Prayer vs Medicine/Medical Treatment

[This is rough outline]

The healing power of prayer has been the subject of a lot of debate between the religious community and, well, common sense. The belief is that the power of prayer is able to heal people whereas medicine cannot. This is a rejection of all the evidence that has been compiled in the systematic search over the centuries to finding ways to cure or heal people. The worst cases of abuse and ignorance of the power of healing is when parents refuse medical treatment for their children on the basis that their prayers are more powerful than medicine. This is often seen in the rejection of blood transfusions and chemotherapy.

There have been studies done that have tested the power of prayer. [need to look up those studies to cite and quote correctly]. Summary: its not the prayers that affect, but the thought that someone is praying for you that results in higher recovery rates. So the focus ought not to be prayers but should be on bringing the mind of the patient to ease. [need to bring up recent studies done on the changes in hospital environment, such as personal space]

[Can bring up point in Bill Maher's Religulous about the people at the vatican going to be healed, but having same rate of recovery as someone who received no medical treatment.]

Omnipotence vs Omniscience

Omnipotence has several definitions. A basic understanding of omnipotence is that it is unlimited power. This means that the deity is able to do anything. Sometimes people place limitations on omnipotence, such as only being able to do what is logically possible [so no rocks they can't lift or hot dogs they can't eat] or that it is only able to do something that is in accord to its own nature [example on wikipedia is if everything the deity says is truth then it is impossible for it to lie]. But the limitations are sometimes ignored, so people may believe that the deity is capable of doing even the logically impossible.

Omniscience can be understood as actually knowing everything there is and can be known. This means all past, present, and future facts are known by the entity. There can also be a limitation placed on this, such as the deity only has an ability to know anything that it chooses to know and can be known.

The problem is that the two seem to actually exclude each other. If God was omniscient, then he would be able to know everything. So this leads to the question, can God actually change anything with his omnipotence? Since God already knows what he is going to do, and that it has to happen, it appears as though God cannot actually change the events that transpire. If God can change the events without knowing that the change was going to occur then his omniscience would be limited.

Euthyphro Dilemma

The Euthyphro dilemma is a monotheistic application of the polytheistic problem posed in Plato's dialogue "Euthyphro". Socrates, soon to be tried for impiety (corrupting the youth), comes across Euthyphro who is returning from court after laying charges against his father for the murder of a servant. Socrates asks Euthyphro about what piety is so that he may better defend himself in court.

The question is posed: Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?

This leads to some problems, such as gods disagreeing about piety. But if the pious is loved because it is pious, then it seems to appear as if you don't need the gods to inform you for what piety is, since it exists independent of them.

This problem can be applied to monotheism. Usually 'pious' is replaced with 'good' or 'moral'. I prefer to use good, but moral is equivalent in this argument. You can also say 'morally good' to add some precision, but i find 'good' or 'moral' alone is sufficient.

Monotheistic Proposal: Is what is good commanded by god because it is good, or is it good because it is commanded by god?

The reason this is especially poignant for monotheism is that it is believed that god created everything. So if god created everything, god must've created what is good, otherwise it exists independent of his existence and therefore it diminishes the power [not omnipotent] of god if he can't create what is good.

But, if God created what is good, then prior to his commandment of what is good there can be no justification to what is commanded to be good. therefore his commandment has no justification, thus rendering his commandment tyranical and arbitrary. God could've easily commanded killing babies to be good and we would have to accept that.

There have been some attempts to incorporate the quality of 'goodness' into God's "essence". I don't see how this can be believed to answer the problem, since it still appears as though what is good is defined without God's commandment. Also, this still reduces his omnipotence in that it claims that God cannot change what is good since he simply 'is good'.

So the dilemma provides us with either reducing the power of god or making god tyrannical and not worthy of worship (since you don't have to listen to arbitrary dictations). [need to recheck notes, and refer to oxford handbook of ethical theory or tyrannical nature]

Topics

Just listing topics to write on, this will be deleted. If there are any suggestions feel free to comment.

Evolution vs Creationism/Intelligent Design
Euthyphro Dilemma
Contradictions/Paradoxes (Omniscient vs Omnipotent)
Inconsistancies [different bible versions giving different information]
Problem of Evil
Amputee Prayers
Prayer vs Medicine/Medical Treatments
Epistemic Problems [how do you know of the super natural]
Science Theory
Historic Perspectives
Book Recomendations