The Atheist Prayer Argument Is A Dull Generalisation Predicated On INEXPERIENCE

I don't think many atheists would argue in this way, it being readily apparent that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. An atheist would be more likely to argue that there is no evidence of the efficacy of prayer, except for the solace that offering it might bring. Yes, this seems closer to the truth. It is the lack of evidence that atheists are likely to focus on. This touches on a key issue. What is it that believers claim prayer is supposed to do? Any atheist approaching the question of the efficacy of prayer would need to ask believers what they think prayer is supposed to accomplish. What atheists think it should accomplish is irrelevant, and atheists would have no trouble recognizing that. This touches on another key issue. Is God the God of the Bible? Of the Torah? Of the Quran? Of the Bhagavad Gita? Of the Book of Mormon? Of the Guru Granth Sahib? Of the Tripitaka? Someone has to live amidst a "pocket" of born again Christians before their prayers are answered? And you've gathered enough data about this that you can present evidence that it is so? So you're saying that someone who believes in God but is not a born again Christian won't have their prayers answered. I would go one step further and say that no one has their prayers answered, according to the available evidence. And if prayer were real, aren't you just being a born again Christian bigot by denying its benefits to all who don't share your Christian beliefs? Is this an actual atheist argument? Wouldn't an atheist be more like to structure his argument like this: "Consider two universes identical in all ways but one: one has a loving God and the other has no God. Both universes have sunsets and cancer and love and earthquakes and so forth. How do you tell which universe has the loving God?" It seems unlikely that atheists would labor under any delusions about what a God they don't believe exists wants. Aren't you being a Christian bigot again by only considering the Christian holy book? If that's what you believe, fine. That's not the "atheist general prayer argument." I don't know that there is one. It's just an argument you're claiming atheist's make. I think the atheist would wonder how you know when a prayer has been answered. I think the atheist would believe prayer useless, whether believers think they've been answered or not. Sure you can. If your faith makes you happy, you're a winner! I think the atheist would think anyone who believes prayer works is engaged in flawed thinking. Let's keep in mind that for the sake of your argument you made up the inconsistent atheist, and now you appear to be about to make up a consistent one. I don't think atheists preach much, at least not in any religious sense, but your characterization of humans seems pretty accurate. Don't Christians believe the same, that humans are all fallen sinners? Atheists don't think there's any such thing as God. Why would they bother judging a non-existent thing? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that all morality is subjective, and that the religious use their religion to rationalize their morality? Southern Christianity was big time into rationalizing slavery. Didn't follow that. I think you're buried in subjectivity. Right. You're focused on prayer in this thread. Wouldn't atheists be the last people to suggest holding any person or group up as a standard? Wouldn't a truly rational person want evidence of "an all-knowing God"? And aren't you changing the subject from prayer to the nature of God? Not getting this one, either. Uh, yes, of course: But your thread's about prayer. Do you have evidence of the efficacy of prayer?--Percy

