Keen not to be left behind in the disgustingly oppressive behaviour stakes, Iran has continued to pursue the death penalty for an Iranian Christian accused of apostasy.  Those who object to this state of affairs along strictly partisan religious lines (for example, see the comments section on this article) should be reminded that the Islamic position on apostasy and thought crime was plagarised from the Old Testament, notably the ten commandments.

Funny, given that in the Ten Commandments day it was less a thought crime, and more akin to denying Obama exists.

In Libya, with [G/K/Q/Kh]a[d/dd/dh]a[f/ff][i/y] having been subjected to mob justice with accompanying cries of "God is great", the NTC are starting to show their true colours when it comes to the form of government which will follow on from him.

 

Obama seems more pleased than you do. Guess those more Liberal and secularistic politicians have less of a problem with it than you.

Since that brings us to America, the Republican presidential candidate deathmatch has been heating up, with religion injecting its customary ugliness into the procedings.

As opposed to the ugliness of the solely secularistic politics in general?

With many evangelicals unhappy with Romney's Mormonism and perceived "softness" on social issues, they have instead chosen to rally behind a succession of disappointing alternate candidates whose outward piety is only matched by their ability to fit one or more of their feet into their mouths.  Not that i entirely disagree with many American's dissatisfaction with Romney's candidacy.  Just as when JFK ran for president questions must be raised about what earthly authorities he is subject to.  This wasn't simply anti-Catholic bigotry in 1960, and neither is it anti-Mormon bigotry now.  As a Mormon, Romney has an obligation to obey the current Prophet or President of the church, and since it is such a political organisation people have a right to be concerned about this, especially as he seems increasingly likely to win the Republican nomination, if only by default.

Think you'll find more people's beef with Romney due to his VERY blatant record of flip-flopping depending on the crowed, and past policies showing a more progressive bent than true conservatism. I don't know where you're viewing things from, but I'm hearing more issues with RomneyCare than Mormonism.

Not to pass over the idiotic tennets of the Mormon religion, which he claims to devoutly believe, as a potential disqualification for holding office of any level.  It is also interesting to see how the polarised nature of US politics has required Romney to lurch sharply to the right in order to have a chance to win over the Republican base, and presumably, if nominated, he will have to tack back towards the centre if he wants to win the election.  Being a "flip-flopper" in this climate is almost mandatory.

You mean, he'd have to ACTUALLY embody the ideals of the people he's trying to persuade to elect him to represent their beliefs and interests (at least for this 5 minutes)? Oh the horror!

Blind faith also got bad press from the conviction of a Christian couple in Oregon for allowing their baby son to die from a medically-treatable condition.  The statements from the trial expose a meticulous passing of the buck, from wife to husband ("i have to submit to him") and from husband to God ("i didn't call 911 because i was praying"), which is where it ultimately stopped, if only because there was no one to pick it up.

Or because some people don't get the fact God's not everyone's personal servant to wait hand and foot on everyone.

Glenn Beck, in his endlessly self-important Israel rally, did his bit to encourage fundamentalist settlers to never compromise about the land that "God led them to", hammering another small nail of crazy into the coffin of the peace process.  Thanks for that Glenn.  Not that these people need much encouragement, if only they can tear themselves away from intimidating schoolgirls and other brave and rational activities.

So you'll advocate rolling over for people who fundamentally hate your guts just for the sake of living a little longer? Are you going to fall to the ground and remain limp if anyone raises their voice?

The catholics got in a late entry by reviving the justification for the holocaust, and Harold Camping resurfaced to join a long line of protestant millenialists who got things 100% wrong.  But there's really no beating the Muslims this month.  Please try again next time.

Just like atheists, it's a blatant ignorance of historical facts. In both the Holocaust and other matters.

Thoughts?

You're trying very hard to be provacitive after this little hiatus.

Does prayer work at all, in your opinion?

Depends on how you define "work"?

While you're here, i would be interested in your response to...

I have stuff I need to respond to, too. I haven't forgotten. Two kids are a lot of work.

-joe

Danny:

Before we get started, I saw this in my rss feed this morning and it made me laugh. Enjoy.

