I've never quite understood it. Moreover, I'm sick of people using this idea to try to convince people that it somehow proves the existence of God.

Possibly the stupidest and best example I found was the following; "how do you think the Apollo 13 astronauts came safely back to earth? pretty much because everyone on earth prayed for them..."

It seems as though when something goes right and prayers were counted: "God did it"; and it is justified and everyone sleeps happily. But when something goes wrong there are alternative explanations as to how it happened: "God didn't want it to happen"; it remains consistent that life is driven under 'his' command.

God is supposedly not allowed to influence free will and yet people are often encouraged to pray for their environment and situation to become influenced under his will. If this 'divine plan' exists and God has a 'plan' for everyone, aren't we just robots?

I've talked to a few christian theologians and, according to them, a huge chunk of their faith doesn't believe in a meddling god.
Prayer to them is a form of meditation, akin to a diary. By going through problems in your mind you can define, isolate and solve them.
It could also help to communicate with the subconcious and resolve to change.

In any case, not all christians believe they will have their every whim granted by clasping their hands (probably, just the stupid ones).

Hope this has eased your frustration at the subject.

It seems as though when something goes right and prayers were counted: "God did it"; and it is justified and everyone sleeps happily. But when something goes wrong there are alternative explanations as to how it happened: "God didn't want it to happen"; it remains consistent that life is driven under 'his' command.

Seems like God is going to do whatever the fuck he wants anyways and there's no point in praying.

Also, most people pray on a Sunday. Its the guys fucking day off, leave him alone.

I love how the vatican knows of 130 miracles(or something close to that). So 130, out of billions of prayers a day. Pretty good success rate.

In my view, prayers of petition and intercession are pretty much bunk, The only appropriate prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving, which I do often--thanks that I am alive despite the follies of my youth and middle age; thankful for my wife; thankful that this is such a pretty little planet--the list goes on and on.

However, a 2005 study published in the American Heart Journal[13] indicated that bypass surgery patients who were aware that they were being prayed for developed more complications than patients who were unaware of prayers on their behalf, and patients who were unaware that they were being prayed for had more major complications than those who were not prayed for as part of the study.[14]

well isn't that ironic?

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer

Well, the person's heart is fucked up. If you're praying for God's will to be true on Earth...I think He made it pretty clear the cocksucker was meant to die, or at least live a fucked up life.

Oh no, prayer works. I know that from experience.

A friend of mine once prayed for his mother to get healed from a stroke, but she died. That was God's way of healing her.

And did you know that if you pray, and at the end of your prayer, you say, "In Jesus Name I pray", that God HAS to do what you say?

Try it. Ask God today to heal your herpes. He can and will. He is a God of Miracles. Look around you at all the miracles he does every day in Africa.

Can't think of any?

Is that a coincidence?

Fuck no, it's because there aren't any miracles.

Glory to God in the highest.

Possibly the stupidest and best example I found was the following; "how do you think the Apollo 13 astronauts came safely back to earth? pretty much because everyone on earth prayed for them..."



No no, the best example would be the continuous prayer of 'World Peace' But we haven't seen anything on that front yet...

Perhaps if we got out there and tried to do something proactive we would have more luck with that one. There's no magical man to fix our problems.

Perhaps if we got out there and tried to do something proactive we would have more luck with that one. There's no magical man to fix our problems.

What if prayer makes the achievement possible in your subconcious and so you are more likely to follow through with it.
Plausible, no?

Oh no, prayer works. I know that from experience.

A friend of mine once prayed for his mother to get healed from a stroke, but she died. That was God's way of healing her.

And did you know that if you pray, and at the end of your prayer, you say, "In Jesus Name I pray", that God HAS to do what you say?

Try it. Ask God today to heal your herpes. He can and will. He is a God of Miracles. Look around you at all the miracles he does every day in Africa.

Can't think of any?

Is that a coincidence?

Fuck no, it's because there aren't any miracles.

Glory to God in the highest.

lol

At first i was thinking "what a nutjob.." because i get the argument that i "Cant understand prayer if God never talks to me." then i read the rest =D

What if prayer makes the achievement possible in your subconcious and so you are more likely to follow through with it.
Plausible, no?

Most likely true, but how many Christians do you know who take it like that. Most just ask and keep on living and say to themselves "I prayed about it, it'll come any second now."

What if prayer makes the achievement possible in your subconcious and so you are more likely to follow through with it.
Plausible, no?

Plausable, but probably not for most individuals. They seem to either think 'Right, prayed, done that' (The whole wave of the magical wand will cure everything type of mindset that I despise.) or continously worry about it but not do anything.
For a quicky analogy, how many people have you known with a News Years Resolution type of thing going on where they continously talk about it but it never leads anywhere? They probably greatly outnumer the people who carry it out, no?

Again, it's what your definitaion of prayer is and what it's for.


What if prayer makes the achievement possible in your subconcious and so you are more likely to follow through with it.
Plausible, no?

There's a book called "powers of the subconscious mind" that talks about this and I think "Conversations with God", also does but I can't be sure. Have you read any of them?

