What's your religion?

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

Response to Anh Minh added:



I don't have a timeline. Not even the text specifies when, just enumerates years within the described period. And none of the religious doctrine is at all contingent on it being anything more than a collection of Hebrew myth. I never argued that it wasn't strange, and in fact I absolutely understand why people would think so. Your arguments were based on flawed assumptions, though, and bore pointing out.

Well, I've always heard about a global flood. But your answer, though, is almost as bad. Humans being close together enough to be wiped out by a local flood, but somehow getting up to boat building technology? And then, the tale being kept for hundreds of thousands of years of return to the stone age, while they'd even forgotten God? How did that happen?

I said a religion claiming miracles ought not survive without some occasional demonstration. What significance would the demonstration have? As I've said before, that depends entirely on what it is and what context it's in. In other words, it would require some reasoning to determine.

Now Christianity/Judaism doesn't imply in the least that others couldn't have miracles.
If it used miracles to distinguish between a religion, though, then certainly one could expect the nature or context of the miracle to differ, though.

However, Christianity and Judaism rarely see miracles as an evidence to provoke belief. On the occasion they're used to support belief at all, it's to support an existing irrational belief.

And unless they involve you, they're no good for trying to convince you. They're only good as evidence for the people who have experienced them, much like the irrational component of their belief.

It's not a matter of convincing me. I'm pointing out that they convince various people of various, contradictory things, and therefore questioning the validity of the whole reasoning.

I've already said that no matter the reason a person would have, it's no good as rational evidence for you. ANY time you encounter something outside of the realm of what you find believable, the testimony of others is worth next to nothing, no matter how concrete they consider their evidence.

Have you recognized yet that I'm not spending any effort trying to convince you of anything? I'm only trying to offer corrections for incorrect assumptions and attempting to promote respect and understanding here. Even if I disagree with you and I can articulate why, I can still show some respect for you because I can understand why you feel and believe the way you do. If I can mentally put myself into your shoes, so to speak, I can have some inkling of empathy. If you're unwilling to do the same, then this will forever devolve into arguments.

*shrug* I've already agreed that people have their reasons for believing in whatever they do. What else would you have of me?

[macguy]

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

We're using the word "irrational" in a very specific way.

Oh I see, well I didn't mean to misrepresent someone's views so I appreciate the correction here. A few questions though...

If something cannot be proven beyond absolute doubt by testing and logical reason, it includes a component of irrational belief.

That all depends, however, on how you can say something is "irrational" in a rational manner. Looking at that part which is considered irrational; is lack of evidence the basis for saying it is? So in a sense, you would also have to concede that the rationality of saying something is irrational is also at best in part an irrational claim. For nothing can be proven beyond an absolute doubt, but only beyond a reasonable doubt. I find this definition unacceptable because various theories can be considered in that manner yet they all explain reality very well. If it fits within reality, but has no evidence in support of it in a exclusive manner, should we consider them all irrational as a whole? After all, these scientists are merely devising their theoretical models that interpret evidence. Basically, what do you mean by rational/irrational?

Our faith is the same way. That doesn't make it wrong.

Well I'll just say that it seemed to me that Anh_Minh was arguing that Christianity is irrational because it has no evidence... Similar to what you're saying but I don't get the impression that he's saying it's only a component but that the religion as a whole is irrational. But hey, maybe I'm wrong on that.

[macguy]

I would like to add a verse for all the Christians I've offended but you all should know better than to feel insulted. For one, you were saved by Jesus as a result of your sin to which God condemned or else you're not a Christian to say the least. Should you not feel more offended at that then my opinion that 30% of the branches are reasonable? Think of who you are actually offending more... God. If He commanded us to love him with all our mind, then should we not use our rational faculties that He provided us? What are they for? Jesus himself said that he is the way, the truth and the light, NO ONE comes to the Father except by me. That is an extremely non-tolerant view of other beliefs and you have the heart to complain about something so trivial? Particularly what I believe is the most rational interpretation? I'm not putting myself as absolute truth but what the Scripture says to which you hold with utmost importance.


