To the skeptic & atheist they don’t believe in miracles; and the religious believer does.  So as a way to find a common ground and settle unexplained miracles.  Several skeptical organizations have set up awards and investigative inquiries into so-called miracles and pseudoscience.

So for those who believe that God has done a genuine miracle, here is a way for you to prove it to the atheist community and possibly make some money.

The Center for Skeptical Inquiry research many alleged phenomena and miracles.  So if you believe you have a real miracle on your hand, they will put together a panel and publication to research, observe and possibly test it.

However the Tampa Bay Skeptics Society of Tampa, Fl have a standing $1,000 Challenge to whomever can produce information for a real miracle.  And there have been real takers on people wanting to get the award money however so far no one has passed the Challenge.

And lastly for those who want to go for the big prize the James Randi Educational Foundation sponsors a $1 Million dollar for anyone who can demonstrate paranormal, supernatural, or some-level of a miracle under satisfactory observation.  They are the most legit with an application process and a tier level to weed out the frauds.

Related Articles

• How do you define ‘Miracles’? By Rob lundberg
• Are Miracles Real? By Craig S. Keener
• Modern Miracles: True or False?
• Miracles?
• Miracles for Sale  
• Can Miracles Happen?
• Scientific Skepticism
• Miracles, Evidence, and Skepticism
• Half a Billion Healings?
• Miracles for Sale
• The Shame of Non-Evidence

There have been many studies over the last 65 years as pertaining to the effectiveness and verifiability of the assured applicability of prayer.  The majority of the studies have taken place under medical-academic settings.  Others have taken place in more unconventional ways.  In all fairness there are varying results when it comes to the effectiveness  and efficiency of prayer of does it actually work.  Some have prayer works, but only as a placebo effect and in not real healing.  Other have said it helps in areas of recovery. Studies on Prayer inconclusive:

• Studies on Intercessory Prayer
• 25 Intriguing Studies about Faith, Prayer, and Healing
• Testing Prayer: Can Science Prove the Healing Power of Prayer
• Did Prayer save 5-Year Old Hostage?

Without a doubt the most famous study of the scientific effectiveness of prayer was performed by Dr. Randolph Byrd, in which he completed a double blind study.  His famous study was done in 1986; Dr. Byrd then a medical a cardiologist in San Francisco divided into two groups all his patients (400 in total) that were taking up medical beds in the coronary care unit of San Francisco General Hospital.  He did his study over a period of ten months. Group One was assigned to a variety of prayer teams throughout the United States, who prayed for them each day. Group Two was not assigned any prayer team.  Each prayer team was given the first name of the patient and told that the patient was in the CCU. They were given no instructions as to how they were to pray, as long as they prayed for the patient once a day.  In summary Byrd determined the mortality rate in both groups was the same. Byrd concluded that prayer positively affected recovery, but not the death rate.

And again in 1999 a Dr. William S. Harris also attempted to replicate Byrd’s study and concluded that “supplementary, remote, blinded, intercessory prayer produced a measurable improvement in the medical outcomes of critically ill patients.”  As according to the findings of his study.

Theses are not the only studies that were done into proving the scientific effectiveness of prayer.  Here are the varying sources with different degrees of results verifying the effectiveness of prayer:

• Do Prayer Studies Work?
• Does God answer Prayer? YES
• The Proof that Prayer Works

However their are claims that in these studies used many used a Sharpshooter mentality, in that their results can be explained by chance and confirmation bias.  Psychiatrist Richard P. Sloan compared the Byrd and Harris studies with the sharpshooter fallacy, “searching through the data until a significant effect is found, then drawing the bull’s-eye.”  For example it is stated by critics of their of the Byrd and Harris study that they did not completely do the study in a controlled environment and that Harris’ study did not using an impartial measuring standard.

