The "Skeptic's Prayer" is introduced on page 411 of [*Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith*](https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Catholic-Apologetics-Reasoned-Questions/dp/1586172794) , by Peter Kreeft & Fr. Ronald Tacelli. > ### The Skeptic's Prayer > > This claim---that all seekers find---is testable by experience, by > experiment. If you are an honest scientist, here is a way to find out > whether Christianity is true or not. Perform the relevant experiment. > To test the hypothesis that someone is behind the door, knock. To test > the Christian hypothesis that Christ is behind the door, knock. > > How do you knock? Pray! Tell Christ you are seeking the > truth---seeking *him*, if he is the truth. Ask him to fulfill his > promise that all who seek him will find him. In his own time, of course. He > promised that you would find, but he didn't promise a schedule. He's a > lover, not a train. > > But---you may reply---I don't know whether Christ is God. I don't even > know whether there is a God. That's all right; you can pray the > prayer of the skeptic: > > > God, I don't know whether you even exist. I'm a skeptic. I doubt. I think you may be only a myth. But I'm not certain (at least when I'm > completely honest with myself). So, if you do exist, and if you really > did promise to reward all seekers, you must be hearing me now. So I > hereby declare myself a seeker, a seeker of the truth, whatever it is and wherever it is. I want to know the truth and live the truth. If you are the truth, > please help me. > > If Christianity is true, He will. Such a prayer constitutes a > scientifically fair test of the Christian "hypothesis"---that is, if > you do not put unfair restrictions on God, like demanding a miracle > (your way, not his) or certainty by tomorrow (your time, not his). The > demand that God act like your servant is hardly a scientifically fair > test of the hypothesis that there is a God who is your King. > > But all this King asks for at first is honesty, not faking a faith you > do not have. Honesty is a choice of the will---the choice to seek the > truth no matter what or where. This is the most momentous choice you > can make. It is the choice of light over darkness, ultimately heaven > over hell. > > Honesty is infinitely more momentous than we often think. It is also > much harder than we think. Our culture trivializes honesty into merely > "sharing your feelings", telling others about the state of our nerve > ends. That's not the opposite of dishonesty, that's just the opposite > of *shame* or shyness. Shallow honesty seeks "sharing"; deep honesty > seeks truth. Shallow honesty stands in the presence of others; deep > honesty stands in the presence of God. An often-raised critique of this prayer's presentation is its perceived vagueness regarding conditions and expectations (see examples of critiques [here](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/108053/66156) and [here](https://infidels.org/library/modern/robby-berry-skeprayr/)) . According to proponents of this form of prayer, how much additional specificity and detail can be added beyond what Peter Kreeft and Fr. Ronald Tacelli have presented? In particular, I'm interested in the following aspects: *Conditions* For the Skeptic's Prayer to be effective, are there unstated implicit conditions beyond those mentioned by Peter and Ronald? For instance: - Is a single invocation sufficient, or does it require daily repetition over a few days, multiple times a day for an extended period, or even years or decades? The clarification on this aspect is not provided by Peter and Ronald. At a minimum, it seems they endorse trying the prayer at least once. However, they provide no guidance on frequency, intensity, or similar factors. - Are there thresholds to the level of skepticism a person must have before attempting the prayer? Can one be "too skeptical" for the prayer's effectiveness, and if so, are there strategies to overcome this limitation? - Is the skeptic supposed to undertake additional practices during the Skeptic's Prayer "experiment," like attending specific church services, fasting, reading the Bible, studying natural theology, or anything else? Or is merely praying for a few minutes sufficient, with no specified changes to one's daily life? While Peter and Ronald overlook this aspect, I presume it holds significant importance. *Expectations* How explicit can expectations be in the Skeptic's Prayer "experiment"? What should the seeker anticipate? Is an event expected, and if so, will it be clear and unmistakable? Can specific examples of this event be given to enhance the expectation's specificity, clarity, and detail? Peter and Ronald caution against expecting miracles, but what reasonable outcome can the seeker envision in their mind as something to anticipate with hopeful expectation?

