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#1
05-19-2002, 07:14 PM
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The Power of Prayer
I'd like to hear people's first-hand stories of a time when prayer really worked. I'm thinking Christian prayer, but no need for exclusivity here - all faiths welcomed.
Although I have had one or two interesting experiences, by and large I'm skeptical. I believe in God, all right, and that he listens to us, but I have trouble believing he then does anything about it. My attitude toward prayer is do it, then forget about it. Don't pray for anything too specific, because you're sure to be disappointed. I was a complete religious skeptic for years, and before that, my religious upbringing did NOT believe in this sort of thing AT ALL, or at least did not attempt it. Ours was a quiet and inactive God. Here's the story that has me rattled: a second-hand story, unfortunately. My dad is an evangelical Christian, a musician, he and his wife out of work for about 2 months and getting hard pressed to pay the mortgage. He wanders into a construction site one day, meets a carpenter, and gets to talking. The carpenter is also a musician and a Christian. He lays hands on my dad and prays for him to get work. My dad said he didn't expect anything to happen. Starting the next day and over the next week, he and the wife were deluged with good jobs, a couple of them the biggest projects they've ever taken on. Dad went back to tell the carpenter, who was unsurprised. Now I know, and my dad knows, this could have been coincidence. I don't want this thread to be a GD, there's plenty of good stuff there and elsewhere on the philosophical and theological aspects of this sort of thing. I'm just interested in people who believe this happens, and believe it has happened to them. I want to hear more stories of this kind. Dissenters are perfectly welcome to post too, though. Sorry if this was a bit rambly. 
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#3
05-20-2002, 10:49 AM
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Ditto Francesca. With the possible exception that a few things that have come through would seem to suggest that any alleged almighty diety is more of a practical joker rather than a compasionate father. Examples:
• Pray for a bigger house, next day a wall falls down exposing inside of house to back yard. • Pray for a million bucks, next day caught in stampede of wild antelope. • Pray for better love of life, next day make myself sick eating too much cereal. Well, those weren't my exact prayers, but that's the way my prayers tend to be answered.
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#4
05-20-2002, 11:07 AM
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OK, I'll start.
My father is not a religious man at all. He (unlike me) is not Orthodox. He doesn't keep kosher, doesn't observe Shabbos, etc. His observance (at least to my knowledge) was perfunctory at best. Anyway, my stepmother came down with lukemia about 15 years ago. At one time, my stepmother was so bad that she was thought to have less than a few hours to live. The doctors told him that she would not last the night. My father shocked us all by calling us (my sister and myself) and asking us to pray. Never would have expected that of him. Anyway, I'm not going to say that it was our prayers that did it. There are any number of possibilities. The doctors could have been wrong, she was stronger than they gave her credit for, etc. I'd like to think, however, that our prayers helped. In any event, my stepmother is still with us now, happy and healthy. And the doctor told my father that he will never "write off" a patient again like that. Zev Steinhardt Zev Steinhardt
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#5
05-20-2002, 01:46 PM
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Well, I've never prayed for anything, being an atheist. But my friend Michael is a good Catholic—goes to church and everything. His parents came down with diabetes-related heart trouble and cancer, about ten years apart. Michael prayed and prayed and went to church and had the congregation pray, too.
Both his parents eventually died in terrible agony. Hmm. Guess "God works in mysterious ways."
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#7
05-20-2002, 07:07 PM
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Um, well, I've gotten to be pretty good friends with the Virgin of Guadalupe.
I found a website dedicated to her, and on the site there was a reproduction of a painting of the V of G fighting the Devil. Since I've always had an affinity for saints who kick ass and take names, I downloaded and printed it, then took it to a copy place and had holy cards made of it (along with a couple of more traditional renderings of the V of G), and composed a prayer to her inspired by the image. (won't put it here, but if you're really curious, you can e-mail me and I'll send it along). Anyhoo, after losing three jobs in the space of a year (no fault of my own), I stumbled upon this image, and started asking the V of G to intercede for me to get a job that would be permanent. Apparently, she did so. Also, when the casino started splitting tokes table for table, I've asked her to intercede for me to have an income sufficient to meet my expenses, and again, she came through. Prior to this, I had never felt any particular devotion to the Blessed Mother, but I have found her to be a powerful intercessor.
