(May 11, 2015 at 12:36 pm)Salacious B. Crumb Wrote:

Quote:After reading parts of the bible recently, I became inspired by some divine force, to elaborate on the prayer contradiction that I first heard from George Carlin years ago. Hopefully you guys get some enjoyment out of it, and see how much more it actually contradicts itself with regards to god's will for us, and praying.

Keep in mind this verse: Pro 30:5-6 5 Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. 6 Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.

I'm assuming 'Pro' is short for proverbs. if so, then I assume you understand the difference between a proverb and a command or a point of the law...

If no, then know a proverb is a wise saying or a bit-o-wisdom like the early bird gets the worm, or an apple a day keeps the doctor away, a penny saved is a penny earned.. while in most cases true, these sayings are not intended to cover every circumstance. That is why the Jews identify proverbs and books like it (that do not give direct revelation from God) as wisdom literature.

Quote:- So, you're being a good little boy/girl, praying in your room. -- You start to realize that your prayers aren't being answered. -- You recite the classic, perpetual mantra of doom, "Maybe it's not god's will."

There is a big problem with a child's or your theology if you believe that 'prayer' is a Christian wishing ceremony.
In the model pray Christ gives us in Luke 11 Prayer is shown to be a way of asking God to change our will to match His, and not a way we can change God's will to match our own.

Quote:- However, I disagree. The bible says, whatever you ask for will be given to you. (Ps 34:17,

Again with the Books of Psalms like Proverbs belong to the books of 'wisdom literature' in the OT as such are not law, Prophesy or command, but man's take on Godly inspiration.

On the rest of your verses Context, context, context will answer your objections.

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Mk 11:24,[size=x-small]21 [/size]Peter remembered the tree and said to Jesus, “Teacher, look! Yesterday, you told that fig tree to die. Now it is dry and dead!”

[size=x-small]22 [/size]Jesus answered, “Have faith in God. [size=x-small]23 [/size]The truth is, you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, mountain, fall into the sea.’ And if you have no doubts in your mind and believe that what you say will happen, then God will do it for you. [size=x-small]24 [/size]So I tell you to ask for what you want in prayer. And if you believe that you have received those things, then they will be yours.

In Context Jesus is telling the Deciples more over specifically He is speaking directly to Peter, and not to you or anyone else. Even so, Jesus is directly speaking about moving Mountains of doubt that was keeping peter from being who he needed to be. Jesus gave Peter a way to address his doubt. While directed at Peter this still can apply to us.

Mt 21:22, is a retelling of what we just discussed in Mark.

Quote: Lk 11:9-13,5-6 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose one of you went to your friend’s house very late at night and said to him, ‘A friend of mine has come into town to visit me. But I have nothing for him to eat. Please give me three loaves of bread.’ 7 Your friend inside the house answers, ‘Go away! Don’t bother me! The door is already locked. My children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you the bread now.’ 8 I tell you, maybe friendship is not enough to make him get up to give you the bread. But he will surely get up to give you what you need if you continue to ask. 9 So I tell you, continue to ask, and God will give to you. Continue to search, and you will find. Continue to knock, and the door will open for you. 10 Yes, whoever continues to ask will receive. Whoever continues to look will find. And whoever continues to knock will have the door opened for them. 11 Do any of you have a son? What would you do if your son asked you for a fish? Would any father give him a snake? 12 Or, if he asked for an egg, would you give him a scorpion? Of course not! 13 Even you who are bad know how to give good things to your children. So surely your heavenly Father knows how to give the Holy Spirit to the people who ask him.”

Maybe read the passage above with a fresh perspective and pay close attention to the embolden parts...
(Because we are supposed to be asking for the Holy Spirit, not making wishes for crap we want.)

Quote: Jn 14:13,12 “I can assure you that whoever believes in me will do the same things I have done. And they will do even greater things than I have done, because I am going to the Father. 13 And if you ask for anything in my name, I will do it for you. Then the Father’s glory will be shown through the Son. 14 If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.

