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Articles that make you go ‘Eh?’

Hot Diggidog! It’s a good old fashioned book burning!

Pastor to Host Halloween Bible-Burning Event
Thursday, October 22, 2009


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AP


Pastor Marc Grizzard
A North Carolina pastor plans to host a Halloween event at his church to burn heretical books. At the top of the list — the Bible.

Pastor Marc Grizzard claims the King James version of the Bible is the only true word of God, and that all other versions are “satanic” and “perversions” of God’s word.

On Halloween night, Grizzard and the 14 members of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church will set fire to other versions of the scripture, as well as music and books by Christian authors.

“We are burning books that we believe to be Satanic,” Pastor Grizzard said.

“I believe the King James version is God’s preserved, inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God… for English-speaking people.”

All other religious or Christian texts are sacreligious, the pastor insists. The list of books being burned will include works written by “a lot of different authors who we consider heretics, such as Billy Graham, Rick Warren… the list goes on and on,” Pastor Grizzard said.

Also on the pastor’s list of heretical authors — Mother Teresa, according to a full list that was previously available at the Amazing Grace Baptist Church’s Web site. The Church’s Web site — which is no longer available — calls the event ‘Burning Perversions of God’s Word,’ and urges parishioners to “come celebrate Halloween by burning Satan’s bibles.” Calls to the Amazing Grace Church were not returned Thursday.

Some in the pastor’s community support the event.

“In my opinion, the King James Version is the only version,” Sissy Messer said.

But not all residents of Canton, N.C. agree with the bonfire of the profanities.

“I think some of the newer versions make it easier for people to understand,” said resident Judy Kirby.

The book-burning is being promoted as a social event with a barbecue dinner. The event will run from “7 p.m.- Till,” according to the announcement previously posted on the Web site.

Click here for more from MyFoxRaleigh.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,569121,00.html
[quote/]

 

Hmmm
So it’s not the New World Translation?

 

Hard cheese if you are….. say…... French.  I don’t think King James gave them a version.

The Germans neither.

And Wycliffe Bible Translators are clearly wasting their time translating the scriptures - they ought to be teaching folks Jacobean English instead.

 

More “tolerance” ?

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/29/malaysia.bibles.seized/

Bibles seized as Malaysia minorities fear fundamentalism
By Saeed Ahmed, CNN
October 29, 2009—

Non-Muslims in Malaysia fear that Islamism is seeping into the moderate nation’s fabric.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS :
Minorities fear growing Islamic fundamentalism in predominantly Muslim but multi-racial Malaysia
They say authorities there have seized more than 20,000 Bibles in recent months
Use of word “Allah” in Christian publications may confuse Muslims and draw them to Christianity, government says


(CNN)—Authorities in Malaysia have seized more than 20,000 Bibles in recent months because they refer to God as “Allah,” Christian leaders said Thursday.
The seizures have fed fears among minority groups, which see signs of encroaching Islamic fundamentalism in the predominantly Muslim but multi-racial country.
“There is a growing sense of Islamic assertion, yes,” said the Rev. Hermen Shastri, general-secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia. “There is some concern.”
The Bibles were written in the country’s official language, Malay—in which the word for God is “Allah,” as it is in Arabic.
However, Malaysia’s government says the word is exclusive to Islam.
Its use in Christian publications is likely to confuse Muslims and draw them to Christianity, the government says. So it has banned use of the word in Christian literature.
“Malay has borrowed from Arabic, just as it has from Sanskrit and Portuguese,” Shastri said. “We have maintained the community has the right to use the word.
“But I think this has ignited a cause in the Muslim communities, who are interpreting it as a siege on Islamic beliefs.”
A Home Ministry official directed requests for comment to the ministry’s Publications and Quran Text Control Department, which enforces the ban. An employee there redirected calls to a spokeswoman, who in turn asked CNN to call the Home Ministry back. Calls to other departments were similarly redirected.
A Roman Catholic weekly newspaper, The Herald, is challenging the ban in court after the government threatened to revoke its license for using the word in its Malay edition. Hearings on the case have gone on for two years.
“We quote it as it is. We cannot change the text of the Scripture,” Herald editor Father Lawrence Andrew told CNN last year. “I cannot be the editor of the Bible.”
Among the Bibles confiscated were Malay-language ones that the Bible Society of Malaysia said it had imported from Indonesia. About 10,000 others also were confiscated from Gideons International, which places free copies in hotel rooms and other places.
The Malaysian constitution provides for freedom of religion. The country has a dual-track justice system, in which Islamic courts operate alongside civil ones.
Rulings by the Islamic, or sharia, courts are directed toward the country’s Muslim, who make up 60 percent of the population. But they worry non-Muslims who see them as Islamism seeping into the moderate nation’s fabric.
In November, the National Fatwa Council—the country’s top Islamic body—banned Muslims from practicing yoga. It said elements of Hinduism in yoga can corrupt Muslims.
The council also bans short hair and boyish behavior for girls, saying they encourage homosexuality.
In northern Malaysia’s Kelantan state, authorities have forbidden bright lipstick and high-heeled shoes, saying the bans will safeguard Muslim women’s morals and dignity, as well as thwart rape.
And last month, an Islamic court judge in the eastern state of Pahang upheld a verdict to cane a Muslim woman for drinking beer in public.
The country has been mired in inter-faith disputes as well in recent months. In those cases, many non-Muslims complain that the civil courts generally cede control to Islamic courts.
Muslims cannot convert to other religions without the permission of the Islamic courts, which rarely approve such requests.
In relationships in which a Muslim parent has converted children to Islam over the objection of a non-Muslim parent, the sharia courts usually have upheld the conversions.
And earlier this year, a Sikh family lost a court battle to cremate a relative after officials said the man had converted to Islam years before his death, though the family said he hadn’t.