Paul wrote, "If Christ had not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." 1 Corinthians 15:17

That is a strong statement in regards to your faith being bounded to evidence. If it's false then you're faith is useless and I never went so far to say that. In fact, I believed it was okay to believe without evidence as an individual but it is incorrect to say that the Bible supports blind faith. Here you have a passage of stronger offense... Anyways, that's all I have to say in regards to that topic.

[2H-Dragon]

All this talk made me think of this story.

http://www.bigissueground.com/atheis...nscience.shtml

An intresting story about the scientific statements made in the Koran and how it is proven with modern science.

[Liddo-kun]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

However, I have heard of a rather interesting study that was done to test the power of prayer. My memory is incredibly foggy on this, so I've googled for it and this article by WebMD seems like it might be the one I was thinking of. (Want the full research paper? If you're not behind a university or hospital connection that has a subscription with The Archives of Internal Medicine they may ask you to pay for the paper, though. If I still had my FTP I'd load the PDF onto it for you all...)

The WebMD makes for a nice summary, but I was a bit confused over some of the methodology of the study based on their summary and went to the scientific article. So I'll re-summarize the study.

This was a double-blind study involving 990 patients who were admitted to the hospital with serious cardiac conditions. Excluded patients were those who were admitted for work-up or waitlisted for a heart transplant (due to the necessity of spending more time in the hospital) and patients who spent less than 24 hours in the hospital. Some patients were new patients, and some were readmitted.

Group 1 received daily prayer for four weeks from Christians who believed in the power of prayer, and Group 2 received no prayer. Groups were assigned based on the medical ID of the patient (even numbers received prayer, odd numbers did not), and patient ID is assigned based on the order of admittance - in other words, this removes some bias of selection of individuals.

In the case of group 1, the praying Christians never visited the hospital - they were only given the names of the people to pray for, and prayed remotely. What makes this unique is that the study was given exemption from requiring consent from participants. In other words, people who were being prayed for had no idea that they were being prayed for or that they were involved in a study about prayer, and neither did those who weren't being prayed for. (This is a critical point that the WebMD article seemed to gloss over.) The prayer group was managed by a prayer leader, who would relay patient names to his team. Team members were asked to pray daily for 28 days, and to record their prayer activity on a log sheet. Specifically, people were asked to pray for "a speedy recovery with no complications" and anything else that they deemed appropriate. Physicians treating the patients were not informed of the study.

The MAHI-CCU system was used to score the recovery of an individual. If you're interested, I'll quote the article for the explanation behind that.

Spoiler for From the article...:

The MAHI-CCU score is a continuous variable that attempts to describe outcomes from excellent to catastrophic. For example, if, after the first day in the CCU, a patient developed unstable angina (1 point), was treated with antianginal agents (1 point), was sent for heart catheterization (1 point), underwent unsuccessful revascularization by percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (3 points), and went on to coronary artery bypass graft surgery (4 points), his weighted MAHI-CCU score would be 10. Another patient might have developed a fever and received antibiotic treatment (1 point) but experienced no other problems and been discharged from the hospital with a score of 1. A third patient might have suffered a cardiac arrest (5 points) and died (6 points), for a total weighted score of 11 points. In addition to the weighted MAHI-CCU scores, a nonweighted MAHI-CCU score was calculated that was simply a count of events, procedures, and/or prescriptions after CCU admission. For the examples above, the unweighted MAHI-CCU scores would have been 5, 1, and 2, respectively. To evaluate interrater reproducibility for the MAHI-CCU score, 10 physicians (5 cardiologists and 5 cardiology fellows) blindly scored 11 randomly selected CCU patient charts. The raters were in agreement (mean±SD) 96%±3% of the time. Finally, for comparison, the Hospital Course Score used by Byrd1 was also calculated. The Byrd score broadly categorizes each patient's progress after CCU admission as good, intermediate, or bad.

End result? There was an average 11% reduction in the MAHI-CCU scores among those who were prayed for than those who weren't. That is, these patients did better overall than those who weren't prayed for. The article goes over the statistics behind it and states that 11% represents a statistically significant figure.

