Subject: this prayer thing

BC:

I'm really enjoying the Does Prayer Work debate, so I thought I'd chime in.  I'd like to address the statement you made recently that if you ever get proof that prayer works, then you'll become the best Christian in the world because that means that God exists.  I'm not sure that that makes good logical sense on a couple of grounds:

1.  If you find that prayer works, why would you necessarily feel the need to be a Christian?  People of lots of religions pray, why would you feel the need to be Christian?  I have a feeling that if prayer works, it has nothing whatsoever to do with what religion you are affiliated with.  You could be Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Hare Krishna, or have no religious affiliation whatever.  In fact, if it turns out that prayer works, I would suggest not being affiliated with any organized religion.  Just practice it on your own.  I'm just curious why you would be the best Christian in the world if you found that prayer works.

It was a silly, throwaway statement - poor choice of words on my part.
What I meant was, no sane person would ever choose Hell over Heaven.
If Heaven or an afterlife was possible, everyone would be doing their damndest to try to live
eternity in bliss instead of flames and torment. Truth is, that's all horseshit the Church
came up with to scare the weak people and to increase the size of their Sunday blackmail loot.

Remember how Oral Roberts lied and said God appeared to him and told Oral
to raise $12M by the end of March, and Oral asked God if he was serious?
Then God lifted up the entire campus of ORU, licked it and stuck it to his forehead
and said, "Do I look like I'm serious?"

If not sure why God can't raise that kind of cash on his own, but if that happened to me,
that would be adequate proof that God existed and I'd be His from that moment on.
 

2.  Why do think that just because prayer works, that must mean that there is a God?

ha ha
Trying to trap ol BartCop?
A. Prayer doesn't work.
B. If prayer DID work, to whom would one pray if not God?
 

To me, they are separate issues.  I could envision a scenario for prayer that does not require a deity at all.
For example, suppose the person who is praying is somehow sending energy from themselves to the person
who they are praying for in order to help with their healing.  This would be a direct transfer of energy from one
person to another with no need for a deity at all.  So, why assume that if prayer works, that there must be a God?

Webster defines prayer as "a petition to God."
Prayer and mental energy are two different things.
I believe mental energy exists, but so far, nobody in history has been able to prove it.

Remember Up in Smoke, the first Cheech & Chong movie?
They smoked a killer joint and got waaay too high so, to come down, they chanted Ooooommmmm
a few times (until Cheech turned it into Oooohh shit)    I can see that mantra business working for someone
but that's as close as mental energy exists, as far as I've seen.

Plus, anyone who can receive mental energy is going to win Randi's million dollars.
 

A couple of things to think about.
I am enjoying the debate, and I hope you continue with it for a while longer.

Sincerely,
Poltargyst