Here, I would like to conjure an excercise, as I am well schooled in history and theology of Judeo-Christianity as a side-kick to my Graeco-Roman theological studies and other comparative systems of thought, religion, and philosophy. How would you convince a Heathen to your religion, if: His faith is completely reasonable, not faith-based, namely: claiming hypothesis, building arguments upon arguments of pillar-like soundness that are rock-solid as Parthenon, that reach a conclusion that Polytheism is a natural outcome of the intelligent, and the Monadic "One" is an abstract formula of Pythagorean progressions and theology of arithmetic and geometry. It is therefore a reason-based theology that moves Gods closer, and the remote "En To Pan" is unreachable by the human intellect, reason, anyone claiming to impersonate "objective truth" is a charlatan-guru and realizations of Divinities are approached by establishing ratio and intervals of understanding that correspond with Plotinian "notions" of the metaphysical worlds. Moreover, the aformentioned claims that all religions are man-made, but that does not refute the existence of spiritual worlds, they may be approximated in the eye of the beholder - to a limited extent; there was no reveleation as such, the Gods may or may not reveal themselves, metaphysics and the transcendent realms can do without human belief-systems, a mortal is merely "measuring Heavens and metaphysical realities" with himself, herself, but "heavens and stars are not brought for the sake of a mortal animal" (Iamblichus of Chalcis). His theology relies solely on antique studies, vast literature that is oft ignored by Christians, apart from living experience bestowed by the Providential Gods, starting from Parmenidian doxology, throughout careful understanding of Egypto-Hellenic theologies, into multiple mystery and initiatory cults, psychopompic, psychagogic and otherwise transformative both aretorolically, up to Plotinian Enneads and into Mithraism. He may and understand the cults and their purpose well, which was an effective deification, heroization and epitomization of the soul. Moreover, he is a practicioner of the methods and schools and receives "Theion Ergon", or work of the Divinities upon him, subverting any form of reliance on the Essene Gnostic Jesus and his ecclesiastikoi (the Church). His angelology and bestiaries of spirits are related strictly to Republican and Imperial cults of the Graeco-Romans, avoiding the ideas contained in Dionysos Aeropagite of later "hierarchizations" that was strictly Judeo-Christian. His aretology is based on twenty private and public virtues of Rome and paideic standards of the Hellenes. He doesn't believe in sin or baptism, as an "inventio" of Judaism in face of the dream to be liberated from the Romans, therefore his hamartiology is based not on a "fatal flaw" of birth into nature, but gigantomachia, the battle and overcoming of nature and responsible life, the only transgression is that not to take sculpting in the nature, ethos as a rewarding, heroic enterprise that results in deification posthumously. On top of that, he may be a blatant, openly effective Heathen theurgist and practicing necromancer, an excorcist etc. avoiding all the Judeo-Christian methods of act, belief, and submission. He believes morality is relative, humaneness is difficult to define, and it is by the virtue of his daimon that he becomes noble, bearing, strong and righteous, moreover that human nature - following Plato - is neither good nor evil - every beastiality and idyll may be found amongst nature and the problem of "evil" is that of conflicting natures, war of the elements and inclinations, to be solved first and foremost within by a noble, strong conduct, overcoming suffering not being conquered by it. Is there any argument to convert such a person, or merely "believe because so" is the answer provided to a reasoned, educated Heathen that does not accept the Abrahamic god, nor an Essene gnostic "Jesus" as a figure of any relevance, apart from the creed that professes suhc a belief?

Does a Christian just temporarily stop believing that Jesus died and rose again every time they sin or something?

