How do you know faith is not a delusion?

Question

Follow me here....

Since the things people have faith in (like gods) can never be tested, or proven real, there is never any true way to know if results people ascribe to "faith" are genuinely a consequence of that faith, or just coincidence, or a persons own will, or some other force at work behind the scenes.

Furthermore, since we can never know for certain if devoutness actually makes a difference, there is no more risk in simply believing one ones self, over something external. When you get right down to it, the measure of a persons faith in times of difficulty is purely a consequence of their willpower. A person either loses faith, or maintains faith, so what is the difference between believing strongly in yourself so as to maintain steadfast faith, or simply believing in yourself above everything else?

The result will be the same, and you can never prove "something" intervened on your behalf anyway.

Realistic Viewpoint

1) You're preaching to the converted.
2) If you think anyone who disagrees with you is ever going to bother to follow all those links, you're nuts. Don't try and convince people with information overload.

Answer 1

For some people their religion is a delusion? Look at the middle east. If a person loses Faith they have no part in Christ. Believing in man shall always fail. Believing in ones self can only go so far, after that only Christ can lead.

Answer 2

Explain to me why the physical constants of nature are so finely tuned that intelligent life can evolve. If gravity, or the strong or weak nuclear forces, were off even by the tiniest amount, we wouldn't even have stable atoms, let alone stars and planets and life. And before you call me some kind of IDer, you should actually look at some of the literature... conferences with theoretical physicists, astrophysicists, philosophers, and theologians in attendance, talking about the convergence between religion and science. There is no enmity. They both point in the same direction, when you think with the people who are on the cutting edge, rather than with stick-in-the-mud conservatives on either side. Seriously. Read some quantum neuroscience. It'll blow your mind.

What is God? What is matter? Guess what: no one has any answers to those questions. But we still do the best we can with the available evidence. It may not lead to the fundamentalist God, but it doesn't lead to atheism, either.

Answer 3

Faith is the opposite of "proven". Science is the art of proving things. Faith is truth without proof. It can be acquired, strengthened, lost, found, argued, and relied on. But the only proof comes after death. I am talking here about spiritual faith or religious faith. Having faith in yourself is, of course, entirely different. To pray for strength, for example, is an exercise in faith. To get your wish granted is a matter of believing in it's origin. You can call it coincidence or karma or whatever, but to a person who has faith in GOD, there is no question. Sometimes you just have to stop trying to analyze it and just give into it. I don't mean to go and join a church or whatever, but for your own peace of mind explore the possibility that we were created of love.

Answer 4

Science has done fantastic things. I just read about hobbit galaxies surrounding our own. Science is built around proofs which are replicable by others in other sites and other times.
Faith is not a science. Indeed, what you propose is known as an oxymoron - that which disproves itself by its impossability.
To wit, if God could be proved, then the proof would be bigger than God ad infinitum. The person who judges the proof true would be bigger ad infinitum.
Proof is to science what faith is to religion.

Answer 5

The difference that makes a difference is; having faith in yourself puts the power in your hands, as an individual, where it should be.

Answer 6

When one person believes something absurd, they're insane. When many people believe something absurd, it's religion. So... I know this is a little generalized (I know that mere belief does not a religion make), but you get the point, yes?

Answer 7

The test of faith is faith. Faith has passed the test.

Answer 8

I'll take the Lord's peace over the world's peace every time. Until you've experienced it you really can't understand.

Answer 9

If people are interested, and really want to know, they'll follow the links.

It is easy to prove to yourself that God is imaginary.

The evidence is all around you.

Here are 50 simple proofs.

http://godisimaginary.com/


How do we know that Christians are delusional?

http://godisimaginary.com/video7.htm


You can prove to Yourself, that Jesus is completely imaginary, in less than five minutes.

http://godisimaginary.com/video4.htm


Proving that prayer is superstition

http://godisimaginary.com/video.htm


The best optical illusion in the world-!

http://godisimaginary.com/video8.htm


http://godisimaginary.com/


Many more medical articles about the efficacy of prayer.

