Challenge to FrGamble

I really like the page 'God is Imaginary'. I would like
to challenge FrG that he cannot address all
50 points the author makes with any kind of
authority, without trying to cover his lack of
an argument by telling us every other paragraph
what Jesus can do for us, like that is some kind
of viable argument.

http://godisimaginary.com/

#1 on the list, praying.

The author points out all the times Jesus
says if a believer prays, he will get what
he prays for. As it turns out this isn't true
at all. He almost never gets what what
he asks. The author even gives a boatload
of ways Christians rationalize this. This
ties into #2, that prayer has been studied
by science and proven to be a complete
dud.

How does a Christian deal with this, do
they just ignore that Jesus tells them if
they pray for Aunt Jane to get better,
she will get better 100% of the time,
but when they do she rarely does? That
most of their prayers are ignored, if
not all of them, yet this goes totally against
what Jesus promised. How do they live
with this lie of Jesus, day in and day out.

Of course he never really said it, it's an
invention done much later to make him
him look like a superhero. But Christians
are told he really said it, so there you go.

I will gladly accept this challenge, in fact I find it easier than the challenge I was preparing for in responding to an earlier, better website that Dalex linked to previously. As things are a little busy right now allow me to respond in full a little later. However, I can already imagine the gist of my answer will be to correct the image of prayer that the website has taken from a few verses of rabbinic hyperbole taken literally. My answer will also address that mature and true prayer is not about getting great things, but about the greatest thing - friendship with God.

Quote: FrGamble

My answer will also address that mature and true prayer is not about getting great things, but about the greatest thing - friendship with God.

But that's not what Jesus says, is it. He's
very specific about what you get, isn't he.

Prayer has it's productive uses. It's not
much different than meditation. If you're
a student who wants better grades and
to pass tests, you may pray about it daily.
This could help you to focus on your goals
and to be more proactive in achieving them.
But realize it's you that hears your prayers,
not some entity out there who is going to
help you.

If you pray for things outside your immediate
sphere of influence, it's just random chance
that any of it will happen. You can't influence
traffic lights, or slot machines, or lottery drawings.
Or Uncle Bill's health. There is no divine being
who will make any of it happen. If it makes you
feel better to pray, no harm done. But don't
expect anything, you're just kidding yourself.

Quote: Evenbob

I really like the page 'God is Imaginary'. I would like
to challenge FrG that he cannot address all
50 points the author makes with any kind of
authority, without trying to cover his lack of
an argument by telling us every other paragraph
what Jesus can do for us, like that is some kind
of viable argument.

http://godisimaginary.com/

#1 on the list, praying.

Okay I realize that I need to just go for it and answer this and I just don't have the time to do the way in as complete a way as I was hoping.

Just the other day I was preparing a couple for marriage and of course they chose the good old verses from 1Cor. "Love is patient, love is kind, blah, blah, blah, Love never fails." After you've heard it a hundred times or so it loses its punch. What I was struck by however was the beginning of this section on the characteristics of love. The passage they chose begins with an ode to the importance of love. "If I give all that I have and have not love, I gain nothing. If I have faith to move mountains but have not love, I am nothing. A clanging gong or a clashing cymbal..."

I thought of the heart of the sayings taken so literally by many atheists purporting that it means prayer and God are imaginary. Part of the reason we run into problems if we take the teaching of Jesus about prayer literally is that it is obviously a rabbinical oratory tool of preaching that we would call exaggeration. I know for some reason the Scripture is not allowed to exaggerate and it serves an atheist's purpose much better if we turn off our brain and just read every word literally and without any reference to the rest of Scripture. However, this is not the way to come to a true understanding of this passage.

Love is the ultimate desire of our hearts, it is the one and only thing we truly want. I'm of course talking here about true love. Not the love we have for inanimate objects that provide us with entertainment, our sports or movie heroes, or some romp in the hay. I'm talking about the kind of love moves us out of selves to care for the good of the other. The type of love that would be willing to sacrifice for another and the type of love that is there for us unconditionally and forever. This is more powerful that moving a fig tree or even lifting a mountain. A follower of Jesus would know this. A follower of Jesus would also read the verses about prayer in the light of the passion and crucifixion. Surely the Lord Himself who some atheists say taught people that God was a magical fairy who would grant whatever you wish as long as you had faith, would have heard Jesus' prayer in the Garden, "Lord, take this cup away from me..." Surely Jesus would have called on the divine vending machine god to pray for something other than the forgiveness of those who were torturing Him. Why then did not God answer Jesus when He cried out, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabbachtani!"?

You see Jesus was teaching us that God will not settle for giving you the useless and weak power to lift mountains and throw them into the see. No, He will give you the power to change hearts, transform lives, and rise from the dead - this only comes through love! If you pray for a cure for cancer you might not get it, if you pray in the midst of your cancer or for someone else who has cancer to experience the love of God then Jesus guarantees that this prayer will be answered. This experience of Divine Love and Mercy is what we all truly seek and what truly we should be praying for.

Quote: FrGamble

and what truly we should be praying for.

The point of the article was not what
should you pray for, or how you
should pray. It was about prayer not
working any better than random
chance. You completely avoided that
and instead gave us a lecture on love?

Prayer doesn't work because god is
imaginary. It's very simple. Atheists
would gladly pray if there was a god
who answered them. It's abundantly
clear there isn't.

Proof #3 - Look at historical gods

The Jesus myth was stolen from other older
myths.

"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 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."

The Jesus myth is just as real as the myths
it was stolen from. Not real at all.

Quote: Evenbob

The point of the article was not what
should you pray for, or how you
should pray. It was about prayer not
working any better than random
chance.

The article used the example of curing all cancer as the evidence that prayer doesn't work. So if you change what you pray for and how you do so you will not only receive better results than random chance you will receive the guarantee that Christ speaks about. If you faithfully and truly pray to experience the Love of God in Jesus Christ you will receive that 100%.

Quote: Evenbob

Proof #3 - Look at historical gods

Hold your horses, you skipped #2. We might as well because it suffers from the same false conception of what prayer is. If you corrected the object and methods of prayer to focus on the experience of love, mercy, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, faith, and hope than these studies would report amazing numbers in regards to the success of prayer. However, these flawed impossible to measure studies cannot possibly be used as evidence that prayer is ineffective.

However, what the author glaringly omits is the countless confirmed and unexplainable miracles. It gets hard to account for the thousands of demonstrated miracles that continue to happen at Lourdes or through a saint's intercession when all you can say is it is coincidence. Maybe we could do a study about the healings that take place at an equally visited place like Niagara Falls. If the healings are just random occurrences then there should be about the same number of healings for those who visit the Falls as there would be for those who visit Lourdes.

Quote: FrGamble

If you faithfully and truly pray to experience the Love of God in Jesus Christ you will receive that 100%.

You have no evidence, it's all in your
imagination. God is imaginary.