How powerful is a PRAYER?

[SwedishMeatball]

What about the people who need him where he was? So, you believe god moved him away from them, so they wouldn't find the treatment?

I don't know. It's not easy when someone you love is hurting or dying. I don't even know why I believe. I haven't had a perfect relationship with God. I've been angry with Him at times and even tried turning away from Him. It just feels right when I have that relationship. I know it's not a good Christian attitude, but I really don't care what others believe. I've never been motivated to witness and I doubt I ever will. I don't mind explaining what I believe in, but I've never felt I needed to justify it. It just doesn't matter to me what other people think.

 

[orljustin]

The way I see it also..If G-d is behind things like this then we really don't have free will..That doctor is merely G-ds puppet, and by extension,so are we.

Right. When you reeeeally start thinking about it, and trying to connect all the pieces, at least I find that alot of it just starts to sound silly.

 

[Lanshark]

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 ask myself that question. I am a Christian. I have studied the OT and the NT. I believe. I pray. Yet, I still sometimes question. Is it a lack of faith? I don't know. But, I do wonder for all of those praying that a tornado passed them how many others were also praying and the tornado hit them.

I have seen wonderful things happen when I've prayed. I have also seen horrible things happen.

Faith is still believing even when the results are not desirable. I continue to pray for my own strength.

 

[JennyMominRI]

I ask myself that question. I am a Christian. I have studied the OT and the NT. I believe. I pray. Yet, I still sometimes question. Is it a lack of faith? I don't know. .

No It's not a lack of faith..Question everything.. Why else do we have brains... I don't know how much you know about Judaism but argueing about G-d is a fundamental part of it.. Go to any yeshiva and you will see people questioning, debating. There is an old joke that if you ask a Jews 1 question you will get 3 different answers..I mean debate is like an art form within Judaism

 

[phillybeth]

Jenny, the more I learn about Judaism (and most of it from you) the more I realize that if I had any faith at all, it would be the religion I would choose.

 

[orljustin]

Yep. I was raised Jewish, and Jenny paints a very sensible picture. Of course, this is probably why the number of Jews doesn't grow - because you're not going around trying to witness and convert others all the time. It's the laid back, take things as they are religion.

 

[Mrs.Toad]

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.

I believe in God. I believe in the power of prayer, as has been said, not that prayer will get me what I want, but that it gives me strength and helps me understand things.

But the quoted argument that the complexities of our bodies proves that God designed us makes no sense to me. If we believe that our bodies had to have been designed by a higher being because they are too complex to have just happened, doesn't it follow logically that the higher being who designed us must have been designed by an even higher being? and so on, and so on...

Was God designed as well, or did he just happen? And if he just happened, why can't we have just happened?

Note, I don't expect anyone to have the answer to that, as I don't either.

 

[jimmiej]

Yes, yes. The old parent child thing. Sorry - forgot to mention that in my list of convienent heard befores.

It's very easy to toss my question to you into the trash pile of "heard it befores" w/o answering. I've asked that question before & NEVER received an answer from a non-believer.

Why do we expect God to say YES to every prayer, & if HE doesn't, He doesn't really exist?

 

[orljustin]

Did anyone say anything about expecting "yes"s to any question? I don't think anyone did, and that certainly doesn't lead to any conclusion about existance.

It just shows that if you ask for "x", sometimes "x" happens, and sometimes "y" happens, and you probably had nothing to do with it.

 

[cybrkitn]

Prayer is very powerful. But you need to have faith in there as well. As Jesus said if you have faith and do not doubt, then you can mountains (Matthew 21:21:22). If you are praying and have doubt, you are not going to see results. You sow what you reap.

When praying without doubt, a Christian thanks God that it will be done and stands on that no matter what happens. That is where faith comes in. But one thing to remember, is that God works in His time and not ours. Sometimes answers from God may not occur right away, but will down the road. We may not understand the reason at that time, but will in the end, after it has been answered.

 

[Tiggernut_jadie]

That's the typical answer to these types of threads. If you get it, it worked, if you didn't it worked, you don't know what you want/need...etc....etc...

As mentioned, prayer is a psychological thing. If it helps you mentally achieve something, good for you.

Yep the old win win situation!