Keep in mind that this study was done at Saint Lukes' Hospital, which does represent a tinge of bias.

A study on the power of prayer! xD!

Prayer for some patients and no prayer for some patients.
Results are...patients which received prayer got better - it's the power of prayer!!

Hmm...But it's done in St.Lukes Hospital, a Christian hospital, hmm...

Sounds fishy, more like religious propaganda than the true power of prayer to me...


@Ledgem

No offense. It's the study I'm criticizing, not you.

[4Tran]

There's nothing particularly suspicious about a medical test performed in a hospital with a Christian name. However, it's also an experiment that isn't corroborated by any independent experiments. As such, it's not statistically significant since even an 11% deviation from the control is a fairly likely result.

[2H-Dragon]

BTW I kinda changed my views on my relegion. I was a Sunna. I guess I'm not one anymore, not sure what they call me now? Since I only believe in what the Quran states and I think the Hadith is basically blasphemy since it contradicts whats written in the Quran. I fail to see how people who read the Quran can believe what's written in the Hadith...

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by 2H-Dragon

BTW I kinda changed my views on my relegion. I was a Sunna. I guess I'm not one anymore, not sure what they call me now? Since I only believe in what the Quran states and I think the Hadith is basically blasphemy since it contradicts whats written in the Quran. I fail to see how people who read the Quran can believe what's written in the Hadith...

welcome to many religions?

"Most people" have no clue about their own religion. They just jump up and down on cue from "holy men" who may have more complex agendas.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Liddo-kun

A study on the power of prayer! xD!

Prayer for some patients and no prayer for some patients.
Results are...patients which received prayer got better - it's the power of prayer!!

Hmm...But it's done in St.Lukes Hospital, a Christian hospital, hmm...

Sounds fishy, more like religious propaganda than the true power of prayer to me...


@Ledgem

No offense. It's the study I'm criticizing, not you.

No criticism taken. I mentioned a page or two back (when debating with Anh_Minh about scientific studies) that the studies are not infallible, and external sources can alter the results. Examining the source of funding for a study is usually the best way to find out if the special interests of a group may have something to do with the results. The best example of that are the studies which show that there is no link between smoking and lung cancer - they're funded by tobacco companies. Worse, they exist amidst a sea of studies which show that there is a link. The bias is relatively easily proven. So I purposely mentioned that there may be bias within this study just in case people couldn't access the full article to examine it for themselves. I think it's an interesting study, but again, a study doesn't always portray the absolute truth or understand what's going on properly. I don't want anyone to go running around citing my post and the study and claiming that the power of prayer is real. Take it with a grain of salt, and be on the lookout for follow-up studies.

Originally Posted by 4Tran

However, it's also an experiment that isn't corroborated by any independent experiments. As such, it's not statistically significant since even an 11% deviation from the control is a fairly likely result.

I don't know if there are other independent experiments. The article was cited by quite a few other articles - when I have the time I'll look through them and post some of the more interesting ones that continued experimentation over the issue here.

That aside, they argue that 11% is a statistically significant value in this case. Keep in mind that it isn't that 11% of the patients who were prayed for fared better, but that the average recovery rating among all of the patients who were prayed for (assuming none of the patient pool were eliminated, that's 495 people) was, when averaged and compared with the group that did not receive prayer, 11% lower (better). It's possible that this is pure coincidence - it'd be useful if this were repeated, or even if someone just gathered data from a similar number of patients (regardless of prayer data) and found that such numerical differences could occur. On its own, however, an 11% reduction overall does seem a bit high for chance.

I've copied and pasted the statistics and the beginning of the results sections of the paper for you all. If anyone is good with statistics, please note if there are any errors or weaknesses in the paper due to their analysis:

Spoiler:

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Baseline variables and specific medical outcomes were analyzed by 2 analysis and the Fisher exact test for categorical data. Byrd scores were analyzed by the Cochran-Armitage test for trends7; t tests were used to compare continuous variables (eg, age, length of stay, and MAHI-CCU scores). A difference with a 2-tailed P<.05 was accepted as statistically significant, except for comorbid conditions upon admission (Table 2) and individual events/procedures occurring during the CCU stay (Table 3). For these 2 data sets, P<.005 was required for statistical significance because of the multiple comparisons evaluated.8 Data are presented as means±SEs. All analyses were carried out blindly on an intention-to-treat basis using SAS, version 6.12 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC).


