Who won the Collins-Dawkins Debate?

This is an answer to post 195 only, earlier ones in next post:If it helps any, I heard every bit of your post 195 in your earlier posts. I understood you were saying every bit of that from your earlier posts. I heard a long time ago, and I've heard it twice now and am thinking I heard it from good sources, that an experiment was done on rats. Two sets of experimenters were given a random set of rats all raised together. One was told their rats (maybe mice) were raised separate from their mother and without and touching, and the other scientists were told that they had the group that had received affection. They found that the group that received affection did better on tests like mazes, despite the fact that there was really no difference between the rats.Since we both agree with the conclusions of that experiment, that bias is unavoidable, even when you're trying to avoid it, I won't bother looking up the study to make sure it really happened and that I got the details right.I know this is true, and I know that this is true of me (and you) as well as that group of experimenters. I've had that in mind in every answer I gave. I don't think you're understanding my answers (subject of next post). No, it's not. I'm not claiming not to be biased (more next post again). I'm already sold on the benefits of double blind studies. This is indeed where we disagree. I don't think this paragraph follows from what you wrote. Same type, but I don't believe same quality. There is further you can go, even where double blind studies aren't possible. I'm assuming we agree that double blind studies aren't possible on bigfoot, but that the reason for disbelieving in bigfoot is not only because we dismiss eye witnesses, but because there's been searching, examining the stories, etc. and the stories appear not to be accurate. This is again what I'm disagreeing with. There's objective truth that can be nailed down so almost everyone will believe it. There's other truth that has evidence, objective or subjective, that is "iffy," and some people agree, some wonder, and some disagree.That's not the same as no evidence. There's no evidence for the spaghetti monster that gets discussed here so much. But there is evidence for Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. We've just examined it and found it worthless.This response was all general to attempt to limit the discussion to what I'm saying. Some of your post 195 you obviously wrote thinking I disagreed or didn't understand. There's a difference between not understanding and coming to different conclusions.

Sorry to butt in but I just want to say something.The reason most people do not believe in prayer is because JUST LIKE bigfoot, theses "evidences" have been tested and found wanting.Now you accept that bigfoot most probably doesn't exist, but if science says prayer have no effect your religious conditionning kicks in and you don't use the same judgment anymore.God want everyone to know about him, he wants to reach to all of us, so saying theses studies are worthless because GOD doesn't want us to "study" him is a cope out.If you agree that God created everything, then all science is doing is studying him (through his creation).Power of prayer have been studiedFor you to believe there is evidence for the power of prayer you would simply need to disregard every scientific studies.

