quote:And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.

You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

- John 14:13-14

*cough* bullshit *cough*

They should really make it simple and say "your prayer only has a chance of being answered if your request is in accordance with god's will".

If the Christian god was not willing to help Jesus when he prayed not to be made christ-on-a-stick, what chance have you got of being helped?

I don't believe that prayer works anyway, or at least it doesn't change the Christian god's mind, for omniscient beings just don't change their minds because there is no new information.

[This message has been edited by noraa_boy (edited 12-28-2003).]

quote:Originally posted by noraa_boy:

They should really make it simple and say "your prayer only has a chance of being answered if your request is in accordance with god's will".

If it was in accordance with its will, why would you need to ask?

I don't think that Christians know what the exact will of God is for any and all given situations. Maybe that's why they ask and hope that thing go their way in addition to their god's way. I think it's like a hit and miss sort of thing.

I am of the opinion that the Christian god would carry out his view regardless of prayers and that prayers don't work, but we are discussing our impressions of the Christian viewpoint, not mine. I think that a theist would be able to give you a better explanation.

this is how it usually works as i see it

God always answers your prayers,but not in a direct mircle kind of way usually,god only helps you help yourself.

I agree! for example praying to pass your exams and then not revising, you havnt got a "chance in hell" lol, having prayed or not!

quote:Originally posted by fakimakaveli:

I agree! for example praying to pass your exams and then not revising, you havnt got a "chance in hell" lol, having prayed or not!

Haha! No.

Praying has sort of a placebo effect in that when you pray for something and it remotely becomes a reality, you're like "oh crap, he helped me!". But really, you did it all yourself. Don't confuse hard work with divine intervention.

errrr it wernt dat funy! duhh!! i agree with with wat your saying. ryt this is my opinion:

-if you revised and prayed then passed, its all down to your hard work. not god!

-if you did not revise and prayed then failed, dats down to you and your dumbness!

-if you did not revise and prayed and then passed thats down to ur prayer. then again it cud just be dat ur a lucky f**k! no-1 realy knows!!

Prayer is simply your focusing of intention, and it does not require you to be xian to work. It only requires honesty, and imagination.

Or just confirmation bias. (The term for the placebo effect Inside_Voices was talking about)

A Physics Lesson



Every year Professor Lee would give the same lecture to his students. Basically he would say, "If I drop this glass beaker, gravity will cause it to hit the concrete floor and it will break. There is nothing that will stop it, not even if you pray to your GOD!"

You see, Professor Lee was an atheist, and he would say the last part with a great deal of contempt in his voice and on his face. No student ever challenged the professor for fear of looking foolish in front of everyone.

One year a freshman decided to challenge Professor Lee. He knew his class would be subjected to this lecture, just as classes had heard it for several years. He asked Richard Harvey to pray for him two weeks before the infamous lecture was to be given again. The freshman explained that he was tired of God being mocked, and felt that God must be tired of it, too. He was going to give all the Glory to God and explain that it had nothing to do with himself, that all the power was God's alone.

Richard agreed and did indeed pray for the next two weeks.

On the day of the declamation, Richard had that period free and decided to go witness the challenge. Sure enough, the moment came when Professor Lee made it by proclaiming, "If I drop this glass beaker, gravity will cause it to hit the concrete floor and it will break. There is nothing that will stop it, not even if you pray to your GOD!" The Freshman stood up and challenged his professor. Lee took the challenge and gave the freshman a moment to say his prayer.

The student thanked God for giving him the opportunity to let the Lord's power be shown, gave thanks to Jesus for His shed blood and the power of His name, asked for forgiveness for not preventing God from being mocked up until then, and thanked God for preventing the beaker from breaking when Professor Lee dropped it. He denied that there was any personal credit to be given to himself and gave all the Glory to God.

The room was silent. All eyes were on Professor Lee as he raised the beaker and let go of it. As everyone looked on, the beaker tilted ever so slightly in mid air as it descended toward the concrete floor and its imminent destruction. It hit the professor's shoe, rolled across the floor and bumped into the lectern unscathed. The room erupted in laughter.

Professor never gave that lecture again.

If I were God I'd have more important stuff to do than prevent beakers from breaking.

[This message has been edited by Weedguru (edited 01-24-2004).]

I've heard that story in 3 different forms to date. Thats all it is, a story.



