# Why do so many skeptics give believers a free pass? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 21, 2007, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113 "2007-02-21T17:56:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/101 "2007-02-24T16:44:18Z")
[QUOTE=Quentin S. Smith] I added the middle “S” because that’s my middle initial and it’s part of a running joke in my family (me always including my middle initial). [/QUOTE] [tangent] Now, if you’d used the “S” without a period, in the tradition of Harry Truman,\* you’d have added yet more layers of implications and in-jokery to your screen name. \*Of course, there is [some question](http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/truman-middle-name.html) whether Truman was pulling the reporters’ collective leg. [/tangent] ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/102 "2007-02-24T17:00:57Z")
[QUOTE=hotflungwok] A universe beyond youself? That’s what you believe is god? Sorry, but that’s rather weak. You’re going to have to expand that definition further, because by your words you think everything and everyone except you encompasses god. [/quote] No I don’t. I believe everything and everyone _including me_ encompasses god. > [@](#): > > I can show that at least some of what I posted was influenced by the outside world. I posted an attempted summary of your ideas on prayer, and that did not arise spontaneously in my own mind. You don’t know that for sure. If I were in your situation I, too, would act on that assumption (without even bothering to think about it), but it’s not provable to you by you that anything other than you actually exists. > [@](#): > > I do not assume that the things I took in from the world outside my own mind came from ‘god’, because I have no evidence for it. Of course, if you’re going to define ‘god’ as ‘everything that isn’t me’ then you really have no choice do you? If you wish to claim that some piece of information came from ‘god’, then you’re going to have to provide evidence that this is so. I proceed to define my terms, or at least explain how I’m using them, and you say I have to provide evidence that what I’m using the term _for_ actually exists. (And you get it wrong in the bargain, I might add). > [@](#): > > All that stuff that makes you think something fits better, clicks, or more succinctly models your experiences is called evidence. From what evidence did you draw the conclusion that there is an outside thing communicating with your mind? You’re asking for empirical evidence that an abstraction “exists”. It’s like asking someone to justify their use of the term “insight” when they say a certain understanding came to them via an “insight”: “I don’t believe in ‘insights’, can you show me one? What color is ‘insight’, how much does it weigh? Does it release any electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by our devices? Oh no?? Then how do you know this ‘insight’ of yours exists?” I’ve described God _not_ as the entire world minus me but as my experience of self in relation to world, as self _as_ world, as a an all-encompassing sense of self; I’ve described an experience that, lacking any better word and drawing heavily my experience of the phenomenon and how it compares to _other_ experiences I’ve had, as “communication”, although I’ve explicitly said it’s not communication _with_ another distinct entity, so in that sense it is different. If it were not different I would not a different term for it, I’d not need a term such as “prayer”. And yet you’re still thrusting your empirical stick into dark corners and weilding your hard-evidence flashlight and saying “Nope, I don’t see this ‘God’, show me evidence”. Abstraction. _Abstraction_. ABSTRACTION. Like self-determination, free will, courage, beauty, ambition, and the ilk, God is not (as I use the term) a word that refers to anything that has its own footprints. I am not going to provide you with “evidence” that God exists, I am not _able_ to provide you with “evidence” that God exists, and I never _claimed_ to be able to provide you with “evidence” that God exists. I can only state that I find the word & concept useful, much as I find other abstractions useful. In my challenge-post in this thread (which was really an acceptance-of-challenge post, saying “OK, you’re on” to two other posters who said _they_ could prove that prayer does not work), I did not throw around the word God and in fact said I was fine with having the conversation without further reference to any other theistic or theological terms or concepts. > [@](#): > > The problem here is that you have taken a word, ‘prayer’, and redefined it to mean something no other person would assume it means. Well, now _that_ would be a solid and reasonable argument for you to make. Let’s find out. I think my description is less divergent from the beliefs of other thoughtful theistic people than you believe it to be. **Theistic people of the board! Please post and weigh in as to whether you recognize what you describe as “prayer” in _my_ descriptions of “prayer”, or instead consider me to have redefined it to mean something totally different.