Are you saying that right now, humans have a falsifiable test for the existence of God(s) , and it can be constructed with current tech ??
Studies have been done on people recovering in hospital, some being prayed for and other not. It doesn't work. You can always say there is some higher purpose yet to be discovered. IMO that's at best meaningless and at worse horrific. For example, some buddhists claim that babies born with terrible illnesses must have been bad in a previous life and so they deserve to suffer. Mother Theresa thought that suffering was a way to pay for sins so withheld pain medication from sick people. Meaninglessness and bad luck is better than that kind of "greater purpose" and delight in others suffering.
I don't think studies answer the greater purpose I mentioned earlier. There's a greater theological question as to why certain prayers will not be answered. These may include whether death in itself serves a greater purpose which we as yet cannot comprehend and therefore see it as a negative; whether a person dying is for a greater good elsewhere that we cannot see (butterfly effect); whether it is simply their time; the motive and intent of the person making the prayer; the true belief of Faith in the person making that prayer. Also please bear in mind that prayer is not only made to save lives - it can be from the important to the trivial - and whether those prayers are answered have even more reasons as to whether they are answered or not. What if two people make opposing prayers both believing them to be good e.g. in war? Not everyone's prayers can be answered. I've been praying all season for United to play well and be successsful. But nobody's listening I can't really comment on what some buddhists believe or on Mother Theresa because I don't know (although I think she did considerable good in adverse circumstances that all of us cannot begin to come close to) but I would question what you've said and want to know more on it before making a judgement. I know we will agree to disagree on this one. I have no problem at all with anyone not believing in religion. What I do have a problem with in equal measure is religious people ramming their beliefs on others AND people of no Faith hurling offensive stuff at people of religion. Both are equally just as bad imo. Each to their own I say and live and let live.
He's probably referring to the Templeton Foundation study: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_intercessory_prayer#The_STEP_project Prayer makes people worse!
I usually identify as agnostic too... But I really don't care which term is used. I'd rather just say "non religious". I don't think there's a God, but really don't know (or care) if there is one or not. I think the whole concept of "if you don't believe in me I'll get jealous and send you to hell" sounds more human egotism than the kind of thing you'd expect from a more evolved and elevated being. I'm not a big fan of militant atheists who go around arguing to people that they should be atheist too and acting more like religious nuts than the actual religious nuts. Therefore I usually go by "non religious" just to distance myself from those loonies. What's funny is, I've been told by many people here that it's impossible to be atheist or agnostic, that "everyone" believes in God in their heart and only decide to be atheist or other religion because they're angry at God. They tell me this, and they really believe it they've been so mindwashed.
