(June 2, 2010 at 8:58 pm)superstarr Wrote:

(May 28, 2010 at 6:36 am)tackattack Wrote: @superstar- I've never not had a selfless prayer answered.

Did god really answer you? Or was it answered through yourself? The answers some of you think of aren't answers from god, but answers from your own mind.

How do you know that the answers come from our minds and not from the mind of God. Don't give us the little pat atheist answer there is no God, you can not prove that and it has not been proven on this site. Tell us why God does not answer prayers I'm curious to know why you believe this. I've experienced
answered prayer from God, it's only logical to believe He answered prayer because I did not know the answer yet the answer came. How is it that I could answer my own question to God when I did not know the answer to begin with.

Still asserting the existence of your invisible friend, huh?

What a pity.

(June 2, 2010 at 11:09 pm)Godschild Wrote:

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(June 2, 2010 at 8:58 pm)superstarr Wrote:

(May 28, 2010 at 6:36 am)tackattack Wrote: @superstar- I've never not had a selfless prayer answered.

Did god really answer you? Or was it answered through yourself? The answers some of you think of aren't answers from god, but answers from your own mind.

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How do you know that the answers come from our minds and not from the mind of God. Don't give us the little pat atheist answer there is no God, you can not prove that and it has not been proven on this site. Tell us why God does not answer prayers I'm curious to know why you believe this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6ILZAaAMI

Quote: I've experienced
answered prayer from God, it's only logical to believe He answered prayer because I did not know the answer yet the answer came. How is it that I could answer my own question to God when I did not know the answer to begin with.

Short answer: your subconscious. If you want a long-winded yet very interesting answer, there's this: http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ghost.html .

WingedFoe that was some vid entertaining to say the most. That's not even close to reality God is not a simpleton He can use more than "yes, no and wait" to answer prayer as a matter of fact I can not remember a time when God gave me one word answers. If people believe that God is around just to answer their selfish prayers then they are looking for a god that does not exist. Gods work with us is more important than meeting our selfish needs. He sacrificed much for us when Christ gave His life on the cross so where do we get the idea that God owes us anything other than what He's already done. You have no concept of what God is, what He's about or what He desires for us and from us. He has given us freewill and all you can see is selfish ways for people to use it, it's no wonder you can not understand who God is. To use a milk jug to make small judgements of a omniscient God is really childish. There's also this that milk jug has an expiration date on it, God is eternal, everlasting, forever get the picture.

Min your right He is my friend however He is not invisible to me I can see Him just fine. I know you can't and that's because you do not look. You see only what you want to see. I think that's a pity, you could be experiencing God.

Prayer doesn't work like yes, no or wait (... I liked the video btw), IMO. In my experience, when my prayers are selfless, my aim is righteous and I am at peace with God I"ve never (to my knowledge) not had a prayer answered. There were some studies done where the people's prayers were given a goal and it failed. It has also been suggested that praying for someone to regrow their arm woudn't work. I'm not goingto say those prayers weren't "the right prayer". I will say that praying for something that breaks the known laws of physics I don't think is answerable because I think for God to affect our world, he does it in ways that are within our grasp of comprehension. I'd be happy for God to prove me wrong though. Anyways, back to the point, how god has answered my prayers. Sometimes the answer comes in his time (hence the wait), sometimes they're immediate (hence the yes), I've not eperienced a no yet (hence the belief that God answers prayer). Reasons I think it's extraneous to myself:
1- Some things can be explained by positive thinking, if the people I was praying for knew I was praying for them, but they didn't
2- Some answers to question could have come from my subconscious, had I any knowledge about the subject, which I didn't
3- Some chance happenings could be attributed to chance, were the causal chains leading to it not so outside probability and synchonous
4- some urges to say certain things or go certain places I'd consider subconsciously motivated, were they not against my nature and internal desires.

I'm sure that's plenty to stir up a conversation.

(June 3, 2010 at 3:04 am)tackattack Wrote: I'm sure that's plenty to stir up a conversation.

Not really. There's no way to refute your points if we don't know the specifics. You say "this one time, God answered my prayer and helped out my friend, therefore prayer works." And all I'm left with to counter is... "did not."

: /

Godschild said


The video was meant to show that prayers can be left unanswered, can be answered immediately, or can be answered long after the prayer was sent. It doesn't matter whether you substitute the video's example of "give me money" with "give money to the poor" or "give me guidance so that I may carry out your will, Lord," the same three possibilities exist. Similarly, it doesn't matter whether you're praying to God, Allah, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or a jug of milk; anything that you give a voice will have those options. And the believer wins no matter what, because they can choose whichever of those three rationalizations that is most appropriate to the situation.

So let's say you pray for "guidance." Immediately, you see a commercial pop on the television saying to donate to a certain charity and, thinking this is a sign from God, you donate. Another possibility is that nothing remarkable happens for the next three days, but then you get an email from your friend telling you to check out a church's website. You go to the website and the church's ideals match greatly with your own, you think back three days ago to when you prayed for "guidance," and believe God has finally answered your prayer... you join the church. The third possibility of the prayer going unanswered, here, is unlikely because really anything can be interpreted as "guidance." In more specific prayers, like "please God make WingedFoe a believer," you could rationalize that prayer gong unanswered by saying "WingedFoe was simply 'blind,'" or "WingedFoe exercised his 'free will.'"

The point is that there are a million rationalizations one can make for a prayer being answered, and a million more for a prayer going unanswered. Those same rationalizations work equally for non-existent beings as they do for supposedly existent (yet invisible) beings.

WingedFoe I did get the milk jug thing as the example you wanted to use to show that christians are deluded in their thinking. However your milk jug example is delusional as an example. Like I said in my last reply the milk jug has an experation date as do all things on earth so why would christians pray to anything other than the God of the Bible. You need to find an eternal example to make a comparisoin with God. Not just anything will do God needs a real rival. Sorry it took this long to reply I did not notice you had replied.

(June 7, 2010 at 11:28 pm)Godschild Wrote: WingedFoe I did get the milk jug thing as the example you wanted to use to show that christians are deluded in their thinking. However your milk jug example is delusional as an example. Like I said in my last reply the milk jug has an experation date as do all things on earth so why would christians pray to anything other than the God of the Bible. You need to find an eternal example to make a comparisoin with God. Not just anything will do God needs a real rival. Sorry it took this long to reply I did not notice you had replied.

Seriously? You're really grasping at straws, here, Godschild. The jug of milk is just as valid for this example as any other object, physical or imaginary. All that is needed for the "prayer illusion" to work is for the believer to attribute "willingness and capability of answering prayers" to the object. It doesn't matter whether the object lasts forever or not, because this is a one-off example. But, hey, if it makes you happy then after my milk jug sours, I bury it and start praying to the milk jug's eternal soul, which resides in milk jug heaven. Alternatively, I just buy a new jug of milk -.-

If I saw prayer as working with a yes no or wait premise then I would agree with the milk jug analogy, it's only being used asan object in this case. It's properties are moot.

[
I was a catholic born, bred and indoctrinated de-converted when I was 16. Am now 46. Never had a single prayer answered. I've sat in churches many times and begged for an answer. Never received a single "sign" that anyone was there. It's all a load of tosh. The life you have is all there is. Make the best of every day. Dont kid yourselves that there is more to come-there aint. You have to deal with it as it is and then you will be free