alt.education

On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:38:17 GMT, Dave Oldridge
wrote:
>"L. Raymond" wrote in
>news: $.dlg@ :

[---]
>> There are countless gurus, meditation masters, teachers of the power
>> of staying positive etc. who would all claim the same thing of what
>> they teach, without resorting to a god. If you want for prayer to be
>> considered evidence of a god's existence, then you need to demonstrate
>> that a hundred of people from different religious backgrounds can all
>> make the same prayer and receive the result. You will need to
>> demonstrate that your particular god answered those prayers, and not
>> Vishnu, Allah, or Hera. The results will also need to be
>> unequivocally the result of praying. Otherwise, what you're saying is
>> that people should meditate on their problems and have a positive
>> attitude, neither which require any god at all.
>
>What makes you think that these various ways of perceiving deity are
>necessarily either totally correct or totally wrong? And yes, some of my
>Tibetan friends make up their own "tutelary" deities and pray to them.
>But they are very careful to make up only the best gods they can.
>
>And their prayers can be as effective as mine. What's your point?

The point is that the effect of prayers to made up gods can not be
distinguished from the effect of prayers to those gods that people
believe to be real. In fact, I am at a loss to name any attribute
that can be ascribed to "real" gods that don't also apply to made up
gods.

If I believed in a "real" god, I would find that fact disconcerting. I
find it fortunate that none of Lint©'s characteristics include being
real.


Liz #658 BAAWA


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