RESULTS


INTERCESSORS

The intercessors represented a variety of Christian traditions, with 35% listing their affiliations as nondenominational, 27% as Episcopalian, and the remainder as other Protestant groups or Roman Catholic. The intercessors were predominantly women (87%), and their mean age was 56 years. All reported at least weekly church attendance and daily prayer habits (prior to the study). A review of intercessor log sheets indicated that prayer (by at least 1 intercessor) began within 1.2±0.05 days after admission to the CCU. All intercessors who were ultimately going to pray for a given patient began doing so within 1.6±0.16 days after CCU admission.

PATIENTS

A total of 1019 patients were admitted to the CCU during the period of the trial. After elimination of 6 patients who were waiting for cardiac transplantation, 1013 were randomized (Figure 1), 484 (48%) to the prayer group and 529 (52%) to the usual care group. This difference in sample sizes was most likely caused by chance (P=.18). After subsequent removal of those patients who spent less than 24 hours in the CCU, 524 remained in the usual care group and 466 in the prayer group. Comorbid conditions upon admission were similar for each group (Table 2). Men and women were equally represented in the usual care and prayer groups (66% vs 61% men, respectively; P=.10), and the mean age was 66 years for both groups.

[Icehawk]

Heres another article on the whole "Power of Prayer" business. This one was the largest and most rigorous study thus far and funded by that "Templeton Foundation" Results: Prayer had NO effect, and patients who knew they were being prayed for actually had a statistically HIGHER rate of complications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

[WanderingKnight]

Originally Posted by Templeton Foundation study

"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."

Believe it or not, I was about to post something like this when I first read the study you referenced, Ledgem, but I couldn't formulate it quite right so I left it aside. I feel somewhat relieved to see that someone else thought the same as me when approaching this matter.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Icehawk

Heres another article on the whole "Power of Prayer" business. This one was the largest and most rigorous study thus far and funded by that "Templeton Foundation" Results: Prayer had NO effect, and patients who knew they were being prayed for actually had a statistically HIGHER rate of complications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

That's rather interesting. My biggest qualm with it is that it wasn't a blind study - people were told that they were being prayed for.

Why is that important? I'm a firm believer that a person's mentality - their thoughts and convictions - carry over and have strong impacts on their physiology. We know that this is true to a certain extent - think of a trauma and your heart rate increases, or refer to the studies that have shown that monks are able to raise and lower their body temperatures at will. But does it apply further than that? For example, for people who are "miraculously" cured of cancer and engaged in mental therapies where they envision the cancer leaving their body, or other such things. That's where it becomes controversial.

In the scope of this study, I think that it would impact people - some more strongly than others. The news article you linked to mentions that some people who experience higher complications might have become more worried that perhaps their condition was worse than it really was, and it was so bad that prayer teams had to be assembled for them. I would have expected that people who thought that others were praying for them would have had a better outlook on their therapy and thus would fare better... but that would only really apply if they were religious, most likely

I still wish I could find the study I'm thinking of, where they examined prayer to see whether the prayer itself was what mattered, or whether it was the human interaction, or whether it was really a matter of mind over matter. Either way I wouldn't dismiss the significance of this study, but I do feel that it has some major flaws.

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

Believe it or not, I was about to post something like this when I first read the study you referenced, Ledgem, but I couldn't formulate it quite right so I left it aside. I feel somewhat relieved to see that someone else thought the same as me when approaching this matter.

