Difference between revisions of "Talk:808: The Economic Argument"
(add a counter-example) |
m (add sign) |
||
| Line 28: | Line 28: | ||
:Also, to get something straightened out that several of the editors here (and Randall) understandably never think about: every "answer to prayer" is either a miracle --- that is to say, it's not caused by other natural events that occurred in previous history and comes straight from God --- or it isn't. Answers of the second class are obviously much more common, regardless of whether you believe "God" or "miracles" exist at all. Now you could say that an "answer to prayer" of class #2 "would have happened anyway" because you can see the physical causes that led up to it and they don't seem correlated to your prayer, but that argument presupposes that God (like a human friend) experiences time the way we do --- future becoming present becoming past --- whereas it's immensely more likely that, if God exists, time is one of His creations, like everything else. Thus, the Creation would be taking place at every point of space and time, and all times would be Now to God, meaning that your future prayer (or future from your perspective) was taken into account when God first created the universe and the chain of physical causes leading up to it. C.S. Lewis explains it better in his book Miracles (appendix A) than I can, but something else he stressed was that it's impossible to know empirically whether a non-miraculous event was an answer to prayer or not --- and if you think about it, you can see that this is probably a good thing. Someone who knew his prayer had been answered "would feel like a magician", feel as if he had exercised some control over God, as if he were a being on God's own level. I am not here arguing for God's existence; I'm saying only that the fact that petitionary prayers are sometimes refused, and sometimes not, is hardly evidence that prayer "doesn't work" --- because no one could reasonably expect it "always to work" in the first place like a physical process, if the Being on the other end of the prayer had a mind and will of Its own and got to decide whether your prayer should be answered or not. {{unsigned ip|76.94.38.95|16:43, 28 August 2025}} | :Also, to get something straightened out that several of the editors here (and Randall) understandably never think about: every "answer to prayer" is either a miracle --- that is to say, it's not caused by other natural events that occurred in previous history and comes straight from God --- or it isn't. Answers of the second class are obviously much more common, regardless of whether you believe "God" or "miracles" exist at all. Now you could say that an "answer to prayer" of class #2 "would have happened anyway" because you can see the physical causes that led up to it and they don't seem correlated to your prayer, but that argument presupposes that God (like a human friend) experiences time the way we do --- future becoming present becoming past --- whereas it's immensely more likely that, if God exists, time is one of His creations, like everything else. Thus, the Creation would be taking place at every point of space and time, and all times would be Now to God, meaning that your future prayer (or future from your perspective) was taken into account when God first created the universe and the chain of physical causes leading up to it. C.S. Lewis explains it better in his book Miracles (appendix A) than I can, but something else he stressed was that it's impossible to know empirically whether a non-miraculous event was an answer to prayer or not --- and if you think about it, you can see that this is probably a good thing. Someone who knew his prayer had been answered "would feel like a magician", feel as if he had exercised some control over God, as if he were a being on God's own level. I am not here arguing for God's existence; I'm saying only that the fact that petitionary prayers are sometimes refused, and sometimes not, is hardly evidence that prayer "doesn't work" --- because no one could reasonably expect it "always to work" in the first place like a physical process, if the Being on the other end of the prayer had a mind and will of Its own and got to decide whether your prayer should be answered or not. {{unsigned ip|76.94.38.95|16:43, 28 August 2025}} | ||
| β | A counter-example: [https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/myers-briggs-psychology-test-garbage-b2200663.html How thousands of companies ended up using a bogus psychology test on their staff | The Independent] | + | A counter-example: [https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/myers-briggs-psychology-test-garbage-b2200663.html How thousands of companies ended up using a bogus psychology test on their staff | The Independent][[User:Ooker|Ooker]] ([[User talk:Ooker|talk]]) 05:18, 11 October 2025 (UTC) |
Revision as of 05:18, 11 October 2025
Sorry if this seems like it is not proofread, English is my second language so I used spellchecker as much as I could. No grammar checker, though :(. I won't be making any more redirects, either. So, there's that. Youngstormlord (talk) 12:54, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
The Reagans used astrology to run USA. When he sacked all the air traffic controllers he must have saved a fortune in paraffin.
