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Author | Topic: A call to all prayer warriors | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Jesuslover153 Inactive Member |
I am in the need of prayer with fellow Christians,
and I desire to pray for any whom would like prayer... prayer areas that I need; relationships, addictions, self-centredness, and anger. if anyone wants prayer and is uncomfortable to place it here mail me at oncelongago@hotmail.com , I will tell no one whom sends me any requests unless I have received consent from that individual. Jesus bless all our hearts
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Budikka Inactive Member |
If you could offer any proof whatsoever that prayer has ever worked, I think you would get more takers. However, since all empirical evidence demonstrates quite convincingly that prayer never works, I think you are backing a loser. People have a lot more success in their endeavors if they actually tackle the problems or take steps to prevent them from arising in the first place than from simply sitting around in the desperate hope that a big brearded giant in the sky will rescue them.
Budikka
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funkmasterfreaky Inactive Member |
Well Jesuslover I know that God answers prayer, this has been proven to me personally by God and I will pray for you.
------------------Saved by an incredible Grace.
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Brian Member (Idle past 4985 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
Prayer is a great thing, and God cannot lose.
Say a prayer if God doesnt answer it then it isnt the right time, or He has answered it but the answer was no. If by some fluke it APPEARS that he has answered then whoopee do there must be a God. It's amazing what we can convince ourselves of if we really try.
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Percy Member Posts: 22492 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Funky writes: Well Jesuslover I know that God answers prayer, this has been proven to me personally by God and I will pray for you. You say that you and Jesuslover both know that God answers prayers, but how did you come by this realization? Is this something that you could demonstrate objectively through a double blind study? --Percy
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Budikka Inactive Member |
The ancient Greeks believed, just as passionately as you do, that Zeus and the other gods answered prayers. The Egyptians believed similarly about their gods, just as every culture believes it about their gods.
They would respond just as you did. What makes you right and them wrong? Where is your evidence that what you believe is true and not just wishful and creative thinking? How can you be so arrogant? Are you not aware that the eyewitness is the most unreliable of all? Do you suppose the Iraqis and Americans and British who died in the Iraq conflict didn't pray for life? Yet they died. What makes you so special that this god grants your prayers yet ignored theirs? Are you somehow better than they? Are you a paragon of virtue and they wretched sinners, every one? How can you be so arrogant? Do you honestly believe that every Christian mother doesn't pray for her child's health when the child is sick? Does every child who gets chronically sick survive? No! What is it that makes you so special that your prayers are answered yet these mothers are robbed of their children, these children robbed of their life? Are you free of sin, but those children and those mothers on the fast lane of the freeway to hell? It isn't any use trying to wheedle out of this with the tired old "God works in mysterious ways" nonsense. The Bible explicitly states that whatever - *whatever* - you ask for in Jesus' name will be granted. There are no qualifications tied to this whatsoever. Whatever you ask for. Go ahead, test it. Ask for a billion dollars to be deposited in your bank account overnight tonight - a billion that you won't even use for yourself, but send to African AIDS workers. Ask it in Jesus' name. Tell no one. pray in secret as Jesus advised. I guarantee you the prayer will not be answered, no matter how sincere you are. Don't ask for money. Just ask that tomorrow, a cure will be announced for all diseases of children. Ask it in Jesus' name. Tell no one. pray in secret as Jesus advised. I guarantee you the prayer will not be answered, no matter how sincere you are. Don't ask for a cure for disease. Just ask that tomorrow, the planet Earth will be restored to its cleanliness and absence of global warming and lack of pollution that existed at the turn of the seventeenth century. Ask it in Jesus' name. Tell no one. Pray in secret as Jesus advised. I guarantee you the prayer will not be answered, no matter how sincere you are. Don't ask for a cure for global warming. Just ask that tomorrow, the planet Earth will be completely free of crime and violence. Ask it in Jesus' name. Tell no one. Pray in secret as Jesus advised. I guarantee you the prayer will not be answered, no matter how sincere you are. Your prayers are answered? You *know* this? How can you be so arrogant? Where is your evidence - scientific, empirical evidence - that your prayers are;A. Actually heard by anyone, and B. Actually *answered* in any way but your own biased interpretation? Budikka
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Karl Inactive Member |
Indeed.
