If prayers go unanswered....?

Yeah, I agree with that, but you probably also pray the way you are taught, and the way you are accustomed too. Little kids going to sunday school and church learn how to pray the way their church prays. So an individual prayer, I think, would be some reflection of how a person learned. But I agree that personal prayers would in most cases be different that organized ones.

---

It's not selling out if nobody's buying.

Okay.Now if you pray for guidance you either get some or not. Most folk that pray for guidance seem to believe the get it so in most cases you might say those prayers are answered. You might not like the answer but at least you get one.Are we together still?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

quote:

---

Yes, I do have such a thing, but it is not up for scrutiny.

---

Well, OK, but then I have no information to make a determination either way.

quote:

---

As I have stated before it is all subjective. I am well aware of this.

​

It is also not my job to "prove to you" anything of the sort.

---

Well, good, it is appreciated.

quote:

---

It is up to you to find out for yourself.

---

Well, asking you about your records of answered prayer rates was part of "finding out for myself", but I understand why you would consider it private.

quote:

---

Yes, I am asking you to take my word for it, for it is what I believe at this point in time.

---

Sorry, I don't take pople's word for things that I cannot independently verify and are also not of a mundane nature.

quote:

---

By the same token, you cannot go around telling everyone that it is proven that prayer does not work.

---

Well, I would never use the word "prove" anyway.What I most certainly can go around telling everyone, however, is that, thus far, any time the effectivness of prayer has been properly tested, the only positive results observed has been when people have been prayd for in their presence, and given a feeling of community and support by the prayer. Sick people who were prayed for who didn't know they were being prayed for showed no difference in recovery rates, etc.But it's also true that healing/recovery rates are better regardless of prayer activitis if the person has a lot of love and support.

I see a lot of truth in this statement, and it is something I have wondered about. But if I think about it, Jesus said the second greatest commandment was to love others as we love ourselves.I believe that, that love is part of what provides the healing. To me it's sharing the love of Jesus, and God with people, is the most awesome part of being a Christian. I was always loving before, but it has increased since being saved, and coming to better understanding of God's true love for me(us). It's so pure and wonderful, and I work to make it purer, by decreasing sin, forgiving others, and praying. I see this method working in my life, and affecting others around me. But I give the glory to God, for calling me out, and showing me the way.Check out this web-site, and you can see the effects of prayer, and soothing music, and love, even though it's not a Christian web-site.
Page not found – Spirit of Ma'atThey do these experiments with water, and our bodies are made up of mostly water. Interesting to say the least.

If I just sit and think about something for long enough, say meditate on an issue I have...I will likely arrive at similar answers as someone who prayed for guidance. The conclusions I reach could be just the same as your prayer, and yet I was not asking anyone for anything.But if this is what the person praying believes, then I guess you have to go with it. If you pray for guidance and you think you recieve some divine inspiration, most of the time, then I guess I can't argue.I could say it was all coincidence like so many of the other posts that have arisen in this thread, however, I am looking to see how a believer reacts in these situations. If you pray and feel it gets answered, then so be it. But I feel you can reproduce these "answered prayers" without actually having to pray.

---

It's not selling out if nobody's buying.

And the only posible argument I might make is that the very act of meditation, contemplation, is the same thing as prayer. The end result is what's important, not the path.I'm not one who will try to tell you one method is better than the other.Let's go on to the next type of prayer.Prayer of praise and thanksgiving are by definition, self-fulfilling. We are just saying thanks.So I assume you have no problems with that type of prayer?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

But a prayer has a specific destination. Regardless of the type of prayer, it has a direction...a sender and a recipient. If you meditate, or just think really hard for a really long time, you aren't sending a request to anyone. So I think the path has to matter. If I take yoga or Ti Chi, and it relaxes me enough to where I can think clearly about a personal problem, and I reach a conclusion that I was unable to otherwise...I wasn't praying, I wasn't asking for guidance. So if you want to say that what I would consider as not praying...actually IS praying...then I don't know if I agere with that. But is anyone saying 'You're Welcome' after lifetimes of thank you's?

---

It's not selling out if nobody's buying.

No, I would not try to imply anything about what you might do. Belief is a personal thing and limited to the individual. I'm only speaking about what I do. Sure. Constantly.Are there any more questions about what we've covered so far or can we go on to the other types of prayer?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Sure! That is the whole salvation message. God wants us to have a relationship with Him. Those who know Him and talk with Him throughout life, who acknowledge that they are imperfect and that they need Him, allowing Him into their hearts...the Welcome is the Spirit...the Holy Spirit which comes to live within you. You are welcomed into the family of God.