“Stream of consciousness” much?—Percy

Said another way, we accept that for which there is evidence. Here's a list of Catholic miracles. I think you'll find them believable, and some employ scientific tests, but replication is a key part of science. Look at what happened very recently to the scientist who claimed to have discovered room temperature fusion. No research group was able to replicate his findings, instead discovering other explanations for his observations. He was forced to withdraw his paper.For validation of miracles you need an interrupted chain of evidence and repeated and replicated analyses. Lacking that the miracles are articles of faith, not science. If the reality is that prayers are not answered generally, then there can't be many answered prayers to offer as evidence. But if someone wants to believe their prayers have been answered what's wrong with that? Their belief isn't forcing anyone else to believe, although it is a bit tedious listening to a proselytizer testifying to God's presence in their life and how He has answered their prayers. If the definition of a miracle is a scientifically inexplicable event then there are a huge number of miracles out there. One thing currently inexplicable by science that has received recent attention is the magnetic moment of the muon. Why does measurement differ with theory? We don't know. We may never know (though some additional data becomes available in September that may help). Is this scientifically inexplicable contradiction a miracle? I think most would answer that it is not. They would just see it as science trying to better understand the universe.So if water in a vessel turns to blood, is that a miracle? Or is it just one more thing science can't explain? (We'll leave aside the question of the quality and quantity of any scientific analysis performed.) How do you tell the difference between a miracle and something science can't explain yet? And since miracles happen in religious contexts rather than laboratories, scientific analysis happens later, not during. One can imagine a conversation like this: "I've noticed that some of the parishioners are commenting that the condensation on the outside of the vessel looks like blood. Let us play a little joke. After everyone has gone to sleep you sneak down to the mortuary and take the blood saved from someone recently embalmed, then replace the water in the vessel with the blood."Is this what happened in the case of The Eucharistic Miracles of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1992-1994-1996? Who can say? If Catholics want to believe it is a miracle then let them. Science itself has no evidence that water ever turns spontaneously to blood. Any logic in this escapes me. You could have stopped at, "God is not." I have no idea what you're on about here, but I don't pay much attention to the goings on in the Potter/Rowling world.--Percy

This is often true in science. But believers in miracles also never get the evidence they require. They just believe anyway. It's called faith.--Percy

You're just another crazy Christian paranoid. There is no anti-Christian agenda within science. Science only cares about Christianity when Christians begin marching into school classrooms and filling future scientists heads with nonsense. How nice for you that you know the mind of God.--Percy

My recollection is that you're very willing to confront people and tell them what's wrong with them. Thinking I might be remembering incorrectly I thought I'd spend a couple minutes randomly looking at a few of your old posts to refresh my memory. This is from the second one I read, Message 1534 from the Did the Flood really happen?: This is the kind of thing I remember, going on the attack and casting aspersions against people with different opinions than you. You seem pretty confrontational to me. I wish I had the time to research this, too, but I don't. But to the best of my recollection, the way you see yourself likely diverges greatly from the way others see you. A bit confrontational, don't you think? You know, we're not here to give our personal assessments of the other participants. We're here to discuss the topic.And look at your thread's title: The Atheist Prayer Argument Is A Dull Generalisation Predicated On INEXPERIENCE. The title is your opportunity to characterize your thread, and you used it to cast an insult. No atheist had even said anything in the thread yet, and already you're insulting them. Pretty confrontational, don't you think?You might not be as non-confrontational as you think. Other people are mirrors reflecting back to you the way they perceive you. You might find that information useful.Oh, some more feedback. Drive-bys already have a bad reputation. It's as bad a ghosting someone, the worst of passive-aggressive attacks in the social media world.--Percy

Your behavior here is all people can see of you. If there's another side of you that isn't insulting, challenging and confrontational that you want people to see then you're going to have to display that side of you here. Listening to your own in-head echo chamber is a path to delusion. How others see you is all that counts. You made claims about yourself and I responded to them. As Feynman said, the easiest person to fool is yourself. If you'd like to present another side of yourself here then you're more than welcome to do so. But the way you've described yourself so far doesn't at all resemble the person we see here. Yes, we know that you believe you have perfectly good reasons for issuing insults and treating people like shit. If you're going to make personal claims about yourself, people have the right to respond. It was you who introduced these aspects of yourself as a topic of discussion. Did you think anyone would be complemented at being accused of dullness and of generalizing beyond their experience? How non-confrontational of you.--Percy
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I can't moderate threads in which I'm a participant, and you seem to do more than hold your own with regard to ad hominem. Again, I'm a participant. If you want a moderator presence here post a note to the Report Discussion Problems Here 4.0 thread. Of course I noticed. But again, I'm a participant. No moderating for me here.--Percy