Ok, Schraf, yours first. (I hope the change to nator wasn't a dislike of the Schraf part; I'm used to referring to you as Schraf. If there's some reason I should quit, that's fine.) You can "LOL" if you want, but my point was valid. It's not so simple that people are simply deluded, don't know it, and that's that. In fact, it's almost never that simple in real life. Deluded people can be educated; they can be told how they were deceived; they can be shown something they missed. That's how real life works from minor disagreements among members of a household all the way to members of the Branch Davidians. No, that's the only way too eliminate it. It is not the only way to counter it. I used to read nutrition journals regularly. Tentative conclusions are drawn all the time apart from double blind studies, especially where they are impossible.A great example is multivitamins. I know an herbalist who says they're worthless. She might be right. We can't be certain. However, mainline nutritionists recommend a daily multivitamin, because the fact is that those who take a daily multivitamin live longer than those who do not. The problem is, they also eat better and exercise more. How much of that formula is the daily multivitamin? Not known. Problem's too complicated right now.However, that doesn't mean that the person recommending a daily multivitamin is doing so on worthless evidence. It's the best choice right now (in my opinion). That's because you keep answering things I haven't said. I think you make a lot of assumptions about where I'm coming from, many of which are not accurate. Therefore, you read things into what I'm saying. I restate them, because I don't think you're getting my point.In the same way that you are restating them, thinking I'm not getting your point. It depends on what you are saying it's "enough" for. The fact is, those same nutrition journals (which I picked because I've read a lot of nutritionists arguments and conclusions) conduct studies and then say, "Well, this is good for this, but it's pretty worthless for this, and it suggests more study for this."The only reason I would suggest "paying attention" or anything like that is for two reasons (sorry for the contradiction in that sentence):1. Where there's limits to what you can conclude, you have to determine those limits. (Obviously, I don't agree with where you set those limits.)2. We are not talking about making a decision vs. not making a decision. There's an assumption in your posts (and Percy's) that there's a choice for faith and then not choosing. That's not true. There's a choice for faith, and there's a choice not to believe. Both have ramifications. They affect the way you live and the choices you make, quite often in very major ways. You see, your argument is not for choosing nothing or not deciding, though you act like it is.Your argument is for a lifestyle change, based on what you call absolutely no evidence. I don't call it no evidence. Every one of us has to look at the evidence that God does exist and makes demands of us or whether he does not. (Well, we don't have to, but no one in America or almost no one actually avoids thinking about that.)Thus, your argument, at least as it applies to me, is not only whether there's evidence for faith, but whether there's evidence for choosing to forsake a life of faith and choose a course of agnosticism or maybe some other religion.When I weigh the evidence, I think, like I do with vitamin pills, that the evidence is for it.The fact is, all sorts of studies are done, reported on, and even published in journals that are subject to confirmation bias. You work around it best you can, but since not everything can be double blind, you do what you can, make tentative conclusions, hedge what you say, etc.I have never claimed to have done a scientific study. In fact, at the beginning I was operating on the assumption that all of you had said God and faith in God couldn't be subject to scientific scrutiny.I am claiming, however, that decisions are made all the time on the basis of things that are not scientific, and all of us, including scientists is labs, do the best we can to make our decisions wisely based on the evidence we face.And, in the end, I argue again that consistent, positive results argue in favor of continuing in faith. You say my judgment has to be biased. I can't argue against that, and I haven't tried. However, you haven't walked in my shoes, experienced the things I've experienced, and yet there is an assumption you make that those consistent, positive results haven't happened. If my bias makes those consistent, positive results questionable, how much more does your absence from them make your judgment that they haven't happened more than questionable, but actually meaningless.My objection all along has been not to the argument that my judgment is questionable, but that the evidence really doesn't exist. On that side, you don't seem to want to apply any of the principles that you want me to apply, but are willing to rest confidently in a distant judgment.

You make a lot of assertions that you are boggled that I don't agree with. I applied exactly the same reasoning to my stories that I applied to the dice example. The question in both cases is what is the likelihood of this happening by chance. That's not a strange approach, it is exactly the approach Richard Dawkins uses to argue against miracles. Paraphrased, it's "anything is likely to happen in a world of 6 billion people living multi-decade lives." I don't agree with that, but I'm not 6 billion people, anyway. I'm one. What's the likelihood of my experiences happening to me by chance? That's really the question.As I said to schraf, you speak as though there's one option to be accepted wholeheartedly or not accepted wholeheartedly. It's not so. There's two options, to live a life of faith or not to. Choosing the other involves weighing evidence, too, and in much the same inconclusive way, subject to confirmation bias, etc. as the way of faith.You can say, I have chosen to say "the evidence is inconclusive." I see two problems with that:1. Some can do that. I can't, because it seems foolish to me to choose a course of life based on "oh, well, the evidence is inconclusive." At the very least, let me choose a way based on "at least it's less inconclusive in this direction." Unbelief is as much a way of life as belief is.2. You haven't argued for "the evidence is inconclusive." You have argued for "the evidence for God's existence is conclusively false and misinterpreted, and the evidence that he does not exist is so strong that we can rightly conclude that at the very least he doesn't answer anyone's prayers." Statements like "prayers just go up into the ether" have not been rare in what you write.You have cited studies that irrelevant to my religion to prove this assertion of yours. You have thrown out numbers about answered prayer. You have discussed the same experiences I have, but from a distance, making quite confident assertions about what is really happening. Again, if my judgment about the matter can't be trusted due to bias, how much less can your confident assertions about evidence you haven't seen and know nothing about?If you had merely asserted that my judgment is biased and could never be considered conclusive, we would not even be still discussing this issue. However, you have made assertions about the nature of the evidence, that it really doesn't exist; that there could be no series of events so unlikely that it would be reasonable for a person to adjust his life and thinking on the basis of those events. In fact, as my stories multiplied, you at least hinted that perhaps they really didn't happen.However, we wouldn't be discussing this if your argument was that perhaps they really didn't happen, that it's too likely that I'm a liar or that I'm just deluded and a source worthy to be ignored. I wouldn't have spent all this time arguing that. You have argued that no such series of events could happen or be unexplainable enough to cause a reasonable, clear-thinking person to decide to choose the option of faith based on it.I don't think that argument of yours is valid, and I don't think your repeated assertions that I'm subject to bias, which I haven't even disagreed with, or that some episcopalians didn't get their prayers answered, or that some segment of the population is not measurably healthier than others validates your argument.

