Prayer, Pascal, and the Anthropic Principle

by JosephAlward 37 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  JosephAlward

  The Anthropic Principle

  It's true that life as it exists on earth, and the behavior of the universe as a whole, is finely tuned. These constants, most physicists believe, were introduced at the time of the Big Bang, when the universe seems to have been created, or at least, to have begun again another cycle of creation.

  If just a few of those fundamental constants of the universe had been even slightly different, then the current form of life would not have been possible and there would be none of our life forms--such as stocwach--who could point to those "finely-tuned" constants and argue that there must be a god.

  Instead, there would be other fundamental constants and other life forms, and some of them would offering the same argument as stocwach's.

  Pascal's Wager

  Some Christians argue that people should believe in the God of the Bible, because they have nothing to lose but everything to gain if the Bible is wrong. So, why not play it safe and believe in God?

  But, why play it safe with the Christian god? Using his logic, to be prudent, stocwach would have to believe in the doctrines of every Christian denomination, as well as those of every other religion. Stocwach is gambling that the god described in his bible is the one true god, while the Moslem is gambling that the one true god is the one described in the Koran. Both think they are playing it safe, but both of them couldn't be more wrong.

  Why does stocwach not believe in the god of Islam, just to be safe, and believe in all of the other gods, as well? The answer is obvious: stocwach is gambling that his religion and his god are true, and the others false. He's betting that the ball on the roulette table will land on his number when his time is up. But, shouldn't he bet on all of the numbers, just to be safe?

  The Power of Intercessory Prayer

  Prayer works, but only if the one being prayed for thinks--or knows--he's being prayed for. The effect is well understood, and has nothing to do with the supernatural. If one believes that the praying will help, it helps one to relax; the blood pressure is lowered, and the body is somewhat better able to fight the infection. Some improvements in the rate of recovery are well documented.
  
  It is not true that intercessory prayer works on those who don't know or suspect they're being prayed for, contrary to what true believers will say. The only studies which purport to show this are bogus. I refer interested readers to the following sites:

  http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msciprayer.html
  http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1998/prayer-USAToday.html

  Joseph F. Alward
  "Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

  * http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
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  KJV

  Intersting info you have presented Joe. I liked the "Interview with an atheist" on your web page. Some people think that athiest hate God. It's not so....how can you hate what doesn't exist? Actually, it's those that believe that there was or is a Creator, and He couldn't care less about humans, that are a threat to religous fundies. Wouldn't it be easier to believe that some "Higher Power" or "Powers" created the universe, got life started on earth,and then split? Maybe if enough people expressed their disapproval of the Creator's "lack of love" for mankind, He might hear us and get off the friggin' golf course!
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  stocwach

  Joseph,

  I can see you completely ignored my follow up post to my own thread which was in anticipation of what your argument might be to the anthropic principle. What a coincidence--I was right on with your shallow thinking. So I'll repost my Devil's advocate rebuttal:

  This theory (of other universes with other life forms )can be discounted by the ludicrous idea of a giving a monkey a typewriter and assuming that randomly one day he would eventually type the works of Shakespeare (considerably less complex than the makings of the universe), given the opportunity of an infinite amount of days to complete the task. What if one day, among myriads of days, and constant random alphabetical gibberish, not only complex words were achieved, but a 4 line verse from "Macbeth" appeared. One would consider this a miracle. However, here is the catch: It doesn't matter if there are an infinite amount of days! The problem each day is the same! It's a "Groundhog Day" situation, if you ever saw the movie. The same set of problems repeats itself infinitely! Therefore, the mathematical possibility that the monkey will type the complete works of Shakespeare or anything of meaniful order is not one a very large number, but rather zero!!!!!!!! Randomness does not engender order on any appreciable scale, and unfortunately for you and your atheistic thinking, as well as scientists, is simply an assumption, but not a conclusion.
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  stocwach

  Another poor rebuttal--to Pascal's wager. First of all, you never answered my question, and I'll ask it again, with a twist--using your perception of Pascal's wager being a poor gamble:

  Making the assumption that for you to believe in God or a god, you would need to take on the doctrines and worship all the gods perceived to be in existence to insure that if correct, you gain eternal salvation, why would you still choose to be atheistic, and guarantee yourself no chance of salvation? It's a question I am very intrigued to find out!

  Now in terms of how does one improve chances of making the god they choose the right one, why not look at the empirical evidence. Where else in history can you find men like th apostles that were willing to become martyrs due to their first hand evidence that Jesus was the Son of God, and witness to his resurrection? Were these men just unanimously stupid for choosing to be tortured for their beliefs? And if the story of Christ is just the biggest hoax in history, why was noone able to produce the body of Jesus?? All one had to do was produce the missing body of Jesus Christ, and Christianity would not exist!

