Atheists Only: Would this be proof?

[Katzpur]

Your analogy is kind of absurd actually.

I just love it when a newbie puts me down. It leaves such a lasting first impression.

This God is a loser. He is nothing more than a cosmic tyrant who gets his kicks out of watching people suffer from the terminal diseases he created.

Yeah, well maybe you are speaking of a different God than I worship. Just a suggestion: Try to get a handle on your contempt. You'll last a lot longer around here if you do.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

As a computer programmer, myself, who knows something about computers and random number generators, I call fraud, or at best a generous fudging of their interpretation of the evidence.

Random number generators use simple mathematical algorithms to generate each successive "random" number. There isn't actually anything random about it -- the proper term is "pseudo-random". The value of such algorithms is that the numbers generated are unexpected, but they are fully deterministic -- one can predict the outcome of the number generation if one knows the seed value, just as one can, in theory, predict the behavior of any computer program by knowing the initial conditions.

For a random number to produce values that it shouldn't be able to generate -- to violate the math underlying the operations of the processor -- it would be necessary for only certain exact bit elements out of possibly thousands or millions in the computer to change state at just the right times, and no one would ever know which elements the random number generator would be using for this variable! Flipping the wrong bits would likely crash the computer.

How can even the most psychic people influence precisely the right computer bits and never make a misstep that would crash the computer? And a much better test would be to see two different computers generate two different sets of pseudo-random results using the same seed values. It boggles my mind that anyone would take this seriously as a test of psychic powers. There must be better tests.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Being a computer nerd and network engineer...I would agree with you on this.....:yes:

 

[Katzpur]

Prove to me that "God" is needed.....

Sorry, I have neither the need nor the desire to prove anything to anybody. I posed a simple question, and it is seriously nothing for anybody to get all up in arms over.

 

[purplehaze]

I just love it when a newbie puts me down. It leaves such a lasting first impression.

Yeah, well maybe you are speaking of a different God than I worship. Just s suggestion: Try to get a handle on your contempt. You'll last a lot longer around here if you do.

Is your God BibleGod by chance? That's the God I'm referring to. It's not a real God at all. It's a god that was invented by the sadistic humans living in primitive times that had no concept of what the universe was all about at the time. So in their superstious minds they created/invented one in their own little image.

Why would any rational thinking person in our modern times today have even the slightest desire at all to believe in such a creature?

 

[Dirty Penguin]

No this wouldn't convince me to "just believe" in God. Your analogy is kind of absurd actually. All it does is beg the question as to whether a God hears prayers and heals people by such a thing. If this god of yours is so real, why would there be any need to pray and request that he or she or it heal at all. It's almost like saying this so called wonderful invisible loving being in the sky created terminal diseases to get the humans he created to beg him to heal and cure people. If such a god did heal people by such a request just to prove he is real, I would spit in his face for allowing such things to occur in our world. He is not worthy of any level of rational attention or worship or whatever religious term you want to slap on it. This God is a loser. He is nothing more than a cosmic tyrant who gets his kicks out of watching people suffer from the terminal diseases he created.

KUDOS.....:clap


I like that....You said that with such great force....

 

[Katzpur]

Why would any rational thinking person in our modern times today have even the slightest desire at all to believe in such a creature?

1. I am a rational, thinking person who believes in God.
2. Read the forum rules.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Sorry, this is not a debate thread. I have neither the need nor the desire to prove anything to anybody. I posed a simple question, and it is seriously nothing for anybody to get all up in arms over.

Oh...don't get me wrong......I honestly believe that you and others like you will never be able to prove the existance of god that is why i asked the question...we know that you will stick to that your god does exist and there will be VERY little if anything that will change that.

I'm not upset at the question...I just thought it was a silly one. It seemed to me that other variables could be the cause of 250k living and the other dying.....

 

[Dirty Penguin]

OK....for the sake of NOT debating......

the answer to the question is......

NOOOOOO!!!!!

To ask for an explanation on this position will cause us to break the rules and thus begin to debate....

Maybe the thread should have started out with you asking the question and putting it to a vote....

Were you just seeking a Yes or a NO???

 

[purplehaze]

1. I am a rational, thinking person who believes in God.
2. This is not a debate forum.
3. Read the forum rules.

1. A rational thinking person who believes in God? sounds like an oxymoron to me. :yes:

You posted a topic that required a response. Sounds like your intentions were for the purpose of dialog/debate to me. You posted some questions, I responded. Sorry you are unable to handle my responses based on intellectual honesty.