** > [@](#): > > You’ve arbitrarily redefined it to exclude a lot of the real world interaction, as yours takes place entirely in your mind. I would not describe it thusly, and _did_ not describe it thusly. I said it was a process akin to communication, or a form of communication (albeit different from other forms in that there’s no “other person” or “other entity”), but I did not say that it did not involve anything outside my own mind and in fact have said otherwise in this very thread (see prior post. well, not the tiny one in which I corrected my typo but the one prior to that one) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/103 "2007-02-24T17:29:24Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I took his reasoning to be that empirical rules of evidence do not apply to metaphysical things. If red and green can be empirically measured, then they are not metaphysical. He does not use the tool of prayer to determine whether something is red or green, and he does not use the tool of science to determine whether God exists. If you find that unreasonable, then you ascribe mystical powers to science that are, frankly, indiscernable from religion. [/QUOTE] Empirically it can be shown “why” people believe in deities. Using Okham’s Razor, it can be shown that it takes more magic to create both a God and a Universe than to create the Universe alone. But the big one is that first one. I can explain to someone why they empirically can’t distinguish between one color and another, and I can empirically show how a person can have a “holy experience” through a simple injection of drugs. If the person would rather not believe what has the most evidence and likelihood, that is of course up to him. But you can’t say that the existence of “personal evidence” is enough to be a valid answer in a debate, or to rationalize teaching it to children. It is a given that people fool themselves all the time. “I have proof that I can feel in my heart” is what got Bush into attacking Iraq. Personally, I just don’t see any way to ever justify that position **where it effects others**. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/104 "2007-02-24T19:25:44Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] > [@tdn](#): > > I can pretty easily prove that prayer does no good. > [@garygnu](#): > > Ghosts and alien visitors can, on the other hand, be quantifiably and systematically disproven, as can most “miracles” and other things (like prayer as noted on preview by tdn) associated with God. You’re on, both of you. I [disagree](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=387801) [with](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=387723) [you](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=406670). Prayer works just fine for some of us. By all means, prove otherwise. a) I’m not a Christian or in any way Bible-based, so don’t bother tailoring your response around Christian or Biblical precepts. In fact, I’m fully willing to have this discussion with no reference to any other conventionally theological or theistic terms, if you so prefer. b) You don’t get to define beforehand how I _should_ be attempting to use prayer or what I _should_ believe about prayer and/or God. Now, if you want to try to establish that I’m using the term “prayer” to mean something unrecognizably different from what pretty much any other person who believes in prayer uses that word to mean, that’s valid, but simply demonstrating that the loudest and most annoying tract-weilding zealots haranguing subway-riders tend to promise or declare things about prayer that I do not isn’t quite the same thing. Have at it. [/QUOTE] Can I assume you’ll accept the following as a starting premise? In our universe, there has only been one event and no prior cause exists. Or, rather, the division of our ~15-billion-year-old universe into separate “events” is a mental convenience and an illusion. It’s an illusion we find useful, but don’t get too carried away. Every “event” is a subdivision of the whole. As Alan Watts says, the preceding “event” no more causes the “event” that follows than the head of a cat entering the living room “causes” the cat’s tail. A preceding event of prayer no more causes anything than does the head of a… well you know the rest. It’s a pretty lame analogy but I’m sure you buy into it. And just to flesh it out: Praying causes nothing. If it causes nothing, it cannot have done something. For something to have worked, it must have done something. Therefore, prayer does not work\*. \*\*N. b.\*, this conclusion is only valid for those of you who buy into the silly premise. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/105 "2007-02-24T19:45:46Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] Can I assume you’ll accept the following as a starting premise? In our universe, there has only been one event and no prior cause exists. Or, rather, the division of our ~15-billion-year-old universe into separate “events” is a mental convenience and an illusion. It’s an illusion we find useful, but don’t get too carried away. Every “event” is a subdivision of the whole. As Alan Watts says, the preceding “event” no more causes the “event” that follows than the head of a cat entering the living room “causes” the cat’s tail. A preceding event of prayer no more causes anything than does the head of a… well you know the rest. It’s a pretty lame analogy but I’m sure you buy into it. \*\*N. b.\*, this conclusion is only valid for those of you who buy into the silly premise. [/QUOTE] So far I’m on board… > [@](#): > > And just to flesh it out: Praying causes nothing. If it causes nothing, it cannot have done something. Disagree. By that light, nothing has ever done anything, _period_, since the above-cited argument is a strike against causality as the sole valid way of understanding why things happen. If you’re going to buy into the argument about causality, you have to do so completely, not only as it applies to the subject at hand; i.e., the links in your argument won’t hold together unless you want to put forth the claim that nothing has or ever will “work”: > [@](#): > > For something to have worked, it must have done something. Therefore, prayer does not work\*. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/106 "2007-02-24T20:23:47Z")
[QUOTE=Quentin S. Smith] I choose that name because I liked his poetry. I am not that familiar with his other work and would need to familiarize myself with his work before I debate it. [/quote] No problem. By a quirk of circumstance, you have chosen a name that is the atheist’s atheist. Since your atheism is very important to you (framing your first thread and post) and you chose his name, you can understand why a person would naturally assume you were familiar with his broader work. But clearly, just another coincidence. > [@](#): > > I hope that the confusion is gone now. My questions were born of curiosity, not confusion. That curiosity ended when I apologized. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/107 "2007-02-24T20:26:44Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] **Theistic people of the board! Please post and weigh in as to whether you recognize what you describe as “prayer” in _my_ descriptions of “prayer”, or instead consider me to have redefined it to mean something totally different.** [/QUOTE] I think your description is suitable, and is in line with the ordinary definition of prayer. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/108 "2007-02-24T20:29:42Z")
[QUOTE=Dangerosa] But you can throw a spectometer against red and green and show numbers indicating they have different physics. This is more like your partner trying to convince you that there is a significant difference in two nearly identical colors of nail polish - she cares, you don’t, and you don’t see any difference between Sonora Sunset and Chicago Champagne Toast - and don’t understand why she bemoans the loss of Wyatt Erple Purple - which as far as you can tell, was nearly identical to the other two. And will never get why this is in the least bit important. (I miss Wyatt Erple Purple - Chicago Champagne Toast is a little too dark and Sonora Sunset is a little too nude). [/QUOTE] Very well articulated. In fact, the colors could be perfectly identical, but the name of one puts her off. My own wife chooses colors for the flowers she plants and for paint that way, as much by their name as anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/109 "2007-02-24T20:47:53Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] Empirically it can be shown “why” people believe in deities. [/quote] Yes, of course it can (although “how” is a better qualifier than “why”). But issues like whether God exists, or whether prayer works, or whether one plus one equals two are not provable empirically. Just because you know what part of the brain reacts to religious stimuli, it doesn’t mean you’ve drawn any implication with respect to God or prayer. If anything, you’ve shown that it is possible for Him to make Himself known to people via the brain. Why is the revealed truth of such transcendent experiences in any way “inferior” to the more mundane truths that we scientists dabble in? Indeed, if you are tempted to jump to this conclusion, just bear in mind that one could use exactly the same evidence – the involvement of the temporal lobes in religion – to argue for, rather than against, the existence of God.VS Ramachandran, MD, PhD, _Phantoms in the Brain_ > [@](#): > > Using Okham’s Razor, it can be shown that it takes more magic to create both a God and a Universe than to create the Universe alone. Except that Ockham was himself a theist, and God was not created. > [@](#): > > But the big one is that first one. I can explain to someone why they empirically can’t distinguish between one color and another, and I can empirically show how a person can have a “holy experience” through a simple injection of drugs. You also can empirically show that adding one stone to another stone makes