I guess the problem here is you don't understand what it means to "Ask for something in the name of Christ." It doesn't mean to end your prayer in 'Jesus name." It means Ask in the name of or on the behalf of.. Which means you have to ask for no more, or no less than the person who's name your asking in, would ask for/give you. It is the same as speaking for someone or speaking in their name. When you speak in someone's name you are representing that person which means you should not say anything that person would not have to say.

So what Does Jesus want us to ask in his name? It is outlined in the first part of luke 11 (The part you skipped)

Jn 15:7, 15 Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch[a] of mine that does not produce fruit.[b] He also trims every branch that produces fruit to prepare it to produce even more. 3 You have already been prepared to produce more fruit by the teaching I have given you. 4 Stay joined to me and I will stay joined to you. No branch can produce fruit alone. It must stay connected to the vine. It is the same with you. You cannot produce fruit alone. You must stay joined to me.

5 “I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I to you, you will produce plenty of fruit. But separated from me you won’t be able to do anything. 6 If you don’t stay joined to me, you will be like a branch that has been thrown out and has dried up. All the dead branches like that are gathered up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 Stay joined together with me, and follow my teachings. If you do this, you can ask for anything you want, and it will be given to you. 8 Show that you are my followers by producing much fruit. This will bring honor[c] to my Father.

In the context here if you are apart of Christ, then 'anything you want' will be what Christ wants for you. Otherwise how could one petition (not pray that is a separate thing) for something God does not want for them?

Quote:Jn 16:23-24)

Again here we are to ask in the same of Jesus, the same thing applies as above.

Quote:- Even though, still, your prayers go unanswered. Although, the bible, still tells us to pray unceasingly. (Col 4:2, 1 Thes 5:17-18)

You seem to be confused between the differences between petitioning God and praying. to petition is to ask for crap you want. to pray is to have God change your will to match what He wants for you. Paul in his writing makes the distinction between petition and prayer. Jesus even makes it known that Prayer is what is outlined in Luke 11:1 forward, and he seperates that from 'asking God for stuff.'

Quote:- But, why would god ask you to pray, if he won't answer you?

God always answers prayer, even if we don't like what is said. However He seldomly answers empty petitions (wishes people make) unless they are truly asking in the name of Christ. Which means we first have to learn to pray, and have our will match that of God's.

Quote:-- Why bother praying if the loving god knows what you need? -- The thought of prayer would have never come across your mind, because god would have provided what you needed in the first place.

Because the key element of prayer is humility. which also happens to be the key to a relationship with God in the first place.
'Humble yourself before God and He will lift you up.'

Quote:- You decide to plead to god for wisdom. Jas 1:5 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. Again, you're ignored.

Wisdom is taught through trials hardship and failure. If you went though these things then rejoice your pray was answered! Wisdom, is not given by God sending an angel to sprinkle wisdom dust on you while you sleep so you just wake up wise. Wisdom is earn/learned through having been down the wrong path and knowing the signs to look for before you set out on your next journey.

Quote:- He, then, wants you to put your trust in him. Pro 3:5-6 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Which goes hand in hand with trials hardship and failure.

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- After all of this, how can someone put their trust in him? Let's read on..1 Pet 6:7 [b]6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. [/b]Evidently, he cares for us. 


Indeed

Quote:- Eph 5:-17-19 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit -- (I used to be jesus boy and talked like that, and nothing happened) How are we supposed to know god's will, if he won't answer our prayers or provide us with his wisdom? Aren't we already doing his will? Isn't everything going according to his plan? Obviously, no, according to my previous bullet points.

How do you know God's will?!?! you read the bible!!!

