|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
EvC Forum active members: 64 (9164 total) |
| |
ChatGPT | |
Total: 916,839 Year: 4,096/9,624 Month: 967/974 Week: 294/286 Day: 15/40 Hour: 1/3 |
Thread ▼ Details |
Member (Idle past 5192 days) Posts: 116 From: Richmond, VA, USA Joined: |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: If prayers go unanswered....? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thor Member (Idle past 5938 days) Posts: 148 From: Sydney, Australia Joined: |
It could be that Thor is granting your requests even though you are praying to another, wrong, God, that doesn't actually exist. For the record it definitely wasn't me. I think it may have been that Greek guy, what's his name? Big guy, solid build, beard, has a thing for thunderbolts... Zeus, that's it! He's always messing about in the affairs of mortals. Makes a good souvlaki though.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 421 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Okay. Do you agree that good cannot exist without evil?
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2197 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: I agree. Specific requests are not post hoc.
quote: I don't know. Maybe he's funny like that. The point is, you have no way of knowing if that is the case or not.
quote: ...except that you have ignored all of the factors which are not "God" or supernatural at all in deciding if your prayers were answered or not.
quote: If someone gets a cold, and asks for healing, and they are better 3-5 days later, were their prayers answered, or did their immune system just do it's thing? If praying to be healed from disease, or blindness, actually worked, don't you think we'd see better rates of healing in people who are actively prayed for compared to those who are not? Those very experiments have been done, and we don't see any difference in the two groups.
quote: I've seen it many times, believers simply say "God is listening to ME, and I am special and important!", and carry on feeling special and important the rest of their day.
quote: Of course I could be convinced. Just carefully track exactly what you pray for and exactly the outcomes, with no deciding after the fact what constitutes a hit, making sure that the things prayed for couldn't possibly be caused by anything other than God, and then calculate the rate of hits against random chance. If you come up with a hit rate greater than chance would suggest, then I would say that there is something to this prayer. Of course, it doesn't say either way if your perception of God exists and is actually answering your prayers.
then you have no way of knowing if the rate of "hits" is greater than chance would predict. quote: Spare me the drivel, mike, and stop avoiding the point. If your rate of hits is indestiguishable from random chance, then we are reasonable in saying that nothing special is going on compared to rolling the dice. This is basic statistics and experimental design, mike.
quote: Mike, where have you gone? Into la-la land, apparently. Look, we have been down this road many times, and the same thing happens. You claim that your prayers have been answered, and I tell you that you don't really know if they have or not. I explain to you why that is, and how you could test your self to see if you were fooling yourself or if something real was going on. I make mention of statistics and "random chance" and you use it as an opportunity to rant and avoid the point. You haven't changed at all.
quote: So says you. Who knows?
quote: So says you. Who knows? This message has been edited by schrafinator, 03-31-2005 07:34 PM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
mike the wiz Member Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
...except that you have ignored all of the factors which are not "God" or supernatural at all in deciding if your prayers were answered or not. That's because there are no other factors. Thor and other gods are all false idol images people bowed to in the past. A gold bull is an inanimate object, on the LORD God Yahweh created the heavens and earth, and there are no gods beside him. It's evasive for you to try and get me into questioning other religions when we are dealing with the truth of Christ here.
If someone gets a cold, and asks for healing, and they are better 3-5 days later, were their prayers answered, or did their immune system just do it's thing? Probably the latter. I've prayed when having a cold twice. The first time I declared the throat gone in ten seconds, and then the nose in another ten, while counting down in my mind I literally was improving. Another time I got angry because I was having a run of colds but basically just putting up with them because they are only colds afterall, but I got angry as I had a sore throat, and requested healing and in the morning it was gone. In honesty, the declaration of ten seconds was most impressive but God doesn't particularly work via any rules. People can have slow or fast healings. It wasn't Thor though because Jesus Christ is my intercessor to God and is the only personal saviour who has proved that he is God by living as a man and dying for our sins. Thor is fantasy Shraff. Christ liveth.
