Question for the Atheist

[_Some Schmo]

*yawn*

Irrespective, you don't get to tack all of fundamentalist Christianity's kooky beliefs on to my beliefs and point at the sum.

This doesn't at all approximate the accusation you leveled at me, and you can't even begin to show otherwise. I stated that because it is a factual error. I do not accept all the beliefs promoted by modern readers of the Bible. It is thus factually wrong to insist that one can tack my beliefs on to all of fundamentalist Christianity's beliefs and point at the sum as the total of what I am responsible for. Either you don't understand my claim, you don't understand your own accusation, or you're just lying. I honestly don't know which it is. You spend too much time acting like an eighth grader for me to figure out how much is ignorance and how much is dishonesty.

"You spend too much time acting like an eighth grader for me to figure out how much is ignorance and how much is dishonesty," he says as he petulantly stomps his feet and insists that the spade isn't really a spade.

Seriously, you're boring, immature, obtuse and dishonest. Continue to make your idiotic assertions that anyone with a shred of integrity can see are BS. I don't care.

[_maklelan]

"You spend too much time acting like an eighth grader for me to figure out how much is ignorance and how much is dishonesty," he says as he petulantly stomps his feet and insists that the spade isn't really a spade.

So you're saying that I am indeed responsible for all the beliefs of fundamentalist Evangelicalism in addition to those Mormon beliefs I espouse? How do you figure?

Can you actually answer the question this time instead of just burping up some flippant and childish insult? I think we both know the answer to this last question.

Seriously, you're boring, immature, obtuse and dishonest. Continue to make your idiotic assertions that anyone with a shred of integrity can see are BS. I don't care.

You're lying again. Obviously you do care, otherwise you wouldn't be getting so agitated about it.

[_Drifting]

*yawn*

Irrespective, you don't get to tack all of fundamentalist Christianity's kooky beliefs on to my beliefs and point at the sum.

This doesn't at all approximate the accusation you leveled at me, and you can't even begin to show otherwise. I stated that because it is a factual error. I do not accept all the beliefs promoted by modern readers of the Bible. It is thus factually wrong to insist that one can tack my beliefs on to all of fundamentalist Christianity's beliefs and point at the sum as the total of what I am responsible for. Either you don't understand my claim, you don't understand your own accusation, or you're just lying. I honestly don't know which it is. You spend too much time acting like an eighth grader for me to figure out how much is ignorance and how much is dishonesty.

I can understand that you pick and choose which of Christianity's beliefs fit with what you personally believe. Do you apply the same type of approach to Mormon beliefs or do you accept those in totality?

[_Some Schmo]

"You spend too much time acting like an eighth grader for me to figure out how much is ignorance and how much is dishonesty," he says as he petulantly stomps his feet and insists that the spade isn't really a spade.

So you're saying that I am indeed responsible for all the beliefs of fundamentalist Evangelicalism in addition to those Mormon beliefs I espouse? How do you figure?

WTF?! Well if this doesn't demonstrate your lack of understanding of the point I was making, I don't what what does.

The point isn't what you do or don't believe, the point is you not liking others defining your brand of Christianity for you.

Unbelievable.

Can you actually answer the question this time instead of just burping up some flippant and childish insult? I think we both know the answer to this last question.

I just love how you say this as though you're completely innocent of the exact same behavior. Your denial mechanism is set to 11 today, huh?

Seriously, you're boring, immature, obtuse and dishonest. Continue to make your idiotic assertions that anyone with a shred of integrity can see are BS. I don't care.

You're lying again. Obviously you do care, otherwise you wouldn't be getting so agitated about it.

You shouldn't confuse the expression of my boredom of your tedious personality with agitation.

But thanks for bearing your testimony anyway.

[_maklelan]

WTF?! Well if this doesn't demonstrate your lack of understanding of the point I was making, I don't what what does.

The point isn't what you do or don't believe, the point is you not liking others defining your brand of Christianity for you.

It has nothing to do with that. It explicitly has to do with insisting that I, as a Mormon, am required to accept all of fundamentalist Evangelicalism's tenets. This is the statement you quoted:

Irrespective, you don't get to tack all of fundamentalist Christianity's kooky beliefs on to my beliefs and point at the sum.

