How do you explain there never being rainbows in a rain shaft moving from east to west in the afternoon/evening? And how do you explain prayer being answered?

quote:Originally posted by driveby

How do you explain there never being rainbows in a rain shaft moving from east to west in the afternoon/evening?

I have no idea what that even means. There are billions of things I can't explain. That doesn't mean there are any gods who can.

The Earth was obviously flat to people once, and they couldn't figure out how the sun could rise in the east and seat in the west, so they made up a sun god to explain it. Now we know how it happens. We figure out how things work with no need for supernatural beings. That forms a pattern that maybe everything happens without supernatural means, don't you think?

quote:Originally posted by driveby

And how do you explain prayer being answered?

The answer to that one should be obvious to you. We don't believe any prayers have been answered. I'm sure plenty of people have prayed for unbelievable things like the ability to flap their arms and fly, and I haven't seen any prayers like that answered yet.The simpler prayers weren't answered. Sometimes good things will happen to you and sometimes they won't.

Why do you religious people believe in books that are seriously flawed?

quote:Originally posted by driveby:

How do you explain there never being rainbows in a rain shaft moving from east to west in the afternoon/evening? And how do you explain prayer being answered?

Sorry, but that doesn't work that way. You first have to prove your bullshit before we have anything to explain. Prove that we do not see rainbows in the afternoon and that prayer has been answered.

P.S. You won't be able to because, we can see rainbows in the early after noon (we cannot see them in the late afternoon because of the position of the sun) and it's impossible to prove that a prayer has been answered.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 08-10-2006).]

Better question; Why is it that prayers are answered and not answered exactly following the laws of probability?

quote:Originally posted by IanBoyd3

Better question; Why is it that prayers are answered and not answered exactly following the laws of probability?

And you have evidence of this?

Exactly how far from the laws of probability are prayers answered?

Because different prayers cover different issues and factors, and thus each have a different inherent probability of having a positive result?

quote:Originally posted by Martini:

And you have evidence of this?

Exactly how far from the laws of probability are prayers answered?

Well, the latest study on Prayer showed that it had no effect at all on the well-being of patients undergoing heart-surgery.

http://www.dukemednews.com/news/article.php?id=9136

i prefer to pray to joe pesci, he knows how to get things done!

quote:Originally posted by kenwih:

i prefer to pray to joe pesci, he knows how to get things done!

Pffft...

Joe Pesci ain't got nothing on Joe Namath.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Sorry, but that doesn't work that way. You first have to prove your bullshit before we have anything to explain. Prove that we do not see rainbows in the afternoon and that pray has been answered.

P.S. You won't be able to because, we can see rainbows in the early after noon (we cannot see them in the late afternoon because of the position of the sun) and it's impossible to prove that a prayer has been answered.



No, if the rain is moving towards you in the afternoon, when the sun is in the position to cause a rainbow, it doeesn't cause one. But in the same position, moving away, you see a rainbow. Hence, it only develops after the rain.

quote:Originally posted by driveby:

No, if the rain is moving towards you in the afternoon, when the sun is in the position to cause a rainbow, it doeesn't cause one. But in the same position, moving away, you see a rainbow. Hence, it only develops after the rain.

We see rainbows when the light, the water, and our eyes, are situated in a specific manner. Rainbows don't care whether it's the afternoon, or what have you, so long as the light, water and our eyesight are aligned in a specific way in order for us to actually perceive the phenomenon.

The reason we may not see them in a particular time of day is because one of those factors is not correctly aligned (obviously the one which varies through out the day would the position of the Sun). That's it. There is nothing else to explain.

Why you think an atheist has to explain this, as if it somehow refuted atheism, is beyond me.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 08-10-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by driveby:

How do you explain there never being rainbows in a rain shaft moving from east to west in the afternoon/evening? And how do you explain prayer being answered?

Wait wait, are you saying that rainbows are a phenomenon of... god?? i think if there were a god he couldnt give a damn whether rainbows appeared or not. but to answer your question... i dont have an answer, wikipedia or go to a physics class teaching about colors and how light reflects off of curved surfaces and you would probably get your answer. i am an atheist not a physicist. hmmm... prayer, first prove that prayer works. have you ever heard of people who feel happy more often than others, generally heal a bit faster than people who are slightly more negative or dont get sick as often. well when you have these thoughts that a devine being will heal everything, it kinda makes you happy. when your happy your body responds better.

quote:Originally posted by driveby:

How do you explain there never being rainbows in a rain shaft moving from east to west in the afternoon/evening? And how do you explain prayer being answered?

Saying "God did it" is not a good explanation for rainbows, and you'd still have to prove there is a God first.

And how do you explain all the prayers not being answered. There are far more prayers being answered than not answered. I imagine plenty of starving kids praying to be saved but God does nought, but let us raise our hands in joy for God helped the fat bitch on The God Channel lose weight - he sure has his priorities right.

quote:Originally posted by driveby:

How do you explain there never being rainbows in a rain shaft moving from east to west in the afternoon/evening? And how do you explain prayer being answered?



Kid, did you even think to ask your science teacher first before coming to us? Would've saved you a lot of trouble.