Now..

i was an atheist before i got into nursing, but i think that if i hadn't been, the experience of sitting with innumerable husbands, wives, parents, friends and children of people who are dying or have already died as they pray for divine intervention that they could not want and need more, but which never arrives, would probably have made me one.

The Simple Answers:
I think we're dealing with two issues here. The first is whether or not prayer works and the second is suffering. The easy answers to those two questions (which you've probably heard far too many times) are  that the point of prayer is not for God to give us what we want, but for us to get closer to God, and that if God's going to allow free will, that means he also has to allow suffering.

The Not-So-Simple Answers:
My friend Tim's daughter Katie was raped. Twice. By the same guy.

We have a church group that meets at our place each Wednesday. A bunch of us get together to talk about life, the Bible and a few other things. Sometimes people share some serious stuff. Other times we talk about sports and the weather. A few weeks ago, Tim talked about what was going on in his life. Tim and his wife recently got a divorce. She got custody of Katie, which has been exceptionally hard for Tim. Tim loves his boys (who are both grown now) but, as Tim often says, "This is my Katie. My little girl."

Katie's only fifteen years old, but you wouldn't know that when you talk to her. She's got the kind of wit you'd expect from somebody much older, the kind of stuff that stops you in your tracks and puts you in your place no matter how old you are. Tim's a football coach and, for years, Katie's been at his side during the games, sometimes calling plays. She's that good. I've been a football fan my whole life, but there's no way I could adapt an offensive strategy in-game the way she apparently can. It's surreal.

So Tim and his wife get a divorce and mom gets custody. Katie moves into an apartment with her mother and a few months later starts cutting. Then she tries to commit suicide. Then she tries again. This goes on for a while and nobody can figure out what's going on. She tried again a few weeks ago and, afterward, Tim finally got her to tell him what was going on.

Katie had been dating this guy, a football player for the high school team who used to play for Tim when he was younger. She brought him to church one day. They held hands and smiled. She was so happy to be with him. One day they were in her room at her mom's house and things got out of hand. She said no but he didn't stop. Katie is small and this guy was a linebacker. There was nothing she could do.

Afterward, Katie wondered whether it was her fault. Maybe she could have said something different. Or done something different.  Maybe she led him on. Maybe she gave the wrong signals. Maybe … Maybe… None of it was true, obviously, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Then it happened again.

Katie's been in counseling since the first suicide attempt, but her mom can barely afford to take care of herself let alone Katie. Katie's mom is bipolar. She stopped taking her medicine when Katie tried to kill herself. She stopped so she could pay for the counseling visits, her mom said. "I'm off my medication because of you," she said. Katie's mom, doing what lots of manic-depressives do when they're off their meds, spends all her money and the child support Tim sends her on binges when she's manic and then blames everyone – including Katie – when she swings the other way. As soon as Katie told everyone what happened, Katie's mom said she was going to stop counseling because she couldn't afford it. Tim took extra part-time jobs to pay for his daughter's counseling.

"Its my Katie," he said. "It's my little girl."

We've been praying for them for a while. Things seem to be getting worse, though. Tim works as a maintenance guy at an elder care facility. He used to be a pastor, though. He actually speaks Greek and Hebrew (along with English). If anyone knows how to answer the eternal question "Why," it would be him. But when we got together last week, he just kept saying, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to do."

Neither do I.

I say this so when I tell you I know what you're talking about you'll believe me. I get it. I'm also not going to share a lame platitude like "God works in mysterious ways" or "Everything works according to God's will." When life sucks, that's the last thing I want to hear.

And I'm a Christian. I actually believe that stuff.

When stuff like that happens, I want to ask if God even exists. Does he listen to prayers? Does he answer them? If so, does he only answer some and not others? Is he not capable of answering prayers? If so, how can he be God. If not, then why doesn't He? Maybe the point of prayer is for me to get to know God better. Okay. Fine. But he certainly has the ability to intervene now and again. He does it for others. Why not me? Why not now? … Why not Katie?

I don't know. I wish I did. So how do I answer this?

One thing I think about is Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Before he did that, he wept. Jesus didn't want Lazarus to die and, when he did, it made him sad. Human suffering makes God sad.  That's good, I think. At least he's not a sadist.