This is not me whining about them defining my brand of Christianity for me, this is a concern for attributing another brand of Christianity to me. it's a category mistake. Irrespective, this has nothing to do with your claim. This was your original claim:

heaven forbid an atheist makes an assessment of what theists mean by theism.

You claimed it was hypocritical of me to insist, as a theist, that atheism meant X while at the same time giving an atheist a hard time for declaring what a theist means by theism. I have never given an atheist a hard time for declaring to me what a theist means by theism, though. Additionally, my criticisms of Buffalo's definition of "atheism" has nothing to do with being an atheist or not, it has only to do with the fact that someone can't insist on the legitimacy of a definition of a word when that word has never been used that way. Atheists make the same point about that definition. That's a completely different story from what you accuse me of, though. You're trying to make this about a double standard when it's about nothing more than concern for proper lexicology. When you later massaged your original concern a little it turned into this:

If we attribute certain things to your world view based on what you call yourself, we are in error because it may or may not capture all the details of what you actually believe and what you reject, and therefore, our overall argument/judgment is invalid (which sounds just like rhetoric to me)

Of course, my concern with whether or not I accept all the tenets of Evangelical fundamentalism has nothing to do with "capturing the details of what [I] actually believe," it has to do with that fact that I'm not an Evangelical or a fundamentalist. That's not what I call myself. It's a category mistake. You're not attributing anything to my worldview based on what I call myself, you're just doing it arbitrarily. I'm certainly allowed to object to someone insisting that as a Christian I am responsible for all of the beliefs espoused by fundamentalist Evangelicals. To insist that this is at all analogous to objecting to a trumped up definition of the word "atheist" is simply asinine, and you know that as well as I. Your ego just can't let you let it go, though.

Unbelievable.

I just love how you say this as though you're completely innocent of the exact same behavior. Your denial mechanism is set to 11 today, huh?

You can't at all show that I've done anything even remotely similar to Buffalo's butchering of the word "atheist."

But thanks for bearing your testimony anyway.

I wouldn't want to deny you the payoff for your little rhetorical jab:

I wasn't bearing my testimony! Why do you have to make fun of me like that? Boo hoo!

[_maklelan]

I can understand that you pick and choose which of Christianity's beliefs fit with what you personally believe. Do you apply the same type of approach to Mormon beliefs or do you accept those in totality?

I've already explained that I accept those LDS faith claims of which I have personally sought out and obtained a testimony. That list is relatively short compared to the inferences that many Mormons manage to draw from the Standard Works and other Church literature. For those things about which I haven't specifically received any kind of spiritual confirmation I just leave it up to my reason to digest. If you want to call that picking and choosing, that's your prerogative.

[_Drifting]

I can understand that you pick and choose which of Christianity's beliefs fit with what you personally believe. Do you apply the same type of approach to Mormon beliefs or do you accept those in totality?

I've already explained that I accept those LDS faith claims of which I have personally sought out and obtained a testimony. That list is relatively short compared to the inferences that many Mormons manage to draw from the Standard Works and other Church literature. For those things about which I haven't specifically received any kind of spiritual confirmation I just leave it up to my reason to digest. If you want to call that picking and choosing, that's your prerogative.

I didn't mean it in a derogatory way, I was just interested.
Which Mormon beliefs have you needed to apply reason to rather than spiritual confirmation?

[_JAK]

Post Reference Part A

Hi Hoops,

Let’s me clarify some points. You have already acknowledged that people pray for what they see as benefit whether it be for themselves or for others.

While you rejected making up a “typical prayer of today,” you affirmed my examples and did give one of your own.

It’s no refutation to just disagree. That’s why we needed a prayer from you that’s a paragraph or two in length. If you pray what do you say/think? You did give two examples absent actual construction.

Previously you quote me:

JAK earlier: “Individuals pray generally with intent to manipulate whatever they regard as God for their own purpose.”

Your response: “Not always. And, I've found, not even generally. In my own experience, rarely.”

Here is where we needed a prayer construction of yours. There is no refutation, and you fail to provide an example for analysis. Why? You said: “It’s not my game.” My request was not for a game but rather to demonstrate that prayer is an attempt to manipulate/control BEHAVIOR of their perceived God.

Later you stated: “Of course we pray for God's intervention. Why shoudn't we? Post Reference

I made no statement about should or shouldn’t. Instead, I described what typical prayers tend to contain. You admit that “we pray for God’s intervention.”

