Power of prayer and side note on the effort to hide it from the mainstream

[408Mike]

fact: religious ppl tend to be less educated

in other words mike

mike, you are idiot, ok

While I agree with you that in most cases, religious sorts have less education / lower IQ, there are exceptions, and in fact, people with multiple degrees and high IQ who have come to believe in a higher power. The problem with making assertions about god or god's supposed interventions into the human experience is that there is simply no way to prove them. Nor should there be. Spiritual communion with god is based in faith, and the essence of faith is placing one's reliance in that which cannot be proven. That is what makes it faith - if it was fact, everyone would believe.

It is absolutely a waste of time to preach to people on an Internet forum about the power of prayer... unless you happen to catch someone reading who is searching. Then perhaps, you have accomplished something. But doubtless, that person's search would have led them to the answers they were seeking anyway... so Mike, I ask you, is is worth the derision and abuse?

I myself have many questions, both about the origins of life, and about the way things work today. If there is a higher power, one must ask why there is irrational sufferring, and why some are born into horrendous circumstances including biological disfigurement, abuse, and extreme poverty, while others are handed a red carpet existence. Surely a god who loved all of his creation would not sit idly by allowing such injustice.

However, the answer to the question "why do bad things happen to good people" may be simpler than we imagine.

Picture if you will, a higher power whose first and primary directive is Love. If this being chooses to make a creation whose core purpose is to Love their creator, he cannot manufacture them in such a way that they are robotic, or BOUND to love him. This is because of the nature of love itself. Love is chosen, not forced. If it is not chosen by free will, it is not love. Consider then, the choices for this creator entity. He must make the creation with free will, or they will never truly love. In giving them free will, he must also allow them to destroy and corrupt everything they touch. For if he changes/controls any aspect of their ability to choose, he eradicates the pureness of their ability to love.

This is the human condition, and with it, all the flaws. No it doesn't explain natural disasters, tsunamis, and earthquakes. It does not explain why children are born with no arms or legs. I am not brilliant enough to offer you an explanation for that, and I tend to think it can only be explained by accepting the cold, irrational, chaotic nature of the universe. But it you were bent on finding a higher power and making a case for it, it does explain why a loving god would allow us to run amok, destroy the environment, and treat one another like shit. It also explains why he would perhaps not make it completely irrefutable that he is real. If there was absolutely NO doubt, you'd follow him out of fear/subservience/law rather than love.

I do not claim to have any of the answers. I am just considering all the possiilities, even the ones that science is not mature enough yet to explain.

Absolutely brilliant and in many ways what I had hoped my fingers would produce.

Thank you for that.

Key points on the issue of free will, vnicely done.

[Suicide King]

Holy fuck this fucking depresses the living shit out of me. I was just waiting for vwls to come in with her loving stance on this fairytale bullshit and Grapes drool all over it like its pure poetry. Grapes is only doing god talk here because Scooter raped his fucking face off at skatz.

[408Mike]

Holy fuck this fucking depresses the living shit out of me. I was just waiting for vwls to come in with her loving stance on this fairytale bullshit and Grapes drool all over it like its pure poetry. Grapes is only doing god talk here because Scooter raped his fucking face off at skatz.

You need a dictionary handy and two cups of coffee just to muster the mental fortitude to write the drivel above, I would hardly consider you any credible frame of reference with regard to whether or not anyone's face was raped off.

Good for comedy though.

[Jasep]

Jasep your'e so smart, what are the odds of this happening?

This is called coincidence, not divine intervention...

And surely you are smart enough to know that there are no odds attached because nothing you mentioned contains static numbers....

Mike I have come to the conclusion that you are either on something, or have something catastrophic happening in your life right now. Generally I think you are intelligent and can put together thoughts and can understand simple concepts... However, in your most recent threads you are coming across almost incoherent and bat shit crazy.

While my religious views are pretty simple (there is no man in the sky passing down judgement on all of us, and if there is then he is an asshole)

I am not going to begrudge anyone else the right to worship whatever makes them happy.

It is an interesting conversation etc, however someone in your current state should not be championing any causes because you are making the efforts you are standing behind come across much worse simply by your involvement...

