Prayer - Does It Work? How Can We Know?

Faith & Science Conversation
41

It’s about noticing them. Nothing more.

Dasein.

If they weren’t on your radar, and you weren’t praying for them, they would happen anyway. And you’d never know.

This is nothing but statistically insignificant cognitive bias.

The prime example is healing. Prayer has no statistical effect on it whatsoever. So what other areas of life are statistically affected by prayer? Where are the coincidences that wouldn’t happen without prayer? Job hunting? Pay rises? Careers? Dating? What else is there? I suspect it will only be in areas where no statistical analysis of the effect of prayer has been done.

42

Read any Müller yet? And I answered my own prayer above. Right. So did Maggie.

43

You’re funny. I should hope we notice. Like getting whacked by a 2x4. Müller built orphanages out of them – answered prayers, and yeah, 2x4s too.

44

To me it just seems like you’re struggling with context and want to say others ignore it and uses loopholes. But the reality is that you can do that with any of the verses concerning anything.

But I can see that’s the move you’re sticking with.

1 Like
45

“Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
-Mark 14:36

1 Like
46

Men in a boat during a storm on the Sea of Galilee. It wasn’t exactly prayer, but it was a remarkable coincidence. (The disciples did make a request of Jesus, so yeah, a prayer.)

47

Even better, an area that cannot be statistically tested, that’s where the coincidences are. In that inaccessible gap.

48

George racked up some statistics. Read the unabridged version.

49

And what’s that got to do with life? As in the life of anyone you know or is known? Not in any gap.

50

George Müller is known. Maggie.

51

That’s right. He was there all right. Not here. Not in the statistically amenable realm. Unlike Maggie’s ordinary life which is as insignificant as anyone else’s.

52

How do you do statistics? Using testimony.

53

As in mortality.

54

Mortality statistics? Everyone dies. Or else what did you mean?

55

And that is never, as in never in living experience, in statistical experience, affected by prayer.

56

Well, God’s existence is not going to be scientifically proven, and neither are his answers to prayer. That in no way certifies that neither exist.

57

What prayers? [There is no warrant for either in the first place. In the second place, yes.]

58

We’ve been over several. Multitudes, statistically significant, in George Müller’s life.

@moderators, time to delete some posts or close the thread?

59

Müller’s life and all its coincidences happened whether God exists or not. Like everyone else’s.

60

Just a reminder from our guidelines, Dale and Klax:

State your case and then respect other people’s right to agree or disagree. Avoid repeating the same ideas over and over because you have failed to convince everyone to accept your viewpoint.

If you’ve both stated your cases ad nauseum, then it’s time to agree to disagree. Thanks.

(That means I’ll delete any further short, bickering-style posts of yours. This thread is only a day old and doesn’t deserve death just yet.)

3 Likes