Paradox of Prayer vs. Free Will

crashfrog Then a prayer answered by God can change the consequence but not the choice is that what you're saying? Then there is no way to tell whether God changed the consequence or not because it would be indistinguishable from chance?

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What is the direction, up or down, of the acceleration of a freely bouncing ball at the bottommost point of its bounce, that is, at the instant its velocity changes from down to up?

Yeah, pretty much. Well, I assume that when God acts, he does so in a way indistinguishable from chance, because if the alternative were true, we could apply simple statistical analysis and identify the actions of God.Like, for instance, God answers a prayer and influences a high-stakes coin toss. He ensures an outcome of "heads" in answer to prayer. At some later point, probably during a coin toss with much lesser stakes, he ensures that a coin that would have landed heads comes up tails, instead. That way, the statistical outcome over time is always the same as random chance.

So if we apply Occam's razor to the situation the world without a God would be the explanation that best answers the observations we make statistically and practically. Bringing in parameters {God}would require another layer of dimensions to explain the world and the extra complication of a God to bring it into being.Prayer is therefore indistinguishable from chance and thus is not necessary to bring about what God would likely have done without it anyway. I will retire to digest some of this and get back to you soon Good debate old man.

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What is the direction, up or down, of the acceleration of a freely bouncing ball at the bottommost point of its bounce, that is, at the instant its velocity changes from down to up?

Well, yeah. That's pretty much why I'm an atheist.

crashfrog I hear you there though I made my choice more on the idea of people are jerks or goodpeople or some neutral area in between despite their religion and it struck me as odd that the preaching of peace is so closely followed by the glint of steel.I never wished to be a part of that.

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What is the direction, up or down, of the acceleration of a freely bouncing ball at the bottommost point of its bounce, that is, at the instant its velocity changes from down to up?

Hello Hangdawg13Care to provide input for thread: Method of Madness: post-hoc reasoning and confirmation bias?This message has been edited by Gilgamesh, 06-07-2004 07:43 PM

I'm there.

HangDawg13 Just a note to help clarify what action God take that was great?

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What is the direction, up or down, of the acceleration of a freely bouncing ball at the bottommost point of its bounce, that is, at the instant its velocity changes from down to up?

The means of God's answer is not understandable. Again you try to stuff God's methods into our dimensions when God exists completely unbound.Allowing me to get into a long conversation with my friends was his action. People my age who actually think about things other than getting laid or what they will do tomorrow are rare. Even my friends who were at the top of the class usually hated talking about anything serious. In fact these were practically the first serious conversations any of us had.I tried to get into a debate with them once about evolution, but they simply got mad. They had a killer AP Biology course and thought they knew everything, but they couldn't begin to explain some things I brought up. They were not well-versed in this debate as you all are. To them evolution is simply true. Why debate it? Besides it doesn't matter anyways.I had tried to bring up Christianity (some of them are Christians) and they either felt stifled or got mad. Why bring up serious things when we can have fun?If you had known my friends or know any just graduated highschool seniors, you would know what a small miracle so to speak it was that they stayed engaged in these discussions for hours.

HangDawg13 And how was this action accomplshed or rather what did God do to allow the conversation to ensue.

I have no idea. God simply does things. If God can make everything and create this whole mystery of life and human history, why can he not simply make something happen?If you are trying to get me to say that the Holy spirit held their attention and kept them engaged, I don't know. I suppose thats it. There is a description somewhere in 1 or 2 Samuel where Saul is out trying to kill David again and the Holy Spirit comes upon him and he ends up going to church instead where he has a "religious experience". Saul becomes a Holy Roller. He strips down naked and babbles thereby allowing David to escape.God the Holy Spirit does have the power to influence human history. In the tribulation, He will depart no longer restrain certain things and all sorts of shit happens.Perhaps God sometimes usurps human free will in situations that are non-crucial to an individual's own decision to accept or reject him.I freely admit I am confused by this issue as well.

HangDawg13 If that was the case then their free will was circumvented and therefore we have the paradox arise as to how can we have free will and have a prayer answered without violating that free will. Fine but then again we do not have free will if any point in our lives a decision is made for us or an action is altered that affects the direction we would otherwise have taken.Have you followed crashfrog and I as we discussed the ways where events could be altered without frewill being disrupted {and to which I have yet to mount a succesful rebuttal}?

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You paddle your kayak up the river from your camp to fetch your camera which you left on a rock upstream a bit. The river flows at a uniform 2 mi/hr. You paddle (on still water) at a uniform 3 mi/hr. It takes 30 minutes to reach your camera. If you paddle all the way back to your camp, how long will the return trip take?

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Is there anyone here willing to resolve the paradox presented by the violation of free will that ensues upon the answering of a prayer?

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I always believed our freewill is the choice to accept God or reject him. Not freewill to do whatever you want to do. There are passages in the Bible that talk about God controlling history of a sort. Oh well.