Ahh, I’ll grant him that one. I’ll also ignore the verses where Jesus encourages belief without evidence and reiterate that Jesus fails his own test by not delivering on his lordly duties; answering prayers, giving believers the power to heal the sick, drink poison, etc.
Rather than “granting” him “that one,” why do you not simply apologize to him for lying while accusing him of lying? I don’t mind your little one-man fundy-atheist assault on various forms of Christianity, but if you are going to hold yourself up as the paragon of honest rectitude assaulting the “hypocrisy” of others, you might want to be a bit less hypocritical, yourself.
In the matter of just a few hours, you have taken this discussion of ideas and attempted to make it a personal attack on other posters. If you need to simply attack people, do it in the Pit. Otherwise, we might draw the official conclusion that you were here for reasons other than honest debate.
I do not see the need for prayer,if there is a God who knows all things and is a good Father,he would not hold anything from me that would be for my good, nor would he grant anything to me no matter how much I or others begged for me, if it was harmful.
A good human father cannot know for sure but if he had just fed his child and some one said please feed your child he would be insulted.
A father that can read minds and hearts doesn’t need prayer from his children.
Even the new thing of everyone saying God Bless you,God Bless Americia sets me to wondering why they think the person or Americia isn’t blessed! Perhaps it is because talk is cheap and actions show more about a person than what is said.
Prayer is in my opinion something to do until what was going to happen happens.
Monavis
Amen
Now we’ll see whether God really does answer my prayers 
A request from the Foreign Peanuts Gallery:
do you guys think you could get your quotes from a translation done in the 20th century?
I have to guess them. Verily I say unto ye that it is a real pain.
Please examine [URL=“http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7768006&postcount=7”]Post #7 in this thread. Not only is it there, I copied it from there to post it the second time (the post with “what part of…do you fail to understand”).
Not.
Or at a minumum, wrong about at least something and therefore not infallible, yes?
A condition not exclusive to him whether he possesseth it or not, apparently.
stupid freaking code
OK, now I see where you’re going with this.
No, I am not a Christian. I don’t think Jesus of Nazareth was infallible, perfect, or appropriate to worship. Well, I do tend to hero-worship him. I think his teachings, taken as a body of work, are spot-on.
You are right. I apologize to Ahunter3. He cited his bible verses in the default quote box, and I mistakenly thought he was quoting the verses I had just posted and as much as I read and re-read his posts (outside of the quote box) I was unable to find what he was referring to that backed up his claim. Sorry again, it was badchad’s bad.
Well, in Mayo’s case he (or I get the feeling she) is clearly rationalizing. Mayo is clearly making the case for prayer that is contrary to the words of Jesus as written in the bible. I’m also fairly sure that Mayo worships a god that she believes commits wanton genocide, which takes away much of her talk of god’s beneficence. If she is unaware of this, she should be made aware. If she is aware but for some reason does not think all the genocidal acts attributed/encouraged by god in the bible are true, then it is again further proof that she rationalizes what she believes of the bible based on her want of what’s there, rather than what is really there.
Good.
Even these teachings? http://www.nobeliefs.com/jesus.htm
Why does this all sound oh so familiar?
Well, as long as we’re doing retreads, I’m going to once again link to a post I made before instead of composing a new one. If you want to know my take on Jesus of Nazareth and “what’s so great about him”, etc., I said it pretty good the first time around.
Thomas Jefferson, Lucretia Mott, Mahatma Gandhi, and many other people I’m in awe of probably said some stupid things, probably did some cruel things, probably had lapses of judgment. I’d still say their lives, taken as a whole, constitute a positive message.
Meanwhile, re: Jesus of Nazareth, the books his stuff is written down in (the four gospels) were authored by people who believed things about J of N that the dude himself didn’t necessarily hold with. I’m not going to sit here and meticulously cherry-pick, arguing “well the gospel authors probably just ‘put that in his mouth’, I bet he didn’t really say that”, easier to just say “Well if he said that I think he’s wrong”. I don’t have a problem with disagreeing with him and still saying that, taken as a body of work, his teachings and his endeavors were in alignment with what I consider the will of God.
The purpose of prayer is the aspect of free will. Of course, being omnipotent, God already knows our desires, already has his devine plan, and all that. The difference is by a believer choosing to do the will of God, vice being predestined to do so.
Badchad, this is extraordinarily disingenuous of you. This is not a True Scotsman’s fallacy, and its certainly not qualifying the quotations. Let’s try an analogy. Let’s say, I yell “In the name of justice!” and then proceed to mug, rape, and kill everyone I can find. Just because I claim those actions are in the name of justice, does not mean that is in accordance to what that name (justice) stands for. Similarly, if I pray in the name of Jesus for Notre Dame to win, that is not analogous to what Jesus stands for.