Quote:- In summation, he tells us that he will answer our prayers, then doesn't. He tells us to never cease from praying, even though he disregards us. He doesn't give us his wisdom, and he wants you to trust him without providing any evidence that he exists, let alone, evidence he actually cares. But, don't worry, he loves you. 1 Jn 4:8 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This actually isn't true, because I love, and I do not know god. Also, if god was love, I'd know him!

- Don't forget to thank him for all of his love that he's bestowed upon you. (1 Chr 16:34, Col 3:17, 1 Thes 5:16-18, Ps 95:2, Ps 107:1, Ps 118:1, Ps 136:1) I'm certain I can poke more holes in god's holy word of absolute nonsense, but this will do for now. Any one else see any problems here? Christians, your faith shouldn't be this easy to dismantle. Any of you guys care to enlighten me here; am I not interpreting this right?

The word love here in the Greek is 'Agape' The Greeks subdivided the word love into 4 different ideas or aspects, we in the English have only one word that covers all four (sometimes 5) aspects of the greek words or ideas of Love.
Agape is a Heavenly type of Godly love that transends emotion and feeling, a definition that can only be grasped when one experiences to the direct Love of God. Then we have Philia which is a brotherly love. a love friends share. Then eros which is a passionate love and finaly we have storge' which is the love between parent and child.

If you have ever known Agape then you know the passage above is true. Otherwise just because you have experences a few different types of love, does not mean you have a mastery all of it.

(May 11, 2015 at 1:33 pm)zebo-the-fat Wrote: If god is all seeing and all knowing, what is the point of praying? he knows what you want to pray about anyway... why waste his time telling him things he knows anyway? (and why do you have to go to a church to do it if he is everywhere?)  

Indeed.

And then what was the point in sending Jesus down?  What could Jesus have possibly learned or experienced that God didn't already know ??*

And as for the necessity of God sacrificing a portion of Himself unto Himself, huh ??




* George Carlin said something very wise and funny, this God guy ISN'T the top guy in the organization.  The real GOD is too busy throwing gas balls around the firmament to give a shit about us.  This God  we've got is just the western marketing manager.

(May 11, 2015 at 1:33 pm)zebo-the-fat Wrote: If god is all seeing and all knowing, what is the point of praying? he knows what you want to pray about anyway... why waste his time telling him things he knows anyway? (and why do you have to go to a church to do it if he is everywhere?)  

You don't ask god to do stuff for you. That's why he doesn't answer requests to heal the sick and such. You ask god to reveal his plan for you, then interpret signs as what you think he might want. This trick gets around the verse that says ask and thou shalt receive, for what sort of father would give a child a stone when he asks for bread?
 

I doubt this will do either of us any good, but because you responded to my thread, took the time to break down what I said, I feel you deserve a response Drich.

I’ll address your first response about proverbs. About Pro 30:5-6, basically what you are saying is, is that those two verses are pointless, and are not meant to be taken literally. Although, the way the sentences are written, it uses a strong, commanding message, that it is to be taken seriously. Either, it’s put in there as a joke or it’s to be taken literally.

With my child-like understanding of theology, and understanding of prayer, and from the verses I have given you in the bible that specifically states that anything you ask will be given to you, I fail to see how your argument is valid. It’s just more useless verses that are put in there to fuck with people’s heads, test your faith, and get you to leave the christian religion I presume.

I actually rarely prayed for myself. I mostly prayed to help others. In fact, I devoted a huge part of my life to it, and hadn’t seen one of those prayers answered. Your god that always says “no” to things that would help starving children, prevent people from getting raped, prevent people getting killed from terrorism, etc. is a massive asshole. And you are out of your mind following and worshipping such a psycho.

The wisdom I have gained from reading the bible, actually led me to disbelieving in it, because it’s full of contradictions, factually incorrect material, and just pure evil.

