the heart that is asking. Is it to learn the truth and then one will decide to believe it not reserving the position of judge for oneself? Is He to be the servant or performing lion and you’re the ring master? It’s rests entirely on humility or pride. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

POI Then God would have skipped Saul of Tarsus.

Are you then saying God does not answer the call to petitionary and/or intercessory prayer requests from the humble? This is exactly what it sounds like. Example, you claim you already know he exists and I'm sure you have prayed to him for this or that. Simply ask him to contact me in a way for which I will then no longer deny his existence. Which in turn, might actually compel me to become a Christian apologist, just like you.

[POI]

[Replying to POI in post #115]

POI, if you still want God to make Himself such that are aware of Him, you are going to have to:

1. Stop insulting Him. Drop the insulting signature and stop complaining He doesn’t do your bidding as you require. This discipline to your pleasure you must insist from yourself.

2. Surrender all expectations as to how He will choose to respond. He will not be used to please human desire for pleasurable experiences.

3. Set no deadline or else. No proud threats.

4. You must ask His forgiveness for your proud demanding ways that He perform and your maligning His character to others. You’ve joined his enemies. You must leave that team forthwith.

Praying will not suffice.

1 & 3. It's impossible to insult a claimed deity that is not really there. I gave up well over half my life asking for him to reach me directly, and he ignored me. He's likely not really there at all. But, just in case, I have now resorted to asking others, who claim to speak to him, to be the God-proxy, and to ask him to contact me. The ball is in your/his court now. I won't hold my breath but will await much more Christian apologetics to come.

2. I've already stated that I do not know exactly what it would take to be convinced, but God would. He has perpetually chosen to skip me. Hence, I guess he does not want me to know. Further, if he "will not be used to please human desire for pleasurable experiences", then it does not matter whether or not I ask him to contact me

4. Doubting that he exists, because he has decided not to convince me, makes me an enemy? He could change that immediately, if he wanted to.

[Masterblaster]

Hello POI

You are all over the shop here.
You are waiting at a bus stop at 3am and the buses stopped at 10pm.

I believe in God because I feel 'something',....that means that when faced with the yes no option, I chose yes.

Yes suits me, yes is good for me, I go yes.
I have no reason to go no.

If you can have a flake on your ice-cream and call it a 99, never refuse. If you are allergic to God then, avoid the whole thing. God will/ will not be there regardless.

You have a huge list of demands and expectations and entitlements that, ( if not a complete wind-up ), are never going to materialize into anything.

I know nothing about God and anyone who says they do is a liar. I seriously doubt if God knows anything about me. Anyone who says that God is not there is also a liar. Take God as a sign on a freeway and consider its significance to you.

If you take the God hint, then you need not worry about skeptics proving you wrong. They are usually bereft of solutions and alternatives.

Look for God in the natural world, imho
Thanks

[TRANSPONDER]

I see it differently. Putting aside any religion -related god, we have the choice - look for an intelligent being in nature (and we should be talking ID or there is no case) or look for natural physical processes.

So far no god has been shown, despite frantic efforts, and much that was claim as the work of god has been explained as natural.

Why should anyone credit the god - hypothesis? Only because they have either been brainwashed into faith in the less - credible hypothesis. or because they have been sold fiddled science and faddled reasoning and havrn't bothered to check.

We do it, so they don't have to.

But it's a choice, in some ways. One has to be willing to accept the evidence. Faith works differently. I've heard it before "If there is no God, I don't want to know". Don't we recall the notorious 'If the Bible said 2+2 = 5, I wouldn't accept that was wrong, I'd try to find a way to make it work". Not to mention Ken Ham's infamous reply to 'what evidence would change your mind? ' "Nothing; I believe the Bible."

The Faith is more important than the facts, and until they understand and put that right, they have lost the debate, even if they still have the Numbers.

[POI]

Hello POI

You are all over the shop here.
You are waiting at a bus stop at 3am and the buses stopped at 10pm.

I'm responding to interlocutor's assertions and claims. You would need to explain what you mean here exactly, or I will dismiss your claim as baseless.

I believe in God because I feel 'something',....that means that when faced with the yes no option, I chose yes.

"Something" = God?

How do you know you are not merely talking to yourself in prayer?

[POI]

...How do you know that when you pray, you are not just taking to yourself?

How do you know you are not talking to a bot?

I believe God hears every prayer. But, I can't prove it in a way that could not leave room for disbelief, sorry.

I believe humans exist, and if you and I share the same reality, we both already agree humans exist. Humans are required to create bots.

But you have not told me why you believe you are not merely talking to yourself in prayer?

[Masterblaster]

Hello POI

There are many ways to look at our situation.
The best way is to just get on with it.

A proper follower of Jesus is a very busy person. You are a worker for the kingdom of God, that needs all the help it can get. You haven't got a minute.

Just as Buddhism describes a path out of suffering and impermanence through releasing yourself from attachments , Jesus tells you to try loving God and work from there . It is a totally different approach that uses many of the same elements.

The words of Jesus are loaded with 'letting go',

Matthew 6

21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also........25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Just like Buddhism , this imperviouness to impulse is to create a strength and a shelter for enlightened appreciation of your world.

If you disagree with the philosophy of Jesus then argue against it on that basis, but ,please do not dismiss it because it hasn't worked for you.

Thanks