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?
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.
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.
This topic has been discussed on the SDMB before:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&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.
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.”
I am a skeptical agnostic. I don’t blame god…I think that if there is a creator, it created the universe without a capacity for judgement or control over anything.
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.
If it was the prayers that worked, wouldn’t you have felt better as soon as they prayed, rather than just when you read the responses? (Personally, I’m just as glad I needn’t beleive that my emotional state can be influenced by what other people request of their deities, else every time I banned a religious person I’d get unaccountably depressed. 
)
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.
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.
So you’re saying, essentially, that those who prayed caused God to influence me to post in that thread?
Why couldn’t all the posters just want you to feel better of their own accord? Why does everything good have to be attributed to a higher power? I think that people are basically good. They don’t need prodding from a higher power to have compassion for others.
No, ma’am. That (a) is simplistic, (b) ignores human free will, and © would be tantamount to insulting every non-theist who had anything decent to say to me in that thread, including yourself.
What I’m saying is that (a) I was depressed and feeling like I was accomplishing nothing, (b) people posted to the contrary, © some of those who posted included prayers for my spirits to be lifted, (d) God heard (/saw/read/grokked) those prayers, (e) my spirits were lifted – by the posts in that thread. Whether He had any influence on your post whatsoever is between you and Him – but your post was among those that resulted in those prayers being answered – by purely natural means, but, I think, in accordance with His will.
Does that make more sense of what I was trying to say?
Gaudere,
Perhaps God caused Poly to listen to your kindness, knowing that he respects you. (Or knowing that He respects you, for that matter.)
I know you don’t believe in God. I prefer to believe that He still might want Poly to hear the voice of your kind spirit. In fact, I think I mentioned that, in my prayer.
Tris
“The Way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure.
The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.” ~ Lao-tzu ~
So you are saying God heard the prayer, and thought what happened in the thread was in accordance with His will, but did not actually influence anyone/thing? Athough then you say:
…which means, I think, that you consider it possible that God influenced me to post.
Only if you called for it.
Polycarp wrote:
Hmmm … eliminate step (d), and the progression still makes sense from a clinical-psychology standpoint.
OK, masonite since you asked (and Polycarp nudged, here’s what I consider two simple, concrete examples of how prayer does work, and how it doesn’t have to. If I’ve told this story on the Board before, please forgive me.
In October 2000, I was on my way to a church women’s retreat, driving up Laurel Mountain in southwest Pennsylvania,one of the largest mountains in the state. About halfway up the mountain, I saw a young couple who’d pulled off to the side of the road because their car had broken down. Now, I know absolutely nothing about cars, but I thought I’d at least see if I could do something or call someone. I couldn’t (no surprise!), but I did something I don’t normally do. Since I was on my way to a retreat, I admitted to being some form of Christian and offered to pray for them. It didn’t feel like much, but it was better than nothing. I got in my car and started praying, “Lord, please send someone to help them.”
About halfway down the other side of the mountain, there was a policewoman stopped, I think to catch speeders. My first thought was to check how fast I was going. Then I realized it. I’d asked God to send someone to help them; it looked like someone would be me. I turned the car around (I was about half a mile past the officer at this point), drove back to her, and told her what I’d seen. She went to help, and I drove the rest of the way with my knees shaking – I was not used to a 5 minute turn around on prayers! I was going to keep quiet about this, but while I was talking to the police officer, a car carrying 4 other women going to the retreat had passed us and recognized my car (a yellow, Geo convertible’s hard to miss). They wanted to know what happened and had I been stopped for speeding.
Your mileage, your opinions may vary, but, IMHO, that was an answered prayer. I had to act on it, true, but it was answered. I didn’t realize it then, but it was also part of a spiritual journey I’ve been on which involves me taking action to change things about the world and myself.
The second example is weaker, but just as meaningful to me. At the retreat the year before, we’d been asked to bring something which symbolized God’s love for us. I didn’t (and still don’t) have a tangible object which I could bring. At the time, I was going to work at 6:00 am as part of a computer migration. As I drove to work that morning, I prayed, asking what I could bring. I got to work and made my routine checks in one of the buildings in which we’d installed the new computers. I emerged from it into a perfect September dawn just before sunrise. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the was a moment of still perfection. It felt holy. In that moment, I am convinced, I was given a symbol of God’s love which I carry with me to this day. I took a deep breath, thanked God for the gift I had been given, then walked back to my cubicle to deal with the day’s crises and problems, but that moment lingers still.
Masonite, I can’t tell you why all prayers aren’t answered. I can’t tell you why about 100 miles from here a new bride is grieving for her husband who was just killed in Afghanistan, or why my best friend’s husband lost two sisters and his mother within 18 months. I wish I could. I suspect being mindful, being open to possibilities has something to do with it. After all, I nearly didn’t stop to let the police officer know about the couple by the side of the road, and it would have been very easy to think about the problems of the day rather than see that morning for what it was. FTR, I didn’t say the magic words, “In Jesus’ name” either of those two times, although I do have a habit of praying to the entire Trinity at once. All I can do is continue to trust, have faith, believe, and learn. Sometimes (this past weekend, for example), the process of learning is extremely painful. In the end, though, the results can be wonderful.
Oh, and F. U. Shakespeare, that’s why I don’t pray at football games, etc. I figure the other side’s fans are praying just has hard and God has more important things to worry about!
CJ
In reference to the beesting story above: abouut twenty years ago, I was attacked by a swarm of particularly nasty underground hornets in the Amazon jungle, stung about twenty times, went into toxic shock, soent a couple of weeks in a little jungle hospital, and was told later be an American doctor that I had developed a severe allergy to stings. I carried around a beesting kit for a few years, got tired of it (never had any treatment) and forgot about it. In the past six years I’ve been stung four times; I don’t die, I just swell up a little and turn an unpleasant purple color for a few days and it goes away. No prayers, it just happens. Of course, if I were a believer, the exact same scenario would be proof of some god 's particular benevolence towards me, right?
I still don’t understand why any of these events can’t be attributed to chance, luck, or human good will. Why do you automatically assume that this was divine intervention and not just a decision you made to be a good person? There is nothing tangible (or miraculous, for that matter) about any of these instances that would lead me to believe a prayer was answered.