That's a good quote, and I agree with it. Of course, that doesn't stop us from trying to pick at aspects of religion with the science that we do know

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

That aside, they argue that 11% is a statistically significant value in this case. Keep in mind that it isn't that 11% of the patients who were prayed for fared better, but that the average recovery rating among all of the patients who were prayed for (assuming none of the patient pool were eliminated, that's 495 people) was, when averaged and compared with the group that did not receive prayer, 11% lower (better). It's possible that this is pure coincidence - it'd be useful if this were repeated, or even if someone just gathered data from a similar number of patients (regardless of prayer data) and found that such numerical differences could occur. On its own, however, an 11% reduction overall does seem a bit high for chance.

No study or experiment by itself is particularly significant. A deviation of 11% from the control can be due to probability, which is why science relies on many different experiments performed by different groups before any significance is attributed to the phenomenon. As Icehawk's post indicates, different studies can give results suggesting wildly different outcomes. Pending any statistically significant results; there should be no correlation drawn between prayer and the effect on cancer patients.

[Icehawk]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

That's rather interesting. My biggest qualm with it is that it wasn't a blind study - people were told that they were being prayed for.

There were a bunch of different patient groups in the study, one of them that new they were being prayed for, and another that did NOT know. The ones that did know had the higher complication rate, the ones that didnt know, it had no effect either way. Im of the opinion that the higher complication rate might have been due to in atleast some part to the fact that their faith was being put to a test and so some may have gotten worried about it failing and so they ended up weakening their bodies with an added level of stress and anxiety, hence, higher complication rate in the recovery.

[Vexx]

There's an estabished "brain-body" connection. Problem is it can be cued from many sources. Knowing people are pulling for you has as much affect as people "praying" for you. Being in a positive atmosphere has an affect. Your internal attitude has an affect. Laughing has an affect. Meditating has an effect.

Such a connection basically means nada in "proving" any sort of "supernaturally driven" curative power.

"Positive waves, Moriarity!" -- Oddball

[Reckoner]

I've been reading all the bickering going on in this thread for awhile, and I would just have to say that a lot of you are being very silly.

It seems that many of you are trying to fault each other on little technicalities in speech, everything seemed to go down hill after Vexx talked about irrational vs rational thought.

Ok, religion tends to go under a line of irrational thought, and science tries to go under rational thought. Some of you are saying that this is not so because of "x" material or "x" logic.

So what is your point?

I think the point that if you wanted to do something that is scientifically tested, you can, compared to doing something based on faith is already drilled hard throughout the thread.

I don't see how atheists and all religions justify their correctness. There is no one way, there is no better logic, there is no proof. We have no understanding of life.

Trying to explain non existence, typically people respond to me with "pitch black," or "everything is clear like air, there is no color. These are still concepts founded by the human brain and that is not non existence. Under this line of thought I cannot imagine there not being existence. So what is the driving force of existence, creation? God? Why do so many people look at God as being a conscious force? And even if it is, what created God? And what created that God? I think the sooner people just drop their passionate arguments of life, and realize that there is no real way, the world can be a lot happier. We can live under the influence of popular ideas that fit life, like heaven and hell. This gives us some irrational motivation in life. But really, when it all comes down to it, man will never be able to solve everything. It is far better to try and understand simple things. Acts of man will always be far better than acts of god.

[ApostleOfGod]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I've been reading all the bickering going on in this thread for awhile, and I would just have to say that a lot of you are being very silly.

It seems that many of you are trying to fault each other on little technicalities in speech, everything seemed to go down hill after Vexx talked about irrational vs rational thought.

Ok, religion tends to go under a line of irrational thought, and science tries to go under rational thought. Some of you are saying that this is not so because of "x" material or "x" logic.

So what is your point?

I think the point that if you wanted to do something that is scientifically tested, you can, compared to doing something based on faith is already drilled hard throughout the thread.

I don't see how atheists and all religions justify their correctness. There is no one way, there is no better logic, there is no proof. We have no understanding of life.

Trying to explain non existence, typically people respond to me with "pitch black," or "everything is clear like air, there is no color. These are still concepts founded by the human brain and that is not non existence. Under this line of thought I cannot imagine there not being existence. So what is the driving force of existence, creation? God? Why do so many people look at God as being a conscious force? And even if it is, what created God? And what created that God? I think the sooner people just drop their passionate arguments of life, and realize that there is no real way, the world can be a lot happier. We can live under the influence of popular ideas that fit life, like heaven and hell. This gives us some irrational motivation in life. But really, when it all comes down to it, man will never be able to solve everything. It is far better to try and understand simple things. Acts of man will always be far better than acts of god.