No matter what you say, even if you pray for something amazing and something amazing happens one can still say it is something else and claim that it is not God behind the prayer being answered.

quote:Originally posted by driveby:

How do you explain there never being rainbows in a rain shaft moving from east to west in the afternoon/evening? And how do you explain prayer being answered?

i have no knowledge of the science of rainbows but im sure you can google it and on the prayers being answered........its coincidence. its the same idea as having a lucky charm while you play a sport. sometimes what you want to happen happens and sometimes it doesnt. no matter what you pray to, no matter what you kind of lucky charm you have. half the time it works, half the time id doesnt. of course when someone truly believes that their god or lucky charm is the reason things are working, they of course notice all the times good things happen and attribute it to their god/luckly charm.

Ha, I can't believe that is your attempt to prove athiesm wrong.

You deserve religion, and it deserves you.

Ha, I can't believe that is your attempt to disprove athiesm.

You deserve religion, and it deserves you.

[This message has been edited by philthemn (edited 08-10-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by philthemn:

Ha, I can't believe that is your attempt to prove athiesm wrong.

You deserve religion, and it deserves you.

You deserve religion, best insult I've heard in a while.

At the right angle, I can see a 'rainbow' effect in the water thrown out of my sprinker when watering the grass.

I don't get your point.

quote:"driveby"

I can't tell if this is intentional or not, but it's damn funny.

Are you suggesting because we (the people in this forum) can't explain the exact mechanics of a rain bow that God has to have made them? (Not the natural process but the actual rainbow)

And for prays http://whydoesgodhateamputees.com/video.htm

quote:Originally posted by driveby:

How do you explain there never being rainbows in a rain shaft moving from east to west in the afternoon/evening? And how do you explain prayer being answered?

i dont understand your comment about rainbows but about the prayers...they arent answered. when a person survives a deadly disease it wasn't "god" that saved them it was the docors/surgeons and medicines. if prayers were answered do you think we'd have such a crap society..no, people wouldnt be constantly dying of un-curable diseases. face the facts, no prayers are answered, if the thing you prayed for actually happens such as you pray that your financial situation gets better its not "god" that fixed it, it's your effort to go out and get a new job, "god" plays no part in these things. maybe i'll see it your way when real miracles happen, until then i'll go on thinking the way i do.

"The Earth was obviously flat to people once"

Actually, no it wasnt. There is no documented proof that anyone ever thought the world was flat.

This is also a pathetic attempt at disproving anything. Prayer does shit, they proved this in a study done and actually the people that prayed got slightly MORE ill!

quote:Originally posted by among_the_living:



Actually, no it wasnt. There is no documented proof that anyone ever thought the world was flat.

Actually, there is. Not to the extent people might believe though (i.e. as in, it was pretty well known that the earth was flat in antiquity), but there were people who definately believed it was flat.

For example, the first maps of the Earth pretty much depicted it a flat, and surrounded by water.



"The straight (horizontal) line is the earth----the nine lines drawn perpendicular to it are so many bodies standing each of them for one of the climates. The lines drawn from the sun to these bodies are the rays of the sun which, falling simultaneously upon the bodies on this and that side, produce the shadows as we have depicted them in ink. That particular line which descends straight down, since it falls upon the top of the body perpendicularly, produces no shadow for it is greater than the body and shines all round it.

The Lord also bears me witness in the Gospels, when He calls the country of the Homerites, which is not more |252 than a two days' sail by sea distant from Barbaria, the ends of the earth. It is evident again that I am right from the climates which they acknowledge, and from the places of which Ptolemy speaks, he who made war against Ethiopia, and of whom we made mention in the second book. And from the shadows themselves which are produced in each climate, it is proved that the sun does not exceed in size two climates, nay, even that the earth is flat, as the delineation shows, and not spherical"

From a Christian monk, who did in fact believe the Earth was flat.

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/cosmas_06_book6.htm

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Actually, there is. Not to the extent people might believe though (i.e. as in, it was pretty well known that the earth was flat in antiquity), but there were people who definately believed it was flat.

For example, the first maps of the Earth pretty much depicted it a flat, and surrounded by water.



"The straight (horizontal) line is the earth----the nine lines drawn perpendicular to it are so many bodies standing each of them for one of the climates. The lines drawn from the sun to these bodies are the rays of the sun which, falling simultaneously upon the bodies on this and that side, produce the shadows as we have depicted them in ink. That particular line which descends straight down, since it falls upon the top of the body perpendicularly, produces no shadow for it is greater than the body and shines all round it.

The Lord also bears me witness in the Gospels, when He calls the country of the Homerites, which is not more |252 than a two days' sail by sea distant from Barbaria, the ends of the earth. It is evident again that I am right from the climates which they acknowledge, and from the places of which Ptolemy speaks, he who made war against Ethiopia, and of whom we made mention in the second book. And from the shadows themselves which are produced in each climate, it is proved that the sun does not exceed in size two climates, nay, even that the earth is flat, as the delineation shows, and not spherical"

From a Christian monk, who did in fact believe the Earth was flat.

h ttp://www. tertullian .org/fathers/cosmas_06_book6.htm (http: //www.tert ullian.org /fathers/c osmas_06_b ook6.htm)

Im sorry i shouldve made my post a little clearer, there is no proff the wider populous thoght the earth was flat, as it is portrayed in movies and in other shows. Sailers for one knew the earth was round from hundreds of years before the monk wrote that.

quote:Originally posted by among_the_living:

"The Earth was obviously flat to people once"

Actually, no it wasnt. There is no documented proof that anyone ever thought the world was flat.