I think praying is a comminication between you and your subconscious mind. Simply blurting out words into the air will have little effect on anything, but if you communicate to your deep self and believe that which you pray for will occur, then your subconsious will accept that and you will naturally live your life in a way that is most likely to bring that prayer into fruition, whether you're aware of it or not.
It's your beliefs that effect how you alter the universe. Do you have doubt, or do you believe completely? Whatever you truly belief will determine how you influence.

What if prayer makes the achievement possible in your subconcious and so you are more likely to follow through with it.
Plausible, no?

How asking someone else to help you somehow empowers you to do better makes no sense. More like the opposite

You pray according to the will of God.

1 John 5:14-15.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him.

This passage teaches that if we are to pray aright, we must pray according to God’s will, then we beyond a peradventure get the thing we ask of Him.

How do we know that any specific prayer is according to His will?

1. First by the Word. God has revealed His will in His Word. When anything is definitely promised in the Word of God, we know that it is His will to give that thing. If then when I pray, I can find some definite promise of God’s Word and lay that promise before God, I know that He hears me, and If I know that He hears me. I know that I have the petition that I have asked of Him. For example, when I pray for wisdom, I know that it is the will of God to give me wisdom, for He says so in James 1:5.

When we have a specific promise in the Word of God, if we doubt that it is God’s will, or if we doubt that God will do the thing that we ask, we make God a liar. He is one of the greatest secrets of prevailing prayer: To study the Word of God to find what God’s will is as revealed there in the promises, and then simply take these promises and spread them out before God in prayer with the absolutely unwavering expectation that He will do what He has promised in His Word.

God did not cause all the terrible destruction that is happening in Africa. It is a man-made situation. We cannot just ask God to snap his fingers and turn Africa into a flourishing nation (although if that were to happen, I'm sure many people would scramble to prove it scientifically :rolleyes: ). We must individually pray for the wisdom, courage, and discernment to do something about it, to help in any way possible, and by the will of God, we will be granted that strength. The terrible things that happen in the world do not happen because the Lord wants them to happen. Mankind does these things.

If you were to smoke like a chimney for however many years, and then you were told that you have lung cancer, would you blame God? Would you blame Him if all your life you had mocked Him and then when you were struck with that horrific condition, prayed to Him, yet received no healing? However, if the doctors treating you were to pray for the power to treat you and make you better, then if it were God's will, you would be healed - yet you would thank medicine. It's all very circular and difficult for non-believers to understand the power of prayer.

^^^
Read "Misquoting Jesus" (title different outside North America) by Bart Ehrman and see where your holy text came from and how it changed, it's not atheist propaganda (the author's a Xtian), honestly, go learn about your holy book instead of mindlessly quoting it and thinking it's divine.

This passage teaches that if we are to pray aright, we must pray according to God’s will, then we beyond a peradventure get the thing we ask of Him.

In plain english he said that if we ask for things that'll happen regardless of whether we ask for them or not, our wish will be granted. Which is well, worthy of an O RLY image macro at most. Why even ask if it makes no difference on the outcome?

What do you guys have to say about those studies which suggest prayer works?

Prayer DOES work. It can also be recognized under another term, a more common and practical one which is called The Power of Positive Thinking. Coupled with a little bit of retrospect and a good deal of planning for the future, how could *prayer* fail?

If I was disciplined enough to stop 8-10 times a day to kneel down and control my breathing and clear my head of all negativity and clutter, relaxing both my mind and my body - I'd be as chill as the chillest of monks. I'd focus better, probably sort out my problems easier, and could take a moment to reflect on things I wanted, things I needed and recognizing the difference. I'd probably be way more at peace with myself.

I think prayer can be accomplished without God, and I don't think religious prayer is much more than just meditation with an invisible friend.

If prayer can get someone through a tough time or make some people feel like it's contributing to their lives in a positive, results-oriented manner, then hell yes. Prayer works.

What do you guys have to say about those studies which suggest prayer works?

Posting a source helps not to get ripped to pieces.
Wikipedia- on prayer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer#Experimental_evaluation_of_prayer)
A number of studies have suggested that patients who are being prayed for recover more quickly or more frequently. One such study, with a double-blind design and about 500 subjects per group, suggested that intercessory prayer by born again Christians had a statistically significant positive effect on a coronary care unit population.[3] Sicher et al suggested statistically significant benefits to a group being prayed for ten years later.[4] Another such study was reported by Harris et al.[5] Critics claim Byrd's 1988 study was not fully double-blinded, and that in the Harris study, patients actually had a longer hospital stay in the prayer group, if one discounts the patients in both groups who left before prayers began.[6] One of the largest randomized, blind clinical trials was a remote retroactive intercessory prayer study conducted in Israel by Leibovici. This study used 3393 patient records from 1990-96, and blindly assigned some of these to an intercessory prayer group. The prayer group had shorter hospital stays and duration of fever.[7]

But then again, as I stated earlier-

Many accept that prayer can aid in recovery, not due to divine influence but due to psychological and physical benefits. It has also been suggested that if a person knows that he or she is being prayed for it can be uplifting and increase morale, thus aiding recovery. (See Subject-expectancy effect.)

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/prayer.php