Prayer?

[Thor]

Sin and consenquence. How would you seperate the two?

How does "sin" = cancer in a five year old?

For us to be in a position to live in sin God has removed Himself and requished control of this world, and has turn that control over to us.

Unsubstantiated bullshit.

So now it is up to us to prevent things like cancer, hunger, earthquakes, and the like.

Oh, please! It's up to us to prevent earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes? And how does a five year old prevent cancer? This is just ridiculous!

If you do not want this responsiablity or think you and your fellow man have done a crap job. learn to pray for His Kingdom to come.

I don't ask imaginary beings to do anything. It's a complete waste of time.

---

[quote='Thor']Then why do children (or anyone, really) get cancer in the first place?

Could be a lot of different reasons, since I'm not a doctor I wouldn't know.

I wasn't asking this question from a medical standpoint. I was asking why your supposedly "loving" deity would allow a child to suffer with cancer.

Not necessarily, God may use the situation to help a family in some way,

WHAT?!?!? How in the hell could inflicting someone with cancer ever help a family? Not to mention that battling cancer creates great hardships and causes people to go bankrupt. If this deity is so stupid that he thinks inflicting cancer on someone "helps the family", I would want him to stay far away from me.

or to help some individual unrelated to the family, to see how precious life is, or any number of things that life throws at us.

Wow! So you think your deity might inflict cancer on you to help someone who is unrelated to you "see how precious life is"? So you would be okay with it if this deity gave your child cancer so your next door neighbor could say, "Look at that poor kid next door. It makes me realize how precious life is"?

I believe I qualified a specific time, and god needs no pass, He is in control of everything.

Unsubstantiated bullshit.

After the result of the illness has passed many will look back on the experience and see God's reason

Yes, I'm sure once the funeral is over the parents say "I just had a revelation and I now know god's reasons for letting Billy suffer! Praise!"

If God doesn't heal, you have contempt for Him

Wrong. I don't have contempt for imaginary beings. I do have contempt for the idea that there is a loving deity, but he does nothing while children suffer and die with cancer.

and when God heals, you still have contempt for Him.

You haven't provided any evidence that this deity has ever healed anyone.

You are a ungrateful person to the 3rd magnitude.

Not at all! If this deity appeared and healed me or a member of my family, I'd be very grateful. Of course, I would still wonder why he did nothing to heal all those children who died throughout history.

When people ask God to heal a person and that's all they ask, that in itself shows how shallow their belief is, if they have any at all. How many prayers do you think have been raised up to God in hospitals with this little note attached a the end, "if you do this I promise I will always be loyal to you." Do people really believe they can fool God, especially since they just asked God to heal a loved one, I think not, they use God as an insurance policy. When people do this why should God answer their prayer and if He does do they deserve an explanation, I think not, why, because they will show their gratitude by ignoring God until the next crisis.

Except that there have been many people who have devoted their lives to this deity and, in a moment of crisis, have turned to him for help. Only to get none.

Why should God explain something to those who will not listen

If your deity appeared and explained his reasons to me, I would most certainly listen.

Being a deacon in the Baptist church I've seen this happen many times

I'm sure you THINK you've seen this many times. Of course, there's nothing to substantiate any of it.

God says He will not answer all prayer, God also says He will not listen to some prayers.

Actually, in the Babble Jesus says that you will have whatever you want as long as you believe and pray in his name.

I know for a fact He answers prayer,

You can't possibly know this "for a fact".

I've experienced it to many times for it to be remotely considered a coincidence, one example, prayers having specific properties within them.

Why couldn't it be a coincidence? What specifically was prayed for and what happened? I'll bet you never prayed for a paralyzed person to made whole again and they got up and walked. I'll bet you never prayed for a person with a missing limb to have the limb restored and it suddenly regenerated.