two stones. But no amount of empirical testing will prove that _the next time and every time_ you add the stones, you will get two. > [@](#): > > If the person would rather not believe what has the most evidence and likelihood, that is of course up to him. What evidence? You offer evidence of X and apply it to Y. If you’d rather do that, it is of course up to you. > [@](#): > > But you can’t say that the existence of “personal evidence” is enough to be a valid answer in a debate, or to rationalize teaching it to children. That’s ridiculous, and I’m glad you didn’t teach my child. I’ve shared lots of my life experience with her, and it has benefited her greatly. And for debate, there can be no better evidence offered than personal experience. It is the only offering that isn’t second hand. Most of what people offer as evidence in these debates is something they’ve read or heard from someone else. They’ve conducted few, if any, of the experiments they cite, but they cite them nonetheless. > [@](#): > > It is a given that people fool themselves all the time. And by amazing coincidence, that would be me rather than you, right? > [@](#): > > “I have proof that I can feel in my heart” is what got Bush into attacking Iraq. Personally, I just don’t see any way to ever justify that position **where it effects others**. The same goes for claiming empirical proof of anything. Empiricism proves nothing, and was not designed as a proof system. People’s eyes fool them; their ears fool them; their brains trick them. They think they have the answer (Newton) when they don’t fully (Einstein). It is an ethical abomination to coerce an adult with our own views, whether they came by inspiration or observation. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/110 "2007-02-25T00:46:55Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I think your description is suitable, and is in line with the ordinary definition of prayer. [/QUOTE] What is his definition of prayer, in your own words? ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/111 "2007-02-25T01:06:59Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] No I don’t. I believe everything and everyone _including me_ encompasses god. [/QUOTE] But you said that prayer separates you from the social mindset. How can it do that if what you’re ‘not communicating’ with is the social mindset? > [@](#): > > You don’t know that for sure. If I were in your situation I, too, would act on that assumption (without even bothering to think about it), but it’s not provable to you by you that anything other than you actually exists. But I don’t need to prove it absolutely, I just need sufficient evidence for it. All of my experiences points to the conclusion that there are other people giving ideas and not everything in my brain originated there. I have no evidence that suggests anything to the contrary, regardless of how attractive solipsism is, so I have no reason to come to any other conclusion. Everything other than me behaves like it exists, and I have no evidence to the contrary, so it is perfectly reasonable to come to the conclusion that everything other than me exists. This is really all I’m asking for. What reason do you have to believe that your version of ‘prayer’ or ‘god’ exists? > [@](#): > > You’re asking for empirical evidence that an abstraction “exists”. It’s like asking someone to justify their use of the term “insight” when they say a certain understanding came to them via an “insight”: “I don’t believe in ‘insights’, can you show me one? What color is ‘insight’, how much does it weigh? Does it release any electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by our devices? Oh no?? Then how do you know this ‘insight’ of yours exists?” Um, we don’t, that’s why it gets questioned. It looks like you’re throwing the ‘abstraction’ thing down so you don’t have to define what you’re talking about. If your version of prayer produces something that is independent from your own mind, something that comes from whatever you consider ‘god’ to be, then it most certainly leaves footprints in this world. > [@](#): > > I am not going to provide you with “evidence” that God exists, I am not _able_ to provide you with “evidence” that God exists, and I never _claimed_ to be able to provide you with “evidence” that God exists. I can only state that I find the word & concept useful, much as I find other abstractions useful. And yet you behave as if the thing you are describing as ‘god’ exists. > [@](#): > > I’ve described God _not_ as the entire world minus me but as my experience of self in relation to world, as self _as_ world, as a an all-encompassing sense of self; I’ve described an experience that, lacking any better word and drawing heavily my experience of the phenomenon and how it compares to _other_ experiences I’ve had, as “communication”, although I’ve explicitly said it’s not communication _with_ another distinct entity, so in that sense it is different. If it were not different I would not a different term for it, I’d not need a term such as “prayer”. > [@](#): > > I proceed to define my terms, or at least explain how I’m using them, and you say I have to provide evidence that what I’m using the term _for_ actually exists. (And you get it wrong in the bargain, I might add). > [@](#): > > I would not describe it thusly, and _did_ not describe it thusly. I said it was a process akin to communication, or a form of communication (albeit different from other forms in that there’s no “other person” or “other entity”), but I did not say that it did not involve anything outside my own mind and in fact have said otherwise in this very thread (see prior post. well, not the tiny one in which I corrected my typo but the one prior to that one) Gee, I guess I’m still not getting it. Why don’t you define what you mean by prayer, like I asked you to before? You’ve said something things it isn’t. But you keep saying stuff like ‘its like communication, but it’s not communication’ instead of actually bothering to pin it down. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/112 "2007-02-25T02:04:28Z")
In order to describe _anything_ I’ve experienced, I have to use words. In order to use words in a useful fashion, we have to have experiences in common, so that when I describe something, you, having had a similar experience, end up saying “Yeah, OK, _that_. Go on, I’m with you so far…”. If you _don’t_, I can’t somehow magically _DO SOMETHING_ and conjure up understanding in your mind by using some kind of _MAGIC_ words that are going to _make_ you understand. All I can do is what I’m already doing, which is to resay things in different form or go at it from slightly different angles in hopes that at some point you’ll go “Oh… well, I would not call that ‘prayer’ and I don’t see what it’s got to do with ‘God’, I don’t follow you at all when it comes to that stuff, but that process you’re talking about, yeah, I’ve done that”. As far as _defining_, I’m not going to be able to do much better than “a process of concentration with emotional content that, generally speaking, is experienced by the person so engaged as _communicative_, i.e., as if they were in _communication_ with something or someone, and out of which process tends to come understandings for which the person who had been so engaged cannot account in terms of conscious deliberation and reasoning on their part; as with the query part of the process, the portion of the process that involves experiencing those queries being answered is often described by the person so engaged as _communicative_, as if they were ‘replies’ or ‘responses’.” If you want a definition that speaks to how the bloody hell it works, what processes of mind and observation are involved, which structures of the brain are most used in this, whether an EEG would show more alpha waves or what-have-you, etc, I can offer you no more than guesswork at best, and uninformed nonexpert guesswork at that. if you want more of a philosophical treatise, e.g., in what ways is it an internal or subjective process and in what ways does it involve external observation or awarenesses of objective realities, some of that I’ve already taken a stab at. If you want more of a religious elaboration, e.g., in what ways or on what grounds do I consider the process as I’ve described it to be that which other religious folks throughout history have described as “prayer”, and how it relates to “God”, etc, I suppose I can do that, but I think it becomes a ‘castles in the air’ kind of mental architecture, one in which the limitations of understandings and the limitations of words to convey them both work against ever nailing it down any better than people over the course of centuries have succeeded in nailing it down in the past. What I’d like to know from you is what’s your point of entry into this conversation? My original post, as I said, was a response taking up the challenge of some people who said they could demonstrate the lack of efficacy of prayer. It would be good to know if you’re making an overall assertion or if you’re simply posting to say “pardon me but I don’t understand this part over here” and/or “I am not at all nodding to what you’re saying, it seems internally contradictory or nonsensical” just as a form of feedback for me - ?? As I’ve already said, I have no interest, and no belief in my ability if I did have interest, in convincing you that _you_ should utilize concepts that I use, and certainly not that you should utilize the same terms for them that I use if you do use them. I think it would be arrogant of me if I did. If you are attempting to mount the claim that in order to not be considered illogical or stark raving nuts or something I should cease to utilize the concepts that I use, I find that rather arrogant of _you_ and don’t consider you to possess the authority to make that determination. If, on the other hand, you are more curious than dismissive and are trying to see if perchance we can bridge the gap, and you can understand the concept and get where I’m coming from, that’s different and I’m still up for that. But if we’re going to explore that, we’re first going to have to take a closer look at what appears to be your position that abstractions are things that don’t exist, and that things that do exist are not abstractions. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/113 "2007-02-25T02:46:48Z")
