Take priesthood blessings for example. IF the priesthood were a real thing with actual healing power, and with the thousands (millions?) of blessings given to members every year...would there not be a statistically significant difference in the general health, or disease recovery rates, of the membership? How could there NOT be? And if this were the case, wouldn't doctors and scientists have taken note and be all over this??

Take the spirit as a way to determine truth as another example. Pretend for a second that warm fuzzy feelings ARE a reliable way to determine truth and that there IS one true church. Don't you think this is an ability that would have been recognized and honed and perfected by humanity centuries ago? And wouldn't the whole world pretty much then BELONG to the one true church by now? Instead what we see, in actuality, is the scenario one would predict if good feelings were NOT a reliable indicator of truth. I.e., thousands of religions and sects, current gods and "retired" gods, religious wars, etc.

Do these make sense to others, or do you think I am stretching logic?

Agreed. If it all was God's will anyway, why even bother with the ceremony?
Why even ponder about who to call or assign tasks?
Why even bother praying and asking?
If I were spending all this time and money, I'd EXPECT God to auto-heal, auto-bless, auto-save, etc.
Why not?

Works for determining the church is true, supposedly.

I am sure that wouldn't fly in a worthiness interview with the Bishop! "But there was such a burning in my bosom when he touched me there!" ;-)

Come on God doesn't make a lick of sense, but billions of people believe.

It's quite scary to hear them defend the undefendable.

Indeed. Sometimes I think I must be missing the "religion gene". Unlike many, I am unable to perform willful ignorance. Cognitive dissonance can't exist in my head. I have no shelf. I guess there's lots of ways to say it. :)

I never realized your logic about Mormon blessings! How true. This reminds me of the "why doesn't God heal amputees" meme. Another one is that why don't evangelical faith-healing televangelists ever set up shop in a children's hospital and put it out of business?

Because it's all bullshit, friends. Cognitive bias, special pleading and a little placebo effect all the way down.

Oh but my mother would argue otherwise. She is 100% certain that studies do show, that mormons are more healthy than the general public! So there.

I actually thought about the WoW when I wrote the original post. I will give them smoking, but the rest of it I believe would have a negligible effect on a real study.

But even taking into account dietary habits, you could control for that and you STILL should see the effects of millions of priesthood blessings.

Also, blessings on food always go something like "nourish and strengthen our bodies and minds, and do us the good that we need..." why then are so many Mormons overweight and dumb...

That is proof the prayers work! Mormons are fatter because the prayer to nourish and strengthen and etc. increases the caloric content of the food, but the TBMs fail to decrease their portion sizes to compensate.

+1!

How to prove a church false:

Is it stupid bullshit? If answer is yes, the church is false.

Divide into groups of three. Experiment on your own.

Do emergency rooms report a remarkable difference in clients who wear Mormon garments, as compared to those who don't?

Excellent points, Both of them!

It adds an interesting twist to both ways I hadn't completely thought about before.

I once heard a non-mo chide a lackadaisical Mormon.. "You better watch it! The way you're behaving, those Jesus Pajamas are going to tighten up around your cajones and pinch 'em right off!"