If you are a rational thinking person then why do you believe in bibleGod?

Biblegod is not a rational entity in my not so humble opinion. In order to believe in such a creature one must suspend rational thinking for however long it takes to continually believe such a thing literally exists.

 

[Katzpur]

OK....for the sake of NOT debating, the answer to the question is NOOOOOO!!!!!

Thank you.

To ask for an explanation on this position will cause us to break the rules and thus begin to debate.

Are you telling me that you cannot simply explain your position and let it go at that?

Maybe the thread should have started out with you asking the question and putting it to a vote.

Yeah, well it's too late now.

Were you just seeking a Yes or a NO???

No, I wasn't. I was seeking a 'yes' or 'no' and an explanation. Is it really all that complicated?

 

[Katzpur]

1. A rational thinking person who believes in God? sounds like an oxymoron to me. :yes:

Yes, I believe you've made that clear.

You posted a topic that required a response. Sounds like your intentions were for the purpose of dialog/debate to me.

What could possibly have given you that impression? I specifically stated in my OP, "I'm just looking for answers. I may or may not come back with further thoughts of my own." I have responded to very few of the posts that have been made. Most of the posters seemed to understand that I was not interested in a debate but in hearing the atheistic point of view.

You posted some questions, I responded. Sorry you are unable to handle my responses based on intellectual honesty.

And I'm sorry that you don't understand plain English. I am not interested in a debate. I stated that at the outset. It has nothing whatsoever to do with intellectual honesty.

 

[lilithu]

No this wouldn't convince me to "just believe" in God. Your analogy is kind of absurd actually.

Katzpur did not post an analogy. She posted a question. Either address the question or don't. There are plenty of other opportunities within these forums for you to vent against the belief in God. Not here.

All it does is beg the question as to whether a God hears prayers and heals people by such a thing. If this god of yours is so real, why would there be any need to pray and request that he or she or it heal at all.

Very good question! But not the subject of this thread.

 

[uumckk16]

It's unfortunate that this thread has gone downhill in the last few posts I thought it was really interesting! I think that's a great question, Katzpur. I'm not an atheist, but an experiment like this would certainly make me rethink my beliefs concerning intercessory prayer.

For all we know there could exist as yet undetected "mentons" that when directed at other people can improve their health.

Hahahaha that is awesome. "Mentons"...I love it. I wanted to frubal you... :sad4:

 

[Bronze]

Can i ask you something? why does god only seem to save people that other people pray for? sombody isnt worth healing just because no one would pray for them?

oh, and any time 250,000 die just because no one would pray for them, no truly benevolent god was involved.

 

[Katzpur]

Can i ask you something? why does god only seem to save people that other people pray for? sombody isnt worth healing just because no one would pray for them?

oh, and any time 250,000 die just because no one would pray for them, no truly benevolent god was involved.

You've missed my point entirely. I wasn't even attempting to describe the way things are in the real world. I was describing a hypothetical experiment which would be damned near impossible to perform. If you have anything worthwhile to say with regards to my OP, I'd be interested in hearing your comments. What you have said so far, however, has absolutely nothing to do with the actual question I posed.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

I started wondering about a hypothetical, although impossible, situation that, in my opinion, could -- if it were feasible -- be considered proof of God's existence. Let's say we had a group of 500,000 people, all of whom were terminally ill and none of whom were in any way religious. They could be either agnostic or atheist, I suppose, but they definitely would not be the kind of people who would ever pray, asking that God heal them, nor would they solicit the prayers of others on their behalf. Let's assume that they were all close to death and resigned to the fact that the end was near. Now, let's say that these people were split into two groups of 250,000 each. The prayers of all Christians, Muslims and Jews throughout the world were offered up to God, pleading with Him to heal the dying individuals within the first of these two groups. No one, however would pray for anyone in the second group. Within a relatively short period of time (let's say two weeks), every single one of the 250,000 individuals for whom prayers were offered were "miraculously" healed. Without a single exception, all of them were as healthy as they'd been at any time in their lives. On the other hand, during this same period of time, every last one of the 250,000 who had not had anyone pray for them (and had not prayed for themselves) died, as had been expected.

Would these results, if they were exactly as I described them, possibly cause you to re-think you lack of belief in God? Would they, in other words, be sufficient to make you to believe in God? If not, to what would you attribute the results of the experiment?

