Refuting God is Imaginary: Proof 4

                                                      +APJM+

THE ANGEL POSSENTI:

This refutation is going to work a little different because if you read the article this post is debunking (for the article, click here) there isn't much to it so I'm not going to put much in this, but here we go all the same:

Notice what happens when anyone is "miraculously cured". A person is sick, the person prays (or a prayer circle prays for the person) and the person is cured. A religious person looks at it and says, "God performed a miracle because of prayer!" That is the end of it.

(Not quite. That depends on what is meant by miracle: they could just mean praising God for instilling in man the capacity and concern for others to treat people. But if it meant full blown, no explanation from science or medicine, then it must be investigated before it can be called a miracle.)

A scientist looks at it in a very different way. A scientist looks at it and says, "Prayer had nothing to do with it - there is a natural cause for what we see here. If we understand the natural cause, then we can heal many more people suffering from the same condition."

(Except science has now admitted prayer does have benefits.)

In other words, it is only by assuming that the belief in prayer is a superstition and therefore God is imaginary that science can proceed.

(Really? All the people on these two lists would disagree with you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jesuit_scientists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_scientists

The writer then goes on to talk about how antibiotics were discovered but the story he tells omits two important facts:
-both scientists involved in the discovery were Christians
-Both universities involved were founded by Christianity.

They determined what was actually happening through experimentation and then made useful medicines from the mold. They took a rational approach rather than a religious approach and we all benefit from penicillin and its many derivatives today."
(Except what we now call the scientific method was invented by a Christian).


The reason why scientists must assume that God is imaginary in order for the scientific method to work is because God is imaginary.
(Use circular reasoning much? Besides, there is a book out there that looks at what scientists actually think of the religion and science debate. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but as soon as I do, I'll put highlights of it on here).

Here's another refutation of God is Imaginary: click here.

Yet another proof that atheists are idiots.

Refuting God is Imaginary: Proof 3

                                                      +AJPM+

THE ANGEL POSSENTI:

I know it's been awhile since I've looked at that sorry excuse of a website called godisimaginary.com, but I think it's about time to take apart some of its bogus arguments again. Once again, the rest of this post will be from an article with my refutations in red. To prove this is the real article from the website, click here. 

The belief in "god" seems to be ubiquitous through the ages.

(Funny how no civilization based itself on atheism, isn't it?)

We know, for example, that the ancient Egyptians believed in their gods so fervently that they built massive structures like the Great Pyramid -- still today one of the largest and most enduring human constructions ever created. Despite that fervor, however, we know with complete certainty today that the Egyptian gods were imaginary. There is no evidence of their existence. Thus we do not build pyramids anymore and we do not mummify our leaders.

(Yeah…ancient Egyptians did build giant pyramids, but they were built as tombs for the pharaohs, not as temples. They stopped being built after Egypt stopped having pharaohs.)

More recently we know that tens of millions of Romans worshiped Jupiter and his friends, and to them they built magnificent temples. The ruins of these temples are popular tourist attractions even today. Yet we know with complete certainty that these gods were imaginary. There is no evidence for their existence and thus no one worships Zeus any more.

(You might have noticed Jupiter and Zeus were both used here, despite the fact ancient Romans didn't use the name Zeus; ancient Greeks did.)

Much more recently, we know that the Aztec civilization believed in their gods so intensely that they constructed huge temples and pyramids. In addition, Aztecs were so zealous that they were sacrificing hundreds of human beings to their gods as recently as the 16th century. Despite the intensity, however, we know today that these gods were completely imaginary. The Aztecs were insane to be murdering people for their gods. Killing a person has no effect on rainfall or anything else. We all know that. And there is no evidence whatsoever demonstrating that the Aztec gods exist. If the Aztec gods were real, we would still be offering sacrifices to them and these sacrifices would be effective.

(Notice the writer can't make up his mind: on one hand, he seems to say if there was evidence of them, we would still be worshipping them but on the other, given the author's attitude towards transcendent realities, would that be true in his case?)

Today's "God" is just as imaginary as were these historical gods. The fact that millions of people worship a god is meaningless.

(That statement is nothing more than a gambler's fallacy. It's no different than if I were to claim I tossed a coin three times, it landed heads all three times, and thus the fourth toss will also render a head. Also, following what little logic is used here, does that mean I'm free to dismiss what atheists say because they're so few of them?)

The "God" and the "Jesus" that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. 

(Wrong. That idea has been dismissed long ago)

The idea of a "virgin birth", "burial in a rock tomb", "resurrection after 3 days" and "eating of body and drinking of blood" had nothing to do with Jesus.

(Name one other person this could apply to. Sorry: dumb question as you will soon see)

 All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions.

(Oh, spare me. Even the ancient Romans never made that accusation, and they accused Christians of many things.)

