> You’re just telling me you have some secret insight that’s unavailable to me and I should just trust you.

It's true that only those who know actually know. There are some things that are learned by experience and no other way. A mechanic can sometimes listen to an engine and know what's wrong. It's not a secret insight but the intuitions and assessments of someone who knows. There are people who can do that with the stock market (not me, unfortunately).

The Bible is right when it claims that it's the Holy Spirit inside of us that enables us to discern these things:

1 Cor. 2.10-15:

[quote]"these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,..."[/quote]

> I’ve asked over and over again how you can demonstrate that prayer is actually causing something to happen and you just respond by saying that you can’t prove things by science but prayer just works

Exactly. There's no science to it. I can't give you a list: "Do this and prayer will work for you." Prayer is a spiritual discipline, and God, not us, controls all the mechanisms for answers.

> but you don’t know why

I do know why prayer works. Prayer works because there really is a God who cares about us, who interacts with us, and who intervenes in our world and in our lives.

> you can’t tell me how you know that

I did tell you how I know that. I know it through coming to know God and how He works, and by years of experience in prayer.

This is one of the most blatant examples of cognitive dissonance I’ve seen. You are literally arguing against the very thing you’re trying to prove. You are taking my argument about why you’re wrong, using them against yourself and then just asserting you’re right.

Every single example you have provided proves my point and shows why you’re wrong. I really don’t know what to say at this point. You’re arguing against yourself.

You’re just telling me you have some secret insight that’s unavailable to me and I should just trust you.

I’ve asked over and over again how you can demonstrate that prayer is actually causing something to happen and you just respond by saying that you can’t prove things by science but prayer just works, but you don’t know why, or you can’t tell me how you know that.

> So there’s no way to scientifically or observationally demonstrate the effectiveness of prayers, yet you seem to have determined that they are indeed effective.

Correct, because it's not science but observation of reality that leads me to the conclusion. Science can only make scientific observations. But since we can't program God (like we can an experiment in the lab), since God is not predictably predictable (like the orbit of the planets), and since God doesn't cater to our whims (do it now so we can measure it), prayer is not the realm for science and science cannot evaluate prayer. As I mentioned, you can't use science to determined if Trump obstructed Congress, but that doesn't mean his obstruction was or was not real. It's not science but observation of reality that has to make that decision.

> I’m not understanding how you can determine it, but I can’t.

The Supreme Court is evaluating whether or not religious schools should benefit from the same governmental assets that other schools do. So, how does one determine whether such benefit falls under the establishment clause of the First Amendment? It's certainly not by science. Instead, we would determine that from people who know the field, who are familiar with how it works, and know how to interpret what they are seeing. They are able to determined things that I am not.

How does a Secret Service agent know what to look for? They are trained, and they are able to determine things that I am not. It's not a matter of science but of learning to observe reality.

How does an accountant know how to appraise a company's books? They are trained and know how to see such things, and are able to determine things that I am not.

So also with prayer. We learn the ways of God and how He does things. We study science and medicine and learn how they work. We are able to determine things that others are not. It's not a matter of science but of learning to observe reality.

Besides, from another angle, you yourself have admitted that your mostly close-minded to the whole possibility. I wouldn't think you'd be able to see things that you have already decided can't happen.

> You said, unequivocally, that there is NO way to define what an answer to prayer even looks like, but somehow you know what an answer looks like

Yes, I did say that, and I stand by it. Through experience and learning we become versed on how it works. We learn what to look for. I'm not a hunter. You take me into the woods, I'd be clueless. But take an experienced hunter into the woods, he'll see all kinds of things that I don't even know what to look for and wouldn't have recognized them as signs anyway even if I did see them. It's not that we make things up when we see answers to prayer; we've learned what to look for, things you wouldn't have realized were signs even if you did see them, and might disagree anyway, never having learned the ways of God.

> You keep telling me prayer is effective and then immediately tell me there is now way to tell if prayer is effective.