Absolutely, such a clear affect of prayer--particularly if none of the people in the study knew whether they were being prayed for or not--would certainly make me reconsider the issue of God, and I'm sure it would be a sensation across the health and scientific community.

Actually, lots of very simple, easily testable things would make me reconsider the issue of God(s) or pyschics or whatever the supernatural claim might be. For example, if someone claims that they can use psychic powers to figure out what card I am thinking of, there are simple ways to test this, and a positive result would absolutely make me reconsider the validity of psychic claims. The fact that such claims are easily testable, and have not only never been shown to be accurate but have oftentimes been conclusively ruled out, gives me little reason to hope that psychic powers or gods or miracles or what have you will be shown to exist by credible experimentation, ever.

But, in short: yes, such a finding would be very impressive. What's more, if holy men really could cure the blind, and if praying to god really could make a person start talking coherently in ancient languages that they never consciously learned, and if chemical tests showed that the bread and wine really does turn into blood and flesh, and if a loud booming voice routinely talked to us and interacted with us by making things appear or disappear at will.....any of these things would indeed radically change my worldview. The fact is, IF gods/spirits/psychics/miracles etc. were the real deal, it would be EASY to convince me. The fact that gods/spirits/psychics/miracles are so bad at passing these presumably easy tests seeds my doubt.

 

[Prometheus X]

Hi,
I've only read the OP so this answer may already have been proffered. If so I apologise.

If this scenario really happened, any true atheist would have to reassess their position.

But, lets look at the problem from another angle. Lets say you had a child who was dying of a terminal illness and an atheist came up to you and said, "I can cure your child but you must give up your irrational attachment to God, Jesus etc. etc."

Would you give it all up to save the life of your child?

Prometheus X

 

[rojse]

Calling all atheists! :shout Okay, first off, I am not proselytizing, so don't bother getting out the boxing gloves. I couldn't care less that you don't believe in God (for the sake of argument, let's say the Abrahamic God). So, let's get that straight for starters. It's just that I've heard so many atheists say, "Give me proof and I'll believe in God." I don't even bother trying, because I know I can't prove that God exists. Whenever a theist does attempt to come up with proof, you guys refuse to accept it. I can't say that I blame you since I don't find their proof particularly compelling myself. Today, my husband and I were having a conversation that made me think about starting this thread. Basically, it had to do with prayer and with God's will.

I started wondering about a hypothetical, although impossible, situation that, in my opinion, could -- if it were feasible -- be considered proof of God's existence. Let's say we had a group of 500,000 people, all of whom were terminally ill and none of whom were in any way religious. They could be either agnostic or atheist, I suppose, but they definitely would not be the kind of people who would ever pray, asking that God heal them, nor would they solicit the prayers of others on their behalf. Let's assume that they were all close to death and resigned to the fact that the end was near. Now, let's say that these people were split into two groups of 250,000 each. The prayers of all Christians, Muslims and Jews throughout the world were offered up to God, pleading with Him to heal the dying individuals within the first of these two groups. No one, however would pray for anyone in the second group. Within a relatively short period of time (let's say two weeks), every single one of the 250,000 individuals for whom prayers were offered were "miraculously" healed. Without a single exception, all of them were as healthy as they'd been at any time in their lives. On the other hand, during this same period of time, every last one of the 250,000 who had not had anyone pray for them (and had not prayed for themselves) died, as had been expected.

Would these results, if they were exactly as I described them, possibly cause you to re-think you lack of belief in God? Would they, in other words, be sufficient to make you to believe in God? If not, to what would you attribute the results of the experiment? (Please don't start by telling me that such an experiment would be impossible to perform. I may be a theist, but I'm honestly not quite that stupid! Just pretend that we actually could do this experiment and come up with the results I stated and take it from there.)

Since this is not a debate forum, I'm just looking for answers. I may or may not come back with further thoughts of my own.

That would certainly be evidence to believe in God, but then my belief would be a warped, maltheistic type of view from that - after all, he would have condemned two hundred and fifty thousand people to death to prove a point to me, when he could have saved them.

If your proof was not fixated on people about to die, and a select group dying, I might take your more cheerful view of Him.

 

[TurkeyOnRye]

There are an infinite number of explanations to account for such results. Do you think that an all-powerful deity who claims the creation of all reality is the most likely cause?

 

[rojse]

There are an infinite number of explanations to account for such results. Do you think that an all-powerful deity who claims the creation of all reality is the most likely cause?

Which of those infinite number of explanations would you propose on seeing this outcome?