gii.josiahconcept.org - claiming god is NOT imaginary...

[jeremy0]

Can we rebuke this guy's website?  For example, in his first claim, he postulates that in proof #1, prayer is actually a complicated thing.  It only answers if it is 'according to god's will'. 

So I would say, why pray?  Everything already happens according to god's will, no?  So why would we ask him to change it just a smidgeon to allow life to flourish... I really hate answering religion with other religious statements, because it never makes any fucking sense..

What the guy did in #1 was make the scenario more complex, and also adding logic that gave no additional value to the premise. 

I think it goes by religious logical reasoning, which I had once, which says - 'this is what I want to believe in - good things, a good Jesus, a good, all-knowing and all-powerful deity.  Now how do I make it fit?'  Well, you can make it fit by ignoring some things and putting others into the limelight.  However, what you therefore end up with is ignorance, puzzle pieces that are 'forced in', and a picture that looks like an abstract making no viable sense when you look at the pieces you didn't end up using..

The basic fact is, Jesus did in fact say - 'for who would throw stones when asked for bread?'  Or 'give twigs or thorns'.  That implies that when you ask for something 'you will receive', and when you are searching for answers 'you will find'.  However, statistically none of these things happen this way. 

What I don't like about this guy's website is that, he gives rebukes of all 50 points made against the existence of God, and offers no argument to his outline.  That's dismal and a purely defensive strategy..

[Historicity]

So I would say, why pray?  Everything already happens according to god's will, no?  So why would we ask him to change it just a smidgeon to allow life to flourish... I really hate answering religion with other religious statements, because it never makes any fucking sense..

Recently a believer (I don't remember -- nor care-- who) came on and said amputees were amputees because God wanted it that way.  I responded too curtly to be understood and it went into a discussion of God is evil.

I will elaborate.

Let's both agree that God is good.

Let's agree that God is bound by the excluded middle and, of course, his goodness.

Let's then agree with the Midrash story (ripped off in the Koran) of "Moses and the Angel" that God can do something painful and bad but it's because He knows better than us that it will be good in the long run.  He can see all the consequences to the end of the universe.  He intervenes to make the best outcome which only He knows.  We are then in His care in as Dr. Pangloss says, "This best of all possible worlds."

But then prayer would be a request for God to do something He hadn't intended.  Something that wasn't as good.  Remember that He can see the consequences a jillion years ahead.

In that respect prayer is bad and should never be answered. 

I'm saying that God's answers are not as often stated, "Yes" "No" or "Later" but "I was going to do that anyway" "No" and "I was going to do that anyway."

C.S. Lewis sidestepped this in 2 ways.  One was by assuming there were alternate actions of God that could produce equally good outcomes.  Another was that you change what is good in the balance of things by praying since making you happy is a little bit good.

Except those amputees.  Healing them is always going to have bad consequences.  Y'know, a thousand years from now the descendant of an amputee will revive the worship of Baal or something.

Or alternatively, prayer is wishful thinking.  Like the (losing) $1 lottery ticket I played today.

[Historicity]

I got onto the above track from something said by Dr. Amanda Avellone[1].  She was a 7th Day Adventist even for a while after she became a doctor.  Here from her Confessions of an Evangelical Atheist:

Throughout my discussion above, I have avoided the question of prayer. The troublesome practical implications of God's interference in physical reality are the same whether prayer is involved or not, but I find that prayer amplifies these problems, and introduces some of its own. I recall this idea literally hitting me like a bolt out of the blue one Sabbath as I sat in church. A church leader was at the microphone, making a request for members of the congregation to join the group of believers--already a hundred strong--who were praying earnestly for God's intervention on behalf of the young child of a church member who was being treated for a typically fatal cancer. I just remember thinking: "Wait... there are one hundred people asking God for a miracle to no avail, and this woman is trying to recruit more prayers?"

I had been hearing this kind of request for years, but now, as if I was hearing it for the first time, the implication stunned me! Was the likelihood of God's intercession a function of the number of people praying for it? I found myself envisioning God as being coerced into acting, doling out His intervention only when some arbitrary quota of prayers has finally been met. Is it possible that God would cure the child for 157 prayers, but not 156?
...
I define a miracle as a fortuitous occurrence that defies the laws of physics. A miracle must be impossible. Finding your car keys two minutes after praying for God's help in locating them is not a miracle, even if you looked for an hour before praying. While I was asking God for my miracle, I started to make a small survey of my acquaintances at work, asking them if they had ever experienced a miracle. Most said that they had, and would go on to relate some fortunate event or other in which they discerned God's hand at work. Not one of these events was by any means impossible, and most were not even of particularly low probability. One woman literally stood there and told me: "My aunt was in a terrible accident; she was in the intensive care unit on life support, but she recovered." I wanted to say: "You're kidding me, right?" Instead, I just smiled and nodded.

1.	Click on the link. She is a heavy duty doctor like the ones on Grey's Anatomy but real.

[jeremy0]

Thanks for the reply.  What I really meant was, should we offer a rebuttal to this guy's website, since he refuses to allow any further conversation on his topics, regarding contrasting 'theories' to this main site, and therefore is taking a defensive stance of 'no argument' against his own site?

BTW - I am trying to get this topic moved to a more appropriate area - I didn't realize it was in a duel-style zone..

[Brakeman]

If one postulates that god is all knowing, then he knows that nearly everyone would pray for the sick if only god would show it's true effectiveness. God would know that currently prayer is ineffective and could not rightfully fault those who see or sense the futility in it.

[Hatter23]

I brought it up here:

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php/topic,18707.0.html