  No other religion has empirical evidence such as this.
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  stocwach

  Intercessory Prayer: Byrd's study was of 393 coronary care patients. 192 were prayed for by prayer groups. The remaining were not prayed for. There were fewer cases of congestive heart failure in the group prayed for. They also used diuretics and antibiotics less. Now it is true, there were many uncontrolled factors and unknowns, but this still doesn't prove that the prayers were inconsequential, it only proves that the prayers could not be conclusively and scientifically credited for the improved health of the group prayed for.
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  rem

  LOL Stockwach,

  Are you for real? This is just too funny!

  You think the fact that nobody has produced the body of Christ is evidence in Christianity's favor? LOL

  You don't think there are people who have martyred themselves for stupid things before? haha - my side is starting to hurt.

  You don't seem to understand the problem with Pascal's wager at all, do you? The problem is that there is no way to be consistant and worship all possible gods because many religions are mutually exclusive (such as Islam and Christianity). There is no way that you could avoid the chance of offending one or many gods. Probably the best gamble with Pascal's wager is to not believe in any of them since that could be interpreted as being less offensive than worshiping the wrong god.

  Of course, there is no evidence for any gods in the first place, so atheism is really the only rational position.

  Your grasp of cosmology is quite precious. Your anthropocentrism is blatant. Even if you could somehow prove that this universe was designed or tweaked (which you can't) you still couldn't show that it was tweaked for human life, specifically. There are still many other explanations, such as the universe was designed to hold rocks, and human life is just a by-product of such a universe.

  Oh, boy. It's no fun when it's that easy.

  rem

  "We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain
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  JosephAlward

  Where else in history can you find men like the apostles that were willing to become martyrs due to their first hand evidence that Jesus was the Son of God, and witness to his resurrection? Were these men just unanimously stupid for choosing to be tortured for their beliefs?

  
  David Koresh was the leader of the "Branch Davidian" sect in Waco, Texas; his followers thought he was Christ, and they let themselves be shot or burned alive rather than abandon him. Moslem martyrs sacrifice themselves because they believe Allah will send them straight to heaven. The fact that people will die for their beliefs doesn't make the beliefs true.

  Joseph F. Alward
  "Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

  * http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
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  RWC

  The idea expressed by stocwatch that the apostles willing died is worth more thought than it has been given. The issue is not that these apostles "believed" in something that had been told to them be someone else but had no way to test it. The issue is that they had been told by Jesus that he ws the Christ and that he would die and rise again and than they saw him and talked to him, so they knew it was true. David Koresch is not the same, neither are the terrorists. They and their followers may believe something to be true, but theirs is a belief on faith alone. The apostles had the evidence to back up their believes and likewise, if it never happened had the eveidence to know that their believes were wrong. What you have is evidence of men who either went to their deaths knowing because they never saw the ressurected Jesus that they were preaching a lie or they went to their deaths preaching what they knew from their eyewitness evidence was the truth. It is clearly more logical to assume that they went to their deaths preaching the truth.

  And you can't say with any degree of logic that all of these men were mentally delusional. Jesus appeared to numerous men who than were killed for their believes. The available evidence is that these men acted normal in all other aspects of their lives and there is no evidence that they were mentally insane. Also, the belief that all of them would be so insane is not very probable.

  So Christianity is based upon the preaching of numerous individuals who preached that they saw and talked to the risen Lord and than went to their deaths for this knowledge. Logic does not support the thought that Christianity is based upon the preaching of numerous men who went to their deaths with the knowledge that what they were preaching was a lie or a hoax.
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  dedalus

  ROTFLMAO!

  Making the assumption that for you to believe in God or a god, you would need to take on the doctrines and worship all the gods perceived to be in existence to insure that if correct, you gain eternal salvation, why would you still choose to be atheistic, and guarantee yourself no chance of salvation?

  Since almost all of the gods demand exclusive worship and insist on the nonexistence or unworthiness of the other gods, how in the world would it be possible to take on all of the doctrines and gods inclusively? And forget salvation -- if you worship all of the gods, you're violating virtually any doctrine that would guarantee salvation in the first place!

  If you meant this question the way you asked it, you are a first-class idiot.

  As for Pascal's Wager -- you may as well defend the idea that the world is flat. Pascal's Wager is not considered a useful philosophical concept by anyone who's read and understood even a little tiny bit on the subject.

  Dedalus

  P.S. You believe in the giant pink unicorn named Lola, right? You'd better, just to be safe, or else Lola will zap your ass with her giant unicorn horn!
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  dedalus

  Oops, REM, I see too late that you already took this on -- sorry for more or less repeating what you said. It is too easy with people like this, though, isn't it?

  Dedalus