Not being a troll or any of that bullshit, just being honest with you, if something is going on and you need some help or something than hit up someones PM box (mine included) and maybe it can be worked out.

[Suicide King]

your face was raped off by scooter. That is just a cold hard fact

[JACKDANIELS]

its funny that the only people who agree with mike are vwls and somebody who thinks the moon landings were faked

[408Mike]

your face was raped off by scooter. That is just a cold hard fact

yeah who told you?

[hutmaster]

Real cute to watch you vultures circle. This is why unrepentant sinners go to hell- if not for that process, we'd just have earth 2.0 after we die.

And thus, here on pfa, we have donkdown 2.0

Nice to see you guys take some bad wording and run it for eeeeeevery millimeter you can.

Drop an object and measure it's acceleration and you can measure how much gravity is at play. Obviously, thus you have "proof" though you cannot see gravity, touch it weigh it etc. Granted, it's not taken on faith nearly to the degree say luck or faith in God for example, and in truth probably not an equitable example.

Anyway if a church congregation prays in massive amounts and produces multiple miracles for the same few people, impossible miracles, I believe I am correct in drawing a conclusion that prayer had a measurable effect on the outcome. SCIENCE CERTAINLY REFUSES TO GIVE ONE, Doyles doctors said what happened is impossible, so how much more impossible are the FOUR miracles altogether? I didn't say a person prayed and the microwave worked one cold winter night and thus the kids had dinner that night, I said FOUR VERY REAL VERIFIED MIRACLES HAPPENED. That is significant.

When some idiot woman wins the jackpot on the same machine two-three times in a row, and says the machine is lucky for her, how quick are most of you to say "what that's bullshit! luck isn't real" but then how do you explain mathematically impossible situations? Like millions and millions to one hitting several times for the same lady? If it's not luck, what the fuck is it? Most gamblers are more open minded than you all though, and they can embrace a thing like luck, especially because money is involved. But it's no weirder to believe in a higher power when praying for a sick man his wife and their daughter produces 4 FOUR count them FOUR actual miracles in a short (relatively) period of time.

The woman winning the slot jackpot is PROBABLY lucky. You might say Doyle was just lucky as well, but offering to believe something like luck with no proof begs the question why then can't you believe in God and prayer with no proof? Hmm. If he might be lucky, equally likely the prayer helped correct? Or are you people willing to stand and say luck and faith are not equal and that one is much easier to believe in than the other?

I obviously used a bad analogy, and shame on your jerks for pouncing on me knowing damn well I know what the hell gravity is. No one wants to really talk about the issue at hand, why I made the thread in the first place, you bloodthirsty vultures just want scraps off the scraps of the vulture next to you.

Within a year the 5 core posters left standing will probably just sit around making dupes of me and pretend my dupe is tilting and bump old threads pretending they don't miss the good ol days.

Shameful is what you all are. And ignorant sadly, shamefully ignorant.

link to woman ever hitting 2+ million-1 jackpot 3 times in a row?

Edit: I also don't want to even get in to explaining variance and probability here either... Pray if you want to pray Mike, but it is nothing more than a placebo effect.

Actually according to the study I wrote about earlier, that Mike has ignored, the control group that knew people were praying for them did WORSE than groups that did or did not have people praying for them and didn't know if they were or weren't being prayed for.

[curt8105]

I'll start by saying I am undecided on this issue and have been back in forth with my opinion many times. With that said nobody can prove or disprove the existence of God. That is why it is called faith. Even if you choose to believe in God your just getting started because now you have to sort through all the mess man has created around the subject to figure out which God it is.

Mike intelligently stated his opinion and facts. To simply scoff at him and call him an idiot shows a lack of ability to think for yourself.

As far as religious people being uneducated... that makes me laugh! History shows that the institutionally "educated" people of today will become the biggest fools of tomorrow. Beliefs and science are constantly changing based on what concepts human beings can wrap their little minds around.

I find it funny that so many people find it so impossible to believe that there is a higher power that created life and the universe itself but they can believe that it all happened on accident over billions of years of chemical reactions... but wait where do those chemicals come from to begin with??? What came first the chicken or the egg??? The ROCK of course!!! Evolution is a theory with many many leaks. I find theories of a creator to be much more believable.