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#8
05-21-2002, 02:40 PM
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different kinds of prayer
Based on what I've learned in the evangelical church, supplication is only one kind of prayer. These sorts of prayers are most likely answered when they are congruent with God's goals, are unselfish and are for others. But you can never know in advance when a prayer will be answered. If statistics were kept on such things, I would suppose that intercessory prayer is much more effective than prayer for self. If all prayers were answered immediately, it wouldn't require any faith to pray.
Not that you asked, but other important forms of prayer include adulation, confession and thanksgiving.
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#10
05-21-2002, 04:02 PM
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I'm in the "God (or whoever's "up there") has one helluva sense of humor" camp, and so do not, as a rule, tend to make too many requests.
This is not necessarily because I don't think my prayers will be answered, but because I'm thinking like Attrayant, and am always afraid I'll leave out that ONE little detail that will give God the loophole to pull a fast one on me. For example, if I ask merely to fall in love and leave it at that, I'm always afraid I'll wind up falling head over heels for a gay man who is married and has two weeks to live or something. But it takes way too much energy to try to close all of the loopholes... I guess there are other issues as well (will I lose faith if my prayers aren't answered, will I use prayer as a substitute for motivation/action, etc.... plus the fact that I'm never really quite sure what I want), but overall I'm too afraid I'll wind up being the butt of a huge cosmic joke.  So if I do pray, I try just to say Thanks, and mean it, hoping that'll get me some brownie points.
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#11
05-21-2002, 04:04 PM
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Oh, and in regards to the OP...
My mother once prayed for something to happen so that my cousin (who'd been busted on drug charges after repeated offenses, and was out on bail pending his trial) wouldn't have to go to jail... He died. A couple of years later, she prayed for a change in her life... My dad died. I think she's stopped making requests, too.
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#12
05-21-2002, 07:28 PM
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Quote:
Quote:
Instead of trying to close the loopholes, try praying for God's will for you. Maybe it's not what you think it is. All my comments in this thread, by the way, are so IMHO it's not even funny. I am a new Christian with little faith, and my authority on these matters is exactly zip.
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#13
05-21-2002, 10:25 PM
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Hmm. Let's see... I was in an Alpha group (intro to Christianity) with a very nice woman who became a Christian because of it. When we got to the section on intercessory prayer, she asked us to pray for her for an unspecified request. During the next session (it was once a week), during discussion she told us that she had been suicidal and severely depressed, and that night, when we prayed for her, she decided to live. No, that's not the miracle part. She was allergic to bee stings- the "third time you die" kind of allergic, and she'd already had two stings and almost died on the last one. She'd started a treatment a while ago that could reverse the effect enough to give her three more chances, but it was expensive, she was apathetic, and she'd stopped halfway, which meant she had to start again from the beginning.
She went to her doctor, and he said that he'd have to test her current allergic reaction first, before treatment. He tested her. She was no longer allergic to bee stings. I understand that that doesn't happen. It's impossible. She attributed it to our prayer, and God's giving her a fresh start, once she decided to live. It's interesting that so many people feel that prayer is an uncontrollable force, and that God is nasty enough to enjoy granting harmful requests. The Cosmic Sadist. Hmm.