Prayer-Related Articles by Gary P. Posner, M.D.

http://members.aol.com/garypos/prayer.html


A short list of Quotes from well known Atheists, Agnostics, and Religious Skeptics.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZuknsnphEU


Sheeple Files about "religion".

http://www.sheeplefiles.com/atheistreligionfile.htm

Proof #2 - Statistically analyze prayer

The fact is, God never answers any prayers.

The entire idea that "God answers prayers" is an illusion created by human imagination.


Watch the video

http://godisimaginary.com/video.htm

How do we know that "answered prayers" are illusions?

We simply perform scientific experiments.

We ask a group of believers to pray for something and then we watch what happens.

What we find, whenever we test the efficacy of prayer scientifically, is that prayer has zero effect:

It does not matter who prays.

It does not matter if we pray to God, Allah, Vishnu, Zeus, Ra or any other human god.

It does not matter what we pray about.

If we perform scientific, double-blind tests on prayer, and if the prayers involve something concrete and measurable (for example, healing people with cancer), we know that there is zero effect from prayer.

Every single "answered prayer" is nothing more than a coincidence.

Both scientific experiments and your everyday observations of the world show this to be the case every single time.


For example, this article says:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2005/07/25/a_prayer_for_health/

One of the most scientifically rigorous studies yet, published earlier this month, found that the prayers of a distant congregation did not reduce the major complications or death rate in patients hospitalized for heart treatments.

And:

A review of 17 past studies of ''distant healing," published in 2003 by a British researcher, found no significant effect for prayer or other healing methods.
This article from March, 2006 discusses the fact that the same conclusion was reached in another study:

http://www.livescience.com/othernews/ap_060330_prayer.html

In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery.

In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.

In this article

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/opinion/11lawrence.html?ex=1302408000&en=643ff6eac0f51086&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

we find an amazing quote where theologians and religious leaders declare that prayer has no actual effect:

http://godisimaginary.com/i32.htm

Religious leaders will breathe a sigh of relief at the news that so-called intercessory prayer is medically ineffective.

In a large and much touted scientific study, one group of patients was told that strangers would pray for them, a second group was told strangers might or might not pray for them, and a third group was not prayed for at all.

The $2.4 million study found that the strangers' prayers did not help patients' recovery.

This is a remarkable example of "positive spin" -- religious leaders are "breathing a sigh of relief" because prayer has been shown to be meaningless.

The fact that prayer is a total waste of time does not matter to them.

It does not matter that all of Jesus' promises about prayer in the Bible have been proven completely false.

http://godisimaginary.com/i1.htm

A peer-reviewed scientific study published in 2001 did indicate that prayer works.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-09/miracle-study.html

According to this article:

"On October 2, 2001, the New York Times reported that researchers at prestigious Columbia University Medical Center in New York had discovered something quite extraordinary.

Using virtually foolproof scientific methods the researchers had demonstrated that infertile women who were prayed for by Christian prayer groups became pregnant twice as often as those who did not have people praying for them.

The study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine.

Even the researchers were shocked.

The study's results could only be described as miraculous"

This study was later proven to be completely fraudulent.

However, everyone who cut out the original article in the NYTimes and posted it on their refrigerators still has that article as "proof" that prayer works.


This article entitled A prayer before dying uncovers another case where a "scientific study" of prayer is unmasked as fraudulent.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/prayer.html

It's not just prayer that is ineffective.

Not even a hopeful attitude helps.


According to this article:


http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-02-09-cancer_x.htm


A positive attitude does not improve the chances of surviving cancer and doctors who encourage patients to keep up hope may be burdening them, according to the results of research released Monday.


The dictionary defines the word "superstition" in this way:

An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.

[ref]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=superstition


The belief in prayer is a superstition.

It has been proven scientifically over and over again.

When a prayer appears to be answered, it is a coincidence.

Quite simply, prayer has absolutely no effect on the outcome of any event.

The "power of prayer" is actually "the power of coincidence."


Prayer does not work because God is completely imaginary.

Answer 10

I only believe that which is philosophically logical.