I don’t need to be told about humility and your other explanations of how prayer and petitions differ from each other, or any other desperate excuse you can come up with to defend the disgusting morality in a book that you so adamantly defend. I could sit here and tell you about rape, beating your slaves, noah’s ark, and adam and eve that they are all easily contradicting fact or just plain evil, but you’ll play, “That’s the Old Testament card”. I could give you the stories of how jesus exorcised demons and sent them into pigs so they could die, how he killed a fig tree for no reason instead of doing one of his boring miracles and making it bear figs immediately, how he didn’t come to bring peace but a sword, how he came divide families and have people blindly follow him, how he said that you have to hate your own mother, father, and yourself to follow him, but you’ll ignore all of that and turn around and point to something else that he said that contradicts that. You can interpret something one way, and I can read it for what it is, because I care about truth.

I actually did all of these things that you mentioned in your post, and it led me to being an atheist, because I decided to use common sense and reason, because faith makes absolutely no sense. I actually cared whether my beliefs were true or not, and didn’t just want to accept them my whole life, because I was raised that way. I didn’t want to live my life making excuses and despairingly grasping at every logical fallacy I could. If you want to, that’s your choice, keep living a life of ignorance

(May 22, 2015 at 4:46 pm)Salacious B. Crumb Wrote: I doubt this will do either of us any good, but because you responded to my thread, took the time to break down what I said, I feel you deserve a response Drich.

I’ll address your first response about proverbs. About Pro 30:5-6, basically what you are saying is, is that those two verses are pointless, and are not meant to be taken literally. Although, the way the sentences are written, it uses a strong, commanding message, that it is to be taken seriously. Either, it’s put in there as a joke or it’s to be taken literally.

With my child-like understanding of theology, and understanding of prayer, and from the verses I have given you in the bible that specifically states that anything you ask will be given to you, I fail to see how your argument is valid. It’s just more useless verses that are put in there to fuck with people’s heads, test your faith, and get you to leave the christian religion I presume.

I actually rarely prayed for myself. I mostly prayed to help others. In fact, I devoted a huge part of my life to it, and hadn’t seen one of those prayers answered. Your god that always says “no” to things that would help starving children, prevent people from getting raped, prevent people getting killed from terrorism, etc. is a massive asshole. And you are out of your mind following and worshipping such a psycho.

The wisdom I have gained from reading the bible, actually led me to disbelieving in it, because it’s full of contradictions, factually incorrect material, and just pure evil.

I don’t need to be told about humility and your other explanations of how prayer and petitions differ from each other, or any other desperate excuse you can come up with to defend the disgusting morality in a book that you so adamantly defend. I could sit here and tell you about rape, beating your slaves, noah’s ark, and adam and eve that they are all easily contradicting fact or just plain evil, but you’ll play, “That’s the Old Testament card”. I could give you the stories of how jesus exorcised demons and sent them into pigs so they could die, how he killed a fig tree for no reason instead of doing one of his boring miracles and making it bear figs immediately, how he didn’t come to bring peace but a sword, how he came divide families and have people blindly follow him, how he said that you have to hate your own mother, father, and yourself to follow him, but you’ll ignore all of that and turn around and point to something else that he said that contradicts that. You can interpret something one way, and I can read it for what it is, because I care about truth.

I actually did all of these things that you mentioned in your post, and it led me to being an atheist, because I decided to use common sense and reason, because faith makes absolutely no sense. I actually cared whether my beliefs were true or not, and didn’t just want to accept them my whole life, because I was raised that way. I didn’t want to live my life making excuses and despairingly grasping at every logical fallacy I could. If you want to, that’s your choice, keep living a life of ignorance

Salacious B. Crumb Wrote:I doubt this will do either of us any good, but because you responded to my thread, took the time to break down what I said, I feel you deserve a response Drich.

Quote:It wont do us any Good only if you want to refuse to learn what the bible says, and to whom it is speaking and how.

I’ll address your first response about proverbs. About Pro 30:5-6, basically what you are saying is, is that those two verses are pointless, and are not meant to be taken literally. Although, the way the sentences are written, it uses a strong, commanding message, that it is to be taken seriously. Either, it’s put in there as a joke or it’s to be taken literally.