If you come up with a hit rate greater than chance would suggest, then I would say that there is something to this prayer. But what is this chance? How do I know what chance would allow? How can I trust chance when you teach me that we came from primordial soup because of it and that intrinsical designs came from it? It seems you'll allow chance to take the glory no matter what happens. Why should I do your experiment though Shraff? I'd only do it if I had doubt, and I don't have enough doubt to do it.
Of course, it doesn't say either way if your perception of God exists and is actually answering your prayers. That's because my specific prayers have been answered which shows that God is infact answering them, and my perception of God is that he answers my prayers according to how the bible says he would.
Look, we have been down this road many times, and the same thing happens. You claim that your prayers have been answered, and I tell you that you don't really know if they have or not. I explain to you why that is, and how you could test your self to see if you were fooling yourself or if something real was going on. I make mention of statistics and "random chance" and you use it as an opportunity to rant and avoid the point. You haven't changed at all. But I know that my prayers have been answered, you just don't believe they have. These experiments of doubt show that your doubt is great and you cannot possibly achieve anything by doing a prayer test. Christ could do "no miracles there"(similar words) in his hometown, because the people's unbelief was GREAT. Beware of the yeast of the pharisees. Shraff, I shall not tempt the Lord my God to do prayer tricks to satisfy my doubts. Did not satan also ask Christ to make a stone bread? I am not fooling myself because I can't heal myself, get out of situations that don't bare my influence, or have any influence on situations that are out of my hand yet I have prayed about. My prayers are too great a tribute to the Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth. PS> What do you mean by that I haven't changed? This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 03-31-2005 07:56 PM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nighttrain Member (Idle past 4021 days) Posts: 1512 From: brisbane,australia Joined: |
Burnt offerings might help. They seemed to catch the OT God`s attention.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Legend Member (Idle past 5033 days) Posts: 1226 From: Wales, UK Joined: |
schrafinator writes: I make mention of statistics and "random chance" and you use it as an opportunity to rant and avoid the point. mike and ranting?!........surely you're mistaken!! "In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
riVeRraT Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 5788 From: NY USA Joined: |
Thats all fine and dandy, and God knows your heart.
God creates us all for a purpose. How would you find out what that purpose is, unless you seek him? You might be missing out on something grand.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
riVeRraT Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 5788 From: NY USA Joined: |
Sometimes the answer is no.
Try listening when you pray.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
riVeRraT Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 5788 From: NY USA Joined: |
You claim that your prayers have been answered, and I tell you that you don't really know if they have or not.
What if I listen when I pray and God starts telling me things, like what to do, or to pray for certain people. To pray for them concerning a certain matter, which I would have known nothing about. I had a dream that my Pastor was walking hip high in mud, on a Saturday night. Sunday morning during service, I drew the picture of him walking in the mud, and just as I finished the picture, he said to the whole church that he felt like he was standing hip high in mud. I then handed him the picture. I am a worship leader in my church, and for the last 5 weeks I’ve prayed on Saturday for the service, and ask God for words that are relative to the congregation. I write them down, and when I came in, the other worship leader has the same words (subject) written out, just worded slightly differently. Then the Pastor starts the service, and he starts it with our words, but we haven't showed him what we believe God has told us.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2197 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
...except that you have ignored all of the factors which are not "God" or supernatural at all in deciding if your prayers were answered or not. quote: Are you sure? The things you prayed for could not possibly have come about except by the intervention of your particular God? How do you determine that this is the case?
quote: Read what I said, mike. "except that you have ignored all of the factors which are not "God" or supernatural at all in deciding if your prayers were answered or not." What mundane factors could have influenced the outcome?
quote: No, not really. It's just another factor in the long list of things that could be giving you hits on prayer fulfillment other than the one you wish to be true.
quote: Sorry, I'd need outside verification for that claim. Self-reports in these cases are notoriously heavily biased.
quote: So, your immune system had nothing to do with that at all?
quote: Or, people heal at different rates because of various biological and environmental factors, like individual immune system variations, nutrition and hydration, type of virus, amount of sleep they get, stress, exposure to pollution, etc. etc, etc. Which is more likely, the above list which is clearly observed and documented and everyone, regardless of religious affiliation, can agree on, or that your God is sometimes healing people quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes a kind of medium speed, sometimes not at all?
quote: So says you.
quote: So says you.
quote: So says you. Show me.
