So you can get anything and everything you could possibly dream of-- guaranteed and with free delivery from the Almighty–with a quorum of just two?
Hookers & blow? A new hip for Mrs. Addler? Peace on Earth? A pony? It could all be yours!!! If you know the phrase that pays, just grab a buddy and call now! (Seraphim are standing by! So bow your head and PRAY NOW!)
It looks to me like all of the indented lines are asking for things, but, with the exception of “daily bread,” they are all “spiritual” things (for lack of a better word). I think other prayers found in the Bible are similar in this respect.
The Bible says a whole lot more about prayer than that little verse. Try to give an example that fits the rest of the qualifications: What Does the Bible Say About Prayer? (openbible.info)
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Pray without ceasing,
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.
Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.
And many, many more.
That is what the Bible claims Jesus said about prayer.
Is the god you’re talking about the creator of the universe or merely an observer? Because if the former, he is not in the same position to his creation as we are to the events of history. If the latter, he does not sound like the god of Genesis.
He knows what people will choose because he made them that way. IOW, they may believe they have free will, but since he has mapped out their entire lives, they don’t really. They can only play out the script he has preordained for them.
The further corollary to this is that since people have no free will, it is a monstrous crime to punish them for all eternity for actions that god knew all along that they were going to commit. But all this necessarily follows from the definitions of “omniscient” and “omnipotent.”
Are you saying that God cannot have made humans with free will? But in that case, there’s something God cannot do, so God is not omnipotent.
I admit, this sounds like one of those logical paradoxes, like God creating a rock so big he can’t move it, or a burrito so hot he can’t eat it. But the difference, it seeems to me, is that free will involves God voluntarily limiting his power. He could determine all of our behavior, but he chooses not to.
I see that there are still problems—along the lines of: if our choices are influenced at all by the way the world is, and if God made the world the way it is, could God have made the world differently resulting in us choosing differently? I’m not sure how to reconcile this, but that’s not the same as knowing that it can’t be reconciled.
It doesn’t just sound like it, it is one, and as I said, it
The paradox is built into the meanings those two words, and is not a mysterious quality of god, about whom we know nothing.
I have preached on some of the verses that Czarcasm has listed, and have come down firmly on the side of prayer changes the one who prays. There are other scriptural passages that support asking God for favors, written or edited into scripture as it was written and re-written over decades or centuries. To expect God to answer prayers for a pony, a new car, or for the insufferable boss to drop dead speaks to a transactional relationship with God that is not theologically sustainable. It fosters an attitude that ultimately God serves us, which is not very far from justifying harmful actions done in the name of God. While some Christian denominations promote a transactional relationship with God, other denominations reject it. Neither is ultimately right or wrong, but asking God for personal favors creates more spiritual problems and intellectual dishonesty than being mindful of what we pray for means to us.
An all knowing God who allows (or creates, according to Deuteronomistic theology) evil in the world is addressed in theodicy, and there are many ways of attempting to reconcile God’s benevolence with evil in the world. The attitude that it is God’s will that Aunt Minnie dies from cancer is widely denounced by ministers and theologians as bad theology that causes spiritual and psychological harm. It is most often repeated by people who mean well, but who do not understand how to provide comfort and care to someone suffering from some evil. The Pat Robertsons of the world who feel that Eastern Kentucky is being punished by God with devastating flash floods because of some sin are misanthropists who use scripture to grind their axe, not bring God’s love and comfort to the suffering.
I see what you did there
OK then maybe you can explain it to me. I thought I was just writing a random example.
That’s actually an amazing (and funny) coincidence, then. It’s an expression in the Nuclear Imaging field, and as such the name of the best-known news sites for the industry:
The rock paradox is usually resolved by defining omnipotence to only include the logically possible, so god’s inability to create a four-sided triangle is not an issue.
But if people have free will to make choices, when do they make them? God may not be limited by time but we are. Having the decision known long, long before we are born seems to make it constrained. It’s like a character in a play supposedly making choices, or perhaps an actor playing that character who must follow the script.
This problem goes away if God doesn’t know the future, but then he’s not quite omniscient. Omnipotence or omniscience, pick one. And who can say which is more powerful than the other?
Never heard of it.
Obviously, the “transactional” position that God actually answers prayers by causing things to happen on the physical plane (cancer going into remission, the ball going inside the uprights) isn’t remotely intellectually defensible. (Also obviously, a lot of stupid people do implicitly or explicitly believe in it, but that’s beside the point of this discussion).
The fallback position is that prayer can give us spiritual strength to deal with whatever is going on in our lives, admittedly quite a comedown from the “miraculous healing” paradigm, but with the advantage of not being falsifiable.
Personally, I don’t attempt to justify my prayer practice on any grounds other than the utilitarian; I like praying and generally feel happier and calmer after I do it.
I think monotheism logically leads to panentheism; if we are created by God, God knows everything about us and is completely in control of every aspect of our lives, then yes, free will seems to go out the window. But if our existence is totally dependent on God, does it really make sense to continue thinking of ourselves as entities created by God, rather than being, as it were, “parts” of God? From that perspective, the distinction between our individual selves and the rest of the universe is seen as an illusion and the free will/determinism debate becomes meaningless.
(Of course, it’s also possible to arrive at that conclusion from entirely atheistic premises, so there are people who would agree with that resolution of the free will question, while also feeling that dragging the concept of “God” into the discussion is unnecessarily complicating things)
I don’t think that is beside the point. These “stupid people” are also Christians, and they are human beings. You can’t talk about intellectually defensible positions on the one hand, and dismiss the practices of “ stupid people” on the other.
Are you talking about prayer as it functions in religion, or the theological justification for prayer? The latter is easy; the former is harder.
I’m probably not parsing you correctly, but “I feel happier” is falsifiable, at least when evaluating yourself.
And that’s what makes SDMB awesome. The most esoteric stuff.
That’s kind of…exactly what we do on this board all the time. 
The purpose of this thread is to discuss whether there are intellectually defensible arguments for prayer, so arguments that everyone agrees aren’t defensible are, by definition, beside the point.
Actually the purpose of the thread is to discuss the contradiction of what I perceive to be a common belief about the idea of God and the purpose of prayer to that God. To wit, that God knows best about everything yet we can change his mind through prayer. I am inviting people to either resolve the contradiction, or demonstrate that I have a misperception.