How powerful is a PRAYER?

[Amity 3]

we can split subatomic particles that are invisible to the naked eye, but we have no evidence of the God that made the very particles.

 

[SwedishMeatball]

Better yet, if God created the universe, where did God come from?

Just because I believe in God doesn't mean I think any one religion holds all the answers. It's a lot more complicated than that. There are times that it is very frustrating to believe.

 

[freckles and boo]

we can split subatomic particles that are invisible to the naked eye, but we have no evidence of the God that made the very particles.

The funny thing is, I really wanted to believe for a long time that there was a some omnipotent being responsible for it all. I just couldn't get over the "faith" hump. Nobody could explain it well enough for me to accept and believe. (By the way, that is not an invitation to "help" me or pray for me!). After a while I accepted what I had known all along - that people created God to hold their hand and fill in the gaps of their knowledge. People have been doing it since the dawn of humanity to explain the unexplainable and to create structure in their lives. I don't think that makes people bad or foolish and I don't want to appear disparaging in any way. It is just another aspect of our humanity. Some people need a God/faith/prayer/rule book and some don't. As Amity said, for some people a couple beers will do the trick. Or meditation. Or prayer. But as I wrote much earlier, prayer without action kind of burns my butt.

 

[Amity 3]

Just because I believe in God doesn't mean I think any one religion holds all the answers. It's a lot more complicated than that. There are times that it is very frustrating to believe.

welcome to my world. I'm not sure if there's a God or not. no one knows how this whole thing happened.

but there's no religion on this world that I buy into. they all want my tax-free money.

I'm good with 'I don't know and you don't know either'.

 

[lucyanna girl]

I concede. There are many people who are more educated than I am. There are many who are more intelligent. There are people on the DIS who can quote scientific facts that I cannot refute.
I do not concede that God and prayer are worthless and do not exist because I am not the smartest or most educated person on this board. I believe in the power of prayer and I believe in God.


Penny

 

[MrsPete]

"Stuff" happens all the time. You can always find a "reason" it happened. "It was terrible Grandma died, but we found that collection of silver dollars we sold to help pay the mortgage." "If I hadn't lost my job, I wouldn't have been buying smokes and lottery tickets and won that $100,000. God must be looking out for me." Little things and big things. Sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things happen. When you start attaching reasons and connections, then you're justifying your prayers.

If the "stuff" you mean is on a human level -- mortgage payments and lottery winnings, sure, you could be right.

But when you look at the grander scale -- the workings of the church, people being brought to Christ, and more -- and when you see the big picture over years and years, there's little chance that it could be chance. Just to throw out one example: For no particular reason, I became dissatisifed with my job. I'd been there for nine years, and nothing had changed signficantly, but I felt that it was time to leave. So I began to pray for direction. Was I to leave teaching? Should I stay home with my children? Homeschool them? Go into a different job altogether? Nothing. More prayer. Nothing. More prayer. Nothing. I was frustrated; I felt sure that I needed to be elsewhere, but I felt no direction. God doesn't always answer right away. In my Bible study, I was reading about Moses and the promised land, and I felt sure that I was supposed to be going somewhere new, but I didn't know where.

Then I learned that a new school was being built, and I immediately knew that I was to apply to teach there (the principal at my old school told me that he would NOT release me to go teach there). EVERYTHING fell into place more smoothly than I would've believed possible. Within that two months of hearing about the school, I was the very first regular classroom teacher hired for the new school. I walked into the interview already knowing that I had the job, and it was officially offered to me on the spot. Because everything fell into place so quickly and easily, I felt sure that God wanted me to teach Bible instead of my usual subject matter, so I started looking into becoming certified for that -- but several doors were slammed in my face. Soon it became clear to me that I was supposed to start a Christian club at the high school. The more I prayed about it, the more I knew that God wanted me there for a small, personalized setting, not necessarily a classroom. This was a little out of my comfort zone, but I started to investigate how to proceed. Immediately I stumbled upon a mentor (who told me later than he'd been praying for a person to appear for this job, and he didn't even know I was a teacher, much less a teacher at this new school), and several well-qualified, enthusiastic student helpers appeared. Over the years, I've worried as my student leaders have graduated, but every single year God has sent me new student leaders from the ranks of the underclassmen -- and not always the ones I would've expected! I've been faithful in completing the duties He assigned to me, and He has rewarded me more than I would've believed possible. Within a year, we were the biggest, most active club at the school, and we had to ask for a new place to meet -- we outgrew my classroom. In my personal life, I found a large house 2 miles from the school for which I could pay cash. The house is in the very best school districts in this county, and I have been very happy with my girls' progress in elementary and middle schools. Since we moved here, this area has just exploded, and our property value has shot up -- we probably couldn't afford to buy here today. The move also brought us closer to my husband's work, which eased some transportation issues we were having. How many things came together in this one example? My old job, my new job, the building of a school, several other people, housing, schools . . . it's too much for coincidence.