Then I think about God's perspective. He's got an eternal view of things. Maybe, from his perspective, going through some of the things we go through gets us to where we need to go. If Jen and I hadn't gone through a couple of miscarriages, we never would have been able to help our friends who have struggled with the same thing. A lot of people use this answer. I don't like it, especially in light of Katie, but it's the best I can come up with.

So the argument says God has to give us free will or there is no love. What that also says to me is, if God wants there to be Love, there must also be suffering. That's when I ask, "Why go ahead with creating the world and all that if you know there's going to be suffering? Why take the risk."

That's a question we all have to ask. Why risk being someone's friend if that friend could betray you? Why risk loving someone if that person could leave you after 25 years of marriage, or die of cancer, or sleep with your best friend. Or rape you. Twice.

Before Jen and I had kids, we wondered about the morality of bringing children into a world where we knew there was a good chance they could be hurt or hurt others. Our answer was this…love is worth the risk. It's not something I can prove. It's not something I can experiment with in a lab. It's just something I feel. To me, love is worth the risk. 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. And so on.


I think God risks giving us life and free will because he wants to love us and he wants to love others. I pray because I believe his perspective of how things work is better than mine and I want to get in tune with that, even if it means stepping out and doing things that don't seem to make sense to me in the moment. Sometimes I get what I ask for. Other times I don't. That's not the point, though. I think he wants the best for us but, when things get bad, he cries with us and helps us move on.

That's not a satisfactory answer. I know. But it's the best I got.

I hope things are going well. I was about to tell you to have a good Thanksgiving if I don't  talk to you beforehand. But then I remembered you don't' do that over there. I can be dumb sometimes.

Joe

EB:

Irregardless, while such commands still hold today, the punishments in the OT time were also made in the context of God personally being involved with daily life. So this argument that Christians are being somehow hypocritical in condemning such acts, falls woefully flat.

Is God not personally involved in everyday life?

Thanks,
The Sasquatch

Obviously not in the way He was back then.

What's your reasoning behind that?

Joe

Joe,

Before we get started, I saw this in my rss feed this morning and it made me laugh. Enjoy.

That gave me a good laugh.  Thanks.  Reminds me a little of this.

Now..

My friend Tim's daughter Katie....

Seriously Joe, i deeply respect your compassion and humanity on this and every other subject we have discussed, and the way that you honestly struggle with issues which anyone who thinks are simple black-and-white obviously hasn't thought hard enough about.  It's a sad story, and i wish that the separate elements of it were less common in so many other women's lives.

When stuff like that happens, I want to ask if God even exists. Does he listen to prayers? Does he answer them? If so, does he only answer some and not others? Is he not capable of answering prayers? If so, how can he be God. If not, then why doesn't He? Maybe the point of prayer is for me to get to know God better. Okay. Fine. But he certainly has the ability to intervene now and again. He does it for others. Why not me? Why not now? … Why not Katie?

When i was a (slightly reluctant) church-going teenager, there was a family in our congregation who i would now describe as "holier than thou".  The children were regimentally well-behaved and the parents were involved in every aspect of church life, and often espoused what you might describe as the "simple answers" in any discussion of life, faith or the meeting of the two that took place.  They got pregnant, and then lost the baby.  My vantage point on this is that of a self-involved teenager, but i remember being vaguely surprised when after an absence of several months they reappeared at church, with (outwardly at least) double their previous level of piety and expressed love of God.  Reflecting on this, i realised that i had expected them to lose faith as a result of that awful experience, but as i got older i grew to realise how truly self-involved that would have been of them.  No doubt i was projecting my own juvenile perspective onto them.  The unthinking piety of the lucky - easily shaken by misfortune - is ultimately shallow, because the fact that we are often sheltered from the suffering of other people in the world doesn't make it any less real, and people who lose their faith when horrible things happen to them must have been either labouring under the misapprehension that their life is representative of humanity in general (naive) or thinking that they are especially deserving and/or divinely-favoured (contemptable).  The Problem of Evil is a universal one, and i feel much more intellectual kinship with someone who acknowledges its difficulty than someone who just doesn't see the problem (capital P), even though i am someone for whom it hammered the final nail into the coffin of my already fatally injured belief in God.