This seems contradictory to your earlier comment about if "one true miracle occurs on earth beyond question." This requires a method of validating miracles "beyond question." It's contradictory to claim it possible to unquestionably show a miracle has occurred while also claiming there is no way of doing this. Who do you think you're praying to, and why do you think that? How do you know what the NT says is true? You are really laser focused on the Christian canon. What about other canons? Yep, not confrontational at all. You introduced miracles into the conversation asking about "if one true miracle occurs on earth beyond question." How do you establish that such a miracle has occurred? I don't know what that means, but you need to explain how you establish that a miracle has unquestionably happened. Now you're substituting "designer" for "miracle," and your question becomes about "if one true designer is found on earth beyond question." How do you establish that you've unquestionably found a designer? And next you describe something you find coincidental beyond chance: If for you this is a miracle then that's fine. But if you think others should also consider it a miracle then you need some data, some evidence. No one has said science always takes precedence. In matters of faith it does not. If you want to believe based on faith that finding your stolen things was a miracle then I doubt many would have a problem with that. But if you're going to claim that everyone should accept that it's unquestionably a miracle then you've got a bit of work to do. This is a bare link. Is there something from it that you'd like to introduce into the discussion? As I said in my original reply, they didn't really sound like arguments atheists would make. They sounded more like parodies of atheist arguments. You're being confrontational again. If there was point in there I couldn't find it.--Percy

I had a hard time keeping straight what was from mike the wiz and what was from driewerf, so I reformatted the above post to make it easier for me to read. I also added back in some missing italics in the quoted sections:

driewerf:

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mike the wiz writes:

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Black swans are found in south Australia and Tasmania.

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Atheists; "I don't know anyone that has seen a black swan in New York, none of my friends do. Indeed if I ask many people from all over the world who I know online they also don't know of any and don't know anyone that does, therefore they don't exist."

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So, MtW is going to argue that atheists arguments against the efficacy of prayer are bogus. That’s nice. But one needs to ask this: why doesn’t he use real atheist quotes? Why does he need to start with a fictional dialogue that - at least raises the suspicion of constructing a straw man?

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This is the atheists general argument for prayer.

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The usual argument goes something like this with many of the popular atheist speakers; "children get bad illnesses, parents are praying all over the world, if prayer is real show some scientific proof of it. The truth is prayer doesn't work." (or something like this as an argument)

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Again a made up argument. Or at least a very oversimplified version of what atheists say. Note that if popular atheists speakers use the (lack of) efficacy of prayer as an argument, it would be very easy to quote them. But we get some very general, self produced straw man argument.

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So there is actually nothing factual in MtW’s post so far. It’s all made up by him.

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What is the problem with the argument? Well it depends on the silent-assumption that God is a being made in the image of human reason, that should and would do everything a human being says God should and would do. (not a person filled with biases please note, like if you argue for answered prayer as a believer.)

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No. What the problem is with this argument is that it has been made up by MtW. That it puts words in mouths of people that never said or wrote these words.
But to pick up the essence, if atheists challenge the benevolence of God, it’s because Christians portray god as benevolent.

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So yes, if your beliefs are a sort of general theism where God is just a nice guy then you are right, generally prayers are landing on deaf ears.

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No, Christians – at least some - of them portray god as benevolent, good, loving, ultimately good etc.

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By blessing a recurring period of time, God promises to be man's benefactor through the whole course of human history! The blessing invokes God's favor, and its primary intent is that God will be our spiritual benefactor. It does, however, include the physical as well.

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Source:
What the Bible says about God's Benevolence (bibletools.org)
When God says he plans for all of us to have a future with hope, God makes a sacred promise to help us and not harm us. In turn, we should have faith in God and be joyful in the knowledge that God is very present in our lives!
So today, say a prayer of petition, and rest assured that you will be saying a prayer of gratitude in the near future.
Source: A Benevolent God - Bruce L. Hartman - Asheville, NC (brucelhartman.com)
Note the ‘rest assured’!

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But in His benevolence God does desire good for all His creation. All who end in hell will do so contrary to His good plan for their lives. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance!
There’s another truth about God’s benevolence: He delights in His children. He is the giver of every good and perfect gift. Scripture suggests He’s not stingy, but wants to pour out good on us!
Source: Our Benevolent God (gbs.edu)

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Little sting: note the difference, no made up quote, all quotes with links to the original source.