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#15
05-22-2002, 12:43 AM
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Well, I've prayed a lot over the health problems of my parents and I really feel that God has been looking out for them. No, the health problems didn't just magically disappear, but we have averted much worse problems several times. For example, I feel we are very blessed that my father (already a stroke survivor) was able to have a 99% blocked artery discovered BEFORE it led to a stroke on the other side of his body. It could have very easily gone undetected until a catastrophe struck (since, for reasons I still don't understand, it apparently hadn't occurred to his docs to monitor his carotid arteries in the years after the first stroke). The part that makes me feel particularly fortunate is that, even after it was discovered that he had a serious blockage, at first it looked like they couldn't do anything about it (conventional surgery was considered too risky), BUT THEN we learned of an experimental procedure that allowed the problem to be taken care of without complications.
That is not the first kind of close call; just a recent example. I give thanks on a daily basis because my parents have been able to survive numerous serious health problems. There are lots of other smaller things that I feel God played a hand in. I try not to ask for too much though...I feel better focusing on the things that are very important to me (like the health matters). As they say, the things such as money don't matter much if you don't have your health.
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#16
05-22-2002, 03:20 AM
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Quote:
I too have seen many prayers answered, from the trivial to the profound, and Yes, every single one of them may have been the result of a coincidence. We will never know that, at least, not in this world. Prayer is so much more than a divine shopping list - it is the foundation that the relationship of my faith is based on. Prayer involves thanksgiving, confession, praise, adoration and supplication. The OP asks for stories of answered prayer - here's my own. When we moved to London, I had wanted to take a break from teaching, but ended up doing supply teaching because there is a great demand and it is very well paid. After two months I was hating it so much that I threw in the towel without any real idea of what I could do instead. The wife and I are both devout Christians, so our natural response was to pray about it. I had no other really marketable skills except for an interest in computers and an apptitude to learn technical skills quite quickly (the only other job that I'd had was as a waiter). Nevertheless we prayed that I would be able to find work in a computer-related field. A friend taught me how to use a couple of web-design packages and I thought I might be able to find work that way. But we couldn't survuive on just one income, so I went and signed up with a functions company (supplying waiters and kitchen staff to various functions) that a friend had worked at several years ago and really enjoyed. Well it was the dodgiest place I have seen in a long time - two desks in a basement room with a ricketty staircase leading down, but I thought I'd give it a shot. My first assignment (three days later) was a one day placement at a company called XXXX (names changed to protect the innocent) where they were so delighted that I spoke English that they asked me to stay a further two days!! While I was there, I got chatting to one of the management who, when he found out the kind of work that I was looking for, mentioned that they had an opening (a new post, just created) in their IT support dept. and would I like to apply? Well, I took the job description home with me that Friday and fell into despair - I had none of the skills they were looking for. But my beloved wife prayed with me and convinced me that it was worth giving it a try. So, I wrote up a letter of application and dropped it and my CV off on the Monday. On Tuesday I had an interview, where I was very upfront about my meager expereince and skills, but tried to emphasise my keen-ness. On Wednesday they offered me the job - I started the following Monday and two years later, here I am working at the same temporary desk in the Finance department (  ) The job has turned out to be within my abilities, although it was a very steep learning curve at the beginning!! It has been the perfect springboard to change careers with, as I have had to learn a little of everything (database, network, website, DTP, hardware, etc) and feel like this is a career path that I can continue with.Could it have been all a happy coincidence - sure!! Do I believe that - well, no, but my reasons for that are based on my faith, and I don't expect anyone who doesn't share that faith (such as Czarcasm) to accept those reasons... Gp
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#17
05-22-2002, 08:34 AM
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grimpixie, should incredible claims be accepted without any proof whatsoever just because it supposedly involves a diety you happen to believe in? To be consistant, you would also have to believe that the followers of Transcendental Meditation can levitate at will, Uri Gellar can teleport, John Edwards can speak to the dead, all without any evidence. Did you even question this allergy where "the third time you die", as stated by the unknown friend of Lissla Lissar? Her story doesn't just mess with my view of the world, it messes with common sense and reality.
