prayer

A Catholic Blogger Offers a Very Thoughtful Reply to my Question about Prayer and Government

|

Dr. Gregory Popcak is a fellow Patheos blogger who blogs at “Faith on the Couch” in the Patheos Catholic Channel. He’s written a very thoughtful reply to my previous post, “Question for Theists: Why Is It Important to Begin Governmental Meetings with Prayer?” His reply is titled, “Prayer Works: A Psychological Case for Public Prayer … A Catholic Blogger Offers a Very Thoughtful Reply to my Question about Prayer and Government

Evidential Asymmetry, Scientific Confirmation of Prayer, and Horrific Evils

|

1. The General Case One of the most important (and equally most often forgotten) lessons that Bayes’s Theorem can teach us about evidence is that the strength of evidence is a ratio. To be precise, let H1 and H2 be rival explanatory hypotheses, B be the relevant background information, and E be the evidence to … Evidential Asymmetry, Scientific Confirmation of Prayer, and Horrific Evils

Playing The Mystery Card (incl. McGrath vs Dawkins) from my book Believing Bullshit

|

PLAYING THE MYSTERY CARD   Suppose critics point out that not only do you have little in the way of argument to support your particular belief system, there also seems to be powerful evidence against it. If you want, nevertheless, to convince both yourself and others that your beliefs are not nearly as ridiculous as … Playing The Mystery Card (incl. McGrath vs Dawkins) from my book Believing Bullshit

One Man’s Modus Ponens…Part 2

|

Here is another argument for God, based on answered prayers: 1. If God exists, then it is very likely that prayers to God for healing from injury or disease would usually be immediately followed by instantaneous and complete healing, except when the injury or disease was the result of self-destructive, foolish, or morally wrong actions … One Man’s Modus Ponens…Part 2

Atheist Prayer Experiment

|

Justin Brierley reviews the results of an experiment in which atheists pray for 40 days for God to reveal himself to them. Go here. Thanks to The Atheist Missionary for drawing attention to this on twitter. This is a win-win experiment to set up for the purposes of evangelizing of course. Reasons why you should … Atheist Prayer Experiment

Negative study on intercessory prayer

|

Information on the Herbert Benson-led study on the possible health benefits of intercessory prayer has begun to appear in the media. The results appear to be negative. (Disclaimer: the actual journal article appears next week. And I’m a physicist, not qualified to comment on the details of medical research anyway. And as some of the … Negative study on intercessory prayer