Lots of people have struggled with the Problem of Evil.  i don't know why horrible things happen to people in other parts of the world, to people i know, people i love, or occasionally even to me, but i feel that i have less to explain in this regard than someone who believes in a benevolent, all-powerful God.

So the argument says God has to give us free will or there is no love. What that also says to me is, if God wants there to be Love, there must also be suffering. That's when I ask, "Why go ahead with creating the world and all that if you know there's going to be suffering? Why take the risk."

Despite the Freudian associations with the idea of God as parent, i think the analogy is useful, especially since this is something that you are dealing with firsthand right now.  How much "instructive suffering" would you be prepared to allow for your boys as a loving parent before you would feel the need to step in and put a stop to whatever was happening to them.  i guess you would consider what happened to Katie as being some way beyond a line that you would cross in the service of helping your sons develop into strong confident young men.  God must be a particularly laissez-faire kind of parent figure.

I hope things are going well. I was about to tell you to have a good Thanksgiving if I don't talk to you beforehand. But then I remembered you don't do that over there. I can be dumb sometimes.

Don't worry about it.  Tomorrow is bonfire night in the UK, which i don't think you celebrate in the US, and which the British traditionally use to celebrate the religious infighting of 17th Century England in our own version of a Thanksgiving (although, as with many other traditional holidays, no one thinks of it in those terms anymore).  i start back on night shifts tomorrow, so the only effect it will have on me is that i'll have an extra doctor and possibly also an extra nurse to help deal with the predictable influx of people who have been foolish with fireworks and bonfires.  So happy nationalist/sectarian British holiday distinguished by the tendency of the average Brit to get drunk and be inappropriately casual with fire!  Woo!

Take it easy,
Dan

EB,

i don't know whether or not you are aware of how much of your conversation consists of insecure and self-reassuring assertions regarding your opponents' supposed ignorance, bias or lack of integrity.  Some examples just from your last post:

"I know you're utter bias towards the Bible has you interrpreting it in the worst possible light you can imagine"
"And you have motivation to cast everything in a negative light."
"Do you care whether what you believe and say is actually correct or not?"
"And I wouldn't care much for a Liberal's idea of what constitutes "insanity", when by definition being Liberal means chucking reality out the window from the start."
"It's a sign of someone not knowing what they're talking about."
"heh. Not really Chamberlain."
"People craving attention usually get it when they act out."
"it's a matter of your personal bias rather than literary fact"

And to Joe, the person here least deserving of your juvenile pseudo-intellectual scorn:

"Seriously, how much of the OT have you read to need to ask these questions?"

Now i could charitably assume that some of these statements are tongue-in-cheek, and that you are exaggerating your negative opinion of your adversary's intellect for comic effect, but either way it is noticeable that a significant proportion of your written output consists of deservedly-ignored ad hominems which add nothing to your argument, and may even detract from its credibility.

I can construe your condemnation of such a command means you support people entertaining the desire to steal, murder, rape, and otherwise community destroying behaviour. Is that how it is?

No.  i think that "covetting" can be a positive emotion, which may encourage us to strive to attain desired outcomes by legitimate means.  If i envy my neighbour his (and you may have noticed that the Bible is almost exclusively addressed to men) house, wife, servant, ox or ass, or anything else that "belongs" to my neighbour, then hopefully i will be motivated to work hard in order to obtain those things for myself.  i am not aware of any rational basis for the destructively accumulative interpretation that you apply here.

It's mostly relevant in how we see you later try to imply religion is a problem when interjected in politics.

Fundamentalist religion is sectarian by its very nature.  That doesn't accord very well with the sort of politics that a large majority of Americans say they want from their leaders, i.e. cooperative politics.  Why cooperate with an infidel, after all?  And when overtly religious politicians do manage to cooperate, the results are invariably toxic for women and other disadvantaged groups in society, see here and here.  And you wonder why i'm not a fan.

Liberals have been bending over backwards for Islamics for quite some time.