Too many Christians think their made up examples of "God's power" mean anything...

urban legand site

http://snopes.com/religion/chalk.htm#jackchick

The creator only wants you to create yourself as you see fit. This is simple yet overlooked because of it's obvious simplicity. You may not realize it but we are all psychotic, in that our perceptions are a figment of our imagination. Yes evrey single thing that you observe is nothing but a figment of your imagination. And the beauty of it all is that it's all connected, so it's not just a figment of your imagination but of all our imaginations combined. You do not see the harmony of the world, because you do not allow yourself to do so.

quote:it's all connected, so it's not just a figment of your imagination but of all our imaginations combined.

I got no patience for jibber-jabber. I pity the foo'.

quote:Originally posted by Craftian:

I got no patience for jibber-jabber. I pity the foo'.

and the cycle continues

Nicely stated. Even so, your post makes little to no sense.

Elaborate, if you will.

Let's assume that the big bang and the big crunch are true, then does that mean that at one point you are indistinguishable from anything else, because you share all there is, with evreything else as one? Now do you believe that that changes? Let's think of a thick clump of strings, if they are too close or too tight they can't expand when you tug them with your fingers. If they're not "tangled in a web." Your fingers will slip right past them. Yet if it's perfect when you pull them apart you will get a web-like structure. In order for expansion to suceed, there must be connections between the infrastructures, otherwise things cannot hold themselves together. The only way to be free is to have a connection to something else otherwise you would never know yourself to be. Yet you are all the same thing just in different desities or clumps.

I don't care if it's jibba jabba, get an imagination

Yeah...firm, life changing belief systems should be based on whose ideas sound more like an acid induced trip...

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

Yeah...firm, life changing belief systems should be based on whose ideas sound more like an acid induced trip...

http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

Whether they are true or not, Ilbastardo understand his own beliefs more than most people here. Virtually all the athiets have know idea who this god character is that they aren't believing in.

quote:Originally posted by ---Beany---:

Virtually all the athiets have know idea who this god character is that they aren't believing in.

On the contrary, I'd say that most North American atheists know more about the Christian god and the bible than most Christians do. Having to constantly defend your intellectual integrity makes you pick things up.

quote:Originally posted by Craftian:

On the contrary, I'd say that most North American atheists know more about the Christian god and the bible than most Christians do. Having to constantly defend your intellectual integrity makes you pick things up.

I'm not talking about the christian god. If your debating as an atheist using the christian god as a basis then half of your discussions will be a waste of time here. Most [i]believers[i/] here aleady see the many flaws in christianity.

Seriously, I've never been able to understand this. We have the "xian god", the "kike god" the "towel head god" all of these gods, and no one is reminded of greek mythology? All of these different gods say you should do different things, non of their ideology is consistant. There is even dispute among each individual religion. There are more xian sects than I care to remember. The only saying that is consistent between all these different cults is that "do onto others as you would have done to you" jibba jabba. Yet as this race has proven countless times, simplicity is hard to attain when your brain is filled with crap.

quote:Originally posted by ---Beany---:

I'm not talking about the christian...Most believers here aleady see the many flaws in christianity.

Most theists in the Western world (and on TOTSE) are Christians. If you aren't, please don't assume that we know which god you are talking about.

quote:Originally posted by Craftian:

Most theists in the Western world (and on TOTSE) are Christians. If you aren't, please don't assume that we know which god you are talking about.



Most theists in this forum are not christians. Therefore if you're gonna argue against totse theists (of this forum) as if they were christians, it's just gonna get tedious and confusing. You might aswell go to a christian forum and argue with those.

Also, I'm not assuming that you know which god I'm talking about, I know that you don't know which one it is. But how many of you actually ask? All most of you are interested in is proving your points before you even understand what you're arguing against.

[This message has been edited by ---Beany--- (edited 01-27-2004).]

Also, if you wanna learn about prayer, why it rarely works, and how it could very well work if you understood the process better, read "Powers of the subconscious mind".

quote:Originally posted by ---Beany---:

Most theists in this forum are not christians.

I suspect you're wrong; in any case I doubt very much that you have done a survey of members past and present.

quote:Also, I'm not assuming that you know which god I'm talking about, I know that you don't know which one it is.

Then clarify your position rather than whining about me not knowing what it is.

quote:But how many of you actually ask? All most of you are interested in is proving your points before you even understand what you're arguing against.

It is your responsibility to make your position clear; if you do not then people replying have no choice but to make reasonable assumptions.