This is not a faithful rendering of what I said. Prayer is effective, but within "the will of God." If He chooses not to answer prayer, we accept that. If He chooses to answer it differently than we expected, we learn how to see that. It's not cognitive dissonance, but rather it's not in my control; I have to learn to see the "hand" and the ways of God.

So there’s no way to scientifically or observationally demonstrate the effectiveness of prayers, yet you seem to have determined that they are indeed effective. I’m not understanding how you can determine it, but I can’t. It seems like your just saying, you just know, because you know.

You said, unequivocally, that there is NO way to define what an answer to prayer even looks like, but somehow you know what an answer looks like.

When you pray, how do you determine whether it was God that answered a prayer, or that it was just a natural outcome. I would claim there is absolutely no way for you to demonstrate a difference. You can demonstrate no causation, you can’t even demonstrate a positive correlation, whereas I have shown a NEGATIVE correlation in the study I linked earlier.

You keep telling me prayer is effective and then immediately tell me there is now way to tell if prayer is effective. There’s some huge cognitive dissonance going on.

> So the first half of your response basically claimed that it is impossible to determine whether or not prayer does anything.

No, that's not what I was claiming. Instead, I was claiming that the answers to prayer cannot possibly be subject to a science experiment because (1) you can't control all the variables, (2) you can't control the control group, (3) you can't even define what counts as an answer to prayer and what doesn't, and therefore science is not the right measure to evaluate prayer's effectiveness.

> Basically, you’re just assuming prayer is effective.

No, I've observed that prayer is effective. I go by the evidence, not by assumptions. But the evidence isn't scientific evidence, and can't be, just as the question of whether or not President Trump "abused power" or "obstructed Congress" are not questions of scientific evidence but rather different kinds of arguments. Not every truth is subject to deductive reasoning.

> But most of the time when you pray nothing happens, but you discount that.

I don't discount it at all. It's part of the system God revealed that lots of times when people pray, nothing will happen. There is no expectation of anything different, according to the "rules" of the "system."

> There is absolutely no way, for you to demonstrate to me, or anyone else, that you’re prayer makes anything happen.

Even if I prayed for 10 sick people in sequence, for instance, and all 10 of them got better exactly when I prayed, you still wouldn't believe it because you could possibly concoct a natural explanation for it, but even if you couldn't, you'd never admit that prayer was the cause. You know, I don't know where to go with that except that it's an example of close-mindedness and bias.

So the first half of your response basically claimed that it is impossible to determine whether or not prayer does anything. And yet, you claim that it does. Basically, you’re just assuming prayer is effective. So, when you pray and something happens, you can claim prayer was the reason. But most of the time when you pray nothing happens, but you discount that. There is absolutely no way, for you to demonstrate to me, or anyone else, that you’re prayer makes anything happen.

> ⁠If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
> ⁠My prayer was not answered.
> ⁠Therefore God does not exist. (Q>P)

This is not what I’m saying. Maybe God exists, but you can’t show he answers prayer. I’m saying there is no demonstrable correlation between prayer and recovery. That study I linked showed that.

> Things exist and operate in a certain fashion, this is called reality.
> We use observation, testing and logic do understand what reality is and how it works.
> Based on those criteria, we can make statements about reality.

Just so you know, I agree with these, as you assumed.

> 2. He is outside of reality, so not subject to our tools of observation and testing

This is the first of two with which I disagree. God is not outside of reality, just outside of nature. God exists (your second point #1), and so He is, for the sake of argument, "real," and therefore not outside of reality. He's just not a material being, as time is not material but still exists, as well as memories, etc.

> he can interact with reality and affect it in ways we can’t understand.

I also don't fully endorse this statement. There are some ways God interacts with our natural world that we can't understand, but many of them we can. That's why the Bible was written: to interpret historical events and to show us how God interacts with the natural world and history so that we [i]can[/i] understand.

> The problem with the second set is that it tells you nothing about reality and it is impossible to demonstrate.

