Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

[unknown soldier]

If there's one issue that keeps apologists busy, it's the issue of unanswered prayer. Skeptics often point out that the hungry children who pray for food often die of starvation. If God exists, then why don't we see better results from prayer? Christian apologist Kyle Butt answers this question on pages 229-244 of A Christian's Guide to Refuting Modern Atheism. He explains that effective prayer must conform to the following:

1. Prayer must be "in the name of Jesus." That is, prayer must be in accord with Jesus' teachings and authority.
2. It is necessary for prayer to be in accord with God's will. God has a way of doing things that no prayer can change.
3. The person praying must believe she will receive what she requests. Otherwise, she won't receive what she requests!
4. The person praying must be a righteous person. So all you sinners, forget it!
5. Prayer won't work if the petitioner prays with selfish desires.
6. Persistence in prayer is important. One or two prayers might not be enough.

I'm eager to read what other members here have to say about these guidelines, but allow me to start out saying that if 1 is true, then anybody who is not a Christian won't benefit from prayer. I wonder if those non-Christians see that their prayers aren't doing any good.

Guideline 2 seems odd. It's like God saying: "I'll do anything you ask as long as I want to do it."

I'd say that 3 can result in a "snowball effect" which is to say that if a doubter's doubt can lead to a prayer not being answered, then the doubter might doubt even more!

Regarding 4, it seems to me that sinners need answered prayer more than the righteous.

Guideline 5 also seems odd because if you're petitioning God for something you want or need, then you are thinking of yourself, and what's wrong with that?

Finally, 6 doesn't explain why God can't just grant the petition with one prayer request, and neither does it tell us how many prayers it takes to succeed. Could it be that the person praying is praying for something that in time she'll get whether she prays or not?

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Diogenes in post #499]

It is a constant pain that apologetics keeps saying the same arguments and then complain what atheists keep making the same refutations.

[The Tanager]

Okay, let's put us some truth to my critique...

It's true, in all cases, that if does not establish truth.

Do you disagree?

I agree. I’ve never claimed, and the moral argument isn’t claiming, an if does establish truth.

Okay, let's put us some truth to my critique...

It's true, in all cases, that if does not establish truth.

Do you disagree?

My claim is that since the premises are most reasonably true, this confirms God exists. I don’t see how “since we can’t confirm a god exists” is a rational critique of that claim being a fact.

[The Tanager]

P2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.

Please demonstrate the validity of that claim.

I gave my reasons for believing that already, I think even in response to you directly. I am unaware of any further response from you. So, where do you disagree with those reasons I've given so that we can move the discussion forward instead of talking as though I haven't given any reasons and responded to each of your critiques?

[The Tanager]

1C. Moral

P1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
P2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
P3. Therefore, God exists.

From where or what did you pull that one?

From the logic of viable atheistic worldviews.

Over and over it has been shown clearly on this forum that objective or universal values come from experience and logic. Social animals learned thousands of years ago that they were better off cooperating with each other, in acting in accord with principles of reciprocity, mutual respect, cooperation and fairness. For the 9th time, we even see this in animals.

That’s not objective morality. Why is the survival of a species an objectively good thing? Why is the thriving of a species an objectively good thing? On atheism, there is no objective purpose built into reality.

This data has been given to you for years here on this forum, yet you refuse to address it and continue with your unfounded propositions like "P1" as if you can logically proceed from a faulty base. This is slovenly, amateurish logic dressed up in the emperor's clothes, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I address it every time I come across it in my discussions on this forum, as I have already in this thread. So, respond to how I address it. Respond to the reasons I have given, in this thread, supporting the premises to move the discussion forward.

First, if there was a god, the values 'he' claimed would be subjective, not objective. They would, by divine fiat, be 'his' values. There is nothing objective about that.

Theism can ground objective morality because the Creator creates humans with a specific purpose, which includes treating others in ways that help each other to flourish in regard to that purpose. Thus, there are objective ways to flourish and keep someone from flourishing.

[The Tanager]

The two things are different and yet the objectivity is the same.

I’m not sure what this means. Are the two things: (1) absolutism v. situationalism and (2) objectivism v. subjectivism? If so, what do you mean “the objectivity is the same”?

Good and evil may be (you argue) as subjective as preference in ice cream. But there again there are basics which are as near to objective as you are going to get. What contributes to human welfare is good (is the evolved instinct) given that there are disagreements about what is the best way to contribute to human welfare.

On atheistic evolutionary accounts, human welfare isn’t even objectively ‘good,’ much less what human welfare would consist in. That human welfare should be pursued is a subjective value and what human welfare means is a subjective value. So, yes, subjectivism is as close as viable atheistic worldviews can get to objectivism. That doesn’t mean other worldviews, if true, wouldn’t get us closer to objectivism. If you think otherwise, please give us good reasons to agree.

What we like in ice cream or dislike as in any other food is an (evolved) universal, though we may not agree what is the most likeable food or favour of ice cream.

What do you mean that what we like in ice cream (some chocolate, some vanilla, some nuts, some not nuts, etc.) is an evolved universal? Ice cream likes are not universal.