We know you're not claiming to have no bias. The objection is to is your claim that observations and analyses influenced by bias can still have some validity. All we're trying to do is help you understand why your claim is incorrect. We're not trying to sell you on the benefits of double blind studies. We're trying to illustrate why there is not a sliding scale where the kinds of casual observations and analyses you're engaged in are valid, just not as valid as a double blind study. There is no such sliding scale. The only way to reach valid conclusions on most medical issues is double blind studies.In other words, we know you understand that double blind studies are la creme de la creme of research approaches, but your approach is not a close second, and not even a distant second. Your approach is invalid. You approach does not lead to results in which you can have less confidence. It can only lead to results in which you can have no confidence whatsoever. You'd be wrong. I mentioned UFOs, clairvoyance and Bigfoot. I don't know if double blind studies have been performed for Bigfoot, but they've certainly been done for UFOs. The double blind approach only applies to experimental science, not observational science, so the approach changes a bit when applied to unconfirmed sightings. For UFOs one approach has been to present UFO photographs in pairs to subjects. Subjects are informed that one UFO photograph is genuine and one is faked. They are asked to identify which one is faked.The experimenters actually do have two sets pictures, one of pictures generally accepted as genuine by the UFO community, and another one of pictures they've produced themselves using various methods, such as Frisbees, cameras and Photoshop. But the experimenters don't actually create the photograph pairs by selecting a single photograph from each set. They actually systematically vary them.The results showed that people are unable to tell a faked UFO photograph from a genuine one. Naturally those involved in the UFO movement refuse to participate in such tests while objecting that the tests prove nothing except that your average person off the street doesn't have the necessary expertise for telling the difference. But the UFO people are still regularly caught out by people who purposely send them faked photographs.What this means is that you don't even know if the criteria you're applying have any validity, let alone the conclusion. There can be, but what we have here is a clear case of subjective belief influencing objective judgement.--Percy

With this sentence the way it is, I agree with this.I left the religion I was a part of, because not only in studies, but even in my own experience, those evidences were tested and found wanting. It doesn't do much good to hang out in a religion that tells you what to do and what not to do, against your human nature, and then provides no impetus to go in that direction nor any measurable benefits.The fact is, though, that there were some "if this, then that's" in the religion I was a part of that left open, in my opinion, the possibility that if a group of people (not just a couple) practiced those if's, there would actually be results that wouldn't be found wanting when followed up on.It took me a long time to find any people willing to do those if's. I really don't have the religious conditioning that y'all think I have. I'm completely open to the fact that I'm like everyone else, wanting to be right, subject to bias, etc. I made a conscious decision to embrace atheism once already. It was a big deal and a serious decision, even though I was pretty young (20). Before that I was a New Ager for several years, even though it wasn't called New Age then. The things that made me a Christian less than a year after choosing atheism probably wouldn't convince me now, although the experience I had when I decided to become a Christian would bias me to this day.However, I have already faced the fact that my Christianity didn't work. It was only a little over a decade ago that I was having to tell people that I could find no reason whatsoever for believing in Christ, because even if he did exist he had no power to do anything.I found some people willing to try the ifs I mentioned, though, and it's been pretty darn effective since then. Night and day.So when science tests the prayers of people I already know don't get their prayers answered, because I was one of them, you'll have to forgive me for saying it's inapplicable to my current situation. It is. I do think this. I love science, and I do not reject its conclusions. Not every one . However, overall the studies have said that the prayers they studied don't work. Sorry, I already knew that. They haven't studied the prayers of the people I'm talking about.On top of that, I'm sorry it looks like a copout to say that God won't be put to the test that way. It's been a tenet of our faith from the beginning.