 

There seems no depth to man’s sinfulness and greed :

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/murder-accused-sold-human-fat/story-e6freuz9-1225799983339

Murder accused ‘sold human fat’

From correspondents in Lima From:AFP November 20, 2009 7:14AM

FOUR people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing some 60 people to sell their fat and other human tissue to Italian co-conspirators for cosmetic use in Europe, authorities say.

The suspects were arrested in central Peru this month and a search is underway for seven others - including two Italian citizens whose names were not revealed - lead prosecutor Jorge Sans Quiroz said today.

The fat was purchased “to be commercialised in European (cosmetology) laboratories”, he said.

The prosecutor’s indictment said the gang allegedly targeted farmers and indigenous people on remote Andean roads, tricking them by offering jobs before killing them.

One reported killing took place in mid-September to remove human tissue for trafficking.

The trafficking network could be linked to 60 individual disappearances in the central Andean region, although the ties could not be confirmed.

Police began arrests after discovering early this month a container with human fat that was being shipped to Lima from the Andean city of Huanuco, some 400 kilometres northeast of Lima.

Signs of “an international network trafficking human fat” first surfaced about two months ago, according to General Felix Burga, head of the police criminal division.

Peruvian press cited him as saying the fat can be sold for $US15,000 ($16,000) per gallon (3.8 litres) in European countries.

The alleged plot revived the Andean legend of the “Pishtacos”, white foreigners who were said to suck the fat out of people travelling on lonely roads at night, making fine soaps, lubricants, healing salves and beauty creams out of the tissue.

[ Edited: 20 November 2009 06:33 AM by Kevin Goddard]
 

Obscene anti-Muslim emails put Nile on the defensive

ABUSIVE emails written by the son of the campaign manager of the Christian Democratic Party containing anti-Muslim and homophobic comments have embarrassed the party’s president, the Reverend Fred Nile, only two weeks before the December 5 Bradfield byelection, in which the party will field nine candidates.

Mr Nile has been forced to apologise to dozens of recipients of the emails, which also attack the Reverend Gordon Moyes, the CDP-turned-Family-First MP in the NSW upper house. Their author, Douglas Darby, the son of the former Liberal identity Michael Darby, who is the CDP’s campaign manager, has been expelled from the party.

How on earth does someone with such poisonous, indefensible views (and an extremely foul mouth!) become the Christian Democratic Party’s campaign manager in the first place?!

It’s not as though we needed evidence of how rotten the NSW CDP is, but really, this takes the cake and then some.

EDIT: Oops, I should clarify it’s the son of the campaign manager, not the actual campaign manager. My bad!

