Your thoughts on prayer

Maybe try Mere Christianity again, John.  Now that you're more mature and a little less jaded. 

And since you have your Bible there, John, these were the readings at Mass today.  See if you see a pattern that makes any sense to you.

Jeremiah 20:7-9; Psalm 63:1-9; Romans 12:1-2 and Matthew 16:21-27.

These scriptures seem to address a lot of what we've discussed - namely doubt, and how even the most astute among us seem to get it wrong. Jeremiah even accuses God of "duping" him.

Well said, Alan.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes that remind me what you said.

"Any thinking man who observes this universe with its unity in diversity, with its multiplicity of being, their constitutional laws written in their very nature, and none having an internal explanation for its own existence, must rationally conclude that some supremely intelligent and supremely powerful being brought this universe into existence." 

Pretty disparate quotes, but kind of a different spin on the same thing, really.

Everything I need to know about the space-time continuum I learned from Star Trek.  LOL  Gene Roddneberry was a genius.

John, I believe that God exists outside space and time as we know it.  Sorry, that's that faith thing again. 

That's just another way of saying "maybe God does exist. " Very, very unlikely but not necessarily non-existent, John, is that what you're saying here?  If it is and you want to test this John, maybe this is where you need to begin in your quest for answers to what you've been asking....begin with even the teensiest little doubt you might have that God does not "not exist."  Just a suggestion, of course.

Very interesting stats, John.  Here's a few American stats.  I tried to avoid citations from one of the studies from the people with "an agenda" on either side of the argument.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8916982/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Davies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C5%82_Heller

There are a few people out there, of which I'm sure your well aware, who believe that science and faith don't have to necessarily cancel each other out.

I think he seek us as much as we seek him, John. 

    Now I'm going to have to look up that magazine again from years back..ever heard of the magazine called "Kindred Spirits"...I don't even know if they publish it any more, to tell you the truth, I think I saw it one recently though...some maybe oh, 15 to 20 years ago, out of England none-the-less....they had some people doing "aura" photography in the hopes they could use it as an diagnositc tool, being it's said that the aura projects the disease before it manifests in the body. They thought if they took pictures of people when they were healthy, they could take pictures an see when they were coming down with an ailment and treat it beforehand. Well, when they did an interesting thing happened, they were taking an picture of this lady and up came this dark little blob of light. It noticed them "observing it" and shut down their equiptment. so they didn't know what to think then. They didn't know if it was coming from the lady herself, an outter influence of some kind or what. This story was an couple of pages long report on it all... they decided in the end, that maybe what they were observing was another enitity of some kind trying to inject itself into this lady...rather an "bad thought" by someone else, or an dimensional being trying to interject itself into her personailty maybe. They felt it had to be "of its own" by what it did. It very much seemed to posess "intelligence" also. In the conclusion they felt that maybe they had probed an area of the "spirit" with aura photography and imaging just like doctors can look into us and see "bacteria"  present with microscopes. I'm on "vacation" this week. about to leave for an few days, but I'll dig through my virtual library when I get back, cause I know I kept this magazine, I was hoping someone like "Coast to Coast" would talk to these people and interview them and this was when Art Bell was running things, so it's been years ago. There is an Barbara Brenden, I think that's her name that runs an clinical school in New York that is fairly famous, wrote an book called "Hands of (in) the Light" that is an healer that trains others that talks considerably about aura's also. Someone brought this up the other day, use to be you heard all kinds of information from the "new age" sect, not any more, it's mostly from the "end of times" people for some reason....telling us to get ready for the end, and to heck with an future with promise of new technology coming to help mankind.  No wonder the world is depressing these days, nothing good is coming from it. There is no "hope" being given to it and much of that of "faith" is "debunked" in someway also if its mentioned. Kind of sad indeed. I'll give you the name and location of "they" when I find the magazien again. I finished my book "Lords of the North last night" and am going on to Brain Weiss's  new book about past life regressions...he was on Coast about two weeks ago...an graduating magna cum laude from Columbia University, and medical degree from Yale in Psychiatry, chairman of the board at Mt. Sinai Center in Florida...whom started out an an clincial doctor that didn't beleive in "past lives" and now is getting rich off his patients as he cures them by useing this method if treatment and writing books about it ..Laughs". This his his seventh book he's published on the subject.    

I think you'll find most scientists become atheists or agnostics, Alan.

The latest survey on religious belief amongst scientists involved 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences.

When queried about belief in "personal god," only 7% responded in the affirmative, while 72.2% expressed "personal disbelief," and 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism."

Belief in the concept of human immortality, i.e. life after death declined from the 35.2% measured in 1914 to just 7.9%.

76.7% reject the "human immortality" tenet, compared with 25.4% in 1914, and 23.2% claimed "doubt or agnosticism" on the question, compared with 43.7% in Leuba's original measurement.

Again, though, the highest rate of belief in a god was found among mathematicians (14.3%), while the lowest was found among those in the life sciences fields -- only 5.5%.

It has often been noted John, that education proves to present the greatest barrier to faith of any kind, not that I am saying here that education is a bad thing, far from it.  All I am saying is that it does not have to be so.

As for those involved in 'Life Sciences', by which I presume you mean those who cause a great deal of unnecessary suffering to animals while conducting experiments which are not only needless but unenlightening.  Like the most inaptly naed 'Cambridge Life Sciences' ( a division of a certain University) who carry out tests on animals on behalf of a large US Chemical comapny with a base in the UK.  The company and its products are, I need hardly say, shunned by all true animal lovers who know what they are up to!

Your use of 'Life Sciences' only shows how very desperate your argument has become.  They're the last people on (God's) Earth I would want to use in defence of anything, simply because their actions show them to be completely indefensible.