It doesn't appear to me that you applied the same reasoning, but let's take a look. About the dice example, didn't you said you couldn't reach any conclusions as to validity because you didn't know the actual frequency of rain. And about your nephew example, didn't you say you believed there was some validity, despite having no idea of the frequency of spontaneous recovery. There's other relevant factors, too, of course, but don't I have that basically correct?Anyway, my point is that you have insufficient data to reach any valid conclusion, even just a "sort of" valid conclusion, concerning either the dice example or your nephew's recovery. And the correct answer is, "You don't know." Because of this, the incorrect conclusion is, "This is evidence from the material world that supports the power of prayer in everyday life." Yes, precisely. Why are you choosing a life of "weighing the evidence" over a life of faith? If you choose to believe your nephew's recovery is an indication of prayers answered, that is something you believe on faith. If you believe it is evidence from the material world of the power of prayer then it isn't faith anymore, is it? Same answer, or perhaps I should say same question. How can you say you prefer a life of faith and then talk of the need for evidence? When Abraham took his son Isaac into the desert to sacrifice him, he followed God's command because of his faith in the goodness of his God. He did not require evidence from God to show he was not in reality malevolent or perhaps actually the devil. He accepted God's inherent goodness on faith and needed no evidence. In order for your own faith to be true and pure like Abraham's it needs to free itself of the need for reassurances from the real world. You are constantly looking for signs, but no sign shall be given to those who lack faith. All you will receive are false signs. This not only isn't something I said, it isn't even something I believe. If I wasn't clear before then let me once again break out the old saw, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."What I've said is that your belief that your evidence is sufficient to support a valid conclusion is incorrect. I never said that God doesn't answer prayers. I said you have no material evidence from the real world supporting that belief. And I never said that prayers actually just go up into the ether. It was part of a longer argument pointing out your lack of evidence for the power of prayer.I think what is happening that you're interpreting arguments against your supposed evidence as arguments against your faith. I'm not arguing against your faith. I'm arguing against your belief that you have valid evidence from the material world in support of the contention that God answers prayers. Well, now you're just inching further out on that slender limb. This is an argument for special status, a special pleading as it were. Objective evidence of the real world must be available to everyone. You can't claim special status to both gather and interpret the evidence. But that's pretty close to what I *am* saying, not right on the mark, but not that far off. It captures a sense of what I'm saying. But you go on: No I didn't. I hinted that you had a flair for the dramatic. And you replied that you agreed, and told me that children really loved your stories. Yes, it is true, I'm skeptical. And instead of advocating objective studies, you instead argued that God hides from such studies, not exactly a reply designed to inspire confidence in your conclusions. A scientific study attempts an objective evaluation, God hides. You attempt an objective evaluation, God is there in all his glory. Can you really blame my skepticism? Uh, no I haven't. What I've argued is that your evidence is insufficient to draw any conclusions. You're arguing that it is. And you've rejected the possibility of conducting objective studies to produce such evidence. This isn't the approach of someone who knows how to study the real world, and considering it from the other side, it also isn't the approach of someone whose religious beliefs are based upon faith in the Lord. I think you may be mixing up things other people have said here, because I don't recall mentioning Episcopalians, but anyway, I think most of your post just reflects your misunderstanding that I'm somehow attacking your faith. I'm not. I'm attacking your belief that you have objective real world evidence of the power of prayer sufficient to reach valid conclusions.--Percy

