Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on May 19, 2018 2:33:34 GMT
A Christian woman tells reporters that what her community that has just experienced a school shooting massacre needs is everyone's prayers.
She apparently believes that if enough people pray, God will hear the prayers and be moved by them to ease the suffering of those who have been affected by the shooting.
But is this logical?
If God decides the fates of the lives of those who have been affected by the shooting, and the prayers are intended to nudge God in a certain direction, how do these prayers supposedly work?
If God is omniscient and God always does what is morally right, what difference does it make whether people pray or do not pray?
Even if all people in the world were to pray that God do something that is wrong, God, being all-good, would not do it, so the prayers would have no intended effect.
And God, being omniscient, already knows what is in people's hearts, whether they pray or not. So, again, the prayers would have no intended effect.
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Post by shadrack on May 19, 2018 2:51:48 GMT
False dichotomy. The question assumes a binary choice between exactly two actions, one right and one wrong.
That's rarely how the world works.
What shall I have for dinner tonight -- tacos or stir-fry? I think you would be hard pressed to classify that as a choice between right and wrong (in a convincing way).
Maybe BOTH choices are right, and the decision is made based on some other criteria.
Maybe NEITHER choice is right.
Or maybe there's more than one choice.
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Post by Aj_June on May 19, 2018 2:51:57 GMT
Are you seeking confirmation for what you really have in mind?
The answer to your question is that no god doesn't answer the prayers simply because any god whose existence has been claimed by religious people does not exist and was made up by people for various reasons (either for controlling society or to gain some other benefit). That said prayers can have some usefulness for those who pray.
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Post by yougotastewgoinbaby on May 19, 2018 3:53:32 GMT
No, but if you use a little reverse psychology; like "Dear God, please don't listen to my prayer about curing my genital herpes", you might trick him into helping you.
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on May 19, 2018 4:03:53 GMT
No, but if you use a little reverse psychology; like "Dear God, please don't listen to my prayer about curing my genital herpes", you might trick him into helping you. LOL. Or Her.
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on May 19, 2018 4:04:18 GMT
False dichotomy. The question assumes a binary choice between exactly two actions, one right and wrong. That's rarely how the world works. What shall I have for dinner tonight -- tacos or stir-fry? I think you would be hard pressed to classify that as a choice between right and wrong (in a convincing way). Maybe BOTH choices are right, and the decision is made based on some other criteria. Maybe NEITHER choice is right. Or maybe there's more than one choice. I shall rephrase. The choices are: (a) What God does can be influenced by prayer. (b) What God does cannot be influenced by prayer. Which is true?
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Post by Rodney Farber on May 19, 2018 9:32:42 GMT
Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. Han Solo
If there were any correlation between prayer and result, 99% of us would be in church/mosque/temple/KingdomHall every week.
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on May 19, 2018 10:24:32 GMT
Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. Madalyn Murray O'Hair Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. Han Solo If there were any correlation between prayer and result, 99% of us would be in church/mosque/temple/KingdomHall every week. Madalyn Murray O'Hair would have been about 96 if her life hand't been cut short back in the '90s. She would have been such a delight for the cable tv and internet age.
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on May 20, 2018 4:06:19 GMT
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Post by goz on May 20, 2018 7:29:28 GMT
As an agnostic atheist, I have thought about this situation, a lot.
My feeling on prayers is that they actually do fuckall in a real sense butt if they help people who are believers get through tough times, then they are beneficial.
I also feel that it is a commitment from others who share the grief of someone to say this, because afterall that is the real meaning...to connect and give sympathy to a grieving bereaved or suffering member of the community. It is possible for atheists to feel the same and offer thoughts or sharing of grief, and this is essentially the same thing. It does however annoy when believers take it seriously and think it is a real thing.
Who am I to judge if you have lost a loved one, however, so whatever makes it better in some way......go with it....as empathy caring and love is the most important thing?
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2018 9:14:59 GMT
No
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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on May 22, 2018 1:24:01 GMT
Not mine.