I believe what is meant by the use of “in the name of” in those quoted verses is similar. It does not say (paraphrasing) “anything you pray for [in your own name] will be granted”, it says “anything you pray for, in the name of Jesus, will be granted.” In other words, if these prayers are made in accordance with the authority of Jesus (see the definition below) THEN these prayers will be granted. If I’m praying for what I want, rather than what it is that Jesus would want, I’m praying in my own name, and thus under my own authority.
I’ve seen plenty of people pray for things that a kind and loving jesus would most certainly want; for a sick child to get well, for the death toll from a Tsunami to be less than 100,000, for a crop to come in and save thousands of lives. Why aren’t those prayers answered?
This threatens to become another discussion entirely, but this is line of thought essentially boils down to “if God is good, why do bad things happen”. It comes down to the fact that, God is omnipotent, omniscient, etc… we are not. As an analogy, I can have what I believe is a thorough understanding of the law, but that doesn’t mean that just because I think it is legal, that a judge and/or jury will agree with me. A similar train of logic follows here; we think that a child being sick is bad, but I’ve personally seen cases where an illness or a death is clearly for the greater good (i.e., in hindsight.
In essence, for those of us that believe that God’s understanding of what is good is greater than our own. It is clear that though we may believe it is in his name, it may, in fact, not be.
I’m sure you’ve also seen cases where it was “not such a good thng”, right? So the whole idea of praying, in essence, is stupid…right? Because he won’t trust our judgement as to what would be considered good, and he won’t answer prayers that are non-selfish in nature. So why bother? In fact, if a good christian can’t pray for a good thing and know that their god would agree with that, how can we even consider that god to be good? WE know the difference between good and bad, and many people follow the bible’s teachings on what is good. If you go by that blueprint, and still get the cold shoulder, then the book, the religion, and the concept of god are really just a big stroke-fest for someone who wants to be in a position of power. It’s a contradiction from top to bottom.
In your take you are hardly giving an objective view of Jesus’ statements. You just took all the nice stuff you agree with and constructed a nice narrative out of it, while ignoring whopping amount of dumb, bad and down right evil plans and ideas. I could do the same thing with Mien Kampf and make Hitler out to be a saint.
None of the guys you mention said they plan to gather up most of earths inhabitants and torture them in eternal flame either. Genocidal acts attributed to the Old Testament god or claims of future acts attributed to the New Testament god bear far more familiarity with guys like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and many other “bad” people than those you mention here. Sure Jesus gave a lot of lip service to love, but if Hitler did the same would you buy it?
I hope you think Jesus is wrong about a whole lot of things then. Given that, how do you decide which of Jesus’ statements are in alignment with the will of god?
Your statement is as biblically unsupportable as it is nonsensical. Nowhere in the bible does it say the purpose of prayer is free will. And if god already knows our desires and we act according to his divine plan even our, or in this case your, prayers are predestined. A believer desiring and acting according to god’s omnipotent plan is not in any way free of that plan. It’s logically impossible.
Sure it is. All prayer is Jesus’ name are answered. What about Angus, he prayed in Jesus name and his prayers were not answered? No no no, all true prayers in Jesus name are answered
What you mean like Moses did to the Midianites in Numbers Chapter 31.
Regarding the verses in question, read your bible again and you will see that Jesus didn’t say to pray for things in his name and according to his will. He said pray for anything you want, either in his name or believing, and he promised he would do it. That’s what Jesus says. If you don’t like it, perhaps you should worship someone else.
Your reading things into the words “in the name of” that aren’t there. Nor do they need to be. Matthew 21:22 only asked that you “believe” and all things asked for would be received. But like Mayo, I’m sure you have some excuse for not taking Jesus at his word there either.
So when mothers pray that their wayward atheist children return follow Jesus, and their prayers go unfulfilled, it is obvious that Jesus wants said children to burn in hell?
Logically it follows that bad things happen because god wants bad things to happen.
Ok Leibniz, so when Andrea Yates drowned her children that was really a good thing? I find it repulsive that god allows so many children to die painfully and violently so that you can reap some greater good.
Of course this leads you to another problem. It seems you claim that what we perceive as evil isn’t evil but part of the greater good. However, it seems you are Christian and as such have to contend with a bible that says the world is full of evil. Do you therefore think that biblical claims of evil are errant?
If you want to say, “prayer is good because it makes the person feel better” that’s fine. But I have to ask, if you believe that there is an all-knowing, all-loving god, why would you have to ask for anything? And if he went through the trouble of telepathically transferring his wishes for human behavior to a bunch of guys to record in a book, and the book isn’t clear enough (to the point where millions of people have millions of different interpretations of what it actually means), wouldn’t that put him in the “less than perfect” or “less than loving” or “less than fair” or “less than worshippable” column?
Why the mystery? Why the threats? Why the unattainable goals? Why the contradictions? And most importantly, if it all appears, logically speaking, to be a work of fiction with no basis in fact or reality, why won’t you admit it?