 As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals and beliefs in order to be more palatable to converts. You can find accounts like these in popular literature:

• "The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual - the miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating" - were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions.

(Yeah, I can quote The DaVinci Code too, but that doesn't change the fact all these claims have been dismissed as junk history.)

• "Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans."

(The earliest known record of Mithra worship dates SEVERAL DECADES after Christianity. There is no record of December 25th having anything to do with Mithra, he came from a rock--not a rock tomb--, and no resurrection story is involved. I also find it odd that although the writer uses Wikipedia as a source material, it disagrees with him when it comes to the other two points.)

his article points out that, "It has been noted since antiquity, and in modern scholarship since the 19th century, that Jesus Christ has striking parallels to other deities worshipped in Hellenistic religion, specifically to the cult of Dionysus in the Greek mystery religions and with the Buddha." The article goes on to demonstrate striking similarities between Christianity and the religions that came before it.

(It does no such thing. The quote cited isn't in the article, but this one is:

A number of parallels have been drawn between the Christian views of Jesus and other religious or mythical domains.^[5][1] However, Eddy and Boyd state that there is no evidence of a historical influence by the pagan myths such as dying and rising gods on the authors of the New Testament, and most scholars agree that any such historical influence is entirely implausible given that first centurymonotheistic Galilean Jews would not have been open to pagan stories.)

It is extremely hard for a Christian believer to process this data, but nonetheless it is true.

(HA! As the guard said to King Arthur in Holy Grail: "pull the other one.)

 All of the "sacred rituals" of Christianity, and all of Christianity's core beliefs (virgin birth, resurrection, etc.) come straight from other religions that were popular around the time of Jesus. 

(Except for all the REAL evidence that says otherwise.)

Articles like this and this can help you learn more. Once you understand the fundamental truth of Christianity's origins, the silliness of the whole thing becomes apparent.

(The this and this refer to either a wiki article that's dubious at best, and an another article filled with junk history.)

Obviously the pagan believers, from whom Christianity derived its myths, worshiped gods that were imaginary. If Gods such as Horus, Ra, Mithras, etc. were real, we would have proof of their existence and everyone would be following those gods. 

(My guess is people like you would come up with any bogus excuse to not do anything.)

Our "God" and "Jesus" today are simply extensions of these imaginary forerunners. Therefore God is imaginary.

(Wrong. We'd just dismiss what you said as a gambler's fallacy. You fail.)

Refuting God is Imaginary: Point #3

All credit goes to http://gii.josiahconcept.org.

The thrust of this proof is that no one worships the deities of historical Egypt, Greece, Rome, Aztec, or any other culture. We know that these deities are imaginary, GII asserts, because no one worships them anymore.
Really, that's how GII thinks it can prove that these deities never existed. If no one worships them anymore, then they must be imaginary. The actual words of the website:

• . . . we know with complete certainty today that the Egyptian gods were imaginary. We don't build pyramids anymore and we do not mummify our leaders. 
• Yet we know with complete certainty that these gods were imaginary because no one worships Zeus any more. 
• If the Aztec gods were real, we would still be offering sacrifices to them. 

GII goes on to say that "The fact that millions of people worship a god is meaningless." However, this completely contradicts the point that they are trying to make. They connected lack of continuing worship to the existence of a deity, then proceed to say that the number of worshipers is meaningless. This is a serious contradiction.
But it just gets worse from there. GII then repeats the discredited theory that Christianity was borrowed from pagan myths. The site offers two quotations from "popular literature" that make this exact point, however there is no citation offered as to where these may have come from.
Even if the pagan copycat theory wasn't completely discredited, there is still one additional problem. This proof is completely incoherent! The argument flows like this:

1. Many, many historical gods have no worshipers today.
2. No worshipers means that the god doesn't exist, otherwise it would still command worship.
3. Millions of people worship the God of the Bible and Jesus, but number of worshipers is irrelevant to the existence of a god.
4. The story of Jesus is borrowed from pagan myths.
5. The pagan myths are untrue per (1) and (2).
6. Therefore, God is imaginary.

The problem is that (3) must be true for (6) to follow from (4) and (5), but if (3) is true then (1) and (2) are false. Either (1) and (2) are true, or (3) is true. All three points cannot be true at the same time, but all three are required to be true in order for (6) to be a logical conclusion.

Another proof atheists are idiots.

Refuting "God is Imaginary": Point #2

Sorry I haven't had time to post on here for some time, but I have been putting together an escape plan from the coming destruction of America thanks to Obama Care. This post is resuming my refutation of God is Imaginary. Since I don't have time for a full essay, instead I'll put together some refutations along with the original article. My comments are in brackets and italicized.
 
