Prayer Not prayer

[kimba1]

Im not sure this can be explained to people who oppose religion. Note how i phrase it. When a person opposes religion then anything being said will be considered delusion and obviously false. Zero position of objectivity.
 Truthfully I know religious people who treat athiest the sameway.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I don't oppose religion. I would not try to abolish it. It obviously serves some purpose for some people. Others it gives a nice excuse to meet their friends and compare fancy clothing once a week. Nothing wrong with that, either.

But  telling an invisible, inaudible, odorless and in every way undetectable being  being how great he is in hopes of imaginary pie in the sky is not something that I can accept as anything other than a huge waste of time, and well as self-delusion.

I cannot see Paul as anything but a very talented psychotic flimflam man. Not as violent as Mohammad, but not the sort of guy I would buy a used car from. Waaaay too much like some televangelist.  Jesus who the hell knows if he existed in anything like the way described by the four Gospel writers. Mostly, he is an invention of Paul.

[kimba1]

do you find it upsettiing many scientist are religious? Would you question thier ability because of this?
Darwin, einstien etc.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Einstein was not a particularly religious man, though he was sort of a believer. he was essentially a Reformed Jew. Have you ever seen a photo of Einstien in a yamulke? I haven't. Orthodox Jewish men never leave the house without one.

It does not bother me that some scientists are believers. If people, get religion drummed into them when they are very young, they will be believers, as the religion gets to them before they are capable of logical thought.

I think that a lot of scientists are actually atheists and agnostics and allow others to think they are believers because in many parts of American society you are expected to be a believer. I worked for a church-related college for 32 years, but I never discussed religion with students or any faculty members that were not my close friends. There is no point to it. There are no rewards for being an evangelical agnostic or atheist.

Some scientists, like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, for whom I have great respect, tells people that he does not believe anything without proof and that he sees no proof that any God exists.

A lot of people have the mistaken view that if you question the Bible as accurate, then you do not believe in anything. They see only two options: either you swallow the whole tale Holy Trinity myths and all, or you "don't believe in anything."  But of course this is not true. God could have been a long absent Creator. Then universe could be eternal. It is in fact eternal for all practical purposes for humans.

I observe that believers feel obliged to post "Jesus is coming soon" and "Jesus viene ya"  all over the place. No one feels obliged to tell you that Money exists, or that time exists or that weather exists. This is because we don't need signs, the evidence is apparent.

[kimba1]

Hmm thats a new word evangelical athiest.

I hope i can remember that one

[Plane]

This makes very little logical sense.

You would probably get the same results if you prayed to Baal, Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because the reactions you perceive are from within, not without.

  There may be a lot of variance in what one accepts as "logical".

    Coming up with an entirely logical case for why human life should continue another generation is not a trivial task.  Most of us agree on its being a good idea for non logical reasons.

       There was a contest that amounted to a scientific experiment , when Elijah invited the Priests of Baal to call on their god to light a fire, their failure was followed by Elijah's success, and the death of those Priests of Baal in the fire that appeared.

      So you think that this experiment should be repeated ,like what, annually?

   If God wanted his existence to be totally undeniable , he could do something like that more often.
    This makes me think that there is some use in his being a little bit out of sight.

   


   

[Xavier_Onassis]

The example was hardly divine: the Hebrew priests did not use water, they dosed the altar with alcohol or some sort of petroleum.
This was not a demonstration of divine superiority, but a comparison of magician's parlor tricks. And I doubt that it happened as described.

More like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFOTnBz-PCk&index=24&list=PL36102F20045F2635

[Plane]

    That wasn't bad, got most of the facts included , including that Elijah was pretty snarky on that occasion.

      With that crowd around , and the very motivated priests of Baal present too.

       You think there was no one present who could tell the difference between oil and water?

        I can't think of many occasions that were set up so nearly as scientific experiments, if this was trickery , then it was pretty good trickery, done on a hilltop surrounded by highly motivated skeptics.

       I think it is amazing that a day after this performance , queen Jezebel was chasing Elijah out of town.

      One day the prophet has all the chutzpa, a day later the queen has it all.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The priests of Baal had idols of Baal that had moving parts and actually spoke (of course, it was a priest inside that did the talking). Pure alcohol looks like water. Not everyone had the technology to distill it. Those grasshopper oil pumps you see run off the lightest crude  from the wells. Some wells produce a fuel that will actually run a car engine. There is oil in the Middle East.

The "miracle" was caused by the liquid (not really water) that was poured on the pyre.

[Plane]

The priests of Baal had idols of Baal that had moving parts and actually spoke (of course, it was a priest inside that did the talking). Pure alcohol looks like water. Not everyone had the technology to distill it. Those grasshopper oil pumps you see run off the lightest crude  from the wells. Some wells produce a fuel that will actually run a car engine. There is oil in the Middle East.

The "miracle" was caused by the liquid (not really water) that was poured on the pyre.

When was alcohol first distilled?

And did it smell less loud in the old days?

The Priests of Baal were present and were highly motivated to cry foul if they detected such a trick.

[Xavier_Onassis]

First of all, history is written by the winners, and in such a way as to portray their heroes as even more heroic than they were.

There is lot tale like this one in Irish folklore, in which St Patrick vies with Druid priests in a My God can beat your Gods contest. As I recall, the Druid priests at least fulfilled part of the miracles they said they would do, and then St Patrick outdoes them in some spectacular form.

The Druid priests make it snow and cause the sky to be overcast. Then St Pat turns it all summery.

file:///C:/Users/Richard/AppData/Local/Temp/druids.shtml

The Middle East is famous for righteous exaggeration, the Irish are fond of mystical blarney. But the tale is very similar.
 

[Plane]

   Well you can't be required to accept anything as evidence , especially if counterfeiting isn't hard.

     This applies to everything , including science, so just choose what seems most reasonable .

       The point of scripture is a relationship with God, which you may not want.
          but ..
            God put it in reach , in case you do.


    The incidents of intolerance that I was commenting on at the top of this thread.
       You seem innocent of.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-34992061

[Xavier_Onassis]

You assume that God actually listens to anyone.  "Miracles" are revered because they are said to be evidence that there is sme divine presence that is actually paying attention.

There are always the natural disasters that wipe out large numbers of people, and the survivors praise God for being spared. At least the ones that are believers. The non believers are generally not interviewed, and in many cultures know that it is wise to kep their opinions to themselves. But basically it is just the same as praising God for having a poor aim.

The problem is that people who spend much of their lives speaking to an invisible, undetectable being hate the idea that they have been muttering to themselves for all that time. It is  embarrassing when you think you are talking to someone and they have wandered away and are no longer in earshot.

The role of a Creator does not require that one stay on after the creation to manage the customer service department. And the concept that a loving God would send people to suffer for all eternity for failing to see the invisible, hear the inaudible, and perceive the imperceptible and constantly tell him tanks a lot and you are great is illogical. And that is the basis for Western religions.

What sort of person needs millions of people to tell him how great he is over and over again.  Why would any omniscient being have the personality of Donald J Trump?

[Plane]

Now that was funny.

The reason that a creation was created at all is a mystery, human creators sell or gift their wares could God need a clientele?

This may become clearer to us all soon. We are on the very verge of creating a machine with personality.

What is the creators responsibility to a created personality?

Is it like a child, pet or livestock?

Or is a new creation with personality a new and greater responsibility?

In scripture God describes his relationship with us as fatherly, will I ever feel that sort of affection for an AI?

[kimba1]

Affection toward machines. Totally viable. I'm very protective toward my phone,tablet,computers.
I must warn you though when skynet comes online i will side with our overlords.