My contention is that the second set does indeed tell us about reality, possibly more so than history or science does. I would also contend that God is not impossible to demonstrate, it's just that He is not subject to scientific demonstration.

For instance, the Supreme Court is now hearing a case about whether Trump should hand over his financial records. You can't just say to SCOTUS, "Use science to demonstrate whether he should or shouldn't." This stuff is real, and it interacts with reality, but it's not science. That's my problem with your insistence that God be subject to scientific demonstration or He's not real.

You brought up quite a few points there. I’m going to try to simplify things so we don’t get bogged down in too many details. Basically what I understand is this:

1. Things exist and operate in a certain fashion, this is called reality.
2. We use observation, testing and logic do understand what reality is and how it works.
3. Based on those criteria, we can make statements about reality.

I would assume you’d agree with these three points. My problem is that you’re adding another few steps:

1. There is God.
2. He is outside of reality, so not subject to our tools of observation and testing.
3. Despite this, he can interact with reality and affect it in ways we can’t understand.

The glaring problem here is now we have two models for understanding reality. Now presented with some anomaly or thing you don’t understand, instead of using the tools from the first set, you can just assume the second set. The problem with the second set is that it tells you nothing about reality and it is impossible to demonstrate.

> I don’t see how that’s different? Reality behaves in a certain way, miracles contradict that certain way.

I'm not sure you know this. We define reality by "the way things usually go." So it's a bit of circular reasoning to say "reality behaves in a certain way."

The Newtonian picture of science ("the way things usually go") represents the world according to fixed laws. These laws can be thought of a reflecting the way God has made things, or the way things work without God. Obviously, the laws of nature describe what we see (that's how we derived them), but their source (God or naturalism) can't be known from science.

But the Newtonian picture is insufficient to deny God. First of all, Newton himself accepted the Newtonian picture (duh, of course), but Isaac Newton didn't accept athiesm or naturalism. Newton believed God was intimately involved. According to Newton himself, natural laws describe how the world works when, or provided that that world is a closed (isolated) system, subject to no outside causal influence. The laws work only in times of non-intervention by other forces. Sears and Zemanski, in their classical university physics text, say: "This is the [i]principle[/i] of conservation of linear momentum: [i]When[/i] no resultant external force [u]acts on a system[/u], the total momentum of the system remains constant in magnitude and direction” (italics theirs). They add that "[i]the internal energy of an isolated system remains constant. This is the most general statement of the principle of conservation of energy[/i]." In other words, "reality" as we know it only applies to isolated or closed systems. If so, however, there is nothing in them to prevent God's intervention or from His changing the velocity or direction of a particle, for instance. There's nothing to prevent God from parting the Reed Sea, changing water to wine, or even bringing someone back from the dead, for that matter, without violating the principle of conservation of energy. That's because our very definition of conservation of energy depends on the understand and praxis of a closed system.

In addition, it is not part of Newtonian mechanics or classical science generally to declare that the natural universe [i]is[/i] a closed system. You won't find that in any science text, because once you claim that, you're not doing science any more, but philosophy or theology. The question of causal closure of the physical universe could [i]never[/i] be addressed by scientific means. Classical science, therefore, doesn't assert or include causal closure. The laws ("reality") describe how things go when the universe is causally closed, subject to no outside causal influence. They don't purport to tell us how things [i]must[/i] or [i]always[/i] go. Instead, they tell us what reality is like when no agency outside the universe acts on it. Indeed, that's all science [i]can[/i] tell us.

>However, not only has he not been demonstrated to existed

There are actually quite reasonable arguments to that effect, far stronger than the arguments against (which barely, if at all, exist).

> he has also not been demonstrated to serve that function

And how would one go about demonstrating such? Do [i]you[/i] have a way of doing that? Have you thought this accusation through? What are you expecting?

>> What I'm actually saying is that too many anomalies motivate me to question that the natural world is all there is.
> I would challenge this.

I'm sure you would, from our conversation.

> Trillions of minor things happen to you every day, from biological functions, physical functions, etc.