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#18
05-22-2002, 08:36 AM
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Quote:
a) what I really want, and/or b) something that would be good for me. And the cynic in me figures that if it's something that is not, in fact, good for me, The Jester On High will let me learn that the hard way... Besides which [Pollyanna Warning], I can honestly say that I am quite happy with my life as it is, and pretty much always have been (I mean, there've been some crappy moments--the aftermath of certain breakups, or the death of someone I love--but overall, I've had it good). Sure, there's stuff I think I'd like to have, but I'd be perfectly happy if my life stayed exactly as it is. I might be a little concerned if I failed to age, or still had this same job in 20 years, or if my puppy remained a puppy for the rest of her life...
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#20
05-22-2002, 09:21 AM
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This thread reminds me of the late comedian Bill Hicks' routine on wanting to hear the following postgame interview:
Sportscaster: "Why'd you fumble in the 4th quarter?" Football Player: "Well, I wasn't going to bring it up, but now that you mention it... it's that Jesus guy! He HATES us!" Which made perfect sense to me -- if the winners got help from the deity, shouldn't the losers rightfully be able to blame him? Also, the immortal quote by Homer Simpson, listing reasons for which he'd decided to quit attending church: "... and what if we've picked the wrong religion? Then every week, we're just making God madder and madder".
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#21
05-22-2002, 09:28 AM
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Prayer is not the same as magic.
Magic represents engaging in certain practices with an assured result.
Prayer is a dialogue with a Saint or God, asking for help. They may or may not respond. Actually, the best prayer I have ever made, is a prayer of thanksgiving, thanking God for my life and all that is in it. It is a prayer of thanks!
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#22
05-22-2002, 09:43 AM
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Czarcasm, I would not call it incredible that Grimpixie got a job -- including a job for which he was not at the time qualified. I don't know what planet you're operating on, but around here, people are hired for jobs on a regular basis, and far too often for jobs they aren't qualified for!
 Seriously, I suspect that you are challenging that this was in answer to his prayer, and I will grant that it sounds like a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc. But, while, on the assumption that there is no god, it is clearly coincidental, on the assumption that there is a god who said that he would answer prayers asked "in Christ's name" (discussion of that later or, preferably, at another time and place), then Grimpixie's evident conclusion that this was an answer to his prayer makes perfect sense. I concede that in your worldview there is no such god -- but in his there is. Within the contexts in which each of you view the situation, your analyses are both logical inferences. Do you see this?
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#23
05-22-2002, 10:09 AM
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My objection was to the claims Lissla Lissar made, which grimpixie then refered to in criticising my position. As far as grimpixie's claims go, I have no doubt that they happened, but events like those described by him happen to everyone, whether they pray or not. I think that it would be a miracle if only bad things happened to him.
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#24
05-22-2002, 10:39 AM
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Cszarcasm
Quote:
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The Canadian Medical Association Home Medical Encyclopaedia, 1992 Anaphylaxis, he said, occurred within seconds or minutes of a sting. Common initial symptoms are chest wheeze, nausea, vomiting, and confusion followed by falling blood pressure leading to death. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_AA159 Okay, there's your cite regarding anaphylaxis. Upon reading the OP, I assumed that personal stories were what was wanted. Now that this thread has been moved to Great Debates, I assume that everyone's stories will have to be substantiated. As to why I (or any of the Teeming Millions) should believe her story, I can offer no proof. I trust the woman's testimony because I trust her: she's a friend of mine, she had no reason to lie to any of us in the group, and to the best of my knowledge she doesn't go around making up crackpot stories. Why should any of you believe it? I didn't even suggest that you had to, you are free to continue believing whatever you wish about my gullibility and my ignorance. That's okay. Quote:
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#25
05-22-2002, 11:02 AM
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I wasn't questioning Anaphylactic Shock, I was questioning the somewhat unusual "third time you die" variation of it. I can't think of any doctor that would be so irresponsible as to tell that to a patient.
And no, I was not presupposing in you a desire for physical confirmation of your faith. I was criticising your blind faith in "miraculous" stories that you justify with the statement "..she had no reason to lie to any of us in the group".