[ Edited: 21 November 2009 02:09 PM by Luke Stevens]
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Uhh…

Interview with North Korea border crosser Robert Park

North Korea said on Tuesday it had detained a U.S. citizen who entered its territory, apparently confirming a report that an American activist crossed into the state to raise awareness about Pyongyang’s human rights abuses.  Robert Park, 28, walked over the frozen Tumen river from China and into the North last Friday, other activists said. The Korean-American told Reuters ahead of the crossing that it was his duty as a Christian to make the journey and that he was carrying a letter calling on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to step down.

Park had an exclusive interview with Reuters last week before starting on his journey. The following are excerpts from the conversation. He requested that the comments be held until he was in North Korea. 

...

My demand is that I do not want to be released. I don’t want President Obama to come and pay to get me out. But I want the North Korean people to be free. Until the concentration camps are liberated, I do not want to come out. If I have to die with them, I will. I am Christian and it says in the Bible that we must love the lost. We must love the poor and the needy. We must love them more than ourselves.

(For) these innocent men, women and children, as Christians, we need to take the cross for them. The cross means that we sacrifice our lives for the redemption of others.

...

I had a vision on July 27, which was the beginning of the demonstration movement. I am not someone who was a part of the human rights movement officially. I was someone who was praying and sharing in the physical help of refugees one by one. I had a vision where God revealed that there needs to be a mass demonstration movement for North Korean human rights. That there will be liberation of the North Korean people. There will be a global compensation movement for a measurable loss and suffering. There will be calls for unification. And there will be reconciliation between North and South Koreans.

...

Ultimately, I am more tortured if I allow North Koreas to be like this. The difference with these journalists is that they were kidnapped against their will. I am going in saying either kill me or take me. I am saying to the governments of the world, do not try to ransom me out but address the human rights crisis.

Well, that’s certainly walking the talk! Pun intended. I don’t think we’ll be hearing from Mr Park again for a very long time :\

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The cross means that we sacrifice our lives for the redemption of others.

Does he think that our actions can redeem others ? Is he suggesting that we can take the place of Jesus in the act of redemption ? Is he just thinking with his heart and not his mind ?  He sounds very confused to me.

 

Also on the subject of North Korea, this report on persecution of Christians as conditions there deteriorate, from Religious Intelligence:
 
http://www.religiousintelligence.com/news/?NewsID=5418

Charity warns of increasing persecution of Christians in North Korea
Monday, 4th January 2010. 12:11pm

By: Trevor Barron.

Release International warns that persecution is set to worsen in North Korea - possibly the world’s worst trouble spot for Christians - in 2010.
 
“North Korean Christians are arguably subject to the worst persecution in the world,” says Release partner Tim Peters in the latest edition of the charity’s Release magazine.

“As the North Korean economy continues its slow-motion collapse, reports of worsening persecution of Christians are coming out of North Korea,” he adds. “2010 is forecast to be a year of tremendous hardship and food shortages since the country’s harvest in 2009 was a poor one.”

Two North Korean refugees spelled out the deteriorating situation to Release International. “The situation in the North is getting worse,” said former prisoner Kang Cheol Hwan. “It is like a giant prison camp has crossed the land. Starvation spreads out over the entire nation; it has become the norm.

“I lived in Yoduk prison camp for 10 years; I was treated like an animal there. I had watched many people die from starvation and beatings. I witnessed open executions and watched helplessly as people died miserably. These fearful scenes have not left my mind.”

Kang became a Christian in South Korea. Another Christian refugee, Mary, secretly sends food parcels from China into North Korea, along with copied-out verses of the Bible.

People around the border area have come to know Christ as a result of her visits. They include her uncle, Mr Lee, who told Release: “The hardest months are March, April and May. Those without food must eat grass and catch frogs. At the market there is meat, but it’s not affordable.”


And from my church’s prayer bulletin earlier this year:

Pray for the persecuted church.
Please remember in your prayers the Christians of North Korea, where Christianity is brutally suppressed, perhaps more brutally than anywhere else on earth.  Little news comes out of the country, but the Lord knows what his faithful people are enduring, many of them in harsh labour camps or punished in other ways for loving him.