This is just ONE thing that I've seen God work out. While this has been going on, I have also seen medical issues and family issues and more all intertwining to work out for good for those who love Him. Yes, if it were one or two things, I could see it being labelled coincidence, and I understand that people who haven't experienced it might see only the tip of the iceburg and consider it chance . . . but once you've allowed Him to lead you, and once you've seen how He does it so much better than we do ourselves, then YOU KNOW.

 

[smartestnumber5]

There's also no empirical proof that I love my husband and children -- does that mean I don't?

I think there's probably tons of emprical evidence that you love your husband and children. Pretty much all of the behavior you exhibit toward them!

Of course that is not full proof evidence; you could simply be faking it. But actually the possibility that you (or anyone else) could fake it just shows that we all know what the behavioral cues of love are. And those thing are measurable.

Also, I believe some studies have found that romantic love brings brain changes and the release of high levels of various chemicals, though I can't say I know the literature on this much at all.

 

[MrsPete]

The funny thing is, I really wanted to believe for a long time that there was a some omnipotent being responsible for it all.

See, the "responsible for it all" thing proves to me that God exists. Just look at our bodies, all the systems that work together in harmony. Could evolution have put together even just our sinuses? I just don't buy it. But we have a muscular system and a skeletal system, plus circulatory and digestive systems, not to mention the reproductive system and the immune system. To me, it takes more faith to believe that this all "just happened" to fall together than it takes to believe that God designed us.

But as I wrote much earlier, prayer without action kind of burns my butt.

Well, now, I agree with you there. You don't just pray, "Lord, help me feed my children today." You go out on some job interviews and do your dead level best to find a good job, and while doing so you pray, "Lord, direct me to the place that'll help me best feed my children."

 

[Amity 3]

I concede. There are many people who are more educated than I am. There are many who are more intelligent. There are people on the DIS who can quote scientific facts that I cannot refute.
I do not concede that God and prayer are worthless and do not exist because I am not the smartest or most educated person on this board. I believe in the power of prayer and I believe in God.


Penny

there's not a person here that would disagree with your beliefs. they're personal.

 

[smartestnumber5]

Steven Colbert is exploring this issue.... Anybody watching this? Basically 10,000 people are praying for these celebs daily. He calls them on the phone and asks what happened that day they were getting prayed for.

Here is the group called "Mastermedia International"....and their prayer calendar.
http://www.mastermediaintl.org/guest/MLPC/current.html

The sad part is that it isn't just fake news show hosts and this group that have tried to study prayer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?ex=1301461200&en=4acf338be4900000&ei=5088

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer

Published: March 31, 2006

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.

The question has been a contentious one among researchers. Proponents have argued that prayer is perhaps the most deeply human response to disease, and that it may relieve suffering by some mechanism that is not yet understood. Skeptics have contended that studying prayer is a waste of money and that it presupposes supernatural intervention, putting it by definition beyond the reach of science.

At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new study was intended to overcome flaws in the earlier investigations. The report was scheduled to appear in The American Heart Journal next week, but the journal's publisher released it online yesterday.

In a hurriedly convened news conference, the study's authors, led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston, said that the findings were not the last word on the effects of so-called intercessory prayer. But the results, they said, raised questions about how and whether patients should be told that prayers were being offered for them.

"One conclusion from this is that the role of awareness of prayer should be studied further," said Dr. Charles Bethea, a cardiologist at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and a co-author of the study.

Other experts said the study underscored the question of whether prayer was an appropriate subject for scientific study.

"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."

The study cost $2.4 million, and most of the money came from the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research into spirituality. The government has spent more than $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000.

$2.3 million of taxpayer money!

What could this study possibly have been thought to accomplish? It isn't going to convince anyone who believes in the power of prayer. And anyone who doesn't believe in the power of prayer didn't need a study to confirm it for them.

 

[MrsPete]

I concede. There are many people who are more educated than I am. There are many who are more intelligent. There are people on the DIS who can quote scientific facts that I cannot refute.
I do not concede that God and prayer are worthless and do not exist because I am not the smartest or most educated person on this board. I believe in the power of prayer and I believe in God.


Penny

We don't have to know everything about God to know that He exists.

We don't know everything about Biology or Physics. The smartest scientists in the world, all working together don't know everything about Biology or Physics. That doesn't mean that those things don't exist -- just that we don't know everything about them.

So we work with what we know and what we understand, each of us at our own level, and we try our best to grasp a little more each day. We'll never fully understand God while we're on Earth. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[KristinBelle]

I believe prayer is more powerful than we could possibly even know.

 

[MrsPete]

I think there's probably tons of emprical evidence that you love your husband and children. Pretty much all of the behavior you exhibit toward them!

And yet when God bestows blessings upon us, some people say it's coincidence or our own attempt to rationalize His existance.