"The fact is, God never answers any prayers. The entire idea that "God answers prayers" is an illusion created by human imagination

[What type of prayers is he talking about? Prayers to saints? Prayers for the dead? Contemplative prayer?  If it is any of these, you're not supposed to get an answer. If he's not talking about any of these, then he's misguided, as we will soon see.]

How do we know that "answered prayers" are illusions? We simply perform scientific experiments. We ask a group of believers to pray for something and then we watch what happens.

[In theory, that might make sense but in practice, atheists often dismiss confirmed studies or facts that don't agree with them. Why? Mostly, because they claim the study was biased somehow. Let's ignore how you're supposed to refute what they're saying and not attacking the person making them and let's move on.]

 What we find, whenever we test the efficacy of prayer scientifically, is that prayer has zero effect: 

• It does not matter who prays.
• It does not matter if we pray to God, Allah, Vishnu, Zeus, Ra or any other human god.
• It does not matter what we pray about.

If we perform scientific, double-blind tests on prayer, and if the prayers involve something concrete and measurable (for example, healing people with cancer), we know that there is zero effect from prayer."

[That is a complete lie. Studies have shown prayer does help people recover faster after surgery, help them have less mental and physical problems, and have better life outlook.] 

 "Every single "answered prayer" is nothing more than a coincidence."

[This depends what is meant by coincidence. Is it coincidence that a bell rings and you hear a sound or you eat and you get less hungry with each bite? While those might be more cause and affect then coincidence, consider the mathematical improbabilities to alternative explanations. This will come into play a little later.]

Both scientific experiments and your everyday observations of the world show this to be the case every single time.

For example, this article says:

One of the most scientifically rigorous studies yet, published earlier this month, found that the prayers of a distant congregation did not reduce the major complications or death rate in patients hospitalized for heart treatments.

And:

A review of 17 past studies of ''distant healing," published in 2003 by a British researcher, found no significant effect for prayer or other healing methods.

This article from March, 2006 discusses the fact that the same conclusion was reached in another study:

In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications. 

 

[Interesting but suffers from one major problem: if he is so quick to dismiss prayer because it's "just a coincidence", couldn't an equal and better case be made that prayer not working is just a coincidence or would that be too biased for atheist's taste?]

In this article we find an amazing quote where theologians and religious leaders declare that prayer has no actual effect:

Religious leaders will breathe a sigh of relief at the news that so-called intercessory prayer is medically ineffective. In a large and much touted scientific study, one group of patients was told that strangers would pray for them, a second group was told strangers might or might not pray for them, and a third group was not prayed for at all. The $2.4 million study found that the strangers' prayers did not help patients' recovery. 

[A very misleading statement from an ill informed article. The only people they mention are Paul Tillich and Karl Barth. Both were theologians but neither were ever considered religious leaders. The quote is from the article's author, not from a religious leader. I like the part where it claims the Lord's Prayer doesn't ask God to intervene in human affairs....except for that whole "lead us not into temptation" thing.]

This is a remarkable example of "positive spin" -- religious leaders are "breathing a sigh of relief" because prayer has been shown to be meaningless. The fact that prayer is a total waste of time does not matter to them. 

[ If anything, his article is total waste of time. While the jury overall is still out as to whether prayer's effects can be proven by strict science, here's what we do so far:

1. A study in British Medical Journal in 2001 showed by praying a rosary,  baroreflex sensitivity increased significantly in cardiovascular patients. 

2. Another 2008 study showed higher levels of prayer were associated with better mental health as measured by lower psychoticism scores.

3. A 2001 study by Meisenhelder and Chandler analyzed data obtained from 1,421 Presbyterian pastors surveyed by mail and found that their self-reported frequency of prayer was well-correlated with their self-perception of health and vitality. 

Do these sound like a waste of time to you?]

It does not matter that all of Jesus' promises about prayer in the Bible have been proven completely false. 

[More about this to come]

 A peer-reviewed scientific study published in 2001 did indicate that prayer works. According to this article:

"On October 2, 2001, the New York Times reported that researchers at prestigious Columbia University Medical Center in New York had discovered something quite extraordinary. Using virtually foolproof scientific methods the researchers had demonstrated that infertile women who were prayed for by Christian prayer groups became pregnant twice as often as those who did not have people praying for them. The study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Even the researchers were shocked. The study's results could only be described as miraculous."

This study was later proven to be completely fraudulent. However, everyone who cut out the original article in the NYTimes and posted it on their refrigerators still has that article as "proof" that prayer works. This article entitled A prayer before dying uncovers another case where a "scientific study" of prayer is unmasked as fraudulent.

[So what about the ones that were not fraudulent?]
The dictionary defines the word "superstition" in this way:

An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome. [ref] 

[Prayer has never been considered superstition]

 

The belief in prayer is a superstition. It has been proven scientifically over and over again.

[Except it hasn't as several verified studies have shown.]