[ Edited: 05 January 2010 07:41 PM by Ros Burgess]
 

“The Card Game
How Visa, Using Card Fees, Dominates a Market”
 
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/05visa.html?em
 
This is a long article.  It outlines how consumers in USA are manipulated into using debit that attracts high fees, in the form of signature debit cards. I found it very disturbing.  It is about the situation in America of course; in Australia we use pin debit, which is lower fee.  But the basic idea is not really signature versus pin; it is that the banks promote the high fee system because they share the profit.  Here are some excerpts:
 

When you sign a debit card receipt at a large retailer, the store pays your bank an average of 75 cents for every $100 spent, more than twice as much as when you punch in a four-digit code.

The difference is so large that Costco will not allow you to sign for your debit purchase in its checkout lines. Wal-Mart and Home Depot steer customers to use a PIN, the debit card norm outside the United States.

Despite all this, signature debit cards dominate debit use in this country, accounting for 61 percent of all such transactions, even though PIN debit cards are less expensive and less vulnerable to fraud.

How this came to be is largely a result of a successful if controversial strategy hatched decades ago by Visa, the dominant payment network for credit and debit cards. It is an approach that has benefited Visa and the nation’s banks at the expense of merchants and, some argue, consumers.
Competition, of course, usually forces prices lower. But for payment networks like Visa and MasterCard, competition in the card business is more about winning over banks that actually issue the cards than consumers who use them. Visa and MasterCard set the fees that merchants must pay the cardholder’s bank. And higher fees mean higher profits for banks, even if it means that merchants shift the cost to consumers.


............

“What we witnessed was truly a perverse form of competition,” said Ronald Congemi, the former chief executive of Star Systems, one of the regional PIN-based networks that has struggled to compete with Visa. “They competed on the basis of raising prices. What other industry do you know that gets away with that?”


.............

Critics complain that Visa does not fight fair, and that it used its market power to force merchants to accept higher costs for debit cards. Merchants say they cannot refuse Visa cards because it would result in lower sales.

“A dollar is no longer a dollar in this country,” said Mallory Duncan, senior vice president of the National Retail Federation, a trade association. “It’s a Visa dollar. It’s only worth 99 cents because they take a piece of every one.”

Visa officials say its critics are griping about debit products that have transformed the nation’s payment system, adding convenience for consumers and higher sales for merchants, while cutting the hassle and expense of dealing with cash and checks. In recent years, New York cabbies and McDonald’s restaurants are among those reporting higher sales as a result of accepting plastic.


..................

The fees are “not a cost-based calculation, but a value-based calculation,” said Elizabeth Buse, Visa’s global head of product.

 

That old dog Pat Robertson is still growling .....

Pat Robertson blames Haiti suffering on ‘pact with devil’

From correspondents in Washington       From:AFP January 14, 2010 8:41AM

US EVANGELICAL preacher Pat Robertson has blamed Haitians directly for the devastating earthquake, saying that the country “swore a pact to the devil’’ at its creation.

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it,’’ Robertson said on his Christian Broadcasting Network show The 700 Club.

The 80-year-old former presidential candidate said Haitians were originally “under the heel of the French”.

“You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, ‘Okay, it’s a deal’. Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.’‘

Over 100,000 people were feared dead after a massive 7.0 earthquake yesterday razed homes, hotels and hospitals in the capital Port-au-Prince. Bodies of the dead were laid out on city streets as residents dug through rubble for survivors.

Robertson contrasted Haiti with its neighbour Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispanola. The Dominican Republic “is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc”, he said.

“Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have - and we need to pray for them - a great turning to God and out of this tragedy. I’m optimistic something good may come.”

Ruled for centuries by the Spanish and then the French, Haiti gained independence in 1804 through a slave-led revolution, creating the first country governed by African descendents in the Americas.

The fire-and-brimstone Christian conservative preacher is seen by critics to espouse an anti-gay, anti-liberal agenda, but he describes his ministry as pro-life and pro-family.

Founder and chairman of The Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson in 1988 beat out sitting vice president George Bush Sr in the Iowa Republican caucuses, but ultimately failed in his presidential bid.

Perhaps most famously, Robertson in 2005 stirred outrage after calling on the US Government to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Robertson, who often makes predictions of upcoming disasters and horrific attacks, came under fire in 2006 after suggesting the stroke then-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon suffered was divine retribution for ceding land to the Palestinians.

link

I wonder if Pat Robertson could quote a reliable reference for his claim ? If he’s right, then we would all like to read about it.

