(May 9, 2017 at 5:50 am)MellisaClarke Wrote: I believe God wants us to pray,

What for? Does god not know everything? And therefore - does he not know what we need, want or deserve? Why would he need us to assume a humiliating position and beg? I understand why the priests and kings want people to get down on their knees - because people like to dominate other people. Is your god just some insecure totalitarian dictator, who needs to be told how powerful and important he is and how insignificant and weak you are in comparison? Is that something you think a perfect being would need?

Yeah - religion is a scam, created by clever fraudsters and madmen, who like poor, gullible fools to kneel before them and beg them for mercy.

(May 9, 2017 at 5:50 am)MellisaClarke Wrote: and also to do something towards protecting earth.

LOL... Why? Why does Earth matter, if Jebus is going to destroy it with the Apocalypse anyway and he has much better places for us to be for eternity? F*ck Earth - if god wanted it to last, he would have made it much less fragile.

(May 9, 2017 at 4:44 am)MellisaClarke Wrote: New here and confused about this.


I saw a meme today, with the question in title. This is a toughie. 

I am a person of strong faith, and want others with strong faith to chime in on this. Help!!!

What do you consider "gods perfect plan"?

Are you talking about gods omniscience, that it knows how everything, past, present and future, that everything has been predetermined/fore told. And that praying for something is then an attempt to change a predetermined event? If you believe that god is omniscient then prayer does nothing, what will happen will happen. It has to or you unmake one of gods attributes. In this scenario, prayer is only a mental wish band aid for the individual. Also, if everything is predetermined, then there is no free will. You don't get to really choose, it only feels like you do. 

If you had something else in mind you'll have to give more details. 

Welcome and hang around for awhile. Our theists will more than likely weigh in on your thread/post.

Well, Melissa, that proves you're not a Good True Christian. Can you identify where you failed to properly worship your god?

(May 9, 2017 at 4:44 am)MellisaClarke Wrote: New here and confused about this.


I saw a meme today, with the question in title. This is a toughie. 

I am a person of strong faith, and want others with strong faith to chime in on this. Help!!!

I wouldn't say my faith is relatively strong, but that isn't really necessary to answer the question. As far as I see it, nothing can change God's Perfect Plan. Your prayer is part of your free will, but YOUR free will is part of God's Plan. People object to the idea of one's will being free if God already knows what it will be, but what God KNOWS is irrelevant to freedom. It's what God IMPOSES that restricts freedom. And God does not impose your will from being acted upon, thus it is free. And He doesn't need to in order for His Plan to succeed, because your will changes by itself.

Prayer gives you the opportunity to participate in God's plan. And perhaps it is God's plan that sometimes His will is to be implemented through prayer.

If one is a member in good standing of God's One True Religion (I'm giving good odds it turns out to be the Congregation of Jehovah's Presbytery of Zion) prayer probably could change things, but as a member of God's One True Religion, and obviously accruing all the benefits that are bestowed upon them, why would such a person want to change anything??

(May 9, 2017 at 4:44 am)MellisaClarke Wrote: New here and confused about this.


I saw a meme today, with the question in title. This is a toughie. 

I am a person of strong faith, and want others with strong faith to chime in on this. Help!!!

You must have lived a very sheltered life to now, seeing as you've not encountered the problem of evil before. It's been worried over by theists since before christianity and not one has come up with a satisfactory answer.

In fact the only good answer came from Epicurus:

Quote:“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

---

(May 9, 2017 at 8:02 am)Valyza1 Wrote:

(May 9, 2017 at 4:44 am)MellisaClarke Wrote: New here and confused about this.


I saw a meme today, with the question in title. This is a toughie. 

I am a person of strong faith, and want others with strong faith to chime in on this. Help!!!

I wouldn't say my faith is relatively strong, but that isn't really necessary to answer the question.  As far as I see it, nothing can change God's Perfect Plan.  Your prayer is part of your free will, but YOUR free will is part of God's Plan.  People object  to the idea of one's will being free if God already knows what it will be, but what God KNOWS is irrelevant to freedom.  It's what God IMPOSES that restricts freedom.  And God does not impose your will from being acted upon, thus it is free.  And He doesn't need to in order for His Plan to succeed, because your will changes by itself.  

If god has a perfect, unchanging plan, then you don't have free will because your thoughts and actions were determined for you long before you even existed and you have no choice in the matter.

(May 9, 2017 at 5:50 am)MellisaClarke Wrote: I believe God wants us to pray, and also to do something towards protecting earth.

Consider the prayer of a mother, spoken aloud or thought in silence, as she embraces her suffering and dying baby: "I beg you, God, save my baby. Please, God, don't let her die." This is a prayer for a young child, easily the most innocent and worthy of rescue of anyone. It's about as sincere and unselfish as any prayer could be. I think this is the prayer that provides us with an ideal way to judge whether or not God answers prayers. Yet the number and intensity of prayers seem to have no impact on the constant suffering and dying of babies in extreme poverty.

Remember the poor tend to pray hard and pray often. Extreme poverty and religious belief seem matched in some weird way between hope and despair, then how does the world play out? If prayer works, then we should see the most religious societies on Earth as the most "blessed," secure, and safest places to live. Meanwhile, the least religious societies ought to be more distressed, because there is much less praying for positive divine intervention. Is this the world we see? Not even close.

Fact is that religious belief and prayer do not save the lives of babies or ease their suffering in any detectable way. But this is precisely what many religious people claim. God answers prayers? No, he doesn't, it seems, even if you are a religious and loving mother begging for her dying child's life.

There is a really good point by Sam Harris how only narcissistic people can think that God answers prayers, because they are so blind with being obsessed with themselves that they fail to see billions of people that don't get their prayers answered by so called god.

"It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will."

- God Emperor Leto Atreides II

“Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.”

- Ambrose Bierce


That sums it up fairly succinctly I think. There's no reason to believe that prayer increases the likelihood of one outcome over another.  No matter which outcome occurs the brainwashed cat attribute it to god... Prayed for outcome: "It's an answered prayer!" - The other outcome: "It's god's will." "This momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory..." 

If it's going to be god's will anyway, why not just leave him* alone?



*"him" - this personal pronoun is being used in reference to the innumerable depictions of ominous, white bearded old men sitting in the clouds; it is in no way referring to the belief that an omnipotent creator has any need or desire for gender identification.