Prayer is a failure to reason honestly and is the perfection of narcissism.

I will start by highlighting my opponent's refutations and then move on to upholding my own case. I will highlight his words in bold, and mine will immediately follow. Though I assumed my opponent would make some attempt to debate prayer possessing reason (shared BOP) I do accept the BOP and my opponent's offense-only style of debate. I. My opponent is either trying to mislead the audience, or doesn't understand the contention he's refuting. "First of all those who believe in something came to believe that belief based on logic. Be it faulty probable logic with the possibility of being false or genuine logic that can't be refuted. In other words, all beliefs are based on inductive or deductive reasoning. Humans don't believe in things for no reason. At some point, using some form of reasoning to affirm what they believe they used reasoning skills to come to a conclusion. Even if the argument of religion is an inductive argument, inductive arguments are still formed using reasoning skills. .. .All of these prayers use reasoning. Their bibles witch they have a reason to believe is the guidance from their creator tells them to pray. it tells them why,how,where,when, and what to pray about. "My opponent is correct, those who believe in something do exhibit some form of logic to get there (to include flawed logic). However, this is not a debate on whether those who pray were able to come to their conclusion, it is centered on the way they came about their conclusion. It is a debate that acknowledges the conclusion, and attacks it for being flawed reasoning skills. There is a difference that my opponent is trying to cloud over, and that is the distinct difference between sound reason, and sound logic V. S. any reason or any logic. Even the most heinous offenses against mankind came about using some form of logic or reason, but that doesn't make their methods or their conclusions reasonable or logical. Exterminating the Jews in order to lift the human species potential, for example. His very first example is my hypothetical example in real time. "Ex-1 A- Why do you believe in a god you cannot see? It makes no sense. B- Scientists believe gravity exists. Can we see it? A- But that's different that has been proved to exist based on its activity. B- Same thing with god he is established by the actions he does, the philosophies he fulfills, the miracles he makes happen, and the amazing things he does and has done for his followers. A- Oh I see. It makes a little bit more sense now. "My opponent's example ignores the very premise on which this debate was launched, ". .. The miracles he makes happen, and the amazing things he does and has done for his followers. " To suggest that the one deity is active but only among people who share a certain opinion and not on the virtues of specific people is an illogical and unreasonable viewpoint. It writes off the 5.8 million innocent children who die of starvation every year. [1] It suggests that if there is a deity above that cares about the well-being of his creations, he only cares about your opinions, ignorant of individual virtues, & doesn't apply his help on the basis of need. (Opinions being your beliefs, and situations being that the children are starving to death at the rate of 16,000 per day). And it subjects the creature of omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, & omnibenevolent ways to a level of morality that humans are above. "Religious prayer walls off sections of the brain that allows for sane individuals to expect reasonable outcomes. This is a evidence lacking and baseless claim. There is no prayer phenomenon that makes certain areas of the brain not work. There are no studies to suggest this. there simply is no evidence that this is true. So as far as I can tell this is an flawed assumption. I do agree that people pray for things that seem to not be normal. Perhaps that could be used in the case against god. However the matter of if a prayer comes true or not is not important in this debate. The fact is that these prayers are still being made through humans using reasoning skills. Be it wrong or right reasoning skills is irrelevant. "Though this conclusion can seem tricky, it is to be seen in context. I was not looking to quote a neurotheologist when I stated that it walled off the section of their brain that deals with reason. I was only providing inference on the situation where you have someone who lives their life based off of sound logic and reason, yet their belief system defies the very logic that they exhibit on a daily basis. You can call it selectively ignoring, or you can say that they've walled it off. Indiana senate candidate Richard Mourdock, illustrates this view point. While debating with another candidate over abortion, he made the following statement that led to incense scrutiny among the population, “I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen. ” People were outraged at his ability to connect God with wanting a man to rape a woman, and his inability to see that if God had a plan then it should have been to stop the rape from occurring. What he said, however, is no different than the religious approach to all human atrocities. Another example of this reasoning is the religious attribution of starvation to human free-will, and that's why God intends to allow it. This also fails to paint God with a brush allows for his benevolence, and it defies all sound logic. If there is a God that is intervening in individual prayer, surely he would feel the need to protect harmless children from a hideously painful death that even the most evil & vile human beings don't experience on that level. II. Points of Clarity"Is it reasonable to think that there is a deity to control your wishes if he is already in control, knows the outcome, and his will shall be done? No. Wishes? are you referring to prayer? Are you suggesting that god controls a persons prayers, Or are you trying to suggest predestination? Please clear this up for me so I can refute this properly. "I mean to say that wishes and prayer are equals. People either pray for things that they wish for (whether for themselves or others), or wish to thank a particular deity for a particular outcome. I'm suggesting that if their is a creator, he is obviously not at work in the natural order of the world. I'm claiming that those who pray defy their own beliefs that God knows all before it happens, is supremely intelligent, is supremely loving, is in control of their lives, but yet listens to their ideas and changes his already knowing it was going to change mind. Only 2 conclusions can be made by prayer, and the encompassing of their faith. 1) Prayer is unreasonable because it does nothing. 2) Prayer is unreasonable because they're praying to something that doesn't have the power to do what they think it does. 3) Prayer is unreasonable because they are praying to something that knows better than them to an infinite power, and has already set a plan in motion. III. Vote swaying issue. "I agree that the statement you just made is not based on sound judgement or good sense just like you said. . Prayer is used to help oneself and others, to praise god, to strengthen faith, and to implant faith in others. These are many unpersonal reasons for payer. "My opponent has just agreed with me that Prayer, on a general sense, defies all sound logic and reason. With the understanding that this debate is the encompassing of that idea for the side of PRO, it becomes evident that my opponent does not disagree with the resolution, but instead wanted to have a religious argument of a different effect. I do accept the minor religious arguments, but this debate (in its entirety) is an agreement with PRO and thus warrants a vote to my side on the category of arguments. Eager for your response! [1]. http://www.bread.org...