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Post by Arlon10 on May 22, 2018 3:27:15 GMT
As an agnostic atheist, I have thought about this situation, a lot. My feeling on prayers is that they actually do fuckall in a real sense butt if they help people who are believers get through tough times, then they are beneficial. I also feel that it is a commitment from others who share the grief of someone to say this, because afterall that is the real meaning...to connect and give sympathy to a grieving bereaved or suffering member of the community. It is possible for atheists to feel the same and offer thoughts or sharing of grief, and this is essentially the same thing. It does however annoy when believers take it seriously and think it is a real thing. Who am I to judge if you have lost a loved one, however, so whatever makes it better in some way......go with it....as empathy caring and love is the most important thing? Being asked to pray is an honor and should not be annoying. High hopes should not be annoying. Low hopes, like yours. should not be terribly annoying . The normal human response to, "my son is sick," is to say, "I hope he recovers soon." To say "I hope and pray" is indeed essentially the same thing as you noted.
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Post by goz on May 22, 2018 3:59:10 GMT
As an agnostic atheist, I have thought about this situation, a lot. My feeling on prayers is that they actually do fuckall in a real sense butt if they help people who are believers get through tough times, then they are beneficial. I also feel that it is a commitment from others who share the grief of someone to say this, because afterall that is the real meaning...to connect and give sympathy to a grieving bereaved or suffering member of the community. It is possible for atheists to feel the same and offer thoughts or sharing of grief, and this is essentially the same thing. It does however annoy when believers take it seriously and think it is a real thing. Who am I to judge if you have lost a loved one, however, so whatever makes it better in some way......go with it....as empathy caring and love is the most important thing? Being asked to pray is an honor and should not be annoying. High hopes should not be annoying. Low hopes, like yours. should not be terribly annoying . The normal human response to, "my son is sick," is to say, "I hope he recovers soon." To say "I hope and pray" is indeed essentially the same thing as you noted. Well it is if you are not a believer and you sincerely believe that it does fuckall.
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Post by mslo79 on May 22, 2018 5:34:03 GMT
Yes, there is one thing that happened for me (I am not going to say what though) that proved to me prayer does work. but one needs at least some faith in God as I believe I read somewhere (maybe something from the bible etc) that without faith it's impossible to please God. either way, whether you get what you want or not (as some stuff we ask for He might not give us if it could have a negative effect on us etc) God does assist in some form or another when we pray. but ill say this... prayer is something that generally works slowly over a period of time. try to look at it more in terms of months/years/decades than something immediate. regular prayer (I say regular, as in daily, meaning you pray regularly whether you need something or not) is basically a crucial part of ones relationship with God as it's not really optional but required if one is going to grow closer to God (but I think this is something many Christians neglect as they have a basic belief in God but does not go much further than that). a good article on 'The Importance of Prayer'... www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/the-importance-of-prayer.htmlhere is one on prayer direct from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which is basically official church teachings)... www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p4s1c3a2.htm ; but to quote a part from #2744... "Nothing is equal to prayer; for what is impossible it makes possible, what is difficult, easy. . . . For it is impossible, utterly impossible, for the man who prays eagerly and invokes God ceaselessly ever to sin." ; that applies very well to my first sentence in this post! another article, but is quite long... www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/prayer ; but one quick quote from it... with that said... I recommend praying The Holy Rosary daily as they say that's the highest form of personal prayer there is. it's what I credit for what I mentioned in the first sentence above. but ultimately the credit goes to God (i.e. The Holy Trinity (Father/Son(Jesus Christ)/Holy Spirit)). p.s. the victory at Battle of Lepanto from Oct 7th 1571 was credited to The Holy Rosary... "The Holy League credited the victory to the Virgin Mary, whose intercession with God they had implored for victory through the use of the Rosary."
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Post by Isapop on May 22, 2018 8:05:24 GMT
p.s. the victory at Battle of Lepanto from Oct 7th 1571 was credited to The Holy Rosary... "The Holy League credited the victory to the Virgin Mary, whose intercession with God they had implored for victory through the use of the Rosary." Educated Catholics know better.
"the Christians had a secret weapon...Six new, taller, sturdier ships packed with cannons (especially in the bow) and heavily laden with lead and shot placed themselves a mile forward of the Christian line. They looked flat on top, like merchant ships. No one had ever seen such ships before. They lacked a bow rising up skywards, the one necessary weapon for vicious ramming. For the purpose of these new galleasses, as they were called, was not to ram oncoming ships but to blast them with an array of cannons. Their shot could carry a mile with great accuracy. When the galleasses turned sideways, they could blast with even more cannons, designed for shorter ranges, often aiming their cannon just at the waterline of their foes. They had the power to sink a smaller, lighter, faster Muslim galley with a single burst...Technology, especially that pioneered by Venice and by oceangoing Portugal and Spain, had made the decisive difference." www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/history/how-the-1571-battle-of-lepanto-saved-europe.html
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on May 22, 2018 8:20:27 GMT
p.s. the victory at Battle of Lepanto from Oct 7th 1571 was credited to The Holy Rosary... "The Holy League credited the victory to the Virgin Mary, whose intercession with God they had implored for victory through the use of the Rosary." They prayed for victory, meaning what? Meaning that their opponents would be killed, would die? So a prayer for bloodshed. Why not a prayer that all the combatants, on either side, might lay down their arms and embrace one another as brothers? Doesn't seem that using prayer in the way it was used at Lepanto fits with the alleged spirit of the earliest Christian.