[QUOTE=hotflungwok] What is his definition of prayer, in your own words? [/QUOTE] Well, he didn’t define it; he described it. Seeing as how you’re all concentrating on rhetorical precision and all, let’s just keep that straight. But it seems to me that what he is describing is an introspective communication with the God within us. My own theology coincides to a great extent with the Quakers. The “inner light” and all that, so his description makes perfect sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/114 "2007-02-25T03:30:57Z")
I am afraid my attempt to explain to our guest why I did not feel comfortable engaging in logical argument with some aim to convince someone to have faith in the Lord has entirely missed the mark. In fact, I find myself challenged to logically defend that feeling! Yes, I am logically defeated! Logically, there can be no God! On an entirely rational basis, only a fool could be a Christian. I am a Christian, and being a fool does not distress me. Is that more comforting to you **Sage Rat**? Tris ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/115 "2007-02-25T04:44:23Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] … Disagree. By that light, nothing has ever done anything, _period_, since the above-cited argument is a strike against causality as the sole valid way of understanding why things happen. If you’re going to buy into the argument about causality, you have to do so completely, not only as it applies to the subject at hand; i.e., the links in your argument won’t hold together unless you want to put forth the claim that nothing has or ever will “work”: [/QUOTE] Yes, your premise is a strike at causality. And one must do so completely, not only as it applies to the subject at hand. So when you previously said… > [@AHunter3](#): > > … [post=7802782]There is no causation.[/post] … … in regard to determinism we can be sure that you are claiming there is no causation in regard the subject at hand now: prayer. Prayer does not cause anything because there is no causation according to you yourself. If you claim that prayer doesn’t cause anything, how can you claim that prayer works and works in a way a typical theist would recognize? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/116 "2007-02-25T06:48:04Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Except that Ockham was himself a theist, and God was not created. [/QUOTE] I just want to mention that when Ockham lived, belief in God was supported by the Razor. The most plausible explanation varies with time and the evidence. Saying that Ockham, Newton, and Galileo were theists then does not mean they would be today. Even Tom Paine believed in a god, though not the Christian one. I doubt very much he would do so now. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/117 "2007-02-25T07:23:28Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **AHunter3** > … > Disagree. By that light, nothing has ever done anything, period, since the above-cited argument is a strike against causality as the sole valid way of understanding why things happen. If you’re going to buy into the argument about causality, you have to do so completely, not only as it applies to the subject at hand; i.e., the links in your argument won’t hold together unless you want to put forth the claim that nothing has or ever will “work”: Yes, your premise is a strike at causality. And one must do so completely, not only as it applies to the subject at hand. So when you previously said… > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **AHunter3** > … There is no causation. … … in regard to determinism we can be sure that you are claiming there is no causation in regard the subject at hand now: prayer. Prayer does not cause anything because there is no causation according to you yourself. If you claim that prayer doesn’t cause anything, how can you claim that prayer works and works in a way a typical theist would recognize? [/QUOTE] OK, what’s this petard doing here and who put my name on it? 😛 MMkay…to be sure, my assaults on determinism should be read not as “there is no such thing as causation, it is a completely invalid understanding of why things are as they are”, but rather instead “look at things this way; it’s a compellingly valid way of looking at things, and from that perspective causation completely falls apart, so do not suppose that a causal argument washes away any and all contradictory arguments about why things are as they are, because causality doesn’t occupy any kind of ultimate ‘grand mover’ space, it can be washed away logically, too”. As I [pointed out](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8108663&postcount=251) in a recent thread about free will vs determinism, the fact that you can look at something one way doesn’t necessary rule out the validity of looking at it another way, even when the two perspectives appear to be incompatibly contradictory. None of which directly addresses this whole “does prayer _work_” inquiry. I’m not sure what you’ve got in mind, but I would say that those of us who engage in the process do so because we find there to be results, and moreover that they are generally positive results pertinent to what was on our mind when we engaged in the process. If that does not answer your question, perhaps you could elaborate on it or rephrase it. