Yes, I know this. Prayer doesn't actually work.
It works at least one out every hundred times. Even more if you pray for the right things. How often do you expect God to answer peoples prayers, he is busy.
The good church folk of Dover prayed that enough money would be made available to fund the purchase of the book "Of Pandas and People" so the school district could buy them. *And, because they all prayed together, the funds appeared. *They didn't ask any one to donate the funds, it wasn't like that. *Nope, just goes to show you the power of prayer.
You just have to pray for the right things
Your delusions are disturbing. So, in your story above, (the good church folk, praying for money), did the money appear by magic?
That was the court testimony.
Here's the question: if I pray for money... if I pray 100 times, will I magically receive money, too? *
If I pray extra, extra hard? You make the Jesus to be little more than a handy automated teller.
It COULD happen... *;-) ... You may have to pray harder. *Of course, perhaps that isn't the RIGHT thing to pray for. *You never known Gods plan. ROTFLMAO ...
You do know the difference between an p-value of less than .05 and a*p-value of less that .95, right?
Alpha, beta, p-value, power, type I and type II errors? What do you suppose these are for your detractors?
You do understand behavior and learning? *Positive and negative, reward and punishment?
Social environment provides external reward for verbal behaviors. Surely you recogize that?
High visualization skills provide internal reward?
Depending on numerous environmental, in-vitro, and genetic factors, the effects of external and internal rewards may vary.
This then changes the very foundation of perception and world *view constructs.*
In can describe this in terms of the cerebial cortex and the thalumus/hypocampus dominance and the feedback loop that supports and supresses internal reward through activation control of the hypothalamus and the sympathetic/para-sympathetic system.
It's all right there. The evolution of the brain, basil ganglia (lizard brain), hippocampus/thalimus/hypothalamus complex (mamillary brain) and cerebrial cortex that starts from the visual cortex and completes the feedback loop at the frontal lobe. Emotion, consciousness, memory reconstruction, internalized reward and punishment.