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#26
05-22-2002, 11:11 AM
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I am alergic to bee stings. As far as I know, there is no "third time and you die" reaction. I went into anaphylactic shock twice before receiving a series of injections to build up my resistence to bee stings. Yes, there is a course of shots you are supposed to take but any exposure to the shots (basically just increasing doses of bee venom) help build up your resistance.
I had to monkey with the speed of the shots because my family was moving but it definately increased my resistence to the point that I don't really worry about bee stings anymore. I still carry an Epi-Pen just in case, mainly because I spend a lot of time backcountry camping. My read is that someone who has started a course of treatment for bee sting allergy and taken enough to "give her three more chances" has under gone a significant course of treatment. BTW, that seems very unlikely that doctor would tell her something like that, it doesn't make sense. Since I responded very well to the shots, I assume she did as well. The way she described the reactions and treatments to you makes me believe she didn't really have a good understanding of her health situation.
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#27
05-22-2002, 11:21 AM
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I'm of the opinion that thought has power over reality. What others attribute to a god may be our own perception shaping reality. Could be wrong here. I don't have much proof other than things like the placebo effect and incredible occurences of healing (some of which are non-religious in nature - leading me to believe religion (a god) is not responsible. If anyone is interested I can dig up some cites. The well known placebo effect does prove perception can effect reality.
DaLovin' Dj
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#28
05-22-2002, 11:40 AM
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Answered prayers...answered prayers...I don't know...
It's hard, because sometimes, I've prayed so hard, yet it happens anyways. Or sometimes my prayers have been answered. How am I to know? I only know that perhaps, since we do not KNOW one way or another, to state that those who believe in prayer are silly, or brainwashed is rather a kneejerk. If you guys remember, back in October, we had to put our kitten, Tess to sleep. What am I saying-of COURSE you're going to remember-I was ranting incoherantly, and I was cursing God and anyone who would listen. And then we got into a huge fight. But see, it was my mistake to blame God for what happened to Tess. See, sometimes all you can do is pray. And sometimes it may not be answered. But to those of us who do believe, it's something perhaps that keeps us from going insane out of our own sense of helplessness. And perhaps, it brings us comfort. I'm just saying, if we don't have proof one way or another, it's not good to dismiss it.
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#29
05-22-2002, 12:17 PM
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Czarcasm - I meant no criticism of your comments, but was simply trying to point out that your world view must colour your opinions. A sceptical world view will produce a sceptical response to a story of faith, while a "faith" world view may more easily accept it because it fits with what is known.
Nevertheless, you make a good point - should I accept, unquestioningly all stories of faith? My answer is no, because I believe that the person/belief/system upon whom the faith is based makes a great deal of difference in whether or not I should accept it. I know the God that Lissla's friend has her faith in, and I have seen/heard first hand, similar stories of similar healings and of similar afflictions (I read the three times and you're dead line as a little exageration for effect) - I have two friends with life-threatening allergies, one to pork and the other to bannanas!! That makes it a great deal easier to accept that Lissla's friend was telling the truth. I have no experience of TM, Uri Gellar or John Edwards and therefore have no reason for belief (or disbelief for that matter). Were I Lissla, I would be noting whether the person telling the story is honest and truthfull about other things or not. If so, then it lends weight to the factual nature of her story, if not, it undermines it. Polycarp, as usual puts it far more eloquently than I might have... Gp
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#30
05-22-2002, 12:50 PM
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Why would a spiritual entity answer some prayers and not others? What would put you to the top of the list over... say...world peace? Or saving starving children somewhere? Do you ever question your god's priorities?
With all the activities your god has going for people after death, where does he find time to sort through the requests and decide who will be the lucky winner of a granted prayer?
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#31
05-22-2002, 01:23 PM
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Good questions, EchoKitty. And Luck has nothing to do with it.