Prayer and the Christian God is very well set-up. Prayer and God essentially cannot fail:

Pray --> Get what you prayed for --> God blessing you

Pray --> Don't get what you prayed for --> God testing you

Pray --> Nothing changes --> Not part of God's plan

etc.

Psychologically and socially it's valuable (including in terms of motivating people to get things done) but in terms of actually getting things done, changing things it holds no value.

Good point! Perhaps someone can answer me this....why do sports teams/sportsmen who are Christian always 'thank' God for helping them? It's even more strange when both teams/people are Crhistain who say beforehand that they feel God is on their side....but one of them has to lose! In which case does that make one team more 'worthy' or more 'godly' or what? I just don't get it!

The real truth about what? There's basically two things we don't know. How we got here, and where we are going.

No. Just from reading your posts it honestly seemed like something happened to make you mad about prayer/belief.

Nope. Sorry to disappoint. No suprising deaths. No particularly bad periods in my life. No descent into a drug induced hell or anything. Just me and my family doing our own thing, thank you much.

Actually, what makes me mad is all the corruption, lying, death, and on and on, that comes one way or another from religious beliefs. And I'm talking big picture things, not any personal event.

Oh come on now orljustin.....you should know by now that there must be SOMETHING that makes you anti-religion....it can't just be your 'free will'!

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.

That'll be the cost of a new monitor please!!!!! ...........................

 

[smartestnumber5]

It's very easy to toss my question to you into the trash pile of "heard it befores" w/o answering. I've asked that question before & NEVER received an answer from a non-believer.

Why do we expect God to say YES to every prayer, & if HE doesn't, He doesn't really exist?

I'm surprised non-believers haven't answered you.

I don't think any non-believer would say that unless every prayer (the kind that asks for things at least) ever said/thought comes true, God doesn't exist. That would be a very bad argument, since God could very well exist without ever answering any prayers. Maybe deism is true and there does exist a God, but he is like the watchmaker who started up the world and then walked away and let things unfold without his intervention. Instead, I think most non-believers are simply responding to what they find to be inconsistencies in the way many people think about God granting our prayers.

I think it was the parent analogy especially that was being challenged by another poster, and I think, regardless of one's position on prayer, this is just a bad analogy when you try to apply it to the cases that really matter. Sure, the parent analogy might shed light on why God might not grant someone's prayer that the team they bet on wins the superbowl or that they win the lottery. Maybe God knows they'd just waste the money and its not hurting them any not to have the money; instead, God will give the money to someone else who really needs it. Just like good parents don't just hand over cash to Kid A who will waste it on porn and beer; better to put it in Kid B's college fund. I can buy that. (Actually I can't totally buy that, because unlike a parent, God is supposed to be all-powerful. So he can make more money/resources, which human parents can't do.)

But the analogy to parents quickly breaks down when we consider larger issues in which people really are suffering horribly and none of the prayers for them come true. Take an 8 year old girl who is kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery where she is beaten and raped multiple times a day, and is suffering from multiple STDs. In order for the analogy to parents to hold up, we would have to somehow argue that God could be acting as a good father by not giving this girl what she asks for (escape, a quick and painless death, a weapon to kill her capture, etc.). Can anyone think of an explanation of how a human parent is being a "good parent" by knowingly allowing their child to be kidnapped, beaten and raped daily, and infected with multiple STDs which are going untreated (when it is perfectly within the parent's power to save the child)? For the life of me, I can't think of any sense in which such a parent could be good; nor can I think of any sense in which God's leaving that child to suffer is good. I find the mere suggestion revolting. But then, the parent analogy doesn't explain why God doesn't say YES to this child's prayer, what does?

 

[wvrevy]

I admit to not having read through this entire thread as yet, but discussions on prayer always call to mind George Carlin's line about the subject. He said that he had quit praying to god, and started offering prayers to the sun, instead...and that he'd been shocked to find that his prayers were "answered" about the same percentage of the time. Did that mean that the sun was actually a god? Of course not. It just meant the prayer to any "higher power" would likely be "answered" about the same percentage of time.