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However, if God is the Lord God of the bible, then we are made in God's image and we are told it's a sinful, fallen world and we have a sinful, fallen nature. Under this scenario, like with the black swan, you only really get pockets of true died-in-the-wool believers that truly have God's spirit being born again spiritually as Jesus mentioned, and these are the people that do get their prayers answered, I can testify to.

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This of course is an easy opt out. Prayer not answered – you’re not a real Christian. Or there should be another unambiguous way of telling the “true died-in-the-wool believers” from the not-so-real Christians. And one on which MtW can’t backpedal!
On top of that, this paragraph rests on an “IF”, a big IF, actually the whole “IF” that needs to be proven. Nowhere below shall MtW attempt to validate this “IF”.

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However they are not answered under the assumptions of a general theism. Jesus said for example, "in this world you will have trouble, but do not fear I have overcome the world."

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Prayers aren’t also answered under the assumption that there isn’t anyone answering them. So we have two possible conclusions out of the non-answer of prayers: Gods is selectively deaf or there is no god at all. But does a selective god fit the image that Christians try to give us of god: all benevolent, all powerful and all-knowing? That challenge has never been addressed by a Christian apologetic. And MtW is creating a verbal smoke screen to hide the fact that he can’t address it neither.

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So when an atheist says to us, "God hasn't cured cancer, God hasn't fixed the world", they are labouring under the delusion that God wants to fix the world.

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MtW is trunking the atheist counterargument. Which shouldn’t be a surprise since until now he hasn’t quoted any atheist (and wont do so further down). The atheist argument is that god allows suffering to happen and that hence at least one of the following attributes that christians claim about god doesn’t apply: omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent. That part of the atheist argument MtW omitted. And lying by omission is still lying.

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The Seven Levels of Lying | Christianity Today
What Is the Sin of Omission? Its Definition and Consequences (christianity.com)
It shows christians that at least some aspects of their teachings are inconsistent with themselves and with reality.

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In fact it says in the New Testament that this, "world and it's desires are passing away but he that does the will of God will abide forever." (see how assumptions change if we don't just go with atheists that don't open the bible?)

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It might indeed be that “everything changes with assumptions” but that’s all you have, assumptions. MtW doesn’t offer any way to check your assumptions against reality.

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So under Christianity at least, God isn't going to employ large-scale fixes, because Jesus didn't come and die on the cross to save the earth but the eternal soul, hence the person will abide forever but the world will, "pass away".

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Under atheism too, god isn’t going to fix anything. For the good and simple reason that there is no god to fix the world. And what do we see: indeed no god fixing stuff. So MtW’s argument is without any value because a total different conclusion can be reached.

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Is the atheist general prayer argument one of the most annoying? Yes, because of their inconsistent behaviour.

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Or because it can’t be refuted. Because it shows a blatant inconsistency in the Christian narrative. God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent but doesn’t fix (doesn’t want or cannot fix) any suffering. He has a magnificent plan, but can cast that plan aside when prayers are answered. But if there is a big magnificent divine plan, what good is it to pray? God’s plan will unroll anyway. Either the cancer patient over whom is prayed will recover, as part of the big plan or he won’t. Or should god modify his Big Plan, jut because someone is prayed over? What worth is his Plan than?

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Because if we get an answered prayer then according to atheists we are fallible fools that commit post hoc reasoning and confirmation bias and are riddled with all sorts of foibles.

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It’s very simple: apply critical analysis on a real case, and we will see how objective, unbiased you guys are. The testing of the cake is in the eating. Well, show us a case.

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But when it comes to prayer not getting answered we are supposed to believe humans are all of a sudden NOT these fallible, bias-ridden creatures but are all of a sudden making perfect judgements about what God would or should do if God exists.

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Of course not. That is why there are things like statistical analysis, double blind testing, repeated testing, peer review and so on. To eliminate or minimize the bias.