[JoeyKnothead]

My claim is that since the premises are most reasonably true, this confirms God exists. I don’t see how “since we can’t confirm a god exists” is a rational critique of that claim being a fact.

"Most reasonably true" ain't the same as "is true".

I point out we can't confirm a god exists cause even the best you can do is to assert such a claim is "most reasonably true".

"In news today, The Tanager was cited for jaywalking."

Now, I can be reasonably assured there's you, there's jaywalking, and some folks'll do em some of it. I can consider it "reasonably true" you're just you a jaywalking scofflaw.

But have I confirmed such to be the case? No. I rely on the reports of others, and my knowledge of such things.

In the case of "God, so objective morality", we're stuck with the reports of others, and our knowledge of such things. So in the first bit, we can't even confirm the god in question even exists, to utter an opinion on morality.

So we grant that premise - god exists. Not cause it's "most reasonably true", but just so we can consider here the rest of it. "A god has an opinion on morality" Okay, sure, we pretend a god exists, and we pretend that God has an opinion on morality.

What is that opinion? That we should all fetch about helping one another? That we should all fetch about murdering one another?

Who knows?

The god promoter knows. The god promoter's more than happy to let us all know what this god considers moral. But don't it beat all, we're stuck with that promoter's opinion of that god's opinion. We're two opinions deep before we can even analyze the moral question.

Opinions don't establish facts, nor do they establish morality. Opinions inform such, but don't create such.

This is why it's so dangerous to allow "most reasonably true" an ability to shoehorn itself into this conversation. It doesn’t establish fact, and it does nothing to confirm its proposed god has the proposed opinion your premise/s seek to propose.

Morality is, and always will be, what we, as individuals decide it to be. As individuals, we're incapable of violating our individual morality. We'll make our decisions based on the conditions of a situation. As I type, killing another human is morally offensive. Unless some human comes in and threatens the life of the pretty thing. Then all of a sudden, what's moral is killing that threatening human. I hold to my moral honor in either case. And am no hypocrite for it.

We can look at "societal morality" and see the same sorts of the above. Is it wrong to kill a human? Yes! What if that human's a-shooting him up a school full of children?

Morality is subjective, situational, bound to personal opinion. And don't it beat all, that's the objective truth.

[Diagoras]

Theism can ground objective morality because the Creator creates humans with a specific purpose, which includes treating others in ways that help each other to flourish in regard to that purpose. Thus, there are objective ways to flourish and keep someone from flourishing.

I came across the ‘grounding problem’ from watching Crash Course Philosophy on YouTube. Putting aside the validity or otherwise of ‘the Creator creates humans with a specific purpose’, I offer this blog post (particularly point #3) as a refutation of your claim that objective morality can be grounded:

https://coelsblog.wordpress.com/2013/07 ... -nonsense/

As an aside, I haven’t read the whole thread to work out how this relates to answering prayers, but I would be interested to see the debate return to that subject if others are willing.

[Diogenes]

That’s not objective morality. Why is the survival of a species an objectively good thing? Why is the thriving of a species an objectively good thing? On atheism, there is no objective purpose built into reality.

Theism can ground objective morality because the Creator creates humans with a specific purpose, which includes treating others in ways that help each other to flourish in regard to that purpose. Thus, there are objective ways to flourish and keep someone from flourishing.

This is utter nonsense. Why worship 'the creator?' Assuming this super space alien who built the Earth actually exists, why worship 'him?' Why would his claims of how we should live be considered "objective?" They are just his dictates, his subjective claim on what we should do.
Why would worshiping him and following his laws be better or more objective than the happiness and survival of the species? When it comes to objective morality, we know that even animals, including homo sapiens have discovered that cooperation, mutual respect, fairness, a sense of reciprocity help the societies they inhabit benefit, thus benefiting the individual. I've shown this over and over by listing the TED talk by Frans de Waal.


This provides a logical, reason based theory for why, objectively, certain basic morality like not lying and not stealing, and cooperating for a common good help the commonwealth of man.

Your religion based claim is subjective in the extreme. It's based solely on "Do it because God said so. Do not question it." We see this clearly in "The Binding of Isaac" where 'God' tells Abraham to murder his only son. Why? Because God said so. There is nothing rational or objective about this. It is based on purely subjective obedience to a higher power. It's morally bankrupt. It's mere obedience to a higher power.
It is anti logic, anti reason, and certainly not objective. If your God told you to murder your son, you would rebel. You would question your own reason. You would question the message and the messenger. You would KNOW there was something wrong with this demand.
Why? Because you have an objective sense of morality that supersedes the commands of some supposed 'god.' This inner sense of morality does not come from God, it comes from man, from thousands of years of experience and evolution. It gives us the good sense to say "No!" to some 'god' who tells us to kill our children.

[Diogenes]

.

[brunumb]

P2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.

Please demonstrate the validity of that claim.

I gave my reasons for believing that already, I think even in response to you directly. I am unaware of any further response from you. So, where do you disagree with those reasons I've given so that we can move the discussion forward instead of talking as though I haven't given any reasons and responded to each of your critiques?

No doubt you have. My apologies. All I can say here is that I must not have found any validity contained in your reasons for believing P2. Moving on.