Hence, you agree with what I stated. “Benefit” for people someone knows is also benefit for themselves. They who pray WANT to manipulate their God for some purpose that THEY WANT. That’s an intent of prayer.

You said this: “We pray for protection, yes.”

You confirm the points I previously made. You also confirm, tacitly, that prayer is a “transaction.” Of course religion is a business. But the “transaction” is that in return for heaping praise on an assumed God and elevating an assumed God, the people who pray WANT SOMETHING or perhaps multiple things in return for their prayers.

You have offered nothing which refutes that conclusion. It’s not an assertion absent evidence. I can provide endless examples of prayers which demonstrate the validity of that conclusion. You have agreed.

You stated: “God, help that kid feel better.” That’s a prayer. It ASKS something from an assumed God. “God” is the subject of the verb “help.” Hence, you attempt to control/manipulate whatever your notion is of God.

There is no evidence for God. You have offered no evidence. Moreover, no agreed upon has any evidence been presented for any God claim That’s why prayer is irrelevant.

You did not address the extended analysis and information about the evolution of the human species over a hundred thousand years or more. In that evolution are all the examples of cultural developments including language, ideas, inventions which evolving humans have exhibited. CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS include superstitions, religions, practices, and every activity which can be documented in human evolution. For these there is evidence.

You have made no refutation. And, as your brief examples illustrates, you also agree that prayer is an attempt to control/manipulate a perceived God.

Earlier Post:
JAK earlier: Praying to God for protection prior to a dangerous encounter has the intent to manipulate that God to intervene. The implied assumption is that safety is more likely if God is petitioned than if God is not.

Hoops stated: Not at all. You want to make it a business transaction. Prayer is not that. The implied assumption is that God works in the affairs of men as we work in the affairs of God. That's a relationship, not quid pro quo.

JAK earlier: Then why would people pray to a God if not “to manipulate that God to intervene”? Your statement is an assumption with no evidential support as you stated: “The implied assumption is that God works in the affairs of men as we work in the affairs of God. That's a relationship, not quid pro quo.

Your latest post (which I’ll identify below) does not addresses the points of my posts as I quoted you and responded.

Let’s look at some exchanges in THIS POST.

Your first paragraph is not an accurate representation of what I stated in context. While you wanted “the kid to feel better,” your prayer was to an assumed “God” and YOU would have felt “better” if the kid felt better. But, that begs the issue: PRAYER is an attempt to manipulate/control an invented God.

I also detailed that people have prayed for the destruction of their enemies. And, in the Bible, that God annihilate entire groups of people and favored other groups. Hence that God was clearly cruel and played favorites. That God was an invention of ancient people as a way to explain. They made it up.

Hoops wrote: “I don’t pray in the way you’ve described so I don’t know what to do here.”

That statement followed mine which stated:

JAK earlier post:
“In the above (earlier) post, you objected to my prayer example but refused to provide one of your own. That objection and time-waste was exactly why I asked you to submit a prayer that might be made in modern times. You refused then. This makes communication difficult. To shorten response words, I’ll just let you refer to your post above for some of this.”

By refusing to write a prayer that you would pray and by claiming “I don’t pray in the way you’ve described…” you are abdicating your own position. Exactly, how is my illustrative example different from the examples which you gave?

You admit you pray “for protection.” In that, you attempt to manipulate/control your God for your own benefit. That is quite in line with the examples/illustrations which I offered.

Hoops, you are inconsistent and hardly defending your position.

JAK previously: “Since we have fully half the human population out of 7 billion people at or near the starvation level, your statement is an interpretation, your interpretation that only some are “blessed to have food” presumably by God.

Hoops wrote:
This is untrue. But, your point remains.

JAK: Hence, God believers consider that THEIR GOD plays favorites. Historically, that has been the view of those who adhered to a different religious mythology. God was/is perceived to FAVOR them and their kind over others whom they do not regard as “one of them.” Religious wars are historical evidence for prayers to God to favor one group over another.

See: Religious War.
See: Protestant Reformation
See: Thirty Years’War
See: The Wars of Religion.

These are wars in and over Christianity.

