Prayer Not prayer

[Plane]

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-34992061

   I should probably pray more, and I don't mind being reminded or even urged to pray for something in particular.If I agree with the prayer I might well join it.

   I know that prayer and request for prayer can be insincere, even "political boilerplate" as mentioned in this article, but that doesn't mean that I can't be sincere and that I can join in a group prayer even if I know that not every one in the group is sincere. I just need to agree that the subject of the prayer is a good idea, the rest is between God and each of us individually.

    I don't really know what this message means to someone who never prays,  or who thinks of God as a fiction or an abstraction, this sort of thinking is quite alien to me , makes it interesting.

     This article is about a kerfluffle in which some people are irate at mention of prayer when what they want is action.

      But when a person tries to cast shame onto prayer or prayer request they are making a big mistake. Prayer is not asked or offered instead of action, it is appropriate to pray before taking action, even before deciding to take action, thus the action is not prevented , it is just acted by cooler people who are more in tune with God.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Saying you want people to pray for victims has two advantages for politicians (1) it wins support from religious people and (2) it costs nothing and requires no other effort or commitment. An ideal response for guys like Ted Cruz.

As far as I am concerned, it is like people who buy lottery tickets or take massive doses of Vitamin C: they have the right to do it,but I do not, because I have been there, done that, and it does not work for me.

I would change my mind if there were some credible evidence that prayers actually made a difference. Both the US government and mutual fund tycoon John Templeton John Templeton have both spent over $2 million each on scientific research attempting to determine the power of prayer. So far. there has been very little evidence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?_r=1&

The more studies adhere to standard scientific practice, the fewer affirmative results have been discovered.

[Plane]

How would an experiment in prayer be conducted?

It can't be double blind because God is aware of the entire situation and could manipulate the results to seem random better than random can.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Yeah, sure.  God knows all, sees all.

There are numerous episodes inn the Bible in which God does  stuff that no omniscient being would do. Why create the world in such a way that al the critters would be so nasty that you had to drown them and start over?  Why would testing Job even be necessary if you know the outcome?  Why would God need to show that he has powers superior to Satan's?

There are detailed examples of these prayer tests online. They seem quite scientific and useful to me. One would also have to assume that God, who does not save people from earthquakes, eruptions, plagues and such takes meticulous measures in preventing people from proving that prayer is effective.

The basic assumption of any experiment is that nothing exists that is proven to exist. That would include a deity and magical powers of a deity.
If prayers are scientifically proven ineffective,then it is safe to assume that they are indeed ineffective. The alternative is that they are effective, but the Deity wants to  make it seem that they are not.

[kimba1]

I had this discussion with several people who oppose prayer with me as the lone supporter of prayer and the very flaw that made me never doubt my position was they were totally against religion to the degree they wont to see anything positive about it. Which make alot what they not logical.


Example if you pray then your actually supporting those bombing since the incident happened means god is ok with it.

They twist everything to make everything religious is bad. Its so cartoonist that i was able to keep talking to the point they just stopped and say im too stupid because of my bad english. Pretty sure i didnt lose

[Xavier_Onassis]

Prayer can have a psychological effect on the person doing the praying. There is such a thing as the power of suggestion.  I don't think it is entirely negative. But meditation as practiced by Buddhist monks is probably more effective at putting a person in harmony with his situation. There are several varieties of self hypnosis that can be effective.  I am not opposed to prayer in any way. I just have found that it has no utility in my life.

[Plane]

Yeah, sure.  God knows all, sees all.

Yep.

And we don't.

So what we learn of him is a gift from him.

Imagine placing a microscope over a slide and observing a colony of bacterium.

And what you see is that the colony of bacterium have built a telescope with which to observe you.

     It is worse than that.

[Plane]

Prayer can have a psychological effect on the person doing the praying.

That sounds about right.

We can't tell God things he does not know.
We can't tell God to follow orders or request that he do wrong.