That' not how the OT works.
The Jews (The people in whom the OT was written/Not Christians.) The Jews Subdivide their Holy Writings into 3 classifications. Books of the law, These books are refered to as the Torah. Next we have the Prophetic books/Written by prophets of God (who are under direct revelation/words and commands of God.) These are called NEVI'IM And finally we get to the classification of book Proverbs and Psalms is under and that is:KETHUVIM Which is translated 'wisdom literature.' In essence the reasons for these divisions in the OT is because the Jews rate the level of involvement of God. In the Torah God is supposed to have had direct say or direct involvement (He wrote the 10 commandments with His own hand). In the Nevi'im God Spoke directly through prophets, and In the KETHUVIM We have Spirit inspired writings. Or rather Wise and men who have been lead by the Spirit write down a song or poem or a bit of wisdom that speaks generally about a given subject. The proverbs and psalms are not laws, they are a collection of songs and saying/wise observations.

http://www.jewfaq.org/torah.htm

Look up the English definition of proverb:
pro·verb

ˈprävərb/
noun
noun: proverb; plural noun: proverbs

1. a short pithy saying in general use, stating a general truth or piece of advice.
   

A Proverb is not a joke, it is a general truth or piece of advise. That is why the book is name proverbs.

Quote:With my child-like understanding of theology, and understanding of prayer, and from the verses I have given you in the bible that specifically states that anything you ask will be given to you, I fail to see how your argument is valid.

Because you do not seem willing to look past your 'child like understanding of theology' to something a little more substantive. Probably because you wish to hold on to your argument and your final conclusion rather to question it against the truth of what the bible really says.

Quote:It’s just more useless verses that are put in there to fuck with people’s heads, test your faith, and get you to leave the christian religion I presume.

if you believe learning to whom and how the bible was written is a 'test of Christian faith' then know whatever you identified as 'faith' was labled incorrectly. Because our Belief  in God hinges on Seeking Him. To Seek God is to learn all we can comprehend about the book He has given us.

Quote:I actually rarely prayed for myself. I mostly prayed to help others. In fact, I devoted a huge part of my life to it, and hadn’t seen one of those prayers answered.

Again what you can't seem to get is YOU WERE NOT PRAYING! You were Petitioning God. You were making wishes, asking favors, Trying to get God to do stuff for you or someone else. This Is NOT Prayer. The Only Example of Prayer we have is the Lord's Prayer. In the Lord's prayer We open with praise and recognizing God, and His Authority. Then we Ask God to usher in His Kingdom/The end of Man's Reign (Basically the events outlined in the book of Daniel and Revelation) Next we are given the opportunity to ask for our daily needs. Then we ask God to forgive our sins if and only if we can forgive those who sin against us. Then we close with a request to keep us from evil and a final praise to Him and His authority.

Again the Primary purpose of Prayer, Real Prayer is to Change our Hearts and minds, not to Change or ask for stuff from God. To ask for stuff for people or your self is not praying. It is petitioning God. Paul outlines this as well as Christ When we are told to pray and the examples of prayer verses examples of petition/supplication.

Quote:Your god that always says “no” to things that would help starving children, prevent people from getting raped, prevent people getting killed from terrorism, etc. is a massive asshole. And you are out of your mind following and worshipping such a psycho.

What makes you think God says no? He may well have said 'Yes' to those prayers but the people who were to help out or prevent  those things were not doing what God wants them to do?

Quote:The wisdom I have gained from reading the bible, actually led me to disbelieving in it, because it’s full of contradictions, factually incorrect material, and just pure evil.

examples?

Quote:I don’t need to be told about humility and your other explanations of how prayer and petitions differ from each other, or any other desperate excuse you can come up with to defend the disgusting morality in a book that you so adamantly defend.

