urge to pray - advice/help

[brotherlylove]

I don't think I said 'material goods', I said 'things you want'. If that extends to other people being healed, or comfort for those who are struggling, then so be it. My question stands: Do you think you get the things you pray for to any greater degree than I get the things that I HOPE for? Yes or no? If yes, prove it, and that there is a causal relationship between your prayers and the things that happen. If no, the efficacy of prayer is what?

How should I know how often you receive the things you hope for, and what would it prove if it were more or less? Whatever I say, you will simply dismiss it as happenstance since you do not believe in a God that answers prayers.

I should have known you'd be the sort of braindead idiot to trot out this tired argument. Your talk of justice is pathetically useless when in YOUR philosophy, a mass murderer could go to Heaven. For all your bleating about holocausts and justice, is it not true that ANY person could sincerely repent and be saved by Jesus, and be accepted into the kingdom of Heaven? Explain how this is fair and just.

I'll answer your questions about justice after you address the argument at hand regarding nihilism, unless you want to concede the point to me.

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Brotherlylove, what a wonderful dance you do around the issues. You graciously allow god every out and every loophole imaginable. If only god would be so kind to those going to hell because they didn't hear the gospel, or had parents with the wrong religion, or didn't make their decision after the age of three, or perhaps wanted more time or more proof or.....

Your problem here may be that you're applying human limitations to an unlimited being. Do you believe that a matter of geography limits His providence? The word is preached everywhere in the world, and where it isn't, God sends dreams and visions. You assume that people are slipping through the cracks, I don't.

How come these things never work both ways? God can be as fuzzy and contradictory as he wants to be but humans must figure out gods fuzziness and contradictions or face the consequences. When he doesn't answer prayer he has so many excuses. I think I've heard them all. Why don't you just give it up and look at the situation objectively? Is there a causal pattern between prayer and response or are you just interpreting things through confirmation bias? When this doesn't work what else are you using to keep your belief in god alive? Objectively speaking would randomness better explain the pattern you see?

Is this how you understood your relationship with our Heavenly Father? Did you in all the time you had prayed ever once utter these words?: (speak Lord, your servant is listening)

My belief in God isn't based on what I receive from prayer, it is based on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I have been blessed to experience the presence of God in my life ever since the day I received the Holy Spirit, and that has never ceased. I do not need to do anything to sustain my belief because I trust the Lord in all matters of my life and He is faithful.