Does remote viewing include looking at contour maps because I am working on that. 1. Are you sure that the oil industry has tried it? 2. Are you sure it doesn't work?
How does one decide which value of T or t to use for relativity equations? Is it on the list? I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 00:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
Have you read Grey Matter, by David Levy? He uses prayer in neurosurgery, but he doesn't get paid more for it.
Why is "weird phenomena" in quotes when the comic uses the phrase "crazy phenomenon"? 108.162.238.76 02:40, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, the U.S. Military, through its contractor Stanford Research Institute, in the 1970s spent $20 million researching remote viewing as a military spy tool, in part out of fear of a Russian ESP-gap. 173.245.54.36 20:11, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Companies ARE already making a killing in "health care cost reductions" through homeopathy and such, by selling homeopathic medicine and services to gullible fools who believe it can cure their very expensive diseases, and believing they are saving tons of money in doing so. Doesn't mean that it works though. I like the comic, but the premise is a bit short-sighted. 162.158.126.4 12:56, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
- I guess reading the title text is just way too difficult. 172.68.47.222 07:30, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
No explanation as to the references to corporate accountants and actuaries? Perhaps they offer services which are only "believed" to work? 108.162.242.9 16:53, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
In 2021 Polish government put forward a tender for 300 mobile field altars. So you could add a line: (Column 1) Prayer (Column 2) Military (Column 3) Yes, someome does that. 162.158.103.64 21:37, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
- I mean, Poland is a highly Catholic country; it's just courtesy for the government (which is mostly Catholic as well) to make sure the soldiers can still worship while they're on active duty. It doesn't provide altars for civilians, because the Catholic Church does that (though the Church also provides the military chaplains who use the altars). Not to mention that prayer has never been put forward (except by idiots) as a sort of divine vending machine from which you will (if God exists) always get what you want; you might just as well say that because a friend sometimes turns down your favor requests for your own good, it's because "asking" doesn't work. ---S
- Also, to get something straightened out that several of the editors here (and Randall) understandably never think about: every "answer to prayer" is either a miracle --- that is to say, it's not caused by other natural events that occurred in previous history and comes straight from God --- or it isn't. Answers of the second class are obviously much more common, regardless of whether you believe "God" or "miracles" exist at all. Now you could say that an "answer to prayer" of class #2 "would have happened anyway" because you can see the physical causes that led up to it and they don't seem correlated to your prayer, but that argument presupposes that God (like a human friend) experiences time the way we do --- future becoming present becoming past --- whereas it's immensely more likely that, if God exists, time is one of His creations, like everything else. Thus, the Creation would be taking place at every point of space and time, and all times would be Now to God, meaning that your future prayer (or future from your perspective) was taken into account when God first created the universe and the chain of physical causes leading up to it. C.S. Lewis explains it better in his book Miracles (appendix A) than I can, but something else he stressed was that it's impossible to know empirically whether a non-miraculous event was an answer to prayer or not --- and if you think about it, you can see that this is probably a good thing. Someone who knew his prayer had been answered "would feel like a magician", feel as if he had exercised some control over God, as if he were a being on God's own level. I am not here arguing for God's existence; I'm saying only that the fact that petitionary prayers are sometimes refused, and sometimes not, is hardly evidence that prayer "doesn't work" --- because no one could reasonably expect it "always to work" in the first place like a physical process, if the Being on the other end of the prayer had a mind and will of Its own and got to decide whether your prayer should be answered or not. 76.94.38.95 (talk) 16:43, 28 August 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
A counter-example: How thousands of companies ended up using a bogus psychology test on their staff | The IndependentOoker (talk) 05:18, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