If Creation as it was made was good in God's eyes before the Fall, and in the New Heaven and New Earth in Revelation restores Creation to what God intended it to be, but marriage is not part of the new Creation, why did God institute it in the first place? I understand that we will have intimacy with God in Heaven, but God Himself was in the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were, and yet He still instituted marriage. However Jesus answers the Sadducees about the several-times-married woman stating there is no marriage. Am I misunderstanding something here? Or is Jesus' answer for a different context? I have checked for similar questions, and seen answers relating to Catholicism and Swedborgianism, but not in general to Protestantism.

We read in Jude 1:14-15: > Enoch, who lived in the seventh generation after Adam, prophesied about these people. He said, “Listen! The Lord is coming with countless thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on the people of the world. He will convict every person of all the ungodly things they have done and for all the insults that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” Footnote under the verses reads:The quotation comes from intertestamental literature: Enoch 1:9. My question is: What is meant by Intertestamental Literature ?

McHugh & Callan, O.P., *Moral Theology* says >292. […] rights and duties are correlative—there being a duty that corresponds to every right, and vice versa To what duties do author's rights (*ius auctoris*) correlate?

I have seen people resort to arguments such as "if there is no afterlife, why be good (or religious)?". Counterarguments to living in sin during this life include final judgment and the infinite duration of eternity (which also form the basis of Pascal's Wager ), which I find compelling, but are there more reasons to be good than these? What Christian denominations advance an argument that is persuasive in favor of doing good in this life even if one thinks there is no afterlife, and what are those arguments?

Jews had prophets and received Scriptures from those prophets. Later, came Christians who had apostles and through them received Scriptures. Still later, Muslims come along and they have one prophet Muhammad and through him they received Quran. Muhammad claimed that he belongs to the prophetic line of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the Quran, the book Muhammad gave as the Scriptures, he quotes many familiar names and stories from the Bible. Why don't Christians, mainly Protestant Christians, accept the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a true prophet of God? If they don't, why? An already discussed question in this forum has been offered as an answer to this question. Here it is: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/87277/50422 However, the above question and the responses it gathered do not answer my question as I explain below. My above questions in the OP do not seek general reasons to test all those who claim to be the prophets of God, rather they focus only on the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his claims. Furthermore, none of the answers given in the above link examine Muhammad's teachings in the light of the Biblical teachings.

Christians are starting to accept natural theology as a way of God using the observable world in order to create the universe. In the deuterocanonical books, it says that God formed the universe out of formless matter or matter without form (Wisdom of Solomon 11:17), but did any of the church fathers believe that God created the universe through formless matter? Wisdom of Solomon 11:17 > For thy all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter, did not lack the means to send upon them a multitude of bears, or bold lions,

There are various versions of the Bible, each with its own set of books considered canonical. For instance, the Catholic Bible includes books that are not present in the Evangelical Bible. Additionally, there are historical texts such as the Ethiopian version of the Book of Enoch and the Nag Hammadi scriptures that are recognized in some traditions but not in others. My question is as follows: Why don't different religious denominations and scholars come together in a council to review and unify the biblical canons? The idea would be to discuss and decide which books should be included or considered apocryphal, based on the latest archaeological, linguistic, and theological evidence. I believe that a thorough and well-founded review could clarify doubts and unify understandings about the sacred texts. Would such unification be feasible? What might be the potential theological, cultural, and academic consequences of an initiative like this?

I've come across people who claim piracy to be a theft that breaks one of the Ten Commandments (a sin against God). Yet, I've considered the matter and opined the following. 1) Equal Opportunities: It is a given, taking into consideration poor countries like India also, that not everyone is in a position to earn as much as his fellow brother, be that due to being born in poor circumstances, in the schooling privileges given him, in mental gifts given him, as in intelligence, ability to learn, ability to carry out work. Everyone has differences in this regard. There is also the point of what he can afford given the economic status of his neighbourhood, wealth and health of his families that he must earn for too. 2) Taking note of the above, Unfair Pricing and Class Distinction: It always amazes me when a person who is well above his means wants to force a doctrine of morality on others, in that piracy is a theft. I will just say, let pricing be governed according to class. Let the poor pay one thing, let the middle class pay one thing, and let the rich pay thrice the amount for his every need than the poor. And let's see if the "fairness" of the hearts of the rich is willing to still cope with such. 3) Is piracy immoral: The Bible does mention that anything that is kept away from you unfairly, you have the right to take it. What I think of that, I will not say, but I mentioned it as it might be related to this. What does the Church think about the morality of piracy?