In Considering…”Both of these claims can be proven false by the 49 prayer studies during the past 52 years. Most studies use hospitals because there is nowhere greater place where prayers take place (other than a church, synagogue or mosque). Turns out that people of all faiths as well as atheists get healed the same. No one faith is healed greater than another. The atheists’ ‘hopes’ get answered just the same as a Christian’s/Jews/Muslims (pick any religion) ‘prayers’.” -(By Bruce Gleason, One Proof that there is no God)

However on the opposite end of the spectrum, there have been many medical & academic studies that come to the conclusion that prayer has no effect and is of no effect.  One study done by ambiguously the most recognized and prestigious Health group in the US, the Mayo Clinic in 2001 came to the conclusion after analyzing the major factors in health (death, cardiac arrest, re-hospitalization) that after 26 weeks concluded that “intercessory prayer had no significant effect on medical outcomes after hospitalization in a coronary care unit.“

But perhaps the most complete and recognized study on prayer was STEP, commonly referred to as the Templeton Foundation prayer study or the Great Prayer Experiment.  For this was by far the largest and most comprehensive study that was funded by a Christian group, but put on by Harvard Professor Herbert Benson who was a believer in the psychological benefits of spiritualism in the medical field.  The study came two conclusions:

1) “Intercessory prayer had no effect on recovery from surgery without complications.”

2) “Patients who knew they were receiving intercessory prayer fared worse.”

There are other Studies that show that Prayer is ineffective as well:

• Atheism 101: Can Prayer heal the sick?
• God is Imaginary: Statistically Analyze Prayer
• Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? Reviewing the Evidence about Prayer
• Study Concludes Intercessory Prayer doesn’t work
• Prayer: What does Science Say

Maybe the answer from a theological perspective is that God and prayer can’t be tested and measured.   But even with that mindset we also would have to concede that God and prayer can’t be verified.

“The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.” -Thomas H. Huxley

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“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” -Christopher Hitchens

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“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”  -William K. Clifford

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“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” -Carl Sagan

 

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Do whatever you NEED to do.

Do whatever you HAVE to do.

                -But make sure you do all three.

Reblogged from Thinking out loud:

First and foremost the most important principle in any marriage is that you can only control your own actions. So the advice is from that perspective. So here are few tips:

1. You must first respect both your partner and their beliefs. This is especially important because some believers do not separate belief from personal identity & self. And in critiquing their beliefs you are in fact criticizing them. So don’t actively try to convert them. If you are, then you really are not respecting them.

2. Don’t be a jerk. By that I mean don’t mock their religious beliefs no matter how silly or absurd it may seem. Don’t be combative or push their religious buttons on purpose. It’s the mentality that if you are not trying to help solve the problem, then you are part of the problem. Keep fulfilling your duties as a husband, father, wife or mother. Just like any marriage it works the most smoothly when everyone is doing their job and fulfilling their duties. Don’t be a jerk, push buttons, be resentful, slack off or slack in your marital duties.

3. Try to find common ground.  Try to find something new in common that you can both talk about peaceably.  As obvious as this may sound, it is not always that easy. For example: The number one thing I had in common with my wife was our beliefs, now since that is gone. We can both definitely feel that there is this void in our relationship. And it shows up alot in our conversations.

4. Let your significant other know that they are significant. Let them know that you love them and committed to making this relationship and/or marriage work.  And don’t just let them know in words, but in action and deeds too.

5. And lastly give it time. It takes time and work for any marriage to work. And with the strain of religion and beliefs it will just take just more time and more work, so be prepared.

Related Articles

• Dear Positive Atheism
• An Atheist Christian Marriage Can Work
• Unequally yoked: Advice for the atheist in a theist relationship
• On Atheist Marriages, Soulless Soul mates: Can an atheist and a believer have a happy marriage? by Jesse Bering
• Atheist and Marriage by Austin Cline
• Mixed Marriages with Atheist & Theist by Austin Cline
• Overcoming an Unequal Yoke, A Guest post on this Blog
• Being in a Mixed marriage Christian-Atheist, and the Issues come up, and overcoming the issues of dogma, Another Guest Post on this Blog

Related Podcast & Videos:

• Dale McGowan: Mixed Marriages
• Can an Atheist and a believer relationship Work?
• Losing Your Religion – Keeping Your Spouse

I am an atheist because I have never seen any real evidence of any gods of any kind. Even as a child it bothered me that god did not act in obvious and public ways as depicted in the Bible. The liberal interpretation that the supernatural events in the Bible should be interpreted metaphorically only begged the question why the god entity shouldn’t be interpreted metaphorically as well.