 

[smartestnumber5]

Could evolution have put together even just our sinuses? I just don't buy it. But we have a muscular system and a skeletal system, plus circulatory and digestive systems, not to mention the reproductive system and the immune system. To me, it takes more faith to believe that this all "just happened" to fall together than it takes to believe that God designed us.Well, now, I agree with you there.

Hmm, I would think that if one was committed to rejecting the "it just happened" hypothesis, then it's really creationism and not evolution that would have to be rejected. Evolution doesn't claim that it "just happened." It gives a systematic and comprehensive explanation explanation of how it happened and can point to small changes over large amounts of time that in the fossil record that show evolutionary changes--for example, small changes to the jaw which mark off mammals from reptiles in fossils from the Triassic period.

Creationism, on the other hand, really has nothing to say other than "it just happened"; it just adds in "God did it." No explanation of *how* God did it. No explantion of why it is that we find fossils that show very small changes over large amounts of time which mark the changes from more primitive to more complex types of life.

Many religious people, therefore, accept the truth of evolution and just tack on an additional belief that "somewhere along the line (likely very far down the line such as at the beginning of the universe) God set up the laws of nature which include the process of evolution." This is how evolution was taught to me in Catholic school.

 

[smartestnumber5]

And yet when God bestows blessings upon us, some people say it's coincidence or our own attempt to rationalize His existance.

Because we can't measure things which are "God's blessings" the way we can measure your love. We can measure your love because you have a material reality--we can see you and observe you, hence we can use the empirical methods of science to record what you do. And we can be absolutely sure that it is you who is doing them--that is, unless you have an unknown identical twin. If you were invisible though, observing you would probably be impossible.

If God exists, everyone seems to agree that he is invisible (well, really not material). So I would think everyone would have to agree that there is no way to record what he does without having reason to doubt that it is really him doing it.

 

[hlbtimes2]

I believe in a higher power. I dont know that I believe that power listening to our prayers and requests for help. Just because he created us and our world does not mean he's controlling what happens to us now.

However, I also know there is no way to know for sure and prayer surely can't hurt! My mother is very sick with cancer right now. She has many people praying for her. Some have asked if she is ok with them praying or the ones that dont know her have asked if I'm ok with it. I just tell them it can't hurt! No harm can come from it.

 

[phillybeth]

See, the "responsible for it all" thing proves to me that God exists. Just look at our bodies, all the systems that work together in harmony. Could evolution have put together even just our sinuses? I just don't buy it. But we have a muscular system and a skeletal system, plus circulatory and digestive systems, not to mention the reproductive system and the immune system. To me, it takes more faith to believe that this all "just happened" to fall together than it takes to believe that God designed us.

IF we werwe designed by God or some other Intelligent Designer, he/she/they/it did a poor job of it.

For example, it's VERY poor design to put the 'playground' between the 'sewers'- you ladies should know what I am talking about.

How about vestigal organs? Why were we 'created' with them? Heck, even a little thing like widsom teeth causes pain to so many and end up being removed- why have them?

The intricacies of the body (human or animal) is one of the things that leads be to believe there isn't a creator or designer. There are too many things not right with our 'design' for it to be done by anyone/anything with intelligence.

 

[Kath2003]

Whilst I really don't see the logicalities behind God or organized religion and personally choose not to believe in them (I honestly cannot think of a reason to believe in a God), I don't see that any harm can come from prayer. It can give people hope. It can bind communities. It can help people in times of need to know that others are thinking about them and wishing them well and so on. Some people need a God to make sense of the world - that's their choice.

God and/or religion is only bad when it causes people harm. This harm can be physical (e.g. wars, terrorism etc.) OR social/psychological (e.g. prejudices, racism, intolerance of other perspectives etc.).

I do, however, think it's utterly irresponsible to not teach children of the alternatives. Bring kids up in a religious environment, sure - but have them be AWARE that there are other religions out there; that intelligent design/creationism is a theory believed only by some people and that evolution and the unknown are equally good (and I for one believe, better) theories.

 

[snowwite]

I was taught that a single prayer from the soul and heart is as powerful as all the prayers ever said. I believe that is what faith is all about.

With that in mind I will mention that in time of concern, many people put faith in the power of praying.

Time and again you will hear people mentioning praying when a tornado has passed by and they have survived the event with no loss of life. When a sudden accident causes injury there might be requests for prayers. If there is hope for a new job some will ask for prayers for a positive outcome.

So just how much power do you believe there is in praying and more importantly, is there more power if you get more people to pray for your cause than there is in just one prayer deep from your own soul and heart?

I think that when I pray for others it probably has more effect than praying for myself.

 

[orljustin]

My old job, my new job, the building of a school, several other people, housing, schools . . . it's too much for coincidence.

It isn't coincidence. It just things happening. Things happen in different ways to all sorts of people, and it's got nothing to do with anybody steering you in different directions. What makes you so special that you think a god would target you with all this good fortune. What about all the people that believe and pray or whatever as much as you do, and still have a really crappy life, and die homeless?