The pineal gland of the human brain is where the drug dmt is formed, can it mean something?

I remembered recently that long ago, in middle school, my history teacher told us in the class that Yahweh, the Hebrew God was a god part of a polytheistic religion, and that He wasn't even the king of gods(like Zeus from Greek religion), and that Abraham choose Him(Yahweh) from the other gods to be the all-mighty, all-knowing, all-powerful, single God to his new monotheistic religion, that he passed to his son Issac and his grand-son Israel and it became the God of Israel nation and trough Jesus(who was part of the Israeli nation, kingdom of Judah), it became God-The Father for us, Christians. This sounds like a blasphemy to me, but is this based on any historical discovery, or has it any theological or historical veracity?

Matthew 19:29 : >And every one that hath left **house**, or **brethren**, or **sisters**, or **father**, or **mother**, or **wife**, or **children**, or **lands** for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting. Mark 10:29-30 : >Jesus answering, said: Amen I say to you, there is no man who hath left **house** or **brethren**, or **sisters**, or **father**, or **mother**, or **children**, or **lands**, for my sake and for the gospel who shall not receive an hundred times as much, now in this time; **houses**, and **brethren**, and **sisters**, [Is the omission of "fathers" here significant?] and **mothers**, and **children**, and **lands**, with persecutions: and in the world to come life everlasting. It seems the ordering is from most long-living to least long-living ties. A household (οἰκία) lasts the longest, many centuries. Brothers and sisters are longer-lasting ties than parental ties because siblings are coeval with each other; such ties are lifelong. Children are with their parents longer than with their wives. Lands are the least long-lasting ties, as some people are migratory. Or perhaps the ordering relates to the order of charity ? Have any commentators interpreted the meaning of the ordering of these things? And what about the omission of "wife" or "fathers" in St. Mark's account? cross-posted on Biblical Hermeneutics StackExchange

For most of the Western world, Christmas is celebrated on December 25. However, Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Christmas on January 7 instead. How did this come to be? Is there a theological difference underlying this difference or is it simply a matter of the Gregorian calendar vs. the Julian calendar?

OK, so to start, I searched this topic on the exchange and found no answers that were satisfying. I am not questioning God, I just have a hard time coming to terms with why bad things happen to the innocent. For instance, a mother through no fault of her own can't afford to feed her babies and has no means to do so except strip or other unsavory actions. Or, a young person who by all observable means did nothing to deserve developing an addiction to heroin. Even with charity, and the good things Christians do, people will inevitably fall through the cracks. How is this fair? I know that God given free will plays a part, but if God saw the way these people, for better or for worse grew up, how can he still put them through unspeakable hardship, when they did nothing to deserve it? I feel this question doesn't need references to prove what I am saying, all you have to do is look at the state of the world. These things happen on a daily basis. I ask because, I feel bad for these people and it is causing my faith to falter. I apologize if this doesn't meet the standards of the community, I did my best to adhere to them.