As you said all the bickering going on is silly, I'm still deciding on my decision to join in the bickering or not.

I don't really know where to start, so I'm quoting you for guidelines.

Atheists and religions don't justify "correctness". Everyone wants to justify how right they are, but that's not the point. If there is no proof, no understanding of life, no logic, and no one way, then what the heck is going on? -_- There's a definite way. Obviously clear path. It's so clear you'll miss it while you're on it.

If we wanted to get technical, I'd say religion exists, but Atheism is a different issue. The farthest I'd go would be Agnostic, and Atheism can't necessarily exist in technical terms due to the fact that no one believes in absolute nothing. The fact that a person is alive brings him to believe in something; whether it be God, Gods, Spirits, or Himself.

The world can be happy many ways if you put it that way. If no one believed in "one way", everyone would be the same. We do whatever we want, we die. Game over. We lose our paths in life, but it's all right; it doesn't matter in the end anyways...
No, that's not quite it. Let me make this clear:
Even if everyone were to share the same ideals and beliefs, if it ain't right, it ain't any good or helpful in achieving the right goals. To simplify, you can't achieve good with evil, or right with wrong, if you would.

It's not that we can't solve everything, and it's not that we should just stick to what we believe our limitations to be. No, you got to reach out further than that. A lot of people may dream of a future in which life is all good, a nice family, kids, good income, nice house, car, etc. etc., the average "good" life defined differently by each person. I beg to differ. I'm not planning to live my life like a sheep. Regardless of heaven or hell, everyone has potential, no? If so, why not push that potential to the full? By simply stating that we should stick to what we know we can, what we understand, we limit ourselves from going beyond. Its a silly excuse.

I won't stop you from thinking that Acts of Man is somehow "better" than the Acts of God. But understand, that when you say Acts of Man, you subconsciously give the credit to its superior.

[Reckoner]

Personally I define atheism as a religion. So many of them are just as stuck up in their way as are religious nut cases. It's sickening.

I think you are missing my point though apostleofgod, when I say drop your own passionate arguments of your way being better, I don't mean drop your beliefs. You can believe whatever you want, I just want people to realize that no one understands anything anyways.

You can go and reach for whatever you think is out there, but while you and other people may try to understand existence, I'd rather focus on the now, which is our life. Trying to achieve human potential sure is a happy notion that I would love to follow, but please explain to me what you are going to try and do?

Without being taught Christianity, you'd never be a Christian. Without being taught Buddhisim, you'd never be a Buddhist. Without being taught these popular religions, you would never come to know them. By accepting these religions as your thoughts, you're adopting someone's interpretation of life. The masses of men do nothing to improve upon these schools of thought, everything is stagnant. Or are you going to tell me you're one of these people who created their own thoughts of life? Please tell me what "you" are trying to achieve, what you are going to do so significant as to achieve what you call human potential. Please also explain what human potential is. What exactly are you striving for? Self gratification? If you even managed to understand life, what difference would it make? You'd still live the normal life cycle of a human being.

I don't understand what you meant in your last sentence about my comment about acts of man. I don't get the reasoning behind that...

[WanderingKnight]

Reckoner, I have a single qualm with that stance, and it's that your moral relativity is often used by complete nutcases to push absurd policies in equally absurd environments. Case in point, Creationists. Religion isn't science, and it can never hope to deserve such an analysis, and when people start stating such huge bullshit as saying that evolution is "just a theory" and that it should be weighed in equal terms with the "Creationist theory", things get a little dangerous and out of hand.

Science is science. Religion is religion. Don't mix any of those, or it can only mean trouble.

[Anh_Minh]

That religions only argue for the existence of God, the way atheists argue against it, is false. They also claim that they know something about it. "God is good". "God is loving". "God is powerful". "God said so and so". Those aren't symmetrical positions.