Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?

[Sheldon]

... Based on a blinding bias unless and until you can logically explain why you hold some alternative conclusion.

Other than your use of the known common logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc you mean?

 

[Sheldon]

Show me where God says that God will have prayer effect physical repair.

John 14 13 - 14

13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name,

14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

 

[PureX]

"I had money troubles and prayed to God. Then, I was inspired to buy a lottery ticket. The ticket lost. God wants me to be poor."

Your first solution was the prayer, itself. It gave you a focused course of action in the face of confusion, stagnation, and despair. Your second solution was the hope that a resolution is at least possible (via a lotto ticket). Your third solution was the realization that there may not be any quick easy solutions, for you (as the lotto ticket didn't win). ALL of these solutions are helping you to finally resolve your money problems. And they all started with your engaging in the act of prayer.

An honest, insightful man would be grateful for this kind of help. A foolish, selfish man would be angry because he didn't win the lotto.

 

[Sheldon]

No, he didn't. He had no idea that he would win the lottery. All he knew is that he could win the lottery.

Semantics.

 

[PureX]

Just because someone really believes something, it does not necessarily therefore make that belief rational.

"Belief" is irrelevant. The facts show a direct cause and result.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You are very confused. Bob did not pray to win the lottery. He prayed for a solution to his problem, and a solution came to him while he prayed: take a chance on the lotto. Because this idea came to him while praying, he gave it a more hopeful consideration that he might otherwise have done. So he followed through on it.

THIS WAS STILL A SOLUTION even if he had not won the lotto. This is what you are failing to understand in your rush to discredit prayer. Prayer itself is often a solution. Prayer can and often does help us realize other possible solutions, too. More effective solutions than just praying. You are just blindly and automatically dismissing all these possible and common effective results based on the fact that the lottery functions via chance.
Why would he? He's looking for solutions, not rationale. Why are you trying to negate those solutions just because they might not work for you?
He bought a ticket because he prayed and it inspired him to take a chance. He won the lotto because he bought a ticket, and the ticket won. So yes, he DID win the lotto because he prayed. If he had not prayed, he would not have been inclined to buy the ticket. And if he had not bought the ticket, he could not have bought the winning ticket. Why are you even arguing with this? The chain of cause and effect is obvious.
Bob is being completely rational. You are the one that can't seem to grasp even the most obvious chain of cause and effect.
This has nothing to do with Bob's prayer, or with it's effectiveness. Bob was not praying to win the lottery. But he did end up winning the lottery because he prayed.

An irrational solution, even if it works, is still irrational.

 

[PureX]

Semantics.

Facts.

Inconvenient facts, for you, so you call it "semantics".

 

[Subduction Zone]

"Belief" is irrelevant. The facts show a direct cause and result.

But probably not the ones that you are thinking of.

 

[PureX]

An irrational solution, even if it works, is still irrational.

The question was is it (prayer) effective. Not is it "rational" by your preferred idea of rationale.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The question was is it (prayer) effective. Not is it "rational" by your preferred idea of rationale.

There is no reason at all to think that it was effective. Your failure now is one of confirmation bias. It is why claims like this need to be tested. Somewhere someone is going to win almost any lotto sometime. Many people will have "prayed" to win. That one person that prayed won is not evidence.

By the way, is not my "preferred idea of rationale" It is merely rational thought. No qualifications needed. Why try to insult by making it personal?

 

[Sheldon]

An honest, insightful man would be grateful for this kind of help. A foolish, selfish man would be angry because he didn't win the lotto.

You seem to have used a false dichotomy fallacy, and a no true Scotsman fallacy. Note the way you unashamedly equate your position with honest and insightful, now that's pretty funny. Then suggest this biased assumption has only one alternative, again pretty hilarious.

I'd like to say it's a weak argument, but it doesn't appear to be an argument, just arrogant hubris and bombast.

 

[Sheldon]

The question was is it (prayer) effective. Not is it "rational" by your preferred idea of rationale.

It is not anyone's preferred idea, that is not how logic works. Anything that violates a principle of logic is by definition irrational, it is a basic principle of logic that anything that uses or contains a known logical fallacy, cannot be asserted as rational. You used a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, in your hypothetical claim about Bob. Ipso facto your conclusion was irrational. How anyone feels about that has absolutely no relevance to the fact it is demonstrably irrational.

 

[Sheldon]

"Belief" is irrelevant. The facts show a direct cause and result.

Nope, the facts show two separate events, and your irrational conclusions that the former caused the latter, again since you're determined to ignore this fact, this is called a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

 

[Sheldon]

Facts.

Inconvenient facts, for you, so you call it "semantics".

No not facts it was a hypothetical for a start, dear dear, you indulged semantics, and the fact is that you presented a hypothetical scenario, and then dew an obviously irrational conclusion. Since it was based on a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The fact you have failed to acknowledge, let alone address this, speaks volumes, and you can repeat your irrational claim until Jesus fails to return, it will remain irrational. The only bias here is yours.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Please give me the question again that you claim I did not answer.