This is also a pathetic attempt at disproving anything. Prayer does shit, they proved this in a study done and actually the people that prayed got slightly MORE ill!

and what study is this?

all double-blind prayer studies that i am aware of matched the laws of probability, no more.

quote:Originally posted by kenwih

Im sorry i shouldve made my post a little clearer, there is no proff the wider populous thoght the earth was flat, as it is portrayed in movies and in other shows. Sailers for one knew the earth was round from hundreds of years before the monk wrote that.

That's a pretty idiotic statement. For as long as humans have been around, they have been attributing gods to things they couldn't explain. In earlier times, the majority had no fucking clue that the Earth was a sphere.

In the above post I attributed a quote to kenwih. It should have been attributed to among_the_living. My apologies.

I agree, gods are created by the ignorant (driveby) to explain natural phenomena (rainbows). But that doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when people use the belief in their god to persecute or even enslave others. Like Israel, for instance. I can understand anti-Semitism when I see their self-created homeland terrorizing the fuck out of their Arab neighbors. (With money from U.S. coffers.)

quote:Originally posted by kenwih:

and what study is this?

all double-blind prayer studies that i am aware of matched the laws of probability, no more.

This was done in the US of heart operations. I dont know the exact % but there were slightly more who had problems who had prayers said for them.

It's the one I linked to a few posts back if I'm not mistaken.

However, the slight difference is attributed to a slight statistical variation, not to prayer actually being destructive.

quote:Originally posted by driveby:

How do you explain there never being rainbows in a rain shaft moving from east to west in the afternoon/evening?

No one has addressed the real question that this post brings to mind - that is, what the fuck do rainbows have to do with religion?

Why would God deny us any rainbows?

Well answer THIS mister smarty-atheists:

You think you own whatever land you land on

Earth is just a dead thing you can claim

But I know every rock and tree and creature

Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people

Are the people who look and think like you

But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger

You learn things you never knew

You never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?

Or ask the grinning bobcat why he grinned

Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest

Come taste the sun-sweet berries of the earth

Come roll in all the riches all around you

And for once never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers

And the heron and the otter are my friends

And we are all connected to each other

In a circle in a hoop that never ends

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?

or let the eagle tell you where hes been

can you sing with all the voices of the mountain

can you paint with all the colors of the wind

can you paint with all the colors of the wind

How high does the sycamore grow

If you cut it down, then you'll never know

And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

For whether we are white or copper - skinned

We just sing with all the voices of the mountain

Need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the earth and still

All you'll own is earth until

You can paint with all colors of the wind.

(copyright Vanessa Williams)

I thought not. Fucking robots, the lot of you heathens.

[This message has been edited by Zinkovich (edited 08-13-2006).]

Explain a Disney Song? Well it added to the atmosphere of a kids animated movie...

Everyone knows pocahontas is based off of a true story, and the disney movie is the truest representaiton of the facts involving it.

My logical proof is this:

1.)There were indians in pocahontas(the disney movie)

2.)There WERE real native americans back then in the past, and they did meet with colonists

3.) Thus, all the magical shit happening in pocahontas is real

Can't you see my infallible reasoning? Or do you still refuse to paint with the colors of the wind?

[This message has been edited by Zinkovich (edited 08-14-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Zinkovich:

Everyone knows pocahontas is based off of a true story, and the disney movie is the truest representaiton of the facts involving it.

My logical proof is this:

1.)There were indians in pocahontas(the disney movie)

2.)There WERE real native americans back then in the past, and they did meet with colonists

3.) Thus, all the magical shit happening in pocahontas is real

Can't you see my infallible reasoning? Or do you still refuse to paint with the colors of the wind?



Your logic is quite sound.

quote:Originally posted by among_the_living:

This was done in the US of heart operations. I dont know the exact % but there were slightly more who had problems who had prayers said for them.

that's what i thought. you are full of shit and have no idea what you are talking about.

quote:Originally posted by kenwih:

that's what i thought. you are full of shit and have no idea what you are talking about.

This is the same (im guessing) heart study that someone else mentioned up in the thread.

People having heart opperations performed on them were prayed for, some were TOLD they were being prayed for but werent and some werent prayed for at all.

The only thing i can find right now is from The daily show with jon stewart where he comments on it.

No idea what im talking about? and you think prayer works...............hmm.

To Kenwih, read the scientific american magazine that told what the study was. its the white one with a big ass dna strand going diagonally from one corner of the cover to the other. look through it and read for yourself (although i believe prayer does nothing except influence the mind which ultimately influences the way a person heals). its all left to probability...

Hurray for the placebo effect.

Just take sugar pills instead.