The idea that prayer is about some man in the sky being invoked to help out and sort things out is unfortunately common within Christianity and probably other faiths as well. It isn't. It is (for the believer in God) a sharing of concern with one with whom one believes one has a relationship. It may be reasonable to expect that God will respond to this sharing of concern with insight, but I do not think that divine intervention is any kind of normal response. If it were, it would be a bit more obvious and you wouldn't be an atheist So. Do I pray? Yes. Do I think it can make a difference? In a way, yes. Do I expect some bearded man in the sky to come down and sort things out? No, not really. You are quite correct to say "People have a lot more success in their endeavors if they actually tackle the problems or take steps to prevent them from arising in the first place than from simply sitting around in the desperate hope that a big brearded giant in the sky will rescue them." I don't rule out the possibility of direct action from God a priori, but my own experience, and the fact that, as you say: all empirical evidence demonstrates quite convincingly that prayer never works does not lead me to consider it normal or to be expected, although I would qualify "never works" as meaning "does not cause the clouds to open and God to point His finger and zap the situation" What's that proverb I seem to recall? "Trust in God, but tie up your camel".
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funkmasterfreaky Inactive Member |
First off the bat here when I pray I don't feel like I'm screaming up at the sky to some bearded man in the clouds. God is everywhere right here with me even, I simply talk and listen. You know, like a conversation!
I have seen God's answers to prayer, I have heard his answers to prayer. Some things in life are not testable and can not be tested in a lab. The spiritual cannot be tested by the same means as the physical. God will not be forced to do something just because you pray and ask for it. Those of us who know God know this about him and we don't ask for billions of dollars. This said prayer is more about listening to God than talking. We are God's servants, God is not our servant. Prayer is for bringing things before God, asking him what he wants, or how we wants us to handle something, not demanding what we think is best. Now I will not continue this futile discussion about scientific tests on prayer. Jesuslover asked for people who believe in prayer to pray for him, I will continue to do so. My original post in this thread was meant as an encouragement to a brother in Christ, not as a means to spark debate on whether or not prayer is effective. God's answers to prayer are often not in the fire, not in the storm, not in the earthquake but in a gentle whisper. ------------------Saved by an incredible Grace.
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nator Member (Idle past 2196 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: So, you choose to believe in that which cannot be tested, yet reject the ToE, which as been tested thousands and thousands of times both in the lab and in the field and shown to be sound. How do you explain this illogic?
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Adminnemooseus Administrator Posts: 3976 Joined: |
quote: I think this might be an example of the type of topic I had in mind, when I created the "Short Term Topics and Messages" forum. Adminnemooseus
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funkmasterfreaky Inactive Member |
God has proved to me personally his existance, his love and that God answers prayer, mind you not always the answer you want, but an answer none the less. I can't test this for the masses(sp?)but I know these things to be true and unchanging.
The toe has been tested, but could always be subjected to other tests and found to be false yet. I have my doubts about this tested theory and they are based on a few key things, 1.The probability of life beggining on it's own is so incredibly slim 2.Even if the earth is only 6000 years old we have only been really been making an organized effort to study it for a few hundred of those years. 3.I know we have collected a huge amount of data, excavated many areas, and studied many formations on the earth. However this seemingly large amount of data is incredibly small in comparison to how much has not been studied, excavated, and the data base is relatively small especially in the case of an old earth. Schraf, it's not so illogical to doubt the toe. It is subject to change. The amount of data collected is too small in comparison to the enormity of the conclusion. God and his answers to prayer are not subject to change in this way, God always has and always will answer prayer. ------------------Saved by an incredible Grace.