That can happen.  Despite being a major power globally, in Western democracies Islam is mostly a minority faith which liberals tend to see as needing protection, which when taken to disproportionate lengths can enable the propagation of prejudicial anti-equality positions incompatible with our shared moral principles.  i seem to recall some story about a road to somewhere very bad being paved with good intentions?  However, as the above links indicate, liberals are not the only ones who have made Faustian bargains with radical Islam.  i condemn both kinds of moral compromise, how about you?

I take that as simply another sign of your atheistic bias lumping all religious beliefs together and making otherwise ignorant based statements.

Which is pretty rich coming from someone who has demonstrated a complete inability to differentiate between any of the different kinds of atheism.  Why should anyone separate different kinds of Theism on that basis?

Because I thought that was your own personal motto from our many discussions of how you think A-theism is ONLY a belief that there is no God/gods and has no further implications beyond that.

Atheism implies only a rejection of the competing claims of religion, which is a significant ideological standpoint, but does not (as you have suggested in the past) necessarily lead to nihilism, anarchy or amorality.  This is not that complicated.  If you want a president who makes laws based upon the ten commandments, it might be best not to vote for an outspoken atheist.  If you want a president who doesn't take into account the wishes of the president/prophet ("presiphet"?) of the Mormon church when considering policy, it might be best not to vote for Mitt Romney.  i have never suggested that atheism has no ideological implications, of course it does, but only that the simplistic and partisan interpretations that you attach to it are very far from axiomatic.

I love this double-standard from atheists. When we see examples of apparent failure of prayer it's evidence against religion, but when we see examples of it indeed working - oh well it just would have happened anyway, so it's not evidence for it.

Right.  So if i tell you that my magical underwear (Ala Mr Romney) really "works", would you or would you not be unreasonable in pointing out that things not going my way while i was wearing said underwear counted against such a suggestion, while relatively commonplace good-fortune in the same set of circumstances did not automatically support it?  The double standard here appears to be your (post hoc) suggestion that prayer for a plausible outcome which chronologically precedes the statistically-boring occurrence of said outcome is any kind of evidence for the efficacy of prayer, while the (equally statistically boring) failure of the same occurrence when prayed for apparently means nothing at all.  The real point, which you effectively dodged answering here, is does prayer work, and if so, in what way?

If there is no evidence which might make you question the efficacy of prayer, then i really have to doubt your intellectual commitment to the principles of falsifiability.

From what I can tell some of those issues stem from the ones you have here in demanding your ideological driven interpretation of the Bible be taken as fact, irregardles of what it actually says.

The fact that this is your summation of a post where i cited and referenced contemporary Jewish authorities on the precise meaning of the biblical verses you were referring to suggests that either you didn't read it beyond the most superficial level or that you simply have no meaningful response to it.

i don't know whether or not you are aware of how much of your conversation consists of insecure and self-reassuring assertions regarding your opponents' supposed ignorance, bias or lack of integrity.  Some examples just from your last post:

Well, when my opponent's posts consists of ignorant statements (willful or otherwise), biasness, and lack of intellectual integrity, it's less about being insecure, and self-reassuring and more like calling it like it is. Examples including:

"Yes, i know that you think that."
"...that the god of Israel considers women to be possessions (as if that wasn't already fairly clear)." - (I note, your only real argument to this is that a woman is called 'thy neighbour's wife'. If I say the First Lady is "the President's wife", am I refering to her as a possession, or is your personal biasness making you blatantly inconsistent with this?)
"So yeah, maybe he isn't favoured right now because he's very clearly shifting positions as is politically expedient.  i don't care about that particularly..."
"(Romney may be a craven opportunist, but he doesn't appear to be actively insane [as opposed to Bachman, Perry, and Cain])"
"Well i thought i could be confident of flushing at least one particularly sensitive bird out from the long grass."

"heh. Not really Chamberlain." "It's a sign of someone not knowing what they're talking about."

Now the issue these comments addresssess is really more about the state of things we can plainly see in Muslim majority nations in the Middle East. And exactly what issue do you take with the first comment? Chamberlain advocated appeasment to aggressors, you advocate appeasment to aggressors; the connection seems pretty apt.