Of course they do.

> What percentage of these functions would you say are an anomaly and how did you determine that it was an anomaly?

A very low percentage, by definition. If it were a large percentage, it wouldn't be an anomaly.

> how did you determine that it was an anomaly?

Usually we define and determine anomalies by their infrequency and inexpectancy.

> This is demonstrably false and would be very easy for you to test. There have been many studies on the efficacy of prayer, by Christians, and they all show that pray does not increase ones chances of recovery any more than random chance.

God isn't our organ-grinder monkey to do our bidding. But let me suggest this in reply to your "easy for you to test." I claim it's not so easy.

Science works on hypotheses, control groups, reliable data, and reproducibility. How do ANY of those pertain to the subjects of prayer? They simply don't.

For instance, here are a few things you'd have to know to scientifically assess the effectiveness of prayer:

1. We have to be able to isolate those events on Earth that are actions of God and those that aren't. If we can't create clean categories here, our data may be inaccessible or tainted.

2. We have to be able to guarantee that only certain people (and none others anywhere else in the world) are praying in a certain way for a certain outcome. Any stray prayers unknown to the researchers may skew the data. In addition, we would have to know that absolutely no one in the world was prayer for those in the control group. One pray-er, again, may skew the data. If we can't guarantee exactly who's praying with absolute certainty, then the data may be invalidated.

3. We have to establish objective criteria for what constitutes an answer to prayer and what doesn't. After all, in the Bible God at times uses very normal people and normal circumstances to answer prayer. If we can't define clearly what constitutes an answer to prayer, then the data is invalid. Also, sometimes God answers prayer not in the ways people prayed, but in other ways to answer their prayer by arriving at a different end by a different means, but still what they prayed for. We'd have to be able to define that. And sometimes God answers prayer partially. We have to be able to define that.

These are a few things that come immediately to mind to show us that there is no scientific experiment that can be devised with enough control of input and criteria to discern whether or not prayer has been effective. But there is even more than that. In the book of Job, the author deals with the dicey question of "Can righteous people expect to be blessed at a higher rate than average? Can we rightfully expect that God will actively and obviously bless the righteous and harass the wicked?" The answer of the book is a resounding NO. Practically speaking, if God were to bless the righteous at a higher rate, the first effect we would expect to see is people acting righteously just to get the prize, which, of course, wouldn't be acting righteously. It would only be a show to force the hand of God. Secondly, the motives of any and every "righteous" person will come under question, because the idea of "blessing" will even subconsciously be lurking. Ultimately, such a policy will devastate any notion of righteousness on the Earth.

But what if the righteous fare worse than the average? That scrapes against all sense of justice. What kind of God punishes his own people by deliberately making things worse for them. Ultimately, such a policy will frustrate any motivation toward righteousness.

Is there a 3rd Choice, where it all seems haphazard, non-sensical, unpredictable, and sometimes just downright irrational? Our choices are actually narrow: God be accused of ruining righteousness because he blesses people, God be accused of unjust cruelty because he doesn’t bless people, or God be accused of not even being there in any detectable way. Hm. Sounds like a Catch-23, -24, and -25.

Let’s move on to the specific question of prayer. Maybe prayer is like the moral of Job. "Can I rightfully expect that God will actively and obviously answer my prayers at a rate greater than average?" It's an intriguing proposition. The answer should be "Of course." Practically speaking, if God were to answer the prayers of his people at a higher rate than average, I would form certain (no doubt self-oriented and self-centered) expectations about how I can, more often than not, get what I want. It's an insidious attitude, but impossible to avoid. "Yes, look at me—I can turn the hand of God!" The motives of every pray-er would come under question, because the idea of "control" will even subconsciously be lurking. Ultimately, the such a policy will devastate the purity of the human heart. Prayer was not given to people to make them master over God.

But what if my prayers are the kiss of death? If I pray for it, I can almost guarantee you that it won’t happen. What kind of tragic relationship with God is THAT?