POSTSCRIPT:

Oh if only Pat Robertson had my “google powers” he would have found this DISclaimer to his verbose false claims :

“God, Satan and Haiti”

If you’re interested, check out the three part article starting with :
Part 1 of 3

Maybe Pat Robertson shouldn’t be so lazy - and his followers so gullible.

American TV evangelists : 
    ...... seems we can’t live without them ... and we’re not allowed to shoot ‘em either ;)

[ Edited: 14 January 2010 08:29 AM by Kevin Goddard]
 

Actually, re Mr R Park.
I kinda admire what he has done, of those excerpts are anything to go by. I’ll read the full interview then comment more. But he may have been called to this, if so, he has done a good thing.

 

A couple of interesting articles that make you go “Huh!” rather than “Eh?” :)

The Science of Prayer (via)

Is it possible that directed prayer might spark forgiveness in those doing the praying—and in the process preserve relationships?

  This is obviously not a new idea. Indeed it’s ancient, but Lambert and his colleagues decided to test it scientifically in two simple experiments. In the first, they had a group of men and women pray for their romantic partner. It was just a single prayer for their partner’s well-being, spoken privately in a quiet room. Others—the experimental controls—also went into a quiet room, where they simply described their partner, speaking into a tape recorder.

  Then they meaured forgiveness. When someone hurts you, it’s human nature to want to strike back, retaliate—or to withdraw from the relationship. The scientists defined forgiveness as the diminishing of these initial negative feelings, and when they analyzed all the data, the results were clear: Those who had prayed for their partner harbored fewer vengeful thoughts and emotions: They were more ready to forgive and move on.

  This is remarkable, when you think that a single prayer made the difference. The researchers decided to run another test to double-check the findings. In this study, they had a group of men and women pray for a close friend every day for four weeks. Others simply reflected on the relationship, thinking positive thoughts but not praying for their friend’s well-being. They also added another dimension. They used a scale to measure selfless concern for others—not any particular person but other people generally. They speculated that prayer would increase selfless concern, which in turn would boost forgiveness.

  And that’s just what they found. But why? How does this common spiritual practice exert its healing effects? The psychologists have an idea, which they described recently in the journal Psychological Science: Most of the time, couples profess and believe in shared goals, but when they hit a rough patch, they often switch to adversarial goals like retribution and resentment. These adversarial goals shift cognitive focus to the self, and it can be tough to shake that self-focus. Prayer appears to shift attention from the self back to others, which allows the resentments to fade.

==================

On a more dubious note…


Why do people say they’re “Spiritual but not religious”? (via)

A sweeping new psychological survey has come to the conclusion that North Americans tell others they have spiritual beliefs to appear more attractive, especially to prospective mates.
  People subconsciously paint flattering pictures of themselves by revealing they have inner spiritual beliefs, according to Constantine Sedikides, a social psychologist at Southampton University in Britain.
  The strong link between spiritual convictions and social attractiveness is based on Sedikides’ overview of 57 different international studies, which recently appeared in the prestigious Personality and Social Psychology Review.The British scholar’s analysis of psychological experiments (which included a total of 15,000 subjects) explains to me why so many people -even those who attend conservative religious institutions -are now so prone to say they’re “spiritual, but not religious.”
  The phenomenon is widespread in the United States and Canada, the two countries where Sedikides found it is most beneficial for people to let others know, as he technically puts it, they’re “intrinsically religious.”
  However, desirability goes down, Sedikides says, if people portray themselves as “extrinsically religious.”
  In other words, Sedikides is using academic jargon to say that North Americans on the dating scene who say they’re intrinsically religious, i.e. naturally “spiritual,” have a better chance of success than if they act as if they’re only externally “religious.”
  Why is this? Sedikides wonders if people believe the self-worth of a person rises if they believe themselves, or others, are valued in the eyes of a divine reality.
  Other evolutionary psychologists have speculated self-enhancement expands when people assume, rightly or wrongly, “spiritual” people may be more trustworthy, believe in something beyond their own self-interest or are inclined to monogamy.

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That sounds like someone saying im a vegetarian who eats fish

 

Whilst sharks also eat both fish AND vegetarians - as well as the “odd” vegan ;)

 

That sounds like someone saying im a vegetarian who eats fish

A vegaquarian? :)

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or “the age of vegequarius” ? 

... harmony and understanding….

