[Sonart]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Well, it is a part of the published story because of the beliefs of the boys. What purpose do you have in casting aspersions on their personal experience?

I think it's fine that their (the boys) belief helped them find strength and hope in the face of their ordeal. Hope goes a long way in survival. But it pisses me off to have folks go before the cameras and declare that "God answered their prayers" and saved them. I go back to my example of a plane crash in which some survive and many others don't. When the survivors go before the world and declare that "God answered our prayers and saved us", what are they actually saying? That those who didn't survive didn't pray hard enough? Or that God arbitrarily chose to answer some prayers but not others? If it's the latter, then what's the difference between God's arbitrary fickleness and pure dumb luck?

Quote by: PaleRIder Several large, liberal universities have been stymied by the results of studies on prayer, and those who pray.

Number one, why would you assume the universities have been "stymied" by the results of their own inquiries, unless your own prejudice alone defined it as such, and two, since the results were the same whether it was Christian prayers, Buddhist prayers or simple meditation, the studies didn't demonstrate evidence of anyone's particular god as much as some power within prayer/meditation itself.

Quote by: PaleRIder But then, I don't fear your lack of faith.

Well I certainly do fear your faith, since it empowers so many people to discriminate against me.

But if I die, and find myself in a place of judgement, then the joke will be on....well...you know who the joke will be on.

So you're saying it doesn't matter whether we've lived a moral life or not, or whether we've done good works or not, it's just a matter of which god we believe in?


.