People as a species would do better if they started thinking for themselves instead of relying on media and institutions to "educate" them and brain wash them with clouded opinions in the process.

For example here is something to think about for yourself and I'm sure there will be plenty of scoffers at this comment. Do you really believe that people had the technology to go to the moon in the 1960's? Before the VCR, cell phones, PCs or the cassette tape? If you really believe that then surely with all the technological advances it should be 1000 times easier to reach the moon now! So why the fuck have we not felt the need or desire to go back in the last 50 years? I mean by now we should be able to take weekend trips there right??? Mainstream thinking is often false information. The world today is controlled by media and it influences the way EVERYBODY thinks. In the history of the world people have never been so utterly controlled as we are today. Our thoughts, our actions... even whether or not we can PLAY A GAME OF FUCKING CARDS ON THE INTERNET! But to a degree we all accept and embrace this out of comfort and security so it is our own damn faults! But for fuck sake people don't mock someone who has developed their own opinion, intelligently states it and has the BALLS to do so knowing he will be mocked! You will learn far more from listening to such people than you ever will from an institutional learning center.

You do realize that nearly all of those technologies had a strong role in the space program and were largely developed as a result. In fact nearly all recent technological advances have roots in both the space program and military research. So actually your example makes total sense to anyone who has watched the evolution of technology.

As for going back to the moon... I suppose you can always go with Gingrich...

Gingrich is an idiot (Ron Paul 2012!!!), however if we had really landed on the moon in the 60s his "space colony" should have and would have been a real initiative in the 70s rather than just Hollywood. It's human nature. You discover or visit something new then you colonize it and kill anyone who might already be there! You don't forget about it even though it becomes infinitely easier to go back again...

As far as gravity goes you can measure it but we really don't understand it. Newtons "laws" were turned upside down when Einstein came out with his theory of relativity. The scientific community scoffed at him until they came to except his theory. Newtons formulas are still used and work for simply gravitational calculations but they lack on the wider spectrum. Even Einsteins formulas are not 100% accurate.

Be it gravity, the world being flat ect all truth goes through 3 stages. First it is ridiculed then it is violently opposed then it becomes self evident and is accepted.

Is God such a truth? IDK but I'm not going to go out of my way to piss him off just in case. But then again I'm just an uneducated peckerwood who didn't even get my 10th grade.

[SixToedPete]

I've clashed with 408Mike in other threads but, other than his proselytizing here, I agree with him 100% in this one.

Prayer and meditation have been guiding forces in my life. I have no doubt group prayer can work wonders.

The ridicule heaped upon 408Mike concerned me. Had it been directed towards me I would have let it roll off my back for I know prayer and meditation works.

Instead of arguing I would leave the Philistines with a twist on trial lawyer Jerry Spence's famous closing argument final plea about a boy with the bird in his hands.

Before I leave you I want to share with you a story I tell in nearly every case. It's about transferring the responsibility of the case from us, on behalf of little Polly and her parents, to you, the jury.

It's a story of a wise old man and a smart-aleck boy who wanted to show up the wise old man as a fool.

One day this boy caught a small bird in the forest. The boy had a plan. He brought the bird, cupped between his hands, to the old man. His plan was to say, "Old man, what do I have in my hands?" to which the old man would answer, "You have a bird, my son." Then the boy would say, "Old man, is the bird alive or is it dead?" If the old man said the bird was dead, the boy would open his hands and the bird would fly freely back to the forest. But if the old man said the bird was alive, then the boy would crush the little bird, and crush it, and crush it until it was dead.

So the smart-aleck boy sauntered up to the old man and said, "Old man, what do I have in my hands?" And the old man said, "You have a bird, my son." Then the boy said with a malevolent grin, "Old man, is the bird alive or is it dead?"

And the old man, with sad eyes, said, "The bird is in your hands, my son."

And so, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, "the case of little Polly is in yours."

And so my fellow degenerates, the power of prayer is in your hands. Crush it or let it free to help you and others.

[Slim T]

I've clashed with 408Mike in other threads but, other than his proselytizing here, I agree with him 100% in this one.

Prayer and meditation have been guiding forces in my life. I have no doubt group prayer can work wonders.

The ridicule heaped upon 408Mike concerned me. Had it been directed towards me I would have let it roll off my back for I know prayer and meditation works.