 
Luke Stevens - 24 January 2010 09:07 PM

That sounds like someone saying im a vegetarian who eats fish

A vegaquarian? :)

The hotel that I work with had that word as a food requirement for a client. No joke, but we did have a good laugh.

 

Re the prayer for another promoting forgiveness.
 
This looks like another case of science discovering the wisdom of religion, while remaining strangely blind to the transcendent, the reality of God. 
Another example is scientists have discovered that having one day off in seven is good for you.
 
Looking at their possible ‘psychological explanations’ for this effect of prayer, they don’t seem to have considered that moving one’s focus to a higher power or a a higher reality, would give someone a different perspective, one which is beyond even thinking of others, or shared goals? 
That would be a further explanation, that may not even admit to the existence of God, although it does assume faith of some kind on the part of the person praying.
I didn’t notice mention, either, of whether they took into account the faith or beliefs (or otherwise) of the person praying.

[ Edited: 25 January 2010 06:52 PM by Ros Burgess]
 

When is ‘murder’ justified ? Well apparently ........

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/man-killed-abortion-doc-to-save-lives/story-e6freuyi-1225824544279

                            Man killed abortion doc ‘to save lives’

      From correspondents in Wichita         From:AFP       January 29, 2010 7:59AM


IN an impassioned plea before a US court, a born-again Christian argued today that he had killed a prominent abortion doctor because he wanted to save the lives of unborn babies.

Scott Roeder, 51, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder in the May 2009 slaying of Dr George Tiller in the foyer of a Kansas church.

Instead in an unorthodox move he is seeking to convince jurors that he is guilty of the lesser offence of voluntary manslaughter, because he honestly believed he was saving people from greater harm.

“From conception forward it (abortion) is murder,” Scott Roeder told jurors as he took the stand.

“It is not man’s job to take life. It’s never up to man to take life - except in cases of self-defence or defence of others.”

Tiller was one of only a handful of doctors in the United States to perform late-term abortions, which earned him the wrath of pro-life activists who had dubbed him “Tiller the baby killer”....................

Will be interesting to see if the jury agree with him - or not !

 

Update on Mr Park:
 
US missionary freed by NKorea starts journey home

 

Re; the prayer for another promoting forgiveness.

From what I read Ros, the article was pretty interesting. As for mentioning God or not, that isn’t the role of science. In this particular case it is hardly appropriate as it didn’t appear to focus on any particular religeous group. Their focus was instead on the elements of prayer as they effect the human psyche.
Extrapolating from this is something we can do.
There have been a few other experiments using prayer. A premier Drug & Alcohol Journal in the 90’s did one on the spiritual elements of Alcohol Recovery where a double blind experiment was done and a prayer group was allocated to pray for certain randomly selected persons in Withdrawal. This group did significantly better than the control group. I understand a similar experiment was done with cardiac patients.

Nonetheless, for the purposes of scientific research- it hardly demonstrates a higher force, God or whateer. It only indicates a value of a certain human behaviour. It does however indicate that further research could be fruitful.

 

Well, yes and no, Owen.
 
If anyone prays, they pray to God.  They may have false beliefs and the wrong God, but the purpose of prayer is to approach the deity. 
 
In which case, to do an experiment on prayer without reference to said deity, is problematic.  As far as I can tell, the scientists are assuming God will not answer (or doesn’t exist), and any results must be accounted for psychologically.  But they have allowed a very big uncontrollable unknown into their experiment.
 
I didn’t mean to discount that there are psychological effects of prayer, and their explanation sounds quite plausible, as far as it goes.

[ Edited: 14 February 2010 12:26 PM by Ros Burgess]
 

Hmmm
Ros. I’d say that the psychologists are simply measuring the measurable.. ie; the human component. Try measuring the God component and I reckon the whole thing would collapse.
and
since it doesn’t seem to be specific to any one tradition I would say that is consistent with its parameters. It simply examines prayer and its effect on people. I rather think it a good thing to do BTW.

As far as I can tell, the scientists are assuming God will not answer (or doesn’t exist), and any results must be accounted for psychologically.

Dunno that you can assume that- they are psychologists- not studying religeon or physics or anything else. Certainly not theology. So they are measuring the psychological benefits of prayer- there need be no assumption about the existence or responsiveness of Deity. Just the effect of a universal human activity on humans.

But they have allowed a very big uncontrollable unknown into their experiment.