But the Christian God doesn't say that he'll always grant the request in any prayer. He says, "Ask [i]in My [Jesus's] Name, and it will be given you." The general idea here is that God has a Plan, and it's worked out in great complexity for the long-range good of every single one of us (bearing in mind that we are not limited to our lifespan here on Earth). The prayers that are granted are the ones asked "in Jesus's Name" -- not meaning that you tack on that formula, but that you're asking in the mind and spirit of Jesus, subverting your own selfish desires to His will. And those are the prayers that are granted. Now, that sounds, even to me, like a lot of cover-up-the-mistakes/God's-mysterious-ways glurge. But would you be willing to take my word that it's the way in which Christians understand it to happen.
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#32
05-22-2002, 01:37 PM
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Well, Poly, I repeat my question, above, which no one has yet addressed. My friend Michael is a "good Catholic"—goes to church and everything. His parents came down with diabetes-related heart trouble and cancer, about ten years apart. Michael prayed and prayed (to God and Maery and Jesus and any number of saints) and went to church and had the congregation pray, too. Both his parents eventually died in terrible agony.
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#34
05-22-2002, 08:42 PM
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Re: Prayer is not the same as magic.
I disagree that prayer is not the same as magic, but that's a whole 'nuther thread.
Quote:
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#35
05-22-2002, 08:48 PM
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#36
05-22-2002, 09:11 PM
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Yesterday I attended the funeral of a neighbor who had died of breast cancer. She was 38 and had two chiildren under 8. A very sad event.
During the funeral it was stated several times how much faith the woman had and how much the congregetion had prayed for her. In fact, she had been prayed for more than anyone else in that church, but she died anyway. Apparently she had drawn strength from Richard, another member of the church. Richard was a young man with cancer and young children, and the congregation prayed hard for him also. Richard's dead too. I'm quite certain that my neighbor and Richard would both be just as dead had they not received any prayer at all. However I'm equally certain that their faith and the support they received from their congregation were of enormous help during their trying times.
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#37
05-22-2002, 10:52 PM
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response to Attrayant
I stand corrected. A modified statement would be, "IF some type of formulaic incantation would ALWAYS produce results, that would be magic, not prayer."
This does not imply either that magic or prayer have any utility, but that the utility of mechanical formulae would be magical if they worked.
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#38
05-22-2002, 11:14 PM
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im agnostic, but i do think prayer has its place and for ppl of faith is very important. the misconception that i had, as many others, is that prayer is to get free gifts from god. fortunatley user Lorenzo has informed me otherwise. prayer is not oly to get what u want but also show your appreciation to the almighty and this i have no doubt, assuming (s)he/it exists, will be effective. as another usser mentioned above, it is also imporatant to remeber why and for what u are praying, fro example praying that your bothersome neighbor will keel over tomarrow is probably not something god will comply with. i think it is important to have general requests from God that you can help God help u achieve, because from what i am told by my frineds of faith, god will help those who help themselves (which in my interpreations just means that in case he isnt there, ur helping yourself and u've got ur ass covered)
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#39
05-23-2002, 10:30 AM
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Re: response to Attrayant
Quote:
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#40
05-23-2002, 11:15 AM
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Bad things happen to good people
Quote:
Many Christians believe that in this world God allows Satan limited power. Sometimes this results in good Christians dying horrible, horrible deaths. Satisfying answer? Maybe not. A message board is quite possibly one of the worst possible forums for explaining one's faith. Faith is personal. Faith is best demonstrated by actions and not just words or logic alone. Message boards tend to dichotomise issues, attracting the experts on both sides, so oftentimes you're either preaching to the choir or preaching to those who are not open to your message. Jesus never forced anyone to listen to him or accept his message. We all have freewill. And Christians surely don't have all the answers. Many Christians have examined all the evidence available to them and put their belief in God and Jesus. Other folks look at the evidence and believe there is no God. But either way, it's a belief.
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#41
05-23-2002, 11:23 AM
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Perhaps prayer is the only thing we can do sometimes?