Instead of arguing I would leave the Philistines with a twist on trial lawyer Jerry Spence's famous closing argument final plea about a boy with the bird in his hands.

Before I leave you I want to share with you a story I tell in nearly every case. It's about transferring the responsibility of the case from us, on behalf of little Polly and her parents, to you, the jury.

It's a story of a wise old man and a smart-aleck boy who wanted to show up the wise old man as a fool.

One day this boy caught a small bird in the forest. The boy had a plan. He brought the bird, cupped between his hands, to the old man. His plan was to say, "Old man, what do I have in my hands?" to which the old man would answer, "You have a bird, my son." Then the boy would say, "Old man, is the bird alive or is it dead?" If the old man said the bird was dead, the boy would open his hands and the bird would fly freely back to the forest. But if the old man said the bird was alive, then the boy would crush the little bird, and crush it, and crush it until it was dead.

So the smart-aleck boy sauntered up to the old man and said, "Old man, what do I have in my hands?" And the old man said, "You have a bird, my son." Then the boy said with a malevolent grin, "Old man, is the bird alive or is it dead?"

And the old man, with sad eyes, said, "The bird is in your hands, my son."

And so, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, "the case of little Polly is in yours."

And so my fellow degenerates, the power of prayer is in your hands. Crush it or let it free to help you and others.

hey

i done feel reel sorry for you pete - i aint gone pray for you cause it is a total waste of a humans time - but i will be scared of you and others that done be like you cause the prayer people end up killing other peoples that aint like prayin and the prayers end up touching the kids where theys pee a lot more than the averge male/female - religion done puked on the world forever - i done gotted sick of seein it everwhere hurling on everthing and all -

slim t

[Crowe Diddly]

I've clashed with 408Mike in other threads but, other than his proselytizing here, I agree with him 100% in this one.

Prayer and meditation have been guiding forces in my life. I have no doubt group prayer can work wonders.

I can totally agree with this. The problem, for me, starts when Mike began with the gravity bullshit, and about "impossible" things happening. (Friendly reminder: impossible things don't happen. If they actually do happen, then they weren't impossible to begin with, or circumstances changed to make it possible. Just because you don't think something is possible, doesn't make it so.) The power of prayer and meditation and things of that nature, that can be some amazing stuff. Its all the bullshit used to justify it that can be irritating, and Mike when straight into bullshit-mode in this thread. Cut and paste stories from the bio section of a gambler's strategy book and tell me I can't refute it? Go fuck yourself with that asinine bullshit. And then you try to sell me on how the "truth" is being covered up by the mainstream and how Mike's God's getting a bad rap from society and how his mystical truth is as true and concrete as the stuff we can actually prove, he just knows it is, hell it must be look at what happened to Doyle and his family and the "incurable" cancer and a Doctor (Good Lord, a Doctor for christ's sake) said it was a miracle from God so it must be...

Mike claims to be very intelligent, yet time and again, he makes quite long, rambling posts that defy you to believe his intelligence. Much like God himself, I guess, Mike's intelligence must be taken on faith, rather than actual proof.

[Muck Ficon]

Mike claims to be very intelligent, yet time and again, he makes quite long, rambling posts that defy you to believe his intelligence.

I always get a good laugh when Mike tries to use a new word, and then uses it wrong. Those epic fuck ups will be "distilled" in my mind forever.

[SixToedPete]

I've clashed with 408Mike in other threads but, other than his proselytizing here, I agree with him 100% in this one.

Prayer and meditation have been guiding forces in my life. I have no doubt group prayer can work wonders.

The ridicule heaped upon 408Mike concerned me. Had it been directed towards me I would have let it roll off my back for I know prayer and meditation works.

Instead of arguing I would leave the Philistines with a twist on trial lawyer Jerry Spence's famous closing argument final plea about a boy with the bird in his hands.

Before I leave you I want to share with you a story I tell in nearly every case. It's about transferring the responsibility of the case from us, on behalf of little Polly and her parents, to you, the jury.

It's a story of a wise old man and a smart-aleck boy who wanted to show up the wise old man as a fool.