And to Joe, the person here least deserving of your juvenile pseudo-intellectual scorn:

"Seriously, how much of the OT have you read to need to ask these questions?"

heh. That's you reading too much into things, as that's an honestly curious question about his level of knowledge. When someone promotes themselves as a Christian (or at least Biblicly knowledgible), you don't expect 101 questions on some pretty fundamental facts from the Bible. If someone says 'Why do you say Christ died for our sins?' while claiming to know the Bible, I think I'm justified to go all Spock-like and raise an eyebrow.

Now i could charitably assume that some of these statements are tongue-in-cheek, and that you are exaggerating your negative opinion of your adversary's intellect for comic effect, but either way it is noticeable that a significant proportion of your written output consists of deservedly-ignored ad hominems which add nothing to your argument, and may even detract from its credibility.

Actually, you can take that I meet comments on the same level they're given in.

No.  i think that "covetting" can be a positive emotion, which may encourage us to strive to attain desired outcomes by legitimate means.  If i envy my neighbour his (and you may have noticed that the Bible is almost exclusively addressed to men) house, wife, servant, ox or ass, or anything else that "belongs" to my neighbour, then hopefully i will be motivated to work hard in order to obtain those things for myself.  i am not aware of any rational basis for the destructively accumulative interpretation that you apply here.

Except for the fact that "covetting" by definition is to "wrongly desire" (Seems like a case of ignorance of the term, but I could be self-reassuring . ). And to "envy" (a sin) what belongs to your neighbour is indeed to desire to take away from him/her specificly, rather than make something of yourself. I find your reasoning to be simply the standard of logical gymnastics you always apply to justify your inaccurate interpretations of Biblical passages.

So as I construe "covetting" and "envy" to be negative emotions (as the Bible clearly does), I can indeed take your tack of interpreting things based solely on personal views, rather than literary integrity, and confidently hold you as sociopathic. I could, but I won't since I know what's truly going on here.

Fundamentalist religion is sectarian by its very nature.  That doesn't accord very well with the sort of politics that a large majority of Americans say they want from their leaders, i.e. cooperative politics.

"Funadamentalist" religion, is simply becoming more and more defined by being "religion" by atheists.

Why cooperate with an infidel, after all?  And when overtly religious politicians do manage to cooperate, the results are invariably toxic for women and other disadvantaged groups in society, see here and here.  And you wonder why i'm not a fan.

I don't wonder, I know - you're bias towards any other belief but your own has you be willfully ignorant on many matters. As noted by the fact you seem to lump all religious beliefs together, and your knowledge of the Biblical stance of women and "infidels" is obviously coloured. To say nothing of Liberals not understanding what "tolerance" actually is.

That can happen.  Despite being a major power globally, in Western democracies Islam is mostly a minority faith which liberals tend to see as needing protection, which when taken to disproportionate lengths can enable the propagation of prejudicial anti-equality positions incompatible with our shared moral principles.  i seem to recall some story about a road to somewhere very bad being paved with good intentions?  However, as the above links indicate, liberals are not the only ones who have made Faustian bargains with radical Islam.  i condemn both kinds of moral compromise, how about you?

And being a minority faith, it can leave Liberals with a horribly naive and overly-romantic notion of just what they're protecting. As for your above links being a "moral compromise", I don't see much "compromise" when it's simply the two having common ground for a select purpose. Personally, I believe everyone (no matter what faith, or views) should have equal basic rights and protection. And having "equality" necessitates no special favours by the government.

Which is pretty rich coming from someone who has demonstrated a complete inability to differentiate between any of the different kinds of atheism.  Why should anyone separate different kinds of Theism on that basis?

I "differentiate" it all the time. I do so whenever you start talking about a-theism being compatible with objective morality, and how a-theism necessitates there be 6 billion kinds of atheism.

Atheism implies only a rejection of the competing claims of religion, which is a significant ideological standpoint, but does not (as you have suggested in the past) necessarily lead to nihilism, anarchy or amorality.

So, my assesment was correct?

This is not that complicated.  If you want a president who makes laws based upon the ten commandments, it might be best not to vote for an outspoken atheist.  If you want a president who doesn't take into account the wishes of the president/prophet ("presiphet"?) of the Mormon church when considering policy, it might be best not to vote for Mitt Romney.  i have never suggested that atheism has no ideological implications, of course it does, but only that the simplistic and partisan interpretations that you attach to it are very far from axiomatic.