Is there a 3rd Choice, where where it all seems haphazard, non-sensical, unpredictable, and sometimes just downright irrational? Our choices are actually narrow: God will be accused of ruining godly hearts because he has an OBLIGATION to answer prayers for them at a higher rate, and we all know about the corrupting leverage of power; God will be accused of cruelty as he deliberately ignores the cries of his people when he has asked them to pray to him, or God will be accused of cavalier apathy because he’s not responsive in any detectable way. Hmm.

The reality is certainly in the middle. We cannot expect reliable and repeatable results. Prayer isn't like that. We can't expect to be the ones holding the cards and managing the output. Prayer isn't like that. We can't expect remarkably better results from a scientific and statistical viewpoint. Prayer isn't like that either.

But let's take this one step further. You are trying to find evidence that God exists in the efficacy of prayer. You are thinking (I am guessing) my argument goes something like this:

1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was answered.
3. Therefore God exists. (!Q>!P)

This is an inadequate argument for a host of reasons, all of which involve #2 being impossible to prove or verify, as previously mentioned. But I'm inclined to see the culprit as correlative fallacy rather than confirmation bias ("What I wanted happened after I prayed, therefore it happened because I prayed"), but the ultimate failure is the same. The case in which #2 CAN be proved is if the "answer" involves something so astoundingly coincidental and/or something that our current understanding of nature considers impossible, such that Ocham's Razor indicates that the simplest answer is divine intervention. But this is not longer the argument from efficacy of prayer, but rather the argument from miracles, which is a different discussion.

But then [i]you[/i] seem to be asserting a contrasting proposition: If God exists we should see some scientifically confirmable answers to prayer. This is also wrong. The syllogistic form of that statement is:

1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. Therefore God does not exist. (Q>P)

This is a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent." Instead, what actually happened when prayer is not answered is this:

1. If God does not exist,my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. No conclusion is possible ( = we don't know if God exists or not).

The difficult in making this statement is that you have to prove its first premise. When Christians say that " 'no' is still an answer," they aren't trying to prove premise 2 of the argument from the efficacy of prayer, they're refuting this premise (i.e., providing a [legitimate] reason other than nonexistence for non-answer). After all, it is possible that God can exist but not answer prayer or answer them in the way we want, expect, or can prove.

We are mostly left with God may or may not exist, but his answers to prayer are inadequate for determining God's existence. This is pretty much true, though it would be more proper to say, "We have no idea whether He will answer any specific prayer," since one would need only ONE example (not a statistical majority, or even a statistically significant minority) to prove that he "answers prayer" (meaning "grants requests") in general. The Bible records several examples of answered prayers, and since the same Christians who believe that God does answer prayers believe that the Bible is the accurate record of the activity of God, it is not inconsistent for them to believe that God DOES answer prayer, though this gives them no assurance that he will answer any given (or any at all) prayer of THEIRS. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Most Christians will affirm that they have no way of knowing whether or not God will grant a particular request, and most of the ones that won't affirm that are operating under faulty theology that I have no desire to defend.

We know that God answers prayer didactically, not empirically. Causation (of any kind) can't be measure empirically without fully isolating variables and replicating results. Revelation ( = being told by God) is the only way we know ANYTHING about what God is like or how God acts. Generally, when we affirm something as an "answer to prayer," this is not on the basis of an absence of physical/biological efficient causes, but on the belief that God works by means of those causes.

If the efficacy of prayer were the only argument for the existence of God, people who wanted to believe in God would have a pretty bad time of it. But it isn't. If your objective was to force me (Christians) to admit that there is no assurance of answered prayer, fine, because we were doing that anyway. If it was to prove that the argument from the efficacy of prayer is invalid, well, technically it isn't. If anyone could manage to prove that even ONE incident, ever, in the history of time, occurred as an answer to prayer, and NOT from some other cause, it would prove that God exists (or existed at that point in time). I have no idea how one could possibly go about proving this, however, so I will admit that the argument, while technically valid, is practically useless.