Hoops, no evidence has been offered to support an entity God nor was it offered in the past to support the gods. This is paramount in our discussion. Absent demonstrable evidence to support any existence of any god, PRAYER to any God is irrelevant – no matter what the words or thoughts are.

You have offered nothing to address this. Your prayer: God help that kid to feel better assumed a God that you wanted to assume, not a God which is established in fact.

Of course if YOU took action yourself to help that kid feel better, then YOU are responsible for what you did. If “that kid” felt better because of what you did, you were responsible for the benefit to “that kid.”

Since you were skipping around, I’ll follow that skip here and not take time to find the post for reference.

JAK previously:
Hence, that refutes other religious claims that God is a loving, forgiving God. In fact it makes this God notion one of an evil God who demonstrates favoritism (a very human quality).

Hoops wrote:
For you to make that evaluation, you have to first tell us what evil is. Good luck. That question has been befuddling us for ages. But within your comment, I suspect, is the idea that a loving God would not let these people suffer. Fine. Now what would you have Him do?

JAK: You misunderstand, I don’t defend any God notion. I would not pray for any god to DO anything. I make the point that the notion (belief) in a God that gives favors to one person or one group of people DENIES the same favors to another person or other group. There is no requirement here for a extended definition of “evil.” Your question: Hoops: Now what would you have Him do? assumes that I accept some God myth. You’re not understanding my comments.

While we have much evidence that ancient people believed that certain people received preferential treatment from their God,” there is no evidence their God inventions had merit. People today still cling to ancient religious myths which incorporate a God of favoritism. We can identify it in prayers they make. We can see it in the prayers you make. “….”God make that kid feel better” and prayer for “protection.”

Virtually everyone would agree that people, individuals, men/women have the capacity to “invent” and have invented religions. The evidence for that is overwhelming. Are you disputing humans are inventors? If so, we have no communication going in the dialog. Many (if not most) Christians perpetuate the notion, the invention of a loving God. At the same time, many also pray for the destruction of other humans who have different views than their own. Those wars I cited above are ample illustration and historically documented.

Individuals (humans) by nature discriminate. If one gives to one charity and NOT to another, that is discrimination. If one helps one person and not another, that is discrimination. Fairy tales are literary inventions. Stories of fiction (books) are examples of human invention. Your “dispute” has no basis in fact in this post. Do you deny the musical inventions of J.S. Bach? Do you deny the inventions of Mark Twain? One invented musical compositions by the hundreds. The other invented stories.

Ancient people invented superstitions and later religions. If you “dispute this,” we are not communicating. What would you call the musical compositions INVENTED by J.S. Bach? What would you call the inventions of J.K.Rowlliing and The Harry Potter Series?

Man’s nature to INVENT is so well established, your call for “evidence” on that is unwarrented.

JAK previously: “It is to invent God in the nature of man himself.”

Hoops wrote: “I dispute this. Where is your evidence of man's nature to begin with? Let alone that what you describe is inherent to this? And if you are willing to stipulate that man has a nature, then you are well on your way to seeing prayer for what it is.”

JAK: Just as the gods and a God are INVENTIONS of man, so is prayer an invention of man.

Articulate the details of your “dispute” above. Exactly what are you disputing? It’s a vague statement. I have articulated examples of how man (and I include women) is an INVENTOR. (Some other animals offer evidence that they invent as well. Example: An anteater devises a TOOL, a stick to put down an ant hill to pull up ants for food.)
See: Animal Inventors
See Zoo primates invent

Man’s nature (as a species of animals) is not unlike other species of animals. While we regard ourselves as the superior inventors, humans are not alone on this planet as inventors by nature.

Again, are you disputing that it is in man’s nature to invent? If so, you aren’t looking at a wealth of evidence to the contrary.

JAK previously: Since the prayer you submitted for analysis was not written by you, you INTERPRET as you please the words which are not yours.

Hoops wrote: Except my interpretation is not unique. That's a part of faith, we learn from each other.

JAK: It’s an irrelevant comment. For thousands of years, people believed the earth was flat. It was their observation and experience (mountains accepted). They also had “faith” in that belief. They were wrong. “Faith” as a topic is fine, but not particularly relevant here. Faith is believing something. It may or may not be a valid belief.

Best end and make another post.