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funkmasterfreaky Inactive Member |
Confession: Jesuslover is a close friend of mine, he was here before under a different name. Jeuslover will not be back for a while because he is up in the hospital for who knows how long. If admin would like to delete this topic feel free to. If there are other believers out there please pray for my friend.
Romans 8:31 What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us who can ever be against us. ------------------Saved by an incredible Grace.
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nator Member (Idle past 2196 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: The thing is, you haven't tested this for yourself at all. Not in the same way anything in science is tested, including the ToE. ...not that it has to be, mind you. Faith is not about scientific tests. However, then you go on to say:
quote: That is true of every single other scientific theory in existence. Do you hold every other scientific theory to this same standard? To remain consistent, you would need to have similar reservations about the Theory of a Heliocentric Solar System, or the Germ Theory of Disease, or Gravitational Threory, or the Atomic Theory of Matter, or Relativity Theory, etc. etc.
quote: Holy cow, Funky, don't you read anything on this forum? Where life came from has nothing to do with what happened to it after it got here. God could have created the first life and evolution could still be valid.
quote: It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that the Germ Theory of Disease was (nearly) universally accepted. That's only a little over 100 years ago. Should we be wary of such an idea because we haven't studied it long enough? How long do you propose is "long enough" to study Biology, Genetics, Paleontology, Geology, etc. before we can trust any of the science in all of these fields? (Tell me, do you go to the doctor? Have you ever taken antibiotics or had a throat culture done? If you do and have, you are a hypocrite.)
quote: So, what you seem to be saying is that you are perfectly prepared to completely ignore this huge amount of data because we do not have perfect knowledge. Well, then you must also be prepared to reject all of modern science because we don't have perfect knowledge of anything. You prefer to believe something that has zero evidence to support it and reject the vast amount of physical evidence which happens to contradict your preferred (evidenceless) belief. Are you sure your God wants you to, well, be so willfully ignorant? The best part of all is that you hold your own belief to no kind of stringent standard in the least, yet you point to the fact that we do not have all knowledge as a major reason you do not accept the data we DO have.
quote: It is quite illogical to doubt common descent with modification if the reason you are doubting it is because we do not have perfect knowledge. Look, scientists are incredibly conservative with regards to new paradigms and new research. They do not embrace and accept new research results until they have been tested and retested over and over again, no matter how impressive or interesting the initial results. The ToE is a scientific theory, and like all such theories, is subject to change. However, it is also one of the most tested theories in all of science, and definitely the most tested theory in Biology. How stupid do you think scientists are, anyway? Why do you think that these hunderds of thousands of really smart people would support a theory which didn't work, or that failed to be supported over and over and over and over with every new fossil or genetic pathway we discover?
quote: We probably have more data in support of the ToE than we do in support of any other single theory in all of science. It is a "grand unifying theory" which ties many fields together by explaining what we find in all of them. How long do you propose we keep gathering data before we can draw any conclusions?
quote: What a double standard you hold! Why don't you hold your claims about prayer to the same standard of evidence that you hold the ToE (and all of science) to?
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amsmith986 Inactive Member |
OK Schraf,prove to me that prayer doesn't work. It's worked for me.
(Amen to Jesuslover and Freak)
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1493 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
OK Schraf,prove to me that prayer doesn't work. It's worked for me. If you don't mind me stepping in, here... All over the world, starving people pray to their god (even yours) for food. Every day, hundreds die of malnutrition. If any food arrives it comes as a result of human action, not divine influence. When I was a Christian I prayed and prayed, as humbly as I knew how. I recieved nothing that I prayed for. Often (like when I prayed for the strength to resist temptation) I recieved the opposite of what I thought a just god would grant me. When I prayed for strength I recieved weakness. When I realized that the weakness was my own, I realized that I alone was the one who had to deal with it. The power to change myself was a power I alone held. Prayer is like the lottery. When you win, it seems like god has favored you because the odds of winning are so low. But somebody has to win the lottery. Did god hate those who didn't win? Or is it more likely that we as humans have a hard time with probabilities?
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