If you come up with a hit rate greater than chance would suggest, then I would say that there is something to this prayer. quote: It's MATH mike. MATHEMATICS. PROBABILITY. ODDS. Take a statistics course and you will understand better. I found this site on calculating basic probability Of course, it deals with extremely clear cut cases, such as the odds of pulling a red or a blue marble out of a bag. The problems with prayer requests is that they are generally much more susceptible to interpretation after the fact, because they are not anywhere near specific enough.
quote: Look, YOU are the one who wants me to believe you. I don't care if you believe it or not, but if you want to make claims that your prayers really are being answered and you want people to take them seriously, I'm going to require some good experimental design and controls.
Of course, it doesn't say either way if your perception of God exists and is actually answering your prayers. quote: No, it doesn't show that. It shows that something is affecting the outcome. See, you cannot define or detect or show anyone this God that you say you are praying to. We have no way of knowing what is making the things happen, only that they are happening.
quote: Hmmm, "according to how the Bible said he would"? That phrase send up a red flag to me because we all know how vague and open to interpretation the Bible is. What, exactly, do you mean by "and my perception of God is that he answers my prayers according to how the bible says he would"? How, exactly, should God be anwering your prayers? This explanation should be as precise and specific as possible, otherwise we are heading into rationalization and post hoc reasoniong land.
quote: No, you believe that they have been answered, and I don't know if they have or not. And that is the source of our conflict. You think you "know", when you actually "believe" without reliable evidence. You continue to think that I deny everything you say, when in reality I don't have enough information to make a determination at all. That's why I ask for evidence. Telling me that I have to believe before I will believe is silly. You're the one making the claims about effects in the real world. Now it's time to put up or shut up.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2197 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: So, sometimes your prayers are answered, and sometimes they are not. How is this different from "Sometimes what I want to happen does, and sometimes it doesn't"? Even if God really is sometimes answering prayers and sometimes not, if the outcome is indestinguishable from random chance, why pray?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2197 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Do you have verification from those people, or another outside source, that these "things you shouldn't know about" are actually valid? Also, have you considered that you might have heard these things from somebody else but have forgotten that you ever learned them?
quote: Is this mud comment something he says on occasion? What was the theme of his sermon that day? Was the theme posted anywhere for the week before? Anyway, what does this have to do with prayer? That was a dream.
quote: You, the Pastor and this other person are independently coming up with similar subject matter five times in a row? The three of you have not discussed the following week's topic at all, have no contact between services? Did the fact that Easter was comin up perhaps influence all of your writings? Also, did you pray for this exact thing to happen, or are you just thinking it's spooky after it happened, so you attribute it to prayer?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
clpMINI Member (Idle past 5192 days) Posts: 116 From: Richmond, VA, USA Joined: |
Okay. Do you agree that good cannot exist without evil? well...I kinda already answered that in post 22. But I can agree for discussion's sake, otherwise we will just spin our wheels and not really get anywhere. How 'bout turning it around and saying that evil cannot exist without good? Does that make sense? It's not selling out if nobody's buying.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
riVeRraT Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 5788 From: NY USA Joined: |
Whats so hard to understand about the concept of, that all prayers are answered, sometimes the answer is no.
It's not our purpose to be fulfilled, but his. When we do all things, it must be for the glory of God. What is life without tests? How do we get to know how great we are?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 421 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
How 'bout turning it around and saying that evil cannot exist without good? Does that make sense? Absolutely. But the reason I really want to delve is based on your Message 22 You said:
I think that good can stand alone without having evil to judge it against. I but then followed it in the very next sentence with:
I feel that suffering, which can be caused by evil or compeltely independent thereof, allows all the backdrop necessary for comprehending what is good. Before we get into prayers and answers I would like to try to address the root causes. Let me try a slightly different tack. Would you agree that sickness and accident are simply natural and part of life? Aslan is not a Tame Lion
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024