JAK

[_JAK]

Post Reference PART B

Hi Hoops,

Hoops wrote: True. However, let's assume for a moment that at the time this prayer was recorded, every human being was adequately fed and had no reason to believe he/she would not be again tomorrow. That doesn't change the fact that Christians pray to recognize the sovereignty of God. This idea would be expressed using another vehicle.

JAK: There is absolutely no reasonable way to make that assumption. No evidence has been presented that poverty, malnutrition, and starvation was NOT a part of the time in which the “Lord’s prayer” was constructed.

Numerous biblical references are made to “the poor” and “the hungry” in the same time frame as the “Lord’s prayer.” There is ample evidence that your “let’s assume…” idea is faulty on the face of it.

Evidence is to the contrary in the “Give us this day our daily bread.” Such a prayer would have been unnecessary had acquisition of FOOD been no problem. That makes your follow-up conclusion of no consequence. Early Christians INVENTED “the sovereignty of God.” As you have never refuted: God is an invention. Previously, the gods (plural) was also an invention.

The evolution of stories which attempted to explain changed over time. Documentation for that is abundant. Only with the emergence of the scientific method and its refinement, were ancient stories demonstrated to be wrong. People wanted explanation long before they discovered ways to verify and document. Their substitute for valid conclusions was to INVENT stories. The stories that survived over time became the stories for which we have record today.

Surely, you would not dispute that. It can be well documented.

JAK previously: “In the interest of word conservation, throughout your response you attach your spin, your interpretation on words which were not yours or presented as a typical prayer of today. While this is typical of what religious believers do, it’s the precisely kind of spin (on ancient scripts) which has resulted in the hundreds and hundreds of Protestant Christians following the Protestant Reformation (1517 A.D.).

Hoops wrote: Even if I agree... so? Why is this bad?

JAK: I hope you agree. I did not argue that it was “bad.” I point out that it was a fact regarding the evolution of Christianity. I also argued that it is evidence of a very fractured religion with hundreds and hundreds of groups, each of which have a significantly different notion of Christianity and of a God or a minor difference. If a group splits from another group, the differences are sufficiently important that they split. There are also start-up groups. That is, rather than breaking away from another group directly, some charismatic individual or several initiated their own version of Christianity. (It follows the previously established Roman Catholic Church.)

In either case, following the Protestant Reformation of 1517 A.D., these groups are a part of the Protestant Reformation. Again, I’m not arguing (here) that this is “bad,” it is historically documented.

See Martin Luther
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther#The_start_of_the_Reformation]Also see The start of the Reformation[/url

Hoops wrote: Okay, in part, ok. But part of that prayer is that our wishes are for the greater good. Or the good of another. And I've noted that, as usual with atheists/agonstics/humanists you've chosen to represent prayer in the worst possible light. I suppose one can call it a plea to God as manipulation and I don't have the rhetorical muscle to dispute it. I would say, simply, that we pray for the benefit of others. Call it manipulation if you will

JAK: What is non-factual in my comments? What is “greater good” except as humans perceive it? Humans, over time, have developed various ideas of what is “good.” Those ideas are generally under continuous revision. I’ll provide documentation if you offer evidence that notions of good are consistent and universal.

How SPECIFICALLY, have I misrepresented prayer? You have put forward only three short examples:
The Lord’s prayer
Prayer for protection
Prayer that “the kid feel better”

I’ll speculate that you don’t want to write out a two or three paragraph prayer because you know that I will dissect it just as I have characterized what the intent of prayer is.

It was I who said: “You assert refutation but don’t provide it.” In this post, it appears as if you made that statement. (Typographical)

Hoops wrote: There is no evidence that you accept. There's plenty of evidence, it just doesn't meet your impossible standard. So the premise of assertions is flawed. I'm sure we'll get back to this. Nevertheless, this is not the question. The question is if there is some Deity what purpose does prayer serve.

JAK: You have provided no evidence. The assertion: There's plenty of evidence is no substitute for presenting evidence which can be tested, and subjected to objective review. Exactly and specifically to what do you refer in this sentence “So the premise of assertions is flawed.”?

Are you speaking of something I said or something you said or something else?

Hoops wrote: The question is if there is some Deity what purpose does prayer serve. (should be a question mark at the end here, not a period)

The first assertion that must be established is “some Deity.” Failure to establish that, prayer is irrelevant. You appear to assume “some Deity.” Virtually all Christian groups, if not ALL, assume God. While they use ancient scripts to bolster their assumption, the biblical stories do not establish God.