Better, you take a politician's actions and past behaviour into account, than this wide brush approach. It's that whole 'actions speak louder' thing. And it's not ideological implications, I'm calling you out on. It's that it goes beyond mere ideological implications, which you seem to resist with your comments of "only", and such.

Not that I need to care, as it's only your kind of atheism, right?

Right.  So if i tell you that my magical underwear (Ala Mr Romney) really "works", would you or would you not be unreasonable in pointing out that things not going my way while i was wearing said underwear counted against such a suggestion, while relatively commonplace good-fortune in the same set of circumstances did not automatically support it?  The double standard here appears to be your (post hoc) suggestion that prayer for a plausible outcome which chronologically precedes the statistically-boring occurrence of said outcome is any kind of evidence for the efficacy of prayer, while the (equally statistically boring) failure of the same occurrence when prayed for apparently means nothing at all.  The real point, which you effectively dodged answering here, is does prayer work, and if so, in what way?

I would, if you claimed your magic underwear acted like some deus ex machina. It's the fact that (according to the Bible), prayer is more communion between a person and God, rather than a 'wishing machine', and is to made all the time in all situations, where your comparison fails on.

If there is no evidence which might make you question the efficacy of prayer, then i really have to doubt your intellectual commitment to the principles of falsifiability.

If you even knew my view on 'falsifiability', I doubt you would even make such a comment.

The fact that this is your summation of a post where i cited and referenced contemporary Jewish authorities on the precise meaning of the biblical verses you were referring to suggests that either you didn't read it beyond the most superficial level or that you simply have no meaningful response to it.

I admit, once I saw that the post was two months ago, and that you couldn't let it go, I skimmed it more than anything else. Not that it matters, whether you cite Jewish authorities, as I could cite other authorities that disagree, and it becomes a battle of the "experts" where we just side with which that pleases us. And I take 'reinterpretations' in modern days with big a grain of salt, given how it can easily be pressured by differing cultures. Best to look at the attitudes and context of the times such statements were made in. And given how for nearly 2000 years, homosexuality was considered sinfuly, that doesn't leave much room for doubt.

Regardless, I have little respect for your views of how the Bible is to be read, and consider almost all your interpretations to be the same as that above - weak and convoluted gymnastics to make incorrect interpretations of (mostly) unambiguous passages and policies, to justify your personal bias.

EB:

You are simply wrong in this bizzare assesment that the relationship with God we have today, is the exact same as the one Israel had during the OT's day. It obviously isn't, and a plain reading of the Bible lays that out.

Please quote where I made that assessment.

The fact you meet my assesments of literal events, with cut-and-pasted out-of-context passages doesn't help you.

Follow along the conversation thus far and help me understand where I started taking things out of context.

EB says, "Irregardless, while such commands still hold today, the punishments in the OT time were also made in the context of God personally being involved with daily life." When I read that, it seems like you're saying that God is no longer involved with daily life.

Rather than assume this is what you are saying, I ask, "Is God not personally involved in everyday life?"

You respond, "Obviously not in the way He was back then." I took this to mean that you believe God is either not involved in everyday life or God is less involved in everyday life. Upon a second reading, I'm guessing you could have meant that God is differently involved in everyday life. Which is fine. I completely agree with that.

Again, rather than make assumptions about what you're saying, I ask "What's your reasoning behind that?"

You respond, "By the fact there is no direct day-to-day provision of food, deliverance from enemies, or a tabernacle where God's presence resided in it like the President in the White House." And I think, Jesus asks us to pray our for our daily bread and to deliver us from evil. I think of friends who have seen God intervene miraculously in times of need - whether it was for sustenance or because of strife. I think of the Holy spirit being involved in my everyday life (and hopefully yours) which, to me, is a lot better than some building in Israel because have you seen airfare for a flight to Jerusalem lately?

I also see the comment where you seem to insinuate that I am ignorant and that I have not read the Old Testament. I'm not sensitive about it. You are welcome to say whatever you like. If random people on the Internet saying bad things about me affected how I live my life I'd have succumbed to all sorts of psychological maladies years ago.