Another proof that atheists are idiots.

Refuting God is Imaginary: #1

A response to proof #1 of God is Imaginary.

Let’s think carefully about proof #1 and see if succeeds in showing that god is imaginary. If it does, that’s big news; we’d have found out something very interesting. We may express proof #1 succinctly as follows:

• Premise 1: According to the Bible, if we ask for all cancer to be cured, it will be.
• Premise 2: But, if we ask for all cancer to be cured, it won’t be cured.
• Therefore: The God of the Bible is imaginary.

Let’s start by thinking about the logic of this argument. Suppose its premises are true. It then follows that at least some of the Bible’s statements about prayer are mistaken. But now notice that the conclusion says more than that. It says that the God of the Bible is imaginary. How does that follow from the premises? To reach that conclusion, we need an additional premise—something like this:

• Premise 3: If some of the Bible’s statements about prayer are mistaken, then the God of the Bible is imaginary.

Now it’s worth pointing out that the author of proof #1 doesn’t even discuss anything like Premise 3. It appears to be a background assumption. But for the proof to succeed, Premise 3, or something like it, needs to be demonstrated. Otherwise, the argument is logically invalid: the conclusion doesn’t follow from its premises.
My sense is that the vast majority of people would find Premise 3 implausible. After all, it seems perfectly possible for a morally perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing being described by the Bible to be real whether or not the Bible itself makes mistakes. So, Premise 3 is questionable (to say the least).
Someone might reply that perhaps “the God of the Bible” just means “the God that would exist if the entire Bible were true.” In that case, Premise 3 would be axiomatic. However, then the conclusion would be compatible with there being a perfectly good, all-powerful, and all-knowing being. And certainly any argument that’s compatible with there being a perfectly good, all-powerful, and all-knowing being is not an argument that God is imaginary.
So, if proof #1 is indeed an argument that God is imaginary, then it relies on a dubious premise; therefore, proof #1 fails to establish its conclusion. It seems, then, that reflective truth-seekers wouldn’t be moved by it.
We could stop here. The proof fails to establish what it claims to establish.
But the proof fails in more ways than one. According to this proof, the Bible’s statements on prayer imply that God would cure all of cancer on account of our prayers. But the proof fails to rule out (or even consider) the following possibility: background conditions on prayer are implicit in the text.
Consider that according to Matthew’s account, Jesus says, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.” He goes on: “not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39).
And elsewhere, he says, “This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven… your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9-10).
It appears that Jesus thinks prayers must be possible to answer (so, no asking for square circles). And prayers must accord with God’s will.
Why, then, does Jesus say that “everyone who asks receives”? A standard answer, which proof #1 fails to address, is that background conditions on prayer are implicit and would have been understood by his audience. Indeed, that’s exactly what Jesus’ earliest followers thought: the Johanine text says that we know that we have what we ask for if we ask according to his will (John 5:14-15).
Now it certainly does seem good for all cancer to be cured. But the crucial question is this: could God instantly cure all cancer without thereby forfeiting a higher good? That’s a difficult question, and proof #1 doesn’t even attempt to answer it.
For all that proof #1 says, it may be that our fighting against cancer with mental and physical energy forges courage, compassion, and unique and special relationships between everlasting beings. What if some cancer allows us to become heroes in loving others? More generally, what if a finite stage of suffering can act as a means to certain everlasting bonds of love that far outweigh that suffering?
These are admittedly complex and difficult questions, with many books and articles devoted to them. So, if someone claims to prove that suffering cannot act as a means to outweighing goods, he better have a carefully spelled out argument to back that up; otherwise, reflective truth-seekers won’t be moved. Proof #1 offers us nothing of the sort; therefore, it fails in to establish its premises.

A Real God isn’t a Magical God

Jesus compares faith to a seed, not a magical wand. Seeds grow with time to produce fruit. There’s a process. And some methods of cultivation are more effective than others.

Truth is often complicated. Therefore, when a perfect being speaks truth, this being should sometimes speak about complex matters. What he says should sometimes baffle the simple-minded, while being discernible to the wise.

The scientific studies we have on prayer are actually compatible with a “realistic” interpretation of the biblical statements on prayer (contrary to what GII says). The only catch is this: some types of prayers appear to be more effective than others. The least effective ones seem to be prepackaged, one time prayers, from a distance for people one doesn’t know or care much about. A famous 2006 study indicates this. But when people pray fervently for people they care about, then the statistics change: such prayers have a statistical effect. Truth-seekers may wish to investigate studies referenced here and here.
Proof #1 is too simple. Its view of God is too simple. Its interpretation of Jesus’ statements is too simple. In a nutshell: it fails to address the possibility that a perfect, rational being might reveal complex layers of truth that truth-seekers may grow in their understanding of.

http://gii.josiahconcept.org/proof-1