There is also the truth that the purpose of prayer is not to motivate God to do something. God does what God will do according to the will of God, which is not contingent on anything that anyone else does. This is a corollary of a divine attribute called Aseity.

So if you were trying to produce a defeater for Christian theology, this isn't one. But the impression I get is that you think the LACK of answer to some/many/most prayer is significant of something. Initially, at some point, we receive a description of God and what he is like. We hear that he is powerful, kind, loving, merciful, cares for us, answers prayers, etc. We hear this and we get an idea of what we can expect to experience in light of such a God. Then we go out and experience life and none of what we expected happens. At this point, we have a choice to make. Either the definition we received of God was wrong, or our ideas about what that description meant was wrong, and one of the two must be abandoned. The true disciple will abandon their conceptions and try to develop a better understanding of the God of whom they have been told. Everyone else will look for a new god who will either give them what they want or, as a consolation prize, at least fall into line with their self-generated conceptions.


As I hear it, your conception of "God answers prayer" is people who pray for things [would] get them at a rate better than random chance would predict. You KNOW that this is not how a Christian understands "God answers prayer." So now this is the question you need to ask: What use do you have for a God who will not give you things you ask him for?

If your answer turns out to be "none at all," than nothing I (or anything in Christianity) can say can help you. We do not serve God because we get things from him. God cures our sins and makes us like him, and that has nothing to do with answering our prayers (unless that is what we are praying for, which it should be, and note that these things can't be empirically measured). If the answer is anything else, however, this issue is really a technicality. Why do we pray if not to motivate God to action? Why does God not make his existence self-evident (in this case by answering prayers?) What is the significance of God hearing and acknowledging our prayers if he does not intend to respond? Theology can answer all of these (some more clearly than others), but these discussions are really only apprehensible after divine existence is established; you can't really debate the character and behavior of something that doesn't exist.

Remember:

This is a fallacy:
1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. Therefore God does not exist.

This is not a fallacy:
1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was answered.
3. Therefore God exists.

This is not a fallacy either:
1. If my prayer is not answered, God does not exist.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. Therefore God does not exist.

You can't prove that last one metaphysically, empirically, or theologically, but you can easily state it heuristically: "If my prayer is not answered, I don't want anything to do with the God who wouldn't answer it." This, however, is not scientific or even primarily evidentiary, but an opinion based on false premises.

> Just so we're being realistic, it's not that the stories in the Bible contradict everything you know about reality, but instead that some of the miracles are not part of the natural order of things.

I don’t see how that’s different? Reality behaves in a certain way, miracles contradict that certain way. Now if you could show that Miracles actually happen in reality, then that would change the conversation.

> How do you know He's not?

That was sloppy speech on my part. Perhaps God is literally holding the subatomic particles in their orbit through his power. However, not only has he not been demonstrated to existed, he has also not been demonstrated to serve that function. Maybe he does, anything is possible, in a sense. However, I think the smart thing to do is believe that which has been demonstrated.

> What I'm actually saying is that too many anomalies motivate me to question that the natural world is all there is.

I would challenge this. Trillions of minor things happen to you every day, from biological functions, physical functions, etc. What percentage of these functions would you say are an anomaly and how did you determine that it was an anomaly?

> Of course they are, but too many anomalies conforming to a pattern (prayer) make me more than suspicious that the prayer is a legitimate factor.

This is demonstrably false and would be very easy for you to test. There have been many studies on the efficacy of prayer, by Christians, and they all show that pray does not increase ones chances of recovery any more than random chance. In fact one of the biggest studies has shown that there may actually be a NEGATIVE correlation, that prayer may actually DECREASE your chances of recovery.

[url]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/[/url]

“In the two groups that did not know for certain whether or not they were being prayed for, complications occurred in 52% of patients who received intercessory prayer and in 51% of those who did not. In contrast, complications occurred in a significantly larger proportion of patients (59%) who knew for certain that they were being prayed for. Major events and 30-day mortality rates, however, were similar across the three groups.”