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Post by FilmFlaneur on May 22, 2018 8:30:56 GMT
God doesn't respond to prayers at Lourdes for amputees (significantly a handicap where conditions and cures cannot be faked or exaggerated). Not a single leg nor an arm has ever grown back. Neither has such a miracle - a red line event for this atheist - ever been recorded. I wonder why?
A meta-analysis of several studies related to distant intercessory healing published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2000 looked at 2774 patients in 23 studies, and found that 13 studies showed statistically significant positive results, 9 studies showed no effect, and 1 study showed a negative result. Other meta-studies of the broader literature have been performed showing evidence only for no effect or a potentially small effect. For instance, a 2006 meta analysis on 14 studies concluded that there is "no discernable effect" while a 2007 systemic review of intercessory prayer reported inconclusive results, noting that 7 of 17 studies had "small, but significant, effect sizes" but the review noted that the three most methodologically rigorous studies failed to produce significant findings. [Wiki]
However in more general terms, there is no doubting the power of the placebo effect, and of positive thinking, in effecting cure.
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on May 22, 2018 8:52:24 GMT
Yes, there is one thing that happened for me (I am not going to say what though) that proved to me prayer does work. either way, whether you get what you want or not (as some stuff we ask for He might not give us if it could have a negative effect on us etc) God does assist in some form or another when we pray. But, again, is this logical--apart from whatever you might accept without question as a matter of faith? Does God know what is best for each person? Does God treat all people the same--or does God treat people who are faithful to God more favorably than those who are not faithful? Is a person who is of such strong faith that they would willingly pray for something with all their heart the kind of person that God would choose to do what is best for? If a devout person, someone of strong faith, is praying for God to do something that is not in their best interest, would God be more inclined to have that person's prayer answered in the way the person has requested, or would God be more inclined to do what is in the person's best interest despite that which is in their best interest not being what they are asking for? Does God know everything? The past, the present, the future. Here and everywhere. All that is objectively evident to human senses in the material world, but also all of people's subjective feelings hidden away deep in their hearts? If God does know everything, why does explicitly praying for something--especially, explicitly praying for something in a ritualistic sort of way (hands clasped, eyes closed, on the knees, etc etc)--make any difference? Why do the prayers of dozens, or hundreds, or thousands, or millions of people matter any more than the prayer of just one person? (Recall that people often say, What we need is for everyone to pray.) It seems like the idea of praying was thought up by people who realized that by begging other people who had power over them, sometimes those more powerful people would grant requests that otherwise would be denied. That's where the groveling and prostration come from (we even see this in other species--dogs do it, for example). If you think that God is just a bigger chief or bigger king, then it would make sense to think that like a chief or a king, God sometimes needs to have the attention momentarily directed away from the weighty matters of the universe and drawn to the concerns of just an individual person or family. But if God is actually all-knowing--unlike with any chief or king, such thinking makes absolutely no sense. God already knows what people want AND want they need, and does not need to be informed of these things. In fact, God already knew what people would want and what they would need even before they existed. Are you sure you're not thinking of a Dracula movie?
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Post by Arlon10 on May 22, 2018 11:40:31 GMT
Being asked to pray is an honor and should not be annoying. High hopes should not be annoying. Low hopes, like yours. should not be terribly annoying . The normal human response to, "my son is sick," is to say, "I hope he recovers soon." To say "I hope and pray" is indeed essentially the same thing as you noted. Well it is if you are not a believer and you sincerely believe that it does fuckall. I believe you're ignoring the fact that religious people have real scientific and medical knowledge and resources. I believe you're ignoring the fact that they are far better than yours. Even if that were not true, tragedies are not an occasion to wonder what good anything might do if the expenditure is so small.
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