Re: Religion
 

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I've asked Pokos the river god for help before.

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Re: Religion
 

I think the answer you are looking for is: "desperation and a feeling of powerlessness".

These are qualities that are generally looked for in new recruits to various cults.

Re: Religion
 

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Maybe because nobody can know if there is a God and it can't hurt to ask for some help every now and again? I would be more surprised if you didn't ask for some help in an extreme time of need.

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A more accurate explanation would include something along the lines of "and people naively (and incorrectly) assume that the spectrum of possible Gods does not include Gods who will help in all instances EXCEPT when asked or prayed to, and will punish the needy and whiny to eternal torture."

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Yeah, but our whole society seems to believe in a certain conception of God. When you're around that idea your whole life, it's not really surprising that you would appeal to that specific God when you find you have nowhere else to turn.

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Agreed entirely, I was just nitpicking, but it is still naive and incorrect to do so. Maybe we should warn people of this? It seems cavalierly allowing them to pray when they are about to die, when that may be the very thing that kills them, is inhumane.

Really, I just think its silly and wrong to consider the act of prayer as "possibly good, but at the least benign." If it has ANY possibility of creating some positive outcome through intervention, it has that EXACT SAME probability of creating some negative outcome through intervention. So, prayer is either entirely benign or potentially harmful.

Re: Religion
 

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Because you were extremely anxious and God might exist.

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Right, but which God? I would be too afraid to pray for fear that a really lazy, quicktempered God would smite me. I mean, if I don't pray, I have some small chance of surviving, but if I piss off God? Yikes.

Re: Religion
 

Nice argument vhawk1!

However, given the far higher probability of no god, allowing prayer in stressful situations becomes +EV overall because it helps calm you and give you a moment of inner quiet when it could all be about to go to the dogs.

I 'pray' frequently in terms of the motions I go through, relaxing, projecting my thoughts, mentally talking them out. I know I'm not talking to any supernatural being because all I am doing is rephrasing my problems to myself in a way that makes me feel good. That's all prayer is: the most common form of meditation. No god required, as in everything else. If OP decides to change the words he uses to be talking to god when he prays it doesn't change what he's actually achieving with his actions and that's what counts.

Hope the life changing results were good!

Re: Religion
 

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Maybe because nobody can know if there is a God and it can't hurt to ask for some help every now and again? I would be more surprised if you didn't ask for some help in an extreme time of need.

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A more accurate explanation would include something along the lines of "and people naively (and incorrectly) assume that the spectrum of possible Gods does not include Gods who will help in all instances EXCEPT when asked or prayed to, and will punish the needy and whiny to eternal torture."

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Yeah, but our whole society seems to believe in a certain conception of God. When you're around that idea your whole life, it's not really surprising that you would appeal to that specific God when you find you have nowhere else to turn.

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Agreed entirely, I was just nitpicking, but it is still naive and incorrect to do so. Maybe we should warn people of this? It seems cavalierly allowing them to pray when they are about to die, when that may be the very thing that kills them, is inhumane.

Really, I just think its silly and wrong to consider the act of prayer as "possibly good, but at the least benign." If it has ANY possibility of creating some positive outcome through intervention, it has that EXACT SAME probability of creating some negative outcome through intervention. So, prayer is either entirely benign or potentially harmful.

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I think the probability of some sort of Judeo-Christian God is much higher than the probability of some other random God. Although we don't have good "evidence" for any Gods, there have been several very influential prophets who claim to have a message from the same God. I haven't seen any stories about people who claim to be from some other God and are even remotely as successful/popular.

Re: Religion
 

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I think the probability of some sort of Judeo-Christian God is much higher than the probability of some other random God. Although we don't have good "evidence" for any Gods, there have been several very influential prophets who claim to have a message from the same God. I haven't seen any stories about people who claim to be from some other God and are even remotely as successful/popular.

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This is a cultural bias. There have been hundreds of Gods in different cultures and throughout different times all throughout human history. People have been communicating with their God(s) throughout.

If you lived in other parts of the world and/or in another era... you might be saying the same thing about Vishnu.

On a related note- the popularity of a belief has little bearing on its likelihood.

The more people who believe Elvis is alive and UFOs regularly anally probe hillbillies does not change the liklihood that it is real.

Re: Religion
 

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On a related note- the popularity of a belief has little bearing on its likelihood.

The more people who believe Elvis is alive and UFOs regularly anally probe hillbillies does not change the liklihood that it is real.

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in the only sense that your last statement is "true," nothing changes the likelihood that anything is real, so it doesn't do much to support the statement before it.

in general, "true" beliefs appear to tend to spread and stick around better than "false" ones.

Re: Religion
 

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This is a cultural bias. There have been hundreds of Gods in different cultures and throughout different times all throughout human history. People have been communicating with their God(s) throughout.

If you lived in other parts of the world and/or in another era... you might be saying the same thing about Vishnu.

On a related note- the popularity of a belief has little bearing on its likelihood.

The more people who believe Elvis is alive and UFOs regularly anally probe hillbillies does not change the liklihood that it is real.

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Maybe, but that doesn't mean that it's not more likely to be true than the existence of some other deity. If there was some other God who hates it when you pray for the Judeo-Christian God, we haven't heard anything from him or about him.

And just to clarify 3.5 billion people believe in a Judeo-Christian God. I do believe that, in general, the more popular belief is generally true. They are just probably all wrong in this instance [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

Re: Religion
 

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Maybe because nobody can know if there is a God and it can't hurt to ask for some help every now and again? I would be more surprised if you didn't ask for some help in an extreme time of need.

[/ QUOTE ]

A more accurate explanation would include something along the lines of "and people naively (and incorrectly) assume that the spectrum of possible Gods does not include Gods who will help in all instances EXCEPT when asked or prayed to, and will punish the needy and whiny to eternal torture."

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but our whole society seems to believe in a certain conception of God. When you're around that idea your whole life, it's not really surprising that you would appeal to that specific God when you find you have nowhere else to turn.

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Agreed entirely, I was just nitpicking, but it is still naive and incorrect to do so. Maybe we should warn people of this? It seems cavalierly allowing them to pray when they are about to die, when that may be the very thing that kills them, is inhumane.

Really, I just think its silly and wrong to consider the act of prayer as "possibly good, but at the least benign." If it has ANY possibility of creating some positive outcome through intervention, it has that EXACT SAME probability of creating some negative outcome through intervention. So, prayer is either entirely benign or potentially harmful.

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I think the probability of some sort of Judeo-Christian God is much higher than the probability of some other random God. Although we don't have good "evidence" for any Gods, there have been several very influential prophets who claim to have a message from the same God. I haven't seen any stories about people who claim to be from some other God and are even remotely as successful/popular.

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I think this is very wrong, and I'd be curious to see you defend your assigned probabilities. The evidence of our prophets and the types of gods they describe is evidence of nothing more than the common tendencies, weakness and proclivities of human beings. The things we fear are more or less constant, as are the things we value, so it is no surprise that many of our gods have similar characteristics. None of this gives any reason to believe that Allah is more likely that Loki or Zeus or any of the prankster gods.