Perhaps it's the only resort-even when it doesn't work, so at least we're doing something? 
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#42
05-23-2002, 08:22 PM
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I am sorry this is now a Great Debate; I suppose it was inevitable. But I'm quite inspired by several comments here. Now that we're in debating mode, let me try to address a few points:
Eve (and bnorton): [Bill Clinton] I feel your pain. [/Bill Clinton] I know a lot of people permanently angry at God, or convinced of his nonexistence, because of this sort of thing. I was myself for quite a while: my half-brother died as an infant, in spite of prayer. The pastor-who-I-must-not-call-an-idiot prayed with us, and then we believed my brother would survive. That was the going doctrine: whatever you ask in My Name, believing you will receive it, I will grant. Oh, yes indeedy. I remember his very words, right before the fatal surgery, after our prayer: "The doctors said he has a 20% chance of survival, but we know with God it's 100%." Well, of course he died, and the weird thing was, Pastor never apologized and I don't know if he ever re-thought his doctrine; I've always wondered if that was the very first time that had happened to him; it couldn't have been, not really. This incident was good for 6 years of solid atheism for me. I now believe as Polycarp has stated in this thread, that praying "in Jesus' name" means a great deal more than just saying the words: In-Jesus-Name-Amen. That pastor taught a simplistic version of the doctrine, and demonstrably incorrect at that. Why did Michael's parents die in spite of prayer? I don't know, any more than I know why my brother died. Certainly there is evil in the world which causes human death. Torturous death -- going way out on a limb here -- perhaps, as I said before regarding myself, their spiritual condition required it. Remember the long-run view. Going even further out on the limb -- perhaps they were being punished for sins. (Not that I think this likely, mind you!) Keeping in mind this "punishment" would have been preparing them for Heaven, not a prequel to Hell. They were Catholic - I think Catholics believe the pains of Purgatory are more intense than any earthly suffering anyway (but tempered by knowledge of the purpose of the pain and of the joy to come) -Catholics correct me if I'm wrong. The long-run view also involves other people. Michael's parents' deaths affected other people in ways that, perhaps, they needed to be affected. I don't know. I do believe that human experiences in this life, including death, are of less magnitude than all experiences in the next life. But still, they start us down the road of who we are, and will ultimately become. I am very, very sorry if this sounds like blather to you. It probably does. Death is very real, as I know very well, and makes theological shooting-the-shit look like, well, just shooting the shit. But Christians believe death isn't quite what it appears to be. Christ defeated it. It lost its sting. I still feel the sting, though. So do you, I think. I'm sorry. EchoKitty: Why would a spiritual entity answer some prayers and not others? Obviously every prayer can't be granted; some prayers are for evil things, some prayers seem all right but would ultimatly bring about evil, etc. etc. God's not a machine processing all our requests. He has the ultimate good of each soul in mind. What would put you to the top of the list over... say...world peace? Or saving starving children somewhere? Do you ever question your god's priorities? Who says I can't pray for the starving children, and for me to make the rent money? If he can grant one request, why not many requests? I'm sure world peace is more important to God than I am, but still, I'm not unimportant to God. He can look after multiple things at the same time. Which brings me to your question on time: With all the activities your god has going for people after death, where does he find time to sort through the requests and decide who will be the lucky winner of a granted prayer? In my opinion, and this is not anybody's actual theology or doctrine (as far as I know) but just an opinion: God is outside of time. From our perspective, we are in the present, we look back to the past, we look forward to the future. Not God. It is all eternally present and experienced. The future has already happened, and the past is still going on. So God has an eternity in which to listen to every prayer. He could, if he wanted, stop everything for 3 million years and ponder my request for my daily bread, doing nothing else. He is not bound by the restrictions of time as we perceive them. He created time. *** Since this is a Great Debate, what exactly is the debate here? "Does supplicatory prayer 'work'?" "If-God-Is-All-Powerful-Why-Is-There-Evil-In-The-World"? Like I said, I didn't want a debate. But now that we're here, I'm open to suggestions for re-framing this.