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See, that’s the difference between a sceptic and a believer. A sceptic know bias and fallibility exist and set up mechanisms to neutralize them. A believer goes in a tantrum and is offended when pointed out that these things apply to him too.

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You can't win.

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Apply the things mentioned above, and you guys will have made a step forward “winning”.

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Conclusion; so we are basically uselessly inept fallible apes if our prayers are answered but if we say they're not we're perfect morally-pure all-knowing Einstiens that know how God should exactly behave.
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If you instead want to be an informed atheist that is consistent, you have to look into what you preach. You preach humans are fallible and make all sorts of mistakes and can't be trusted, which means this would not place you in a good position to judge an all-knowing God. Nor would your subjective moral-commands be regarded logically as anything more than favourite flavour of icecream. (arbitrary and baseless, as evolved apes)

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And there again, MtW misrepresents that what he is raging against. Because atheists - actually, scientists – do practice what they “preach”. Knowing that humans are fallible and prone to bias mechanisms have been devised to minimize these. Show me any believer who has done this when it comes to investigating his cherished believes.

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Get over yourself. Inexperience doesn't count as experience, if a witness sees Jack the ripper it doesn't matter if most people didn't, so no, we don't have to conclude that the majority of people are correct in saying that the ripper doesn't look like what the witness reported them to have looked like.

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Again, what use is it to argue with a fictional example, instead of a real case? Is it that the real cases will show you wrong. That there are no really answered prayers?

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Disclaimer; I am not trying to provide a persuasive argument for prayer being real.

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Good, MtW would have failed so far.

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As far as I am concerned the correct people already know God answers prayer being of a noble conscience and honestly seeking the true answers according to God's will, in a position of integrity. I am not covering the philosophical, "problem of evil and suffering" as it is known.

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Except for all the prayers of the Holocaust victims, or for all the prayers of the victims of the Rwanda Genocide, or for all the prayers of the victims of the Moroccan Earthquake and so on. Oh, they were just not of “noble conscience” or not part of god’s Big Plan, or god answered with “No”. Or any other post hoc (ir)rationalization.

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I am also NOT invalidating atheist concerns when it comes to genuinely being puzzled as to why God would allow the suffering of innocent children for example. I am NOT saying that this is not a legitimate concern. ALL PEOPLE struggle with the negatives that exist, and the questions are honestly asked. That isn't the issue.

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For not being the issue, MtW mentions it quite a lot of times.

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The issue is this; does it make rational sense to argue limited humans could ever compete with understanding these matters on an omniscient level? Does it make logical sense to see human atheists as the standard?

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At least a better standard than the god you worship. People do try to find cures for cancer. Try to rescue earthquake victims. Go to blood and plasma donation centres, distribute food and blankets. Welcomed Ukrainian refugees. It doesn’t take to be “omniscient”. Even with a limited knowledge humans know that these actions are needed. And that makes them better than the god you worship, for they - we - act.

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Well if you are really rational would would say, "no, because an all-knowing God can have reasons only they can fully understand rather that what just seems like truisms to us, which may in fact only represent simplified concepts on our own inferior level."

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A truly rational person would say that it doesn’t make any difference whether there is a god or not. We’re on our own.

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After all we can't really compete in any other areas can we? For example do you know any atheists have have invented any contraflow lungs or a brain or metamorphosis? But these would all be attributable to God's level of understanding under the biblical worldview.

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Irrelevant. Prove that your god did “invent” these things. And let him take credit – blame – for the lice, the Ebola virus and earthquakes too.

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Conclusion; It doesn't matter how wide and far ignorance extends, it cannot be counted as experience and knowledge. Black swans simply exist.

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My conclusion: MtW has written a completely fact free rant that has no relationship with reality at all. The total absence or real life examples, of real referenced quotes show this. On the contrary he can only make his points with fictional examples.

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He complains that atheists see Christians as gullible and provides a prime example of it.

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I working on a new website where cut-n-paste will maintain all Word font styling.--Percy