In Christianity, there is alot of comfort in death, there is alot of consolation in the idea that your loved ones are in a better place, and those morally deplorable and despicable ones are not.  However for the atheist, the idea of nothing is not always the most comforting thought for everyone.

And in facing this new reality and oncoming death,  What I have learned in my opinion that I should not fear what we are all expecting but I should be prepared to embrace it, cause like my coworker said, I should live everyday like I am dying, embracing every moment like it could be last, and every person, like it could be our last good-bye.  However coming from that mindset we must face the reality and the present of death as Sam Harris puts it.

As a former believer, living is not really living -it is preparing for your second life after death.  So as a Christian you/we might sometimes have a habit of talking and think alot about death, because there is alot of anticipation & anxiety surrounding death.   Because of this highly anticipated & expected gift in that in death we will receive a reward for our earthly servitude, eternal life in heaven.  Hence in that mindset there is a focus of anxiety surrounding the awaiting of death for the believer, (maybe that’s why it is talked and focused on so much in the church.)

The idea of living & dying emotionally changes when you are no longer a Christian.  When you are a Christian, you are living for the purpose and hopes of an afterlife or second life.  I tell my wife sometimes, “I’m no longer living for a second life, I’m living for this one.”  In that I am no longer in emotional suspense of death, but more fear never living

 ”Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.” -Bertolt Brecht, The Mother

Yet in this new mindset I find life much more precious and beautiful.  Our life is precious, because we give meaning to death by living.  In that I don’t fear dying, but not living.

Related Articles

• Grief Beyond Belief, How Atheist are dealing with Death
• Death
• Facing Death
• Grieving as an Atheist
• Our Legacy
• When You Lose Your Faith
• How do Atheist Face Death?
• Hello Death
• An Atheist Perspective on Death
• Sam Harris:  Existential Worries and Death
• Grief Beyond Belief
• Sympathy for the Heathen: 5 things to write a grieving atheist
• How Atheist Grieve Presented By National Public Radio (NPR) by way of the friendly atheist blog

By Bart S. Phillips

I once believed the voice inside my head was God.
I once believed the voice in me that said
That taking things that are not mine is wrong,
That hitting and hurting others is wrong,
That saying things which are not true is wrong—
That simple voice was God.

But the voice said many other things as well:
That torture and slavery are savagely wrong,
That subjugating women is inhumanly wrong,
That building gilded shrines and lavish temples
While children suffer and starve is heartlessly wrong.
What voice was this?

This voice inside my head also cried out
That punishing people for working on a “holy day”
Or for having sex with someone they love
Or for denying belief in unbelievable things—
These punishments are undeniably wrong.
Was this a different voice?

I once turned to that voice to decide my path,
To tell me what I should live for,
To tell me what I must oppose,
To tell me who to marry, where to live, what to do—
I tried to pledge myself entirely to that voice.
At that, the voice seemed suddenly silent.

So what is this voice inside my head
That speaks in the accent of my ancestors,
That encourages me when I struggle,
That chides me when I come up short,
That dares me to question and to reason,
That compels me to be better, to know more, to grow?

I once believed the voice inside my head was God,
But now I recognize that voice
As it enunciates my humanity,
That voice of intellect, of passion and compassion, of imagination—
That voice is no one else’s.
That voice is humbly, proudly, simply…me.

Related Articles on the Various degrees and positions of Unbelief & Atheism

• 17 Kinds of Atheism 
• What Kind of Atheist are you?
• Meta Atheist Vs. Pop Atheist 
• No Religion? 7 Types of Non-Believers
• Types of Atheists
• The Ignosticism Position
• Defining the types of Theism
• 4 Kinds of Movement Atheist