A good reason for not making assumptions about Deity indeed. Experiments should reduce their parameters, not expand them if they are to be measurable.

 

Hi Owen.
 
 

Nonetheless, for the purposes of scientific research- it hardly demonstrates a higher force, God or whateer. It only indicates a value of a certain human behaviour. It does however indicate that further research could be fruitful.


Yes, I agree it doesn’t demonstrate a higher force, and I didn’t mean to imply that it did.  I know that’s not the role of science.
 

Try measuring the God component and I reckon the whole thing would collapse

 
That’s what I think.  But I think they have introduced a God component by asking people to pray.  Prayer is not just a human activity.
 

since it doesn’t seem to be specific to any one tradition I would say that is consistent with its parameters

 
Why do you think this has bearing on the argument?  Surely it’s associated with the line of thinking that either ‘the true God will answer and the false God will not’ or ‘tradition made no difference so there is no God component involved’.
 
If someone prays, it involves God. By definition.  Otherwise, it’s not prayer, it’s something else.
 

But they have allowed a very big uncontrollable unknown into their experiment.

A good reason for not making assumptions about Deity indeed. Experiments should reduce their parameters, not expand them if they are to be measurable.

   
This is actually my point!  Experiments only make sense within controllable parameters.
So as a scientific experiment I think it is hopelessly flawed.

[ Edited: 14 February 2010 09:05 PM by Ros Burgess]
 
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Morocco defends expulsion of Christian workers

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They were accused of trying to convert the children in their care to Christianity. The group's statement says it had always been open about its Christian ...

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11 Mar | comment | start topic

theresurgence.com »

The Top 5 Qualities of a Successful Church Planter

<object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CONLoXesOnk&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&hd=1" /><embed ...

11 Mar | comment | start topic

news.bbc.co.uk »

Injured Worcestershire child rescuer’s £10k pay-out

Julie Belcher, 49, was working at Hartlebury Church of England Primary School on 8 October, 2007 when a faulty frame fell off the wall. ...

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11 Mar | comment | start topic

theresurgence.com »

I’ll be at SXSW in Austin, Texas

I'll be in Austin at the SXSW Interactive Festival this week to learn from some of the most talented web, design, and marketing folks on the ...

11 Mar | comment | start topic

timesonline.co.uk »

Analysis: celibacy under threat

He is ordinary, or bishop, to Austria's Eastern Rite Catholics, whose priests are allowed to marry, just as priests in the new Anglican Ordinariates being ...

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11 Mar | comment | start topic

telegraph.co.uk »

Wife who escaped jail after attempted mercy killing takes her own life

A woman was was spared jail after trying to kill her husband in an act of mercy more than a decade ago, has taken her own life at a Swiss euthanasia clinic. ...

11 Mar | comment | start topic

theaustralian.com.au »

The battle for the Left

Environmentalism's evangelical zeal is a major grassroots threat, particularly among younger voters. In Australia, the Greens' federal primary vote has ...

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11 Mar | comment | start topic

smh.com.au »

Holland debates ‘tired of living’ euthanasia law

HEALTHY, elderly people who are simply ''tired of living'' could be allowed to end their lives with a lethal injection under new euthanasia laws ...

11 Mar | comment | start topic

google.com »

Police shoot dead seven suspected Kenya sect members

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...

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11 Mar | comment | start topic

news.bbc.co.uk »

‘Attempted mercy killing’ wife in assisted suicide

The former teacher at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, Devon, had been a member of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. Following the ...

11 Mar | comment | start topic

theresurgence.com »

10 Chemicals Essential to Your Health

Hormones series: Click | View Series /files/Catanzaro_10_Chemicals_Essential_to_Health.jpg The human body produces many chemical messengers and ...

11 Mar | comment | start topic

telegraph.co.uk »

Patricia Hewitt: Royal Commission needed to look at assisted suicide and mercy ...

She likened the issue to campaigns to decriminalise homosexuality and abortion in earlier decades. It comes after the Director of Public Prosecutions, ...

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11 Mar | comment | start topic

desiringgod.org »

I Loved This Novel. Still Do. More Than Before.

(Author: John Piper) http://www.desiringgod.org/media/images/blog/2293_gilead_book.jpgMarilynne Robinson's novel Gilead—if you can call it ...

