The power of prayer: in action

Early on in this thread there were many questions about how you can tell when God answers prayers. Unsatisfyingly, the answers said that sometimes God answers prayers, sometimes he doesn't, and sometimes the answer isn't what you expect.It was pointed out that this simply ascribes all outcomes to God without any evidence that there's a connection, and this seems to me to be the key point. The topic of this thread is the power of prayer, but how can one measure prayer's power if one can't know whether prayer was a factor or not?--Percy

Uh, the definition of subjective is that it's unique to your own perspective. I think what you're trying to say is that even though it is subjective, it can feel very real. You're acting as our guide in this. So far you've told us that whatever happens is God's answer to our prayers, and that we're free to interpret it as an answered prayer, an unanswered prayer, or a prayer answered in an unexpected way. But this covers all possibilities, and so one can never tell if prayer had an effect or not.So let's say I'm learning how to pray, and I offer a prayer for an elderly friend who is going to have major surgery soon. Here are the possible outcomes:

1. The surgery is successful. My prayers were answered.
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2. The surgery is unsuccessful, the friend dies. Either my prayers were not answered, or they were answered in a way that I didn't expect. Perhaps my friend was suffering, and his suffering is over, so that death was a good thing in this case.
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3. The surgery is unsuccessful, the friend lives but with significant deficits. Either my prayers were not answered, or they were answered in a way that I didn't expect. Perhaps my friend will learn valuable spirtual lessons as he deals with his deficits, coming to a greater appreciation of the Lord's way.

Since every outcome includes the possibility that it was the prayed for answer, how can I tell when a prayer is answered? I can't, of course. And with no feedback about what constitutes proper prayer, I'll never be able to improve my praying ability. That's your subjective opinion. If it were really true then it would leave measurable evidence in objective reality.--Percy

But is there any objective reality to the power of prayer? How do you tell the difference between a God showing you why it happened, and you rationalizing why it happened. But some die who have committed no sins, babies being the most obvious example. But even if "too many sins" is the answer you find, how do you know whether the answer is God's or just your own rationalization? Same question. How did they know God presented them the answer? How do they know it wasn't a rationalization produced within their own minds to help them live on?Christians are not the only people to whom these explanations occur. They occur to everyone of all religions and no religion. After a sad event it is human nature to explore whether it was possibly for the best. Some ascribe these thoughts to God, but there's never any evidence, and the outcome is the same for both believer and non-believer.If prayer had any practical efficacy, it would evidence itself in the real world by affecting outcomes. Scientific prayer studies have been plagued by serious weaknesses, most notably a studied reluctance to define prayer and to place suitable controls upon its expression during studies, but there are other serious problems, ranging from the lack of positive results to the shenannigans of people like Wirth.--Percy

You seem to be saying something different than riVeRraT, unless you're saying that the better your relationship with God through prayer the more likely he is to address your needs.To me it appears that RiVeRraT is saying that prayer has the power to produce practical and desirable results. Have I misunderstood him?--Percy

c is a constant. You can't set it to 1, but you can choose your units so that it is 1.Choosing such units does not reduce Einstein's famous equation to E=M, because without c² in the equation the units don't come out right. Mass/energy equivalency does not mean that energy and mass are the same thing, because they aren't. It only means that a given mass possesses an inherent and equivalent nuclear energy, regardless of which mass you're talking about. Once the mass is known, the amount of inherent nuclear energy is known, since c, the speeed of light, is a constant. That's why they use the term equivalent, because no other variables beyond the amount of mass are involved.You couldn't make the same equivalency claim about, say, force and acceleration, because there is another variable involved, mass (F=ma).--Percy

Perhaps prayer is a form of self-reflection.Whatever the power of prayer, it remains indetectable by science. When you pray and feel you are in communion with God, science says that nothing is happening. Studies have not demonstrated that prayer has any measurable effect on people.If the human soul were a spirtual connection to God then one could argue that the connection is physically indetectable. But studies indicate that prayer has no relationship to happiness or incidence rates of depression and so forth. In fact, the largest factors seem to be a generally positive outlook and good social contacts. And considering the impact of prayer on others instead of just on ourselves, the absence of any positive results from the prayer studies (for example, praying for sick people) means that to this point in time we have no evidence that prayer has any power in the real world.So the important question is, what is it that you are experiencing when you pray? It sounds very much like what I experience when I meditate. The feeling of connecting with the universe is not limited to those who pray.--Percy