I read this and thought, "We're definitely meaning two different things by 'life of faith.'"However, the answer to this question is that there's a lot of "lives of faith" that don't produce any results and ought to be abandoned. Here's where we must have different definitions of what it means to live by faith. No, I don't think this follows. It seems obvious to me, but since the answer to that question would likely lead to more discussion where we talk past each other, this can wait until it ever comes up again. (I have no way of knowing how much at fault you or I are for that, but I don't mind assuming it's my communication that's the problem. I can't think of how to make it better, though.) I guess it depends on your definition of signs, but I don't think I'm looking for the signs you're talking about. I am looking for indications that the faith I'm following is not false, because if it is, I'd like to abandon it for another or become an agnostic. I've abandoned three already as either ineffective and powerless (two) or not true/beneficial (one). This one works.Thus my problem when someone says, well, if there's no scientific studies that apply, then there's no real world evidence for God.Somehow, I think we mean something different by "real world evidence for God." I mean what I just said in the paragraph before last.Abraham had a visitation from God, multiple ones in fact. While you are correct that "He accepted God's inherent goodness on faith," he did not originally believe based on nothing. He believed based on an appearance by this God. (I don't think Abraham was a monotheist.) Ok, good. I thought you were saying something different than this, and I really couldn't understand why. If that's what I was saying, you're right. When I said you have no way of knowing that, I thought you were saying, "There's enough evidence to know evidence for God doesn't exist and won't be found." I neither blame your skepticism, nor do I ask you not to have it.I don't believe God's trying to provide proof of miracles in order to convince people, not even me. I do believe, however, that there ought to be some sort of results that indicate one's not wasting his time in the religion he's in. Ok, I misunderstood you. I'm glad. Sorry for picking on the Episcopalians. The churches in that prayers study concerning heart disease mentioned the churches involved. If they weren't Episcopalians, they were from a similar church. Most of my post reflected the thought that "you have made assertions about the nature of the evidence, that it really doesn't exist; that there could be no series of events so unlikely that it would be reasonable for a person to adjust his life and thinking on the basis of those events."I think you implied in your post that you don't think this. You quoted that statement of mine and said, "No, I didn't," but that "No, I didn't" may have only applied to suggesting my stories didn't happen.**************Can I add one more thing to try to make where I'm coming from clearer? I'm not personally offended by having my faith attacked on a reasonable basis. I doesn't always feel good, but I have a desire to be living out at least what appears most true to me. Thus, Rrhain always irritated the snot out of me for most of his statements, but point 1, point 2, point 3 arguments based on suffering in the world and the existence of a loving God are valid. Brian occasionally leaves off his historical arguments for jabs (ok, maybe he does this regularly) and I argue with him, but I followed up on his comments on the Exodus (certainly didn't happen in the numbers written about in Scripture), the conflating of two flood stories, and the evidence for the writing of most of the Law and history of Israel in the 7th or 8th century BC, and he's right. Iceage's question about God restoring limbs is a somewhat direct attack on my faith, but since his point is valid, it doesn't offend me in the least. (Actually, since it's also obvious, I've also thought about it.)That's all to say I don't think I'd react to an attack on my faith. Saying I'm deluded three times rather than once and the contexts in which you said it made me think it might be an insult as much as a statement, but otherwise I've taken nothing personally in this thread.

That last post was mainly on what we're actually saying to each other, which has seemed pretty important to this thread. This one's on the actual argument, much shorter: This is most definitely where we disagree. You've not convinced me of this at all. I'm not looking for conclusive evidence for my faith, but I am looking for some evidence. You say I can have no confidence in my experiences proving anything, and I say the results provide some confidence, enough to proceed further.We've probably both stated our cases pretty thoroughly, and your conclusion is that I'm deluded. "Here is a clear case of subjective belief influencing objective judgement."Does that sum it up pretty well?

Look at your assertion for just a second here.A bunch of scientist decided to test the power of prayer. Theses scientists used the best methode available to them for this studies.They came to an answer that doesn't fit your personal experience. And so, you decide to disregard (or simply say "they might be doing it wrong") the fact that you personally feel like your prayers are answered.Well whatever your prayers, whatever your reason, I can safly say that you are wrong. Century of science prove your method wrong.Don't you see that you only disagree with science when science disagree with your preconceived ideas ? Doesn't it give you a hint that MAYBE your the one that is wrong ? Instead of claiming that hundreds of people are wrong and you are right. Because claiming that there is evidence for the power of prayer is exactly doing that.You have to take into consideration that theses studies weren't done to disproof anything, but rather to see if by praying for someone we could somehow affect him/her. The conclusion is no.Now you could have wonderful experience of how prayer did work for you, but what you doing is simply putting together events and to you it seems like it could only could of happened because you prayed. And that's where you are wrong.we cannot trust our own experienceAnd that's why we have peer-reviewd, double blind studies etc.
It's not just "for fun".Now you choose personal experience over solid data. It is a choice you can make obviously but, it is not a rational choice. There are people who think they can fly, there are people who think they have invisible friends...personal experience has to be tested. And tested in a scientific manner.

Actually, I liked Kader's summary a lot better, but you're right that we're not moving any closer to a mutual understanding.--Percy

I didn't say any of this. I said their test didn't apply to my experience. It doesn't. I already know many people, including the very people they tested, rarely get their prayers answered. That's one of the reasons I left their religion.If I wanted to say "they might be doing it wrong," that would be easy, too. Percy directed me to two studies. One found no effect from prayer, but the extract specifically says, "Data in this review are too inconclusive to guide those wishing to uphold or refute the effect of intercessory prayer on health care outcomes." The other did find an association and said, "Remote, intercessory prayer was associated with lower CCU course scores. This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care."So really, at least in those studies, they did come to an answer that doesn't fit my personal experience. My personal experience is that when I was in those churches, our prayers pretty much weren't answered. Maybe they were answered better than I thought! This is a saying or something. Centuries of science don't prove that prayer isn't answered. You couldn't even get a consensus among scientists on this. A lot of scientists pray, you know, and think prayer is answered.At least one study suggests prayer helped, which Percy referenced for you in post 173. Other studies show that religious people commit less suicide and have less neuroses than non-religious people, that they show less aggressive behavior and less substance use. Even their 1st degree relatives commit less suicide.So, centuries of science prove you wrong!The study I referenced is here. I left things out (like religious people, actually members of Non-Lutheran/non-Catholic Christian denominations in Europe, though having less neuroses actually have more psychoses) and skewed things a bit on purpose, because if I wanted to just generalize from science and say what's so, I could, too. That's all you're doing here. That's your conclusion. It doesn't appear science has drawn that conclusion yet.