One day this boy caught a small bird in the forest. The boy had a plan. He brought the bird, cupped between his hands, to the old man. His plan was to say, "Old man, what do I have in my hands?" to which the old man would answer, "You have a bird, my son." Then the boy would say, "Old man, is the bird alive or is it dead?" If the old man said the bird was dead, the boy would open his hands and the bird would fly freely back to the forest. But if the old man said the bird was alive, then the boy would crush the little bird, and crush it, and crush it until it was dead.

So the smart-aleck boy sauntered up to the old man and said, "Old man, what do I have in my hands?" And the old man said, "You have a bird, my son." Then the boy said with a malevolent grin, "Old man, is the bird alive or is it dead?"

And the old man, with sad eyes, said, "The bird is in your hands, my son."

And so, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, "the case of little Polly is in yours."

And so my fellow degenerates, the power of prayer is in your hands. Crush it or let it free to help you and others.

hey

i done feel reel sorry for you pete - i aint gone pray for you cause it is a total waste of a humans time - but i will be scared of you and others that done be like you cause the prayer people end up killing other peoples that aint like prayin and the prayers end up touching the kids where theys pee a lot more than the averge male/female - religion done puked on the world forever - i done gotted sick of seein it everwhere hurling on everthing and all -

slim t

Thanks for your thoughts 'Slim T'. Please remember that I mentioned my disagreement with proselytizing. I made no remarks about organized religion.

[408Mike]

I've clashed with 408Mike in other threads but, other than his proselytizing here, I agree with him 100% in this one.

Prayer and meditation have been guiding forces in my life. I have no doubt group prayer can work wonders.

I can totally agree with this. The problem, for me, starts when Mike began with the gravity bullshit, and about "impossible" things happening. (Friendly reminder: impossible things don't happen. If they actually do happen, then they weren't impossible to begin with, or circumstances changed to make it possible. Just because you don't think something is possible, doesn't make it so.) The power of prayer and meditation and things of that nature, that can be some amazing stuff. Its all the bullshit used to justify it that can be irritating, and Mike when straight into bullshit-mode in this thread. Cut and paste stories from the bio section of a gambler's strategy book and tell me I can't refute it? Go fuck yourself with that asinine bullshit. And then you try to sell me on how the "truth" is being covered up by the mainstream and how Mike's God's getting a bad rap from society and how his mystical truth is as true and concrete as the stuff we can actually prove, he just knows it is, hell it must be look at what happened to Doyle and his family and the "incurable" cancer and a Doctor (Good Lord, a Doctor for christ's sake) said it was a miracle from God so it must be...

Mike claims to be very intelligent, yet time and again, he makes quite long, rambling posts that defy you to believe his intelligence. Much like God himself, I guess, Mike's intelligence must be taken on faith, rather than actual proof.

"Mike claims to be very intelligent, yet time and again, he makes quite long, rambling posts that defy you to believe his intelligence. Much like God himself, I guess, Mike's intelligence must be taken on faith, rather than actual proof."

I finally found a sig worthy post on pfa, the occasion is long overude. Good work son, there is actually a future for you here.

[408Mike]

testing testing

[RichardBrodiesCombover.]

testing testing

Mike, is using whey shakes as a diet substitute a good option?

[408Mike]

Houston, we have ignition!

[RichardBrodiesCombover.]

[408Mike]

Mike claims to be very intelligent, yet time and again, he makes quite long, rambling posts that defy you to believe his intelligence.

I always get a good laugh when Mike tries to use a new word, and then uses it wrong. Those epic fuck ups will be "distilled" in my mind forever.

I used the word distilled correctly, don't blame me because your inbred family hardwired stupid into your lolcritical thinking processes and thus words have to be kept simple and with only one meaning.

In my contextual usage, the act of distillery is essentially one of taking a mixture (paragraph) of many parts (different words and ideas) and filtering out some unwanted parts (words and/or ideas again) and thus arriving at a conclusion containing, a distilled version of what was originally said.

I'm sorry you have to be so stupid, It's a shame really. I felt enough sympathy to ignore your original idiotic statement about my correct use of the word a while back which you probably thought I had forgotten about (gl with that), but you left me no choice here.

Run along and be a good little hick, and maybe people will not pile on, but only if you walk away now. Quote this post at your own risk.