Does prayer often "work", particularly in the medical field? Well...not "often", no. There are cases where people have gone into remission of cancer, for example, for no obvious reason that science can detect. Does that mean those people had their prayers "answered"? Hardly. Just because science can't answer a question right this minute doesn't mean that it can't answer the question at all, ever. Once not all that long ago, the best scientists in the world had no idea that disease was spread by tiny animals you couldn't even see without a microscope. The point being that science advances...always...and a question that can't be definitively answered today might well have an answer tomorrow.

As for Judaism, I do have more respect for that religion, since it at least requires a certain element of scholarship. But, that said, it has it's silliness too, just like EVERY religion on the face of the earth. In the end, it still requires the suspension of reason in favor of "faith."

 

[dcentity2000]

Point to ponder:

Many believe that a supreme being created the everything - including science.

Why create science if you're just going to interfere and override it all the time? This question doubly applies to when we ask the supreme being to do out of the ordinary things.



Rich::

 

[John VN]

OP here.

Thanks for all the responses. Had my doubts about this thread getting a response from anyone. You people have been great and I have read all the postings. Glad I have my new glasses.

I wonder if somewhere out in the vast universe there might be other life forms having a similar exchange.

We might not be alone and if we are not, how did the other life forms come about?

John

 

[cardaway]

We might not be alone and if we are not, how did the other life forms come about?

I hate to use book/movie references but this one is to perfect not to use.

IMO my feelings on the subject are summed up pretty well by the book/movie Contact.

 

[phillybeth]

We might not be alone and if we are not, how did the other life forms come about?

John

Well, I'm not a creationist, so if there is life elsewhere in the universe (it is my opinion there is but I have no proof of it), then it came about the same way we did- evolution. Natural selection. Survival of the fittest. Random molecules meeting up in an organic soup.

 

[Amity 3]

I wonder if somewhere out in the vast universe there might be other life forms having a similar exchange.

We might not be alone and if we are not, how did the other life forms come about?

John

to believe that we're the only planet where life is occurring is ridiculous. (+-)98% of all life that has existed on our planet has become extinct in the billions of years earth has been around.

we still don't know how the universe was created, what exactly it's made of, or why it continues to expand. we don't know how a single cell develops into life.

believers will just shrug their shoulders and answer 'God'.

pray to your ceiling fan and pray to God, you'll get the same ratio of answers to your question.

 

[Fitswimmer]

I believe that prayer helps me. I don't know if it helps the other people that I pray for are helped by the prayer or not, but I do it anyway. I don't believe that God is some kind of ethereal vending machine though, I'm not praying for God to grant me 500 DVC points or a new car. I'm also not sitting around my house waiting for God to fix all the bad things in my life, I believe in doing what I can do and asking God for help. I pray for clarity in thought, for patience, to help me think before I speak (or write) and to help me deal with things that we humans deal with every day.
I'm with Jenny on the issue of bad things happening to us. I don't believe God gives people diseases or puts a target on them for a truck to hit. However, I do believe that God can give people who are suffering strength to deal with their problems and can help caregivers get through the day.

My Dad says that there is more faith in honest doubt than there is in blind acceptance and I agree. I find most people that have healthy faith doubt and question all the time.

I want to thank the folks that posted who don't believe. I want to hear your perspective too, so don't feel you're unwelcome.

 

[Amity 3]

I believe that prayer helps me. I don't know if it helps the other people that I pray for are helped by the prayer or not, but I do it anyway. I don't believe that God is some kind of ethereal vending machine though, I'm not praying for God to grant me 500 DVC points or a new car. I'm also not sitting around my house waiting for God to fix all the bad things in my life, I believe in doing what I can do and asking God for help. I pray for clarity in thought, for patience, to help me think before I speak (or write) and to help me deal with things that we humans deal with every day.
I'm with Jenny on the issue of bad things happening to us. I don't believe God gives people diseases or puts a target on them for a truck to hit. However, I do believe that God can give people who are suffering strength to deal with their problems and can help caregivers get through the day.

My Dad says that there is more faith in honest doubt than there is in blind acceptance and I agree. I find most people that have healthy faith doubt and question all the time.

I want to thank the folks that posted who don't believe. I want to hear your perspective too, so don't feel you're unwelcome.

that's a great point of view. if it helps you cope with things, it's a positive outlet.