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#43
05-23-2002, 08:40 PM
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Oh: I need to properly attribute the paragraph on time in my previous post. I derive my opinion from a chapter in C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, although I'm sure the concept is not unique to that author. Actually, I derive rather a lot of my religious opinions from C.S. Lewis.
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#44
05-24-2002, 10:25 PM
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This topic has been discussed on the SDMB before:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...threadid=75327 One problem that kept recurring in that old thread was that certain posters insisted that a prayer "worked" if in praying one ended up feeling closer to God, whereas the rest of us were talking about prayers in which a specific, concrete request was made and later that request appeared to have been granted.
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#45
05-25-2002, 11:10 AM
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Eve: I do not know. Incidents such as the one you relate, and the death by leukemia of a 12-year-old who was a good friend when I was a kid, are questions to which I would dearly love to have an answer.
I remain confident of God's goodness and providential lovingkindness despite such things. But it is the easiest thing in the world for me to understand why they might anger and embitter someone against God, or convince them that all the stuff about Him is simply a superstition. Even the idea of working out one's karma simply adds one step to the "blame God" syndrome -- because Who was it who defined "justice" such that one had to work out one's karmic consequences through such horrible things? I apologize for not having a good answer -- but I owe you the truth (that I don't know) rather than some juryrigged defense of "God's mysterious ways."
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#47
05-28-2002, 02:10 PM
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Well, over in my GP Poly Rant in the Pit, three people prayed for me, with the post hoc that what they asked for, for me, I ended up feeling -- as a result of the comments expressed by them and others in that very thread. Insofar as I am concerned, this is a clearcut answer to prayer -- though I can understand how a skeptic would fail to see it as propter hoc.
Notice the variant in perceptions there: Everyone would agree on the sequence of events, assuming that they take my testimony as to my emotional state prior to posting the rant and the feelings I had on reading the responses. But only insofar as one has a previous view of a God who answers prayers would one conclude that God answered those prayers through the posts in the thread. I'd welcome an unbiased analysis of that, but for me at least it's a definitive example of what the OP calls for.
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#48
05-28-2002, 03:00 PM
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Quote:
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#49
05-28-2002, 03:12 PM
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I don't exactly pray in the Christian sense.
However, a little over a year ago my father's mother was dying of complications from diabetes. On Friday, Mom & Dad went to Wyoming to be with her, thinking this time she'd pull through again. On Saturday, Dad called me and told me they were disconnecting life support (essentially) and that now it was a question of waiting. On Sunday, I stood up and told my UU Fellowship that this was happening, and that we were no longer seeking a quick recovery but a gentle passing. On Monday, very early in the morning, she passed away in her sleep. There was no further suffering. This despite the fact that my father and his sisters were told that Grandma probably would "linger for a couple of weeks." (or words to that effect) I don't know if this counts for either side or not. I'd like to think our request to the universe had this effect for her, as she'd really suffered enough.
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#50
05-28-2002, 03:30 PM
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Hmmm... Gaudere, you're presuming a supernatural link Prayers > God > Poly-feels-better. I'm presuming that in God's goodness and the lovingkindness of my fellow Dopers the sequence went Poly-rant >[ Responses, incl. Prayers <> God's motivating people to answer ] > Poly-feels-better -- in short, that the natural process includes God's providential hand, not that He supernaturally shortcircuited it. See the distinction I'm drawing?
Oh, and He's not bound to answer every retarded prayer of every sinful human being, religious or not, in the terms spelled out in the prayer -- He's God, not the OS for the Universe where call X triggers interrupt Y every time! -- and based on Lib.'s analysis of your spirituality it was in accord with His will that you not get depressed and fail to carry out His will, just because Halffast Witnesser pulled some stupid stunt and got banned.
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