Don't worry about it. It wasn't a question, but it still merited a reply to express agreement or, if you disagree, why in your opinion the point made is incorrect. If you want another shot at it, follow the up-pointing hyperlink arrows to the post before the one of yours I'm responding to now. Even if you have no rebuttal or still don't know what a rebuttal is, I'm very interested in what you think it says.

The problem here is that you all are demanding that Bob's conclusion to apply to everyone for it to be "truly effective". And then when it doesn't you proclaim it to be false.

Nobody is demanding that. They are merely stating that his thinking is flawed and his conclusion unsound (irrational)

It can and does work for anyone, but only when appropriately applied

I don't think anybody is disagreeing that prayer works if all you mean by that is that prayer is a comforting placebo and has no effect on external reality. That's the "materialist" position. As I've said, you've removed all of the magic from the claims for prayer, so there is nothing for the empiricist to object to until there are faith-based claims added in about deities and movjng mountains or whatever.

Which is why this 'study' was a total waste of time that any real scientist would have dismissed at it's inception.

Actually, real scientists reviewed the study design and approved it for funding, real scientists wrote and performed that study design and then published the results, and real scientists have peer reviewed it prior to publication and since. I'm afraid you're the one who isn't the real scientist, and unsurprisingly, you have dismissed the study. You're even emotional about it, implying that the study shouldn't have been done. One wonders why you care that it was. I can see why you might consider the results irrelevant to you if you personally don't claim that prayer can help cardiac patients, but your reaction goes beyond that.

There were no "misses" for Bob. He is not conducting an experiment seeking a universal, repeatable result.

No, Bob is just guessing about what happened to him and why. Experimenting is empiricism. Bob's a faith-based thinker, evidence won't be required for him to believe.

it feeds your bias and ignorance regarding the purpose and effectiveness of prayer.

We know what the believers claim the power of prayer to be. Apparently you are unaware of what they think and say. They tell us. These are sick patients praying for healing. Heather is praying that God will give her husband his breath back:

[these didn't appear - you'll have to take my word or visit the original at https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/post/w-dustin-rhodes-34-cody-wy-anti-vaxxer-dead-from-covid ]

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[PruePhillip]

Don't worry about it. It wasn't a question, but it still merited a reply to express agreement or, if you disagree, why in your opinion the point made is incorrect. If you want another shot at it, follow the up-pointing hyperlink arrows to the post before the one of yours I'm responding to now. Even if you have no rebuttal or still don't know what a rebuttal is, I'm very interested in what you think it says.

You lost me on the up-pointing somewhere... I try to answer every question, if there's something that stumps me then that's good, I will learn from it..

 

[PruePhillip]

I suggest you demonstrate something to support your suggestion, beyond the bare unevidenced claim.
Why do you assume there is a why?

Why?
There aren't.
Penguins have evolved to occupy an environmental niche. Nothing "human-centric" about it.

The 'why' of Sth Pole penguins
There must be a polar cap due to the fact that sunlight strikes polar regions more oblique.
There must be penguins because there's birds, and birds can reach the Sth Pole and there's a marine niche there for them.
There must be birds because there's a class called Aves.
There's a class called Aves due to the branching vagaries of organic forms due to evolution
There must be evolution due to the inherent probabalistic nature of DNA
There must be DNA due to the tendency of complexity of carbon molecules
and so on, so on ....
All these things must be here for us to be here - planet, sunlight, organic chemistry, penguins.


but what is the reason for all this being here in the first place?
1 - a creator
2 - a magician

 

[PruePhillip]

Hmm

Yep, the subtle distinctions.
Lord, keep me through my day that I might serve you
or
Lord, I want to win the lottery that I will be rich.

 

[Sheldon]

There must be a polar cap due to the fact that sunlight strikes polar regions more oblique.
There must be penguins because there's birds, and birds can reach the Sth Pole and there's a marine niche there for them.
There must be birds because there's a class called Aves.
There's a class called Aves due to the branching vagaries of organic forms due to evolution
There must be evolution due to the inherent probabalistic nature of DNA
There must be DNA due to the tendency of complexity of carbon molecules
and so on, so on ....
All these things must be here for us to be here - planet, sunlight, organic chemistry, penguins.

So not then you can't offer any evidence that there is a 'purpose' to everything in our universe.


Now back to the question, why do you assume there is a why?

 

[PruePhillip]

So not then you can't offer any evidence that there is a 'purpose' to everything in our universe.


Now back to the question, why do you assume there is a why?

There's a why for everything in the universe. That's HOW the universe is what it is.
But to assume there is NO WHY for the universe itself assumes there's a
1 - creator
2 - magician

.,.. otherwise, how did it get here ?