Indeed I would not want to look at the differences between prayer and petition either if I were wanting to hold to my position of 'God does not answer prayers' if indeed my understanding of prayer was completely wrong. The only problem with that (aside from fallacious reasoning) is that in your attempt of a sweeping dismissal you are actually conceding/electing to remain in ignorance rather than look at what you were actually doing critically.

That is like you saying 'my car uses no gasoline.' then when we go out to look at your 'car' we find out it is a horse. Of course you 'car' does not use gasoline, because it is a horse. But, rather than admit you are not comparing like items, you want to end the conversation because you want to maintain a claim you can not substantiate.

Quote:I could sit here and tell you about rape, beating your slaves, noah’s ark, and adam and eve that they are all easily contradicting fact or just plain evil, but you’ll play, “That’s the Old Testament card”.

Quote:I could give you the stories of how jesus exorcised demons and sent them into pigs so they could die, how he killed a fig tree for no reason instead of doing one of his boring miracles and making it bear figs immediately, how he didn’t come to bring peace but a sword, how he came divide families and have people blindly follow him, how he said that you have to hate your own mother, father, and yourself to follow him, but you’ll ignore all of that and turn around and point to something else that he said that contradicts that. You can interpret something one way, and I can read it for what it is, because I care about truth.

Jesus Killed a fig tree... = Jesus Immoral
 
What branch of hippy nonsense is that from?

Quote:I actually did all of these things that you mentioned in your post, and it led me to being an atheist, because I decided to use common sense and reason, because faith makes absolutely no sense.

How is that possible (You doing what I said in my post) if you don't understand the difference between prayer and petition?
Secondly, what makes you think your atheism is not an answered prayer if somehow you did do what you claim to have done?

Quote:I actually cared whether my beliefs were true or not, and didn’t just want to accept them my whole life, because I was raised that way. I didn’t want to live my life making excuses and despairingly grasping at every logical fallacy I could. If you want to, that’s your choice, keep living a life of ignorance

What makes you think I was raised Christian? Maybe I did not want to live my whole life doing what I was told was 'good and moral' just because my father thought it to be true. Maybe I got tired of the 'logical fallacies' of pop morality and want to seek the truth and found it in Christ.

I like how you ask for examples, then I give you just a few examples off the top of my head, and your response is to laugh at them. You addressed the fig tree as a joke, and dodge the rest of them. Practically everyone here is laughing at you and your arguments. Your prayer and petition argument is ridiculous. I actually I understand the difference between the two, and had put them both into practice. The only thing that came about from them, was many wasted years in a one-way relationship with an imaginary friend. I'm not wasting any more time writing paragraphs to add to the endless untrue things in the bible, starting with adam and eve and ending with fantastical stories, with dragons emerging from the sea. If you are incapable of seeing how farcical the bible is, there is no intelligent conversation to be had.

(May 26, 2015 at 6:49 pm)Salacious B. Crumb Wrote:

Quote:I like how you ask for examples, then I give you just a few examples off the top of my head, and your response is to laugh at them.

Seriously?!?! Are you telling me you were being serious in each and every example given?

Quote:You addressed the fig tree as a joke, and dodge the rest of them.

I thought the fig tree example was a joke or at the very least a red herring (An attempt to side line the fact that you made a thread about God failing to answer your prayer, and then I point out that your efforts were not technically praying.) The rest of your examples were indeed red herrings as they speak to your version of popular morality, and have no bearing on the fact that You failed to showed a good example of prayer. To answer those examples was to follow a red herring/Logical fallacy of topic.

Quote:Practically everyone here is laughing at you and your arguments.

Oh, no-es... what will I do?!

Quote:Your prayer and petition argument is ridiculous.

why?

Quote:I actually I understand the difference between the two, and had put them both into practice.