From the BoM at Alma 11:38-40 , >38. Now Zeezrom saith again unto him: Is the Son of God THE VERY ETERNAL FATHER? > >39. And Amulek said to him; Yea, he is the VERY ETERNAL FATHER of heaven and of earth, and all things which is in them are; he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last: > >40. And he shall come into the world to redeem his people; and he shall take upon him the transgressions of those who believe on his name; and these are they that shall have eternal life, and salvation cometh to none else. Let me say first of all I am familiar with another thread here: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/23926/why-is-the-son-of-god-called-the-eternal-father-in-the-book-of-alma that ask a similar question? The answers given attribute the word "father" to Jesus Christ as a title. At Alma 11 there is a footnote quoting Isaiah 9:6 where Jesus is given the title, "Eternal Father." What I am asking is where in the Bible does it teach that Jesus Christ is actually the person of God the Father? The Bible teaches and is clear that there is only ONE being of God and this one God chose to manifest Himself as three distinct persons. This means that the Son of God is not God the Father nor is the Son of God the person of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. So again, from the LDS perspective please reconcile or please explain from the Bible how can Jesus Christ be the person of God the Father and the person of God the Son at the same time?

Jeff Deuble in Christ Before Creeds says (p. 33-34) > The significant controversies about the Messiah that were strongly > contested in the New Testament were: his death by crucifixion, his > resurrection, and his subsequent ascension and glorification. [...] As > you read through the book of Acts you will discover that these are the > three facts that the apostles continue to preach and debate, > especially with Jews (Acts 2:22-36, 3:17-26, 5:29-32, 10:34-43, > 13:26-41, 17:2-4, 17:29-31, 26:19-23). [...] These basic > Christological tenets differed from previous perceptions, so they were > strongly proclaimed and debated from the inception of the church on > the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14-36). Yet, he continues > Nowhere is there reference to a debate over Jesus being "fully human > and fully God," or being himself God or on the same level as God. It > doesn't appear at all on the landscape of first-century church > history, whereas it looms large, at center stage in the church history > of the fourth and fifth centuries. > > This silence is remarkable because the early church was strongly > Jewish and the Jews were strongly monotheistic. Any suggestion that > Jesus was *Yahweh*, or a part of *Yahweh*, or even equal to *Yahweh*, > would have been vehemently resisted, would it not? **This silence is > certainly difficult to explain if, as claimed by some, Trinitarian > doctrine existed from the outset, from the earliest days of the > church.** How do those who hold that Trinitarian doctrine existed from the earliest days of the Church respond to the sort of argument Deuble lays out here?

It has been confirmed scientifically by Oxford Population Health researchers that there is direct link between alcohol consumption and significantly increased likelihood of developing malign types of cancer. Besides, alcohol has been prime cause of mental disorders, broken relationships and crime. 1. Why would Jesus turn water - the source of life into alcohol/wine - the source of misery? 2. Why would the Messiah engage in such an inconsequential and trivial act of making a party go on? It does not seem right for Jesus to use his divine powers to this ambivalent end. I have been trying to become religious many times before, but usually my drive towards religiousness is quickly quenched by absurdity I perceive in the sacred texts. It's likely I'm just ignorant, so please help me find an answer to the questions to help me out from my possible ignorance or lack of understanding.

I'm curious what the Bible says about Luck. Is this something that is a real occurrence or is every little detail ordained and controlled by God (fate)? I searched [biblegateway](http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=luck&qs_version=NIV) and did not find "luck" under NIV. Then I tried NASB. The closest thing I've found comes out the of Good News Translation (which I don't trust at all) and out of the book of Sirach (which I've never heard of). >[Sirach 20:9 (GNT)](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Sirach+20:9&version=GNT)
>Bad luck can sometimes lead to success, and a stroke of good luck can sometimes lead to loss There are more sayings in that book and translation, however, this really doesn't satisfy me, since I've never heard of the book of Sirach (and I really don't trust the Good News translation). **What is the biblical case against the concept of Luck?** ---- Just to be clear, I'm referring to Luck as the random chance—coincidence—that brings good or bad fortune. I'm not referring to an external force that influences the good or bad that happens in our lives. Clearly, if there *is* an external force that brings us good or bad fortune, that could be directly attributed to God, Satan, demons, or angels from a biblical/Christian stance. **Scope:** Just to be clear, I'm interested primarily in the Protestant Bible, but I'm willing to accept Catholic translations and Deuterocanonical books.