As it is, I only have the few that were there before Al Gore waved his magic wand and started the whole thing moving.

You say you don't mean to put me or anyone else down. Given your past statements about mocking (you once said that people who disagree with you deserve to be mocked) I find that hard to believe, but I'll take your word on it. Either way, you do have a tendency to speak negatively towards people who even hint at disagreeing with you, whether you know it or not. I get that way sometimes, too, and I want you to know that, at least in my experience, life really is a lot better when you let that go.

You're welcome to continue believing that's not who you are if you like. You're welcome to continue being that way if that's how you prefer. But if you ever find yourself looking for something better, you might try being a little nicer. It's made my life better and I'm sure it can do the same for you.

Piece,
Joe

EB:

You are simply wrong in this bizzare assesment that the relationship with God we have today, is the exact same as the one Israel had during the OT's day. It obviously isn't, and a plain reading of the Bible lays that out.

Please quote where I made that assessment.

I didn't say it was an explicit assesment, did I? What else am I to conclude with your constant questioning of this issue?

Follow along the conversation thus far and help me understand where I started taking things out of context.

It seems most of the issues you have with what I'm saying is a persistant missing of some key words. Much like the my statement of "out-of-context" was refering to the passages you quote. And this is further apparent as we see below.

EB says, "Irregardless, while such commands still hold today, the punishments in the OT time were also made in the context of God personally being involved with daily life." When I read that, it seems like you're saying that God is no longer involved with daily life.

Rather than assume this is what you are saying, I ask, "Is God not personally involved in everyday life?"

Yeah, my use of "personally" should have been a more apparent clue.

You respond, "Obviously not in the way He was back then." I took this to mean that you believe God is either not involved in everyday life or God is less involved in everyday life. Upon a second reading, I'm guessing you could have meant that God is differently involved in everyday life. Which is fine. I completely agree with that.

'Differently' is exactly what I meant. As evident by the use of "not in the way" rather than saying 'not in any way'.

Again, rather than make assumptions about what you're saying, I ask "What's your reasoning behind that?"

Seems you need to simply reread my statements more carefully, or just simply ask if I mean what you think my statements mean specificly.

You respond, "By the fact there is no direct day-to-day provision of food, deliverance from enemies, or a tabernacle where God's presence resided in it like the President in the White House." And I think, Jesus asks us to pray our for our daily bread and to deliver us from evil. I think of friends who have seen God intervene miraculously in times of need - whether it was for sustenance or because of strife. I think of the Holy spirit being involved in my everyday life (and hopefully yours) which, to me, is a lot better than some building in Israel because have you seen airfare for a flight to Jerusalem lately?

And that's all well and good. But again, quite obviously, such things are not done in the same way they were in the OT's time when the Ten Commandments and harsher punishments for supposedly "small" offenses were handed down. I gave examples of things that God was actively involved with and took overt action. You respond with lines from a generalized prayer, and a spiritual involvement. The two are plainly not talking about the same things.

I also see the comment where you seem to insinuate that I am ignorant and that I have not read the Old Testament. I'm not sensitive about it. You are welcome to say whatever you like. If random people on the Internet saying bad things about me affected how I live my life I'd have succumbed to all sorts of psychological maladies years ago.

No, I'm just wondering how much knowledge you have on the Bible to seemingly constantly question the fact that the covenant in the OT's time was different (and abandoned) from the one we have through Christ up to today. It's a pretty fundamental issue, and one I would expect a learned Christian/Bible-reader to comprehend without the need to go into an in-depth explanation. Also 'not knowing everything' is not the same as saying a person is 'stupid'.

You say you don't mean to put me or anyone else down. Given your past statements about mocking (you once said that people who disagree with you deserve to be mocked) I find that hard to believe, but I'll take your word on it. Either way, you do have a tendency to speak negatively towards people who even hint at disagreeing with you, whether you know it or not. I get that way sometimes, too, and I want you to know that, at least in my experience, life really is a lot better when you let that go.

Actually I said no such thing. I said my specific question wasn't an insult or insinuation to you. I'm of the firm belief that some issues and beliefs (ie atheism) deserve nothing but the metaphorical slap on the head (Gibbs-style), and I'm not particularly ashamed of it.