Which I addressed in that I suggested that your current state of Atheism was the result of an answered Prayer!
If you Prayed for a better understanding of the God of the Bible or a closer relationship with Him, and you had a broken or corrupt vision or understanding of Him, then the first thing He would do per the parable of the wise and foolish builders is to "send the rain," so you may know if your 'house/Faith' was built on a solid foundation. Meaning actually built on a biblically based image of Christ, rather than a pop Christian version. God's silence in the mist of heavy trials or even in general shows us that our understanding of God does not exist.

Why would God support a broken or misguided understanding of himself to you by confirming what you think about Him by answering your prayers or petitions? Especially when silence will destroy that broken picture and place a genuine seeker of truth on the right track to seeking and finding the God of the bible? If God were to answer your petitions with your current 'limited/broken' POV this would embed your broken view perminately.

It's only the proud who says to himself that my first effort would have produced God if He exists, and if 'my' effort failed it must mean their is no God rather than 'I' Am critically wrong in my understanding/approach of God..

Quote:The only thing that came about from them, was many wasted years in a one-way relationship with an imaginary friend.

Actually two things came about.. You now know your version of God does not exist, on top of wasting your time.

Quote:I'm not wasting any more time writing paragraphs to add to the endless untrue things in the bible, starting with adam and eve and ending with fantastical stories, with dragons emerging from the sea. If you are incapable of seeing how farcical the bible is, there is no intelligent conversation to be had.

Says the one who is moving to dismiss based on a bigoted sterotype before he/she has enough information to draw an intelligent conclusion.

Amazing argument. I love all the judgments that you cast forth on me about knowing nothing about theology, and having a bigoted stereotype on a book that I’m not intelligent enough to understand.

I’m glad you have the intelligence enough to believe in:  god needing to create a savior so that he may be so kind as to forgive us, virgin births, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus walking on water plus many other alleged miracles, talking snakes, talking donkeys, talking burning bushes, god wanting to kill Moses for some reason and his son’s foreskin saves his life, Noah’s ark, god creating a woman out of a rib, the Sodom and Gomorrah destruction, god giving Samson the power to kill 1,000 people with a donkey’s jawbone, an iron axe head floating in water, Saul wanting 100 foreskins in exchange for his daughter to marry David, god making a sundial’s shadow move backwards, Jonah’s sleep-over inside the whale, and Jacob putting sticks with stripes on them in front of the cattle’s water troughs so his plain cattle could breed striped and spotted cattle.

I know it must blow your mind that people would be skeptical of this short list out of a much lengthier list of examples that I could have used, but surprisingly there’s people out there, according to you, that don’t have the intelligence to comprehend such wisdom I guess. It must make you feel so smart to be around so many people on here, that don’t think any of that makes sense.

Mk 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Mt 21:22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Lk 11:9-10 So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Jn 14:13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

Here’s my answer to your request for examples how your prayer and petition theory is ridiculous:

Your pathetic attempt at dodging these verses with, “You don’t understand what prayer and petition is” is actually pointless and not too intelligent. You contradict your lord and savior’s words. If you read your lord’s words your little argument falls apart. Your petition theory, is actually called prayer, according to jesus. “Whatever you ask in prayer”, “You will receive what you ask for in prayer”, “Ask and it will be given to you”, and “I will do whatever you ask in my name” are quotes that may help with your dilemma to understand my reasoning. So, a petition directed towards jesus, is a prayer according to your lord, are you going to argue with him? Why would jesus use the words ASK, when referring to prayer? I actually think it’s you who doesn’t understand what a prayer and what a petition is.

The word doesn’t matter anyways, what matters is the message. Whatever you ask for in my name will be given to you. Whatever petition/prayer you have, will be answered, according to these brilliant writers. This clearly isn’t true, so why don’t you man up, and be an honest person and say, “Yeah, you’re right, it’s right there in front of my face. I can’t deny my lord’s words. Whatever someone asks for, can’t be given to them. Jesus wasn’t telling the truth.”