An interesting thing here is that if people repeat over and over some creed or prayer or belief, they tend to believe those are correct absent genuine intellectual curiosity[i] and [i]intellectual honesty. People attend the same church week after week and are indoctrinated with that church’s dogma. Many are taken as children to that same church, put in religious classes, and told what the hierarchy of that particular church wants them to believe.

If those children grow into adulthood, they often (but not always) develop compartmentalization. By that, I mean that when real facts, real evidence contradicts their religious indoctrination, they do not ask questions either internally or externally. They don’t ask of a religious assertion: How do you know THAT?

They don’t engage in real thinking about biblical contradictions for example. They do not access a website like that or read books such as Why I Am Not A Christian.

They don’t absorb the writings of 50 Most Brilliant Atheists of All Time (If you wait or your computer is slow, this link takes a bit of time to load). It lists, shows beliefs, and posts pictures of mostly intellectual atheists.

In case you don’t get this website to load (if computer is slow), here are some names on that list:
Andrew Carnegie
Ivan Pavlov
Sigmund Freud
Clarence Darrow
Richard Strauss
Bertrand Russell (previously mentioned by me in this post)
Linus Pauling
Paul Dirac
Ayn Rand
Katherine Hepburn
Peter Higgs
Warren Buffet
Carl Sagan
David Suzuki
Richard Dawkins
Stephen Hawking

Sorry for a website that loads slowly. The POINT is that religious people, Christian people don’t spend much or any time reading from agnostics or atheists.

By saturating themselves with ONLY religious dogma, they believe it without question.

To part of your statement above, a “purpose” or rather a result of prayer may be self-delusion. But those engaged in it are not aware that they are in the confining box of religious dogma. They simply don’t have contact with writings or people who pose questions regarding beliefs blindly accepted as a result of cradle up indoctrination.

Sometimes people convert from one religious group to another (when they marry for example). They may do it for social appeasement. They may do it for political correctness. They might even do it because they change their religious view for real. This is not to exclude possible other reasons I have not mentioned. This seems sufficient to explain.

I think it’s time for a break. You have a long post, Hoops.

JAK

[_JAK]

Post Reference PART C

Hi Hoops,

Hoops wrote: But you're assuming that the purpose of prayer is to "get" things, behaviours we approve of by God, whatever. We believe that prayer is effective and that sometimes what we've prayed for comes about - to the extent that we can understand it.

JAK: Had you written a prayer, I would have taken YOUR example. I wrote with considerable detail about prayer. Your first sentence is not detailed nor does it restate with clarity what I articulated. Please re-read previous posts. Prayer is an attempt to manipulate and control a perceived God for the purposes expressed in a prayer by an individual or by an individual for a group or for a single individual. The PURPOSE is to manipulate/control the behavior of a perceived God in compliance with what is in the prayer.

Hoops wrote: We believe that prayer is effective and that sometimes what we've prayed for comes about - to the extent that we can understand it.

JAK: People are free to believe anything they wish. However, that does not make the belief valid. I have previously established that prayer is unreliable. And you appear to recognize that fact. (We “believe” in the light switch because we have tested it, other have tested it, evidence supports the BELIEF that the switch will work. Likely few if any who pray PRAY that the switch will work. They have FAITH it will work. They have so much FAITH, they need not even give thought to the possibility that it may not work.)

I don’t know who “We” are in your above statement. I assume it’s a group. You use an interesting word in “effective.” It demonstrates that you accept my analysis that prayer is an attempt to manipulate or control a God. Suppose you did not pray and ACTED in a way that would facilitate what you want. How would the result be different? To restate: Prayer to the gods or to a God is irrelevant. To the extent that people engage in a kind of self-delusion, they may feel better in some way.

Often in Christian groups, members of that group are asked to pray for someone in the group. The person for whom the prayer is made is informed that many are praying for him/her. As a part of the group, such a person may feel more comfortable or happy. However, that emotional feeling was induced by the knowledge that others were asking the assumed God to intervene. It’s not an indicator that there was intervention by a God.

Most agnostic/atheist people would likely say, “Thank you” to a religious person who said he/she was praying for that person. That especially would be true if the agnostic/atheist person knew that the religious person had no idea what his/her genuine position was.