But prayer of the righteous availeth much.
So I suppose a major purpose of prayer is the building of a relationship between Us and God.

The power of prayer is very mysterious, a lot of us have seen it but who can explain it?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Again, if you assume that the Bible is the word of God, then there are several situations in which God does NOT seem to have the power to see the future.  If God or any creature has the power to know the future, then we really cannot have free will. We can only do what is known in advance that we will do.. You can have free will or you can have foreknowledge, take your pick, but you cannot have both.

God in the usual Christian construct is some sort of  creature that required constant adoration and punishes those that that do not provide it. It is a very primitive and juvenile construct. It is obviously based on the dictatorial paternalistic polygamous family structure of the ancient Hebrews. 

I have yet to see where prayer has ever has logically had any effect at all on anything that has ever happened in my life. There are things that I cannot explain, but to attribute them to to some mystical "power of prayer" is to my mind, simply self-delusion.

[Plane]

  We understand things in our own terms, Gods greater understanding must be hard to translate.

    Consider you and me.

    My vocabulary in Spanish is tiny, if we were at a party with a lot of Spanish speakers, It would not matter how intelligent I was , You would be getting all the jokes .


   God explained this to Job, and Solomon explored the idea in Ecclesiastes.

   Our vocabulary for understanding the universe is tiny in comparison to God's.
    So when we are not getting the joke , that is Gods fault?

      What if he doubled our intellect and we were still unable to get this joke?

         What if the ability to get the funny out of this situation required such a great change that we would get the joke, but would not be human anymore?

            Can you imagine explaining a subtle joke to me , even if it required you to teach me a little Spanish?

            Now imagine explaining this joke to a bacterium.

[Xavier_Onassis]

You are nattering on and on about your opinion of God, and this is about how prayer is basically a waste of time for a lot of people. The only benefits that might come for it  are psychosomatic responses, like your mouth watering when you are hungry and you are watching a cooking show.

No way I am going to compare myself or accept a comparison of myself or any human being to a bacterium.

God, as described in the Bible is a domineering egomaniac and more than a bit of a jerk.
In the Book of Job, God is simply a jerk.

The tale seems to have been  written by some priest or priests who got tired of people asking questions they could not answer, and is the Jewish version of what the RC Church calls "Mysteries of the Faith".  The answer to questions that cannot be answered is answered by saying "Who are you to even ASK such a question? God wants you to shut the fuck up, so go and obey him and bother us no more!"

[Plane]

So you don't "get" it?

Prayer is an important part of a relationship with God, its effects on the life of the praying person is direct and Gods response is not scientifically measurable.

What indeed would a scientist b e looking for?

[Xavier_Onassis]

How does anyone have a "relationship" with a invisible, inaudible, undetectable being?

By telling him how great he is?

By thanking him for everything pleasant in the world and ignoring the unpleasant things, like disease, famines, volcanos, earthquakes, floods, plagues?

Yeah, that'll work.

[Plane]

How does anyone have a "relationship" with a invisible, inaudible, undetectable being?

By telling him how great he is?

By thanking him for everything pleasant in the world and ignoring the unpleasant things, like disease, famines, volcanos, earthquakes, floods, plagues?

Yeah, that'll work.

There is an element of positive thinking.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%204&version=NIV

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

And a bit of being accepting.

12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

But when you have a trouble that you can't avoid loose or ignore, and God will not remove it from you , then you got one of those really advanced Christian  prayers.
Can I thank God for troubles that sharpen my mind or deepen my faith?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%2012&version=NIV

10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

There is a lot that can be detected , as Jesus said "My sheep will know my voice".
There are miracles too often to consider them rare, but a lot depends on what you will accept as miraculous.

  Paul did indeed give thanks for some of his troubles, as he considered them a part of his development.

[Xavier_Onassis]

This makes very little logical sense.

You would probably get the same results if you prayed to Baal, Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because the reactions you perceive are from within, not without.