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/118 "2007-02-25T14:11:44Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] …to be sure, my assaults on determinism should be read not as “there is no such thing as causation, it is a completely invalid understanding of why things are as they are”, but rather instead “look at things this way; it’s a compellingly valid way of looking at things, and from that perspective causation completely falls apart, so do not suppose that a causal argument washes away any and all contradictory arguments about why things are as they are, because causality doesn’t occupy any kind of ultimate ‘grand mover’ space, it can be washed away logically, too”. As I [pointed out](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8108663&postcount=251) in a recent thread about free will vs determinism, the fact that you can look at something one way doesn’t necessary rule out the validity of looking at it another way, even when the two perspectives appear to be incompatibly contradictory. … [/quote] So now that you admit that causality can be a valid way of looking at things you have completely gutted your previous denials of determinism. You have also defused your “only one event” argument from future efficacy. Thank you. > [@](#): > > … > None of which directly addresses this whole “does prayer _work_” inquiry. I’m not sure what you’ve got in mind, but I would say that those of us who engage in the process do so because we find there to be results, and moreover that they are generally positive results pertinent to what was on our mind when we engaged in the process. If that does not answer your question, perhaps you could elaborate on it or rephrase it. If you were to strip away some baggage that accompanies the word _prayer_ (perhaps by substituting _meditation_) I would be on board with your present conclusion. I have no doubt you are correct. What I object to is your dancing in and out of your cave of extreme skepticism as it suits your argument. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/119 "2007-02-25T14:26:48Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] I just want to mention that when Ockham lived, belief in God was supported by the Razor. The most plausible explanation varies with time and the evidence. Saying that Ockham, Newton, and Galileo were theists then does not mean they would be today. Even Tom Paine believed in a god, though not the Christian one. I doubt very much he would do so now. [/QUOTE] Well, as they say, “Az der bubbe vot gehat baytzim vot zie geven mein zayde.” But Ockham’s Razor (which wasn’t really Ockham’s anyway) wasn’t about plausible explanations or simple explanations; it was about parsimony — the inclusion of only necessary entities. It is entirely reasonable to argue that God, by definition, is a necessary entity. And that’s exactly what Ockham argued. What he would argue today is idle speculation. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113/120 "2007-02-25T16:42:03Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] \ It is an ethical abomination to coerce an adult with our own views, whether they came by inspiration or observation. [/QUOTE] Well that was a pretty wending path to come to the same conclusion… Though I wonder at your limitting it just to “adults”. [QUOTE=Triskadecamus] I am afraid my attempt to explain to our guest why I did not feel comfortable engaging in logical argument with some aim to convince someone to have faith in the Lord has entirely missed the mark. In fact, I find myself challenged to logically defend that feeling! […] I am a Christian, and being a fool does not distress me. [/QUOTE] You were asking the guest to give you a free pass. I.e. for the rest of mankind to not publically fight ignorance. That’s not a personal decision; that’s something that effects lots of people. If you want to be “a fool”, that’s entirely your prerogative. I’m just saying that the argument of “I’m a fool” isn’t a valid one for why anyone should get a free pass from trying to operate on the best information as they can in the public sphere. Would you say that we should give smokers a free pass from having the health considerations of smoking publicized? I’m sure they already know it’s bad for them, but I don’t see how that necessitates that what factual information there is should for some reason be suppressed or not publicized. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-skeptics-give-believers-a-free-pass/393113.md?page=7)