TruthloverI recently happened by this great normal distribution simulation.http://javaboutique.internet.com/BallDrop/Consider yourself or life path as one of those balls dropping and each green decision bifurcation bumper as a prayer experience. If the ball moves right it is a positive result (your prayers answered) if it moves left a negative experience.From the limited perspective of being a single ball in play, it would be impossible to see the big picture of what is really happening and easy to misinterpret the data.You may even end up far to the right and you would feel blessed and that God is with you, when if fact you fooled yourself and the odds are that someone had to occupy the tail portion of the curve.The big picture is what the scientific studies mentioned earlier are trying to tease out of the data - using established statistical techniques.One more point. Your "special pleading" for a unique standing with God is really a matter of vanity. Considering the number of religious groups in the world and though out history you are trying to lay claim that you have it right and everyone else is wrong. Everyone else lives their lives, by the rules of statistics, but you believe you can shape the curve so to speak using prayer because God listens to you but not others who have a wrong or imperfect faith. You need to consider this point a little more thoughtfully, i think.

In general, you're suggesting that it's all chance. There's always that possibility. There's always the possibility I'm misinterpreting the data and, in addition, that the data is all in and of itself useless, because I'm a lone observer. There's always the possibility that all religious experiences are fabricated by the brain.I give you all that without argument. How can I argue with that?But there's always the possibility that it's not. If it's all chance, and I end up on the good tip of the bell curve (I know there's no actual end point), then what's happening will look real likely to me. Of course, if it's not all chance, then I'll definitely end up on that end of the bell curve, because the bell curve is measuring chance, and it's not chance.If I have no way of knowing whether it's chance, and it might be both, I'm sure going to assign more likelihood to it not being chance if everyone who follows certain principles and rules ends up on the right hand side of the curve, and especially if we're way over on the tiny tip of the right side of the curve.In fact, if the bell curve of answered prayer and other unique spiritual experiences is one bell curve apart from a way of faith, but it's a completely different bell curve using only the people from that faith, then something's different, though it's up for discussion about what is different.I really don't understand why everyone is having a problem with that reasoning. It's not vanity. It's simply mandatory if you are a seeker of "the way," and that's true whether or not there is such a way. You try something, and it either works or it doesn't. Crashfrog says he became an atheist after being a Christian and seeing it not work, so such "evidence" mattered to him, too. I tried other Christian paths after being a Christian and seeing it not work. What else should I have done? Given up? And if I found a path that did work, why should I pretend that the old one worked or that the current one doesn't? I don't claim that I have it right and everyone else is wrong. I claim that the old way I tried is unsuccessful for the vast majority of people who try it. I claim that the current way is successful for the vast majority of people who try it, and from my study of history, a lot of other people have tried it and found it that successful.Even more so, the way I'm saying is imperfect claims the same source of authority I do (sort of), Jesus Christ. However, they don't really practice his teachings or even try to, so I'm not stunned when they don't get the results.You can call me vain for stating what I consider to be obvious, but I'm not talking about little differences of doctrine. I'm talking about a big picture of what Christ taught that's really pretty plain to anyone who looks into it. Most people in most churches aren't really interested in it. Gandhi, on the other hand, a Hindu, was quite interested in it, and he did walk in those principles and found a lot of success, too. Mother Theresa, with whose theology I have numerous problems, walked in Christ's teachings in the most admirable way (like Gandhi, far better than I do), and so she displayed power that looks pretty impressive to me, but I'm sure still looks like chance to you.I'm just saying there's a way that works and a way that doesn't. I don't know how that makes me vain. I certainly don't think I'm the only one walking in it, but I am willing to tell you that the churches I used to be a part of not only aren't walking in it, but they're not even really interested in it.

Truthlover Here's a link that I found very interresting for double blind studies.You might want to read it.