I don’t know what these comments have to do with prayer request. That comment is the biggest understatement I’ve seen on this forum I don’t know, you’ll have to ask them. If they say that God is answering their prayers, who am I to say He is not? I said God doesn’t work that way in response to your sarcasm when you said Perhaps I missed this happening{SP} on the evening news...Both you and crashfrog have asked for an example of a coincidence and I’ll provide one. But not one necessarily caused by God. In fact, I am not interested in determining the cause of the coincidence. I am only interested in determining whether the sum total of coincidences constitute a phenomenon that is beyond chance or luck.So then here is your example:
Suppose you are driving on the highway, its a nice day, and you are humming a song. The kind of song that runs around inside your head for no apparent reason. Maybe its a song you recently heard elsewhere and liked the tune.Then you reach over and turn on the car’s radio and the same song is playing. That’s a simple type of coincidence. Perhaps you have experienced it. The coincidence in and of itself means nothing. So you shrug if off and don’t think of it any further.The next day the same thing occurs. This time with a different song. Again you are riding in your car, switch on the radio and there is the song that has been playing in your head. Now this is mildly quirky, a bit uncanny perhaps, but not entirely impossible. Just another odd coincidence.You think well, maybe this is happening because you have subconsciously memorized the preprogrammed list of songs at the radio station. That’s possible, except you’ve changed the channel each day.So how many days does this event need to occur before it would no longer be considered a coincidence? How many times before the statistical probability is beyond mere chance? 3 days? 4, 5?That’s the question I would like to know and I’m not interested in speculating as to the cause. I don’t care to hear any sarcasms related to magic pixies casting spells.

---

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. ---Albert Einstein

Sure. we can move along to the next type of prayer.This message has been edited by clpMINI, 04-08-2005 07:55 AM

---

It's not selling out if nobody's buying.

So we're clear on Thanks, Conversation and Guidance.Then there are the prayers for some specific result and that's where I think you're having the biggest problem.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

OK, I feel as though I have let you move the goalposts on me and we are now talking about something very different from what my point was originally.In the interest of making things clear, I will summarize.Below is the text of your message #90, along with my comments in bold italics:

quote:

---

Monk:

​

Very true. Inquiring and bright minds have worked hard over the generations to understand all sorts of medical and technological problems to make life easier. Agree 100%.

---

Please note here that you are still with me, talking only of those inquiring and bright minds involved in medical advances.

quote:

---

But your next line is where we differ. You cannot possibly say that God was not involved and have it carry any weight. You don?t know the motivations and beliefs of each of these generations of people and the inspirations that served as the genesis for their great technological breakthroughs.

---

I never addressed this, but now as I reread it, I realize that I should have.

​

When I said "It wasn't God, OK? It was human effort.", what I meant was "God's personal, miraculous intervention did not cure your loved one yesterday."

​

Sure, people might be motivated by their religious ideas to do all sorts of things, including trying to cure cancer, but that's not what I was talking about.

quote:

---

But what I can say is that over all those generations right up to the present day, the vast majority of those bright minds were believers who not only had a profound respect for God but also for the majesty of His creations.

---

I provided evidence that the religious beliefs of scientists, science being that from which very nearly all of our medical advances originate, are quite different from your above claim.

​

Unfortunately, I allowed you to draw me away from this point, and you later, in message #94, actually claimed that you weren't ever talking about scientists, even though that is the bulk of the people making the medical advances:

quote:

---

You narrow the focus of the term ?bright minds? to scientists in order to prove your point without acknowledging that atheist scientists are a minority subset of the broader category of people who are represented by the term ?bright minds?.

---

Notice that you are already moving the goal posts by talking about the "broader category of people" who can be described as "bright minds".

​

I have always been talking ONLY about people who are involved in medical advances. Those people, as a group, cannot be described as "believers who not only had a profound respect for God but also for the majesty of His creations." Certainly, using the qualifier "vast majority" would be inaccurate.

quote:

---

And while I do agree that the trend over the last century has been an increase in atheism among scientists, it doesn?t change my original observation that the vast majority of bright minds over the centuries have been people of faith.

---

But this isn't what your original observation was. Look at my citation to your original message at the top of this page. You clearly were claiming that the majority of bright minds involved in medical advances have been people of faith.Not only did you claim that they were people of faith, you claimed that they were "believers who not only had a profound respect for God but also for the majesty of His creations". This certainly implies that you feel that they had this particular flavor of faith.So, to be clear, I don't think that it is accurate at all to say that the "vast majority of believers who were or are involved in medical advances not only had or have a profound respect for God but also for the majesty of His creations."I have provided evidence in support of this view. If you would like me to consider evidence which supports your claim, please provide it.

I said:

quote:

---

Very true. Inquiring and bright minds have worked hard over the generations to understand all sorts of medical and technological problems to make life easier. Agree 100%.

---

Wrong. My original quote only used the term bright minds. There was no other qualifier. You have subsequently narrowed the definition to scientists and then you further narrowed it to only include those scientist working on medical advances.The quote above contains technological which includes all technology not just medical. It is you who has moved the goalpost by narrowing my original term bright minds. Perhaps, but since you were responding to my original post and did not create an independent post of your own, it is you who has moved the goalposts not me.

Let's stop worrying about who moved the Goal Posts and see if we can get on the same field playing the same sport.

---