PRAYING VERSUS ACTING

[kowalskil]

The following advice is from a prayer book:

"Pray as if everything depended upon God, act as if everything depended on you."

I think that this is consistent with the idea of NOMA, formulated by the biologist Stephen Gould. We exist in the material world; God exists in the spiritual world.

The context in which the idea of NOMA was formulated is summarized in my article about futile conflicts between theists and atheists:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowals ... heist.html

[domokunrox]

Welcome Dr. Kowalski

Thank you for sharing your article with us. I had a question and comments I wanted make in regards to your article.

Have you read Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga?

If you don't mind me quoting your article since it is from an edu website I wanted to comment on a few things

Theology is like mathematics, not science.

I strongly disagree with this statement. Theology definitely has some similarities, but it certainly is not at all like a mathematical proof.
Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at Oxford Dr. John Lennox has echoed this statement several times.

scientists know that future experiments might result in rejection, or partial rejection, of what has already been accepted. Scientific truth is not claimed to be eternal

I think I want to expand my thoughts on this further since I concur with you here. The problem with scientists today is that they truly don't understand the consequences of this statement. If we want to claim any kind of rationality, the findings of science leave us with little to no knowledge at all.

A David Hume approach to observations, not the Immanuel Kant approach.

I figure that you probably know this more or less first hand from your atheist background in Poland that was probably inspired by the development of the Kantian system. This metaphysical reasoning of Kant is a complete and utter mess that has done nothing but fail to provide anything rational. A system that claims its solved an epistemology solution by saying there is no solution.

[B. W.]

Here is an interesting comment on Prayer:

Ancient Hebrew Word Meanings
Pray ~ palal
By Jeff A. Benner
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/27_pray.html

In our modern religious culture prayer is a communication between man and God. While this definition could be applied to some passage of the Bible (such as Genesis 20:17) it is not an Hebraic definition of the Hebrew word palal. By looking at the etymology of this word we can better see the Hebraic meaning. The word palal comes from the parent root pal meaning "fall" (The root pal is most likely the root of our word fall which can etymologically be written as phal). Pal is also the root of the Hebrew word naphal also meaning "fall". The word palal literally means to "fall down to the ground in the presence of one in authority pleading a cause". This can be seen in Isaiah 45:14 where the Sabeans fall down and make supplication (this is the Hebrew word palal) to Cyrus.

From this we can see that in order to pray, in any biblical manner, involves the act of praying. Praying is our action of seeking and beseeching the Lord...
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