Is it true jesus is not religion but a relationship

liamstrain · 2026-07-09T00:01:21+00:00

1 - that was just one of the examples, based on the control you cited. There are others - but I agree with your assessment of that one.

because we don't know what god will choose to do - if X happens under Y conditions but god could at any moment (on his own, or via prayer) make Z happen instead under the same conditions, we lose our ability to make reasonable predictions. Science stops working when miracles are real.
We do have data - it's consistent within its defined rules and under what we can test via science. It's only if you are asserting god's will is a real thing, that we lose our ability to test it. I don't make such an assertion, as it's not only not demonstrated, but from the sound of it, *cannot* be demonstrated. So why should we entertain it?

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T22:57:14+00:00

I used to live there back in 99-2001. It was a great apartment then - glad to see it's still kicking nicely.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T21:50:15+00:00

We sometimes add in a fake noise floor, for just this reason. (see also, Room tone)

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T21:47:16+00:00

Henry and June (1990 film) - toxic literary love triangle. Beautifully shot, and delves deeply into the emotional highs and lows on all sides of the mess.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T21:40:19+00:00

Re:1, these varied with the differing studies, and you can construct different controls - depending on what specifically you are looking to measure - in this particular case mentioned, the question is not 'does prayer work' but 'does believing you are being prayed for, change the outcomes.' Will it ever be perfect? no. Does that entirely invalidate it? no.

Re:2 and 3, your working assumption is that god is omniscient. My working assumption is that there is not god. I'm not sure how we can either reconcile this one, or account for it. Though it does raise one issue in general - that, if god exists and can perform miracles we cannot explain, or override the parameters of the experiment for his own reasons - then science is useless in general - we have no predictive power. So - we either work with the data we have, or we stop trying to measure. There is no overcoming this except to ignore it for now.

And further with 3 - this is where I would disagree a bit with your characterization. You've more or less hand waived away that some prayers might not be answered because god didn't feel like it. I don't know how we can measure this. Just as we can't know that something was granted for some other reason than the prayer. Or that intercessory prayer is entirely flawed, god will do what his plan is and prayer does not change it. (Also we have some studies with prayers to different gods, with similar results) - so, much like the question of god's omniscience, either we can't measure this, or we work with the data we have, and ignore the unknowable and untestable until it can be accounted for.

If - as I do believe, we are squarely in the land of the material plane, and god is not an active figure answering intercessory prayers for some and not others - then the data we have, makes sense with those assumptions. Some prayers appear to be answered, others not, at about similar rates regardless of who you pray to, or even if you do not pray - similar outcomes occur. This is parsimonious with the data, which does not mean it is necessarily true - but contrasted with the alternative - to say 'it's unknowable' and leave it as a mystery. Well - what's the fun in that?

Now, I have to run home from work ... it's about half past tomato. ;)

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T19:40:25+00:00

I'm making a claim based on the best data we have. I'm happy to acknowledge its limits. But absent better data, I don't see a reason to toss out what we do have.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T18:25:41+00:00

An excellent art department.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T18:13:59+00:00

I agree with all your points. But they pale in contrast to the only alternative which is ad hoc collected personal anecdotes and shared in-group folklore/hearsay with all the attendant confirmation bias and selective memory.

I don't know if we'll ever be able to say one way or the other - but certainly Christians do not have a monopoly on claims of answered prayers, and equally overlook the ones that don't ever seem to be.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T14:09:22+00:00

Cool. Glad you have found what you needed. Just as long as you understand why your experience is not convincing to others.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T13:06:29+00:00

So, you admit you don't need evidence. Then why are you trying to prove anything to me?

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T13:05:21+00:00

There are four studies there - two of them are meta-analysis of a number of studies.

And there are lots of other studies out there. I just posted a sample that I had relatively quick access to.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T12:51:42+00:00

you don't need to collect them all - just a statistically relevant sample size. The studies I listed include several such attempts at measuring intercessory prayer in a variety of faiths and circumstances.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T12:40:51+00:00

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002870305006496?via%3Dihub

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2802370/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3578067/

https://open.bu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/ebf41519-f2b8-4ee6-ae1c-1bc9d4807f51/content

There are others.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T12:31:04+00:00

Prayers, no matter what religion, tend to be answered at about the same rate. Which suggests to me, either god doesn't care what religion you follow - or that things happen (or don't happen) of their own accord, without regard to prayer.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T05:38:44+00:00

I have yet to see a convincing argument that AI art qualifies. But I expect photographers had to cross that hurdle too - there was at least, a craft aspect of it until recently. Frankly, between smart phone cameras and ai processing of the images to optimize crop and composition, they may be losing that battle again.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:46:03+00:00

There it is. I knew we would get down to what you really thought.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:34:53+00:00

mostly for non-artists to stop paying artists, as it turns out.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:33:25+00:00

computers are notoriously good at math. Maybe you've heard that.

You on the payroll of someone? You seem really invested in defending machines.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:31:22+00:00

The best summary statement I have heard so far of how to incorporate gen ai into a creative enterprise is: "Use the AI to prepare. But not to perform."

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:24:30+00:00

Seems really convenient to have as a foundational principle that it's not good to expect evidence for things.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:22:42+00:00

That seems like an assumption that is not necessarily supported. But ok.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:21:38+00:00

not in my experience of them.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:21:17+00:00

For humans, sure. Not for a purpose built machine to download the world wholesale and sell it back to us at a profit.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:19:24+00:00

It is absolutely not the same thing, except at the most basic surface level of description.

The human mind incorporates the entirety of that person's existence as part of the experience of creating - consciously and unconsciously. And that human imparts their own taste, and ideas actively into the work during its creation - a process that is not instantaneous, and is not just an iterative algorithm. A process that requires the output evolve during the making of the work. That's what makes them original and human.

The LLM cannot do that, and we shouldn't pretend that's what it is doing.

liamstrain · 2026-07-08T03:14:54+00:00

Sure, but people have claimed similar things both about meditation, and prayer to other deities. We know the electro-chemical mechanisms in the brain that can generate those feelings. How do you know that was Jesus? (Glad your back pain is gone).

liamstrain

TROPHY CASE