11 Mar | comment | start topic

theater2.nytimes.com »

A View of Abortion From Three Eras

That said, while “Girls in Trouble,” Jonathan Reynolds's bracing assault on assumptions about the right to choose abortion, is likely too crude to make ...

11 Mar | comment | start topic

solapanel.org »

A Vine confabulation

By Ian Carmichael . We at Matthias Media have recently made available a free and downloadable discussion guide for Col ...

11 Mar | comment | start topic

telegraph.co.uk »

Dutch plan to let healthy elderly people commit suicide

Healthy elderly people who are simply "tired of living" could be allowed to end their lives with a lethal injection under new euthanasia laws being debated ...

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10 Mar | comment | start topic

theresurgence.com »

How to Outsource Your Mind: Choosing an Assistant

Why Your Pastor Should Outsource His Mind series: Click | View Series /files/outsourcing-2.jpg The last post showed why a pastor should outsource ...

10 Mar | comment | start topic

desiringgod.org »

One Way a Very Public Christian Spoke

(Author: John Piper) http://www.desiringgod.org/media/images/blog/2290_malik.jpg On September 13, 1980, Charles Malik gave an address called ...

10 Mar | comment | start topic

bbc.co.uk »

Hundreds killed in Nigeria clashes

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Benjamin Kwashi, the Anglican bishop of Jos gives the BBC his assessment of the situation. To play this content JavaScript must be turned on and the latest ...
Violence is Not Religiously Motivated, Nigerian Archbishop Says New York Times (blog)
Journalists don't get religion, Ex. 95244 Beliefnet.com (blog)
Archbishop: 'Face to face with Satan' in Jos, Nigeria Times Online (blog)
Times Online  - Times Online
all 2,274 news articles »

10 Mar | comment | start topic

theage.com.au »

Turmoil threatens church

ENTRENCHED divisions in the Anglican Church in Ballarat are endangering its future while complaints of bullying against the bishop are investigated, ...

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10 Mar | comment | start topic

theresurgence.com »

What Would Jesus NOT Do?

/files/2-What-Would-Jesus-NOT-Do.jpg Pastors are called to love, serve, and lead through the opportunities that lay in front of us. With so many ...

10 Mar | comment | start topic

smh.com.au »

Profile: Michael Carew

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At that stage he had been working for 16 years for Anglican charity Anglicare, as a residential youth worker helping teenage wards of the state get their ...

10 Mar | comment | start topic


Recent prayer requests

Evangelistic on Thurs 29/10 for Sydney CBD workers: “Doing Business With God”. Pray that many will come and be challenged by the message. — Arthur Lee

Praise God for bringing three Moslems from Saudi Arbaia to the Bible study we run for internationals! Please pray they will continue to come! — Dannii Willis

A community Prayer meeting will be held tonight at 7.30pm at Ingleburn Anglican for Melissa Parker - 9 yrs girl killed by a bus yesterday. — Kevin Goddard

My mother in-law died last week as a result of 12 years of dementia. Pray that the funeral will go well and that the weather would fine up. — Sheldon Ryan

Praise God for saving two international students, through the ministries of Bible Cub and the Fellowship of Overseas Uni Students (FOCUS)! — Dannii Willis

My youngest daughter (6 mths) is getting Christened on Sunday — Glenn Slaven

Praise God for all those coming to Bible Club, we had five internationals come today to hear the basics of the gospel! — Dannii Willis

Baptism service at my church, Grace Church Kogarah. 9 people baptised today ... pray for them to continue growing in their Christian faith. — Arthur Lee

Prayer service re VIC fires - Wed 11th Feb at St Andrew's Roseville, 7.30pm-7.55pm. To pray, to remember, to hope, to comfort. — Mark Calder

VIC bushfires and QLD floods - Father, You are in control of all the earth. Please sustain and comfort all those who have lost so ...Tia Zheng

Back to St Andrew's Sunday - Roseville on 15 Feb. Over 100 families with whom we've had some contact with being invited + baptism contacts. — Mark Calder

Thanks to God for Luke's continuing efforts to build Christian community on the web; grace and love for him as he maintains it. Amen. — Mark Hadley

Lord God, please bless this new venture. Amen. — Craig Schwarze

Welcome to the prayer micro blog! Feel free to post a quick prayer request, & prayers for this site & community would be appreciated too :) — Luke Stevens