You appear to BELIEVE that prayer will make a difference. Since you give no real sample prayer, you abdicate a responsibility to put up for consideration a real example of what a prayer is.

If something happens for which you pray, there is no evidence that it was the prayer alone that caused something to be as you prayed it would be. What are OTHER FACTORS that might have brought about the result for which you prayed?

Absent an example, I cannot address your prayer. I do not read minds, but I can infer from your comments.

Hoops wrote: We believe that prayer is effective and that sometimes what we've prayed for comes about - to the extent that we can understand it.

JAK: What does “to the extent that we can understand” mean? If you just make up a story or a belief, that’s not understanding. It’s make-believe, it’s fictionalized fantacy.

You cannot conclude that absent prayer the effect or the RESULT would not have been. There is no test here for your statement. While you may CLAIM that the prayer altered the behavior of a God, it remains a claim absent supporting evidence. A God remains an assumption absent evidence open to all and open to testing of whatever God claims accompany the assertion. Burden of Proof lies with the one making the claims.

When things don’t turn out as prayed for, it’s a cop-out when people offer the excuse: It just was not God’s will that X be the result.

That is as meaningless as saying, “Thank God” when things DO turn out as prayed for. Again Hoops, there is no reliable, quantifiable evidence for any God claim. Nor is there any reliable way to quantify or verify that any prayer manipulated an non-established entity.

Hoops wrote: As I've mentioned before, prayer is not a laundry list of things we want in life, so your example has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

JAK: You are humorous without intention (I think). Here you state with categorical certainty what “prayer is not…” while refusing to provide that example of a two or three paragraph prayer. You’re making an assertion of a negative in the statement.

Hoops wrote: In fact, prayer is the one thing that a atheist/agnostic/humanist is most afraid of in that prayer is the soul communicating with God.

JAK: What is your EVIDENCE for this assertion about “atheist/agnostic/humanist”? I’m going to insist on evidence for such a broad, sweeping conclusion. To claim that you KNOW what people in any of these groups “is most afraid of” is to claim the absurd.

Now you introduce “the soul.” There is not a scintilla of evidence for such a noun. Now you argue in support of THREE nouns for which no evidence has been presented: “God,” “prayer,” and “soul.”

You (or your group’s dogma/doctrine) are just making this up absent the presentation of any EVIDENCE for the various claims. The next step, I predict, is that you will start telling us details about assumed God and assumed soul.

I think you have demonstrated that it is YOU who are afraid. You won’t present that prayer. Rather, you just go from one claim/assertion to another. He/she who asserts has the burden of proof. Assertions ABSENT any credible evidence for claims, should be rejected.

Hoops wrote: In fact, prayer is the one thing that a atheist/agnostic/humanist is most afraid of in that prayer is the soul communicating with God.

JAK: Since these groups do not accept claims for “prayer, soul, or God,” your statement is a fantasy. It may make you feel good, but it’s not a reflection of the perspective of those you identify.

Hoops wrote: And prayer manifests in all different ways some are formal and meant for the congregation, others are more off the cuff (like mine, usually).

JAK: Fantasy! You’re now defending that for which you fail to present evidence for claim. You can go on like this ad infinitum. You can just pile one claim on top of another with each ASSUMING the previous claim is valid/true/correct.

You’re playing a word game here, Hoops. A Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, or Hindu can do the same thing within his/her religion.

Hoops wrote: Still, the intent is the same - to open the window between this naturalism and other states.

JAK: Ah a new fantasy! Just what do you mean by “other states”? You (and your group’s dogma) are making this up as you go. You offer NOTHING to establish “other states.” Just what are the “other states”?

Here is the point at which we require more fantasy, Hoops.

You do not have proof by assertion. That’s exactly what you’re doing here. You make assertions and hope they will stand as proof absent any evidence.

It’s delusional to consider that this kind of stuff presents anything fearful to the agnostic/atheist.

It’s delusional as well to believe that for which no supporting evidence establishes.

Hoops, you are NOT addressing any of the details and analysis in my posts to you. You are ignoring what I said and setting forward multiple claims which are in no way responsive to my extensive comments to you and comments in direct response to your words.

I should proceed to another post. You’re not responsive to my analysis.

JAK