The power of prayer

[Reforged]

Well fear and trembling is a stupid book. You can laugh as much as you want.

---

Yah but at least we know the troof of the rock crusher.

You no even has rox to chrush.

Seriously though OP, are you interested at all in intelligent discourse or just slinging mud?

I wanted to have a religious discussion about the power of prayer from a christian perspective. It's obvious I've found the wrong forum for that though
AF.com doesn't pray

Right now theres another poster who claims to know Gods thoughts. Shes barely speaking and shes still beating you by miles in terms of entertainment value.
Up your troll game because this right here is sad. Go big or go home.

[drfuzzy]

Prayer as I said is defined as a rational act. And that is because you ask for praise. You atheists are much stupider than I thought....

Yah but at least we know the troof of the rock crusher.

You no even has rox to chrush.

Seriously though OP, are you interested at all in intelligent discourse or just slinging mud?

Yeah, now the insults because he can't even come up with one recent peer-reviewed study as a rebuttal.  (yawn)
Time for peanut butter?  Toasters?  Cheese?   Pole-dancing?   Limericks?

In the garden of Eden sat Adam,
Massaging the bust of his madam,
He chuckled with mirth,
For he knew that on earth,
There were only two boobs and he had ‘em

[Iroscato]

Well fear and trembling is a stupid book. You can laugh as much as you want.

---

Yah but at least we know the troof of the rock crusher.

You no even has rox to chrush.

Seriously though OP, are you interested at all in intelligent discourse or just slinging mud?

I wanted to have a religious discussion about the power of prayer from a christian perspective. It's obvious I've found the wrong forum for that though
AF.com doesn't pray

No, the vast majority of our membership don't pray, you utter bumbling simpleton. Wanna take a lucky swing at why?

Hint:

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BECAUSE WE'RE ATHEISTS YOU FACKING DONUT.

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[Jorden D]

Prayer is the practice of the presence of God. It is the place where pride is abandoned, hope is lifted, and supplication is made. Prayer is the place of admitting our need, of adopting humility, and claiming dependence upon God. Prayer is the needful practice of the Christian. Prayer is the exercise of faith and hope. Prayer is the privilege of touching the heart of the Father through the Son of God, Jesus our Lord.
 
The Bible speaks much of prayer. But, sometimes, too often, we ignore prayer and seek to accomplish in the strength of our own wills those things that we desire to have or happen. For those of us who are too often guilty of this, we need to bow our knees, confess our sin, receive God's forgiveness, and beg that the will of the Lord be done above our own. God is sovereign and loving, and He knows what is best for us and others even if it doesn't always seem to make the most sense.
 
We so often come to the Lord with legitimate requests for healing, conversions, and needs, and yet the answers we hope for often do not come. We wonder and sometimes doubt. Yet, we persevere and praise God. We pray because we know that God hears us and because we desire to see results. We should pray by faith, trusting God. We should pray consistently, trusting God. We should pray for healing, trusting God. We should pray for others, trusting God. We should pray, and when our prayers are answered or are not answered, remember this: If we knew what the Lord knew, we wouldn't change a thing.
 
Prayer changes the one praying because, in prayer, you are in the presence of God as you lay before Him your complete self in confession and dependence. There is nothing to hide when in quiet supplication we are reaching into the deepest part of ourselves and admitting our needs and failures. In so doing, our hearts are quieted and pride is stripped and we enjoy the presence of God. James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."
 
There is another benefit of prayer: peace. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus," (Phil. 4:6-7).
 
I suppose that we can test our prayer life and dependence upon God by the peace or lack of peace in our hearts. In all things we are to seek the Lord and in His continued presence. Peace will surely be our gain.
 
Prayer is the practice of the presence of God.
All over the world right now, people are asking the question: Why doesn't God answer me when I cry out to Him? How can we reconcile the idea of a God who says, Ask and it shall be given to you" with the fact that this same God often refuses to grant us what we desire most?
 
There are requests God always says no to, no matter how earnestly we pray. For example, if a person wants to embezzle money from his job or commit adultery with a coworker, God is not going to give him any assistance. (That doesn’t mean the person who wants to pursue these things won’t be successful anyway. God has given us the awesome gift of free choice, and that includes the choice to do terrible things.)
 
Then there are the prayers God says no to for reasons that are not so obvious. There is an old expression that says, “God gives us what we need, not what we want.” God is concerned about only our ultimate good, which boils down to whether or not we make it to heaven. When we ask God to grant us something, He says yes or no based on what He knows will happen to us in the future as a result of that decision. Will we, and the people who are affected by us, be more likely to go to heaven or not?
 
But if God gives us only what we need and what is good for our spiritual growth, it follows that there are certain prayers God always says yes to! All one has to do is look to the Bible, the writings of Christian theologians over the centuries, and the testimonies of thousands of people right now whose prayers are being answered. God loves to say yes to us. Not only to “small” prayers, but to big, practical, and profound ones as well.
 
It’s often hardest to understand why God doesn’t answer prayers that are not necessarily sinful in nature: Why didn’t God cure my mother’s cancer? Why doesn’t He get me a raise so I can pay my bills? Why doesn’t He send me a boyfriend? Why did He make my son autistic?
 
God’s will is inscrutable, and to a certain extent we have to accept that. But our suffering can sometimes be part of God’s plan for us. That’s why “God, please bring some good out of this bad situation” is one of the most powerful prayers in the universe — and one that God always says yes to — but it’s also one of the toughest to pray. When we’re right in the midst of suffering, it’s very hard to calmly consider all the wonderful things that might lie in store for us in the future. That’s why clichés like “Look at the bright side” can be off-putting.
 
And yet expressions like these don’t usually become clichés unless there is some truth to them. Somewhere along the line, human beings noticed that bad things can give way to good things or even lead to them.
 
At its core, the question of how to transform suffering into happiness is a religious one. Ultimately, it is God alone who has the power to bring good out of bad. Though it’s true that God doesn’t always reveal to us the reasons for the bad things that happen, He promises to get us through them. He also pledges, to those who ask Him in prayer and to those who are trying their best to do his will, that He will bring good out of every single misfortune they encounter in life; that He will somehow, in the end, turn every instance of suffering into an opportunity for greater, deeper happiness.
 
If you were going to memorize only one verse in Scripture, Romans 8:28 might be the one to choose, because it holds the key to this promise. If you learn it, the “slings and arrows of life” may indeed knock you down, but none will ever penetrate so deeply that you will be overcome and destroyed. The verse simply states: “All things work together for good, for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” If out of the hellish darkness of the Crucifixion God brought the miraculous light of the Resurrection, He can certainly take the bad things that happen to us in our lives and bring some kind of blessing out of them.
It’s important to note, however, that although God allows plenty of bad things to happen in life, He doesn’t purposely cause them. On the contrary, God mourns with us when we are in agony. He is just like any father who feels bad when his children fall and hurt themselves.
 
God does not cause pain in order to force human beings to act in certain ways. At the very same time, it is 100 percent accurate to say, “Not a single sparrow falls to the ground without the permission of our heavenly Father.” This great paradox — how God can remain “in charge” and yet allow people to have free will — lies at the very crux of the problem of human suffering. We frankly don’t know how God is able to reconcile such seemingly opposed realities.
 
However and whyever it occurs, most Christians believe that suffering has a redemptive value. There’s a mysterious line in Saint Paul that says: “In my own flesh I fill up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for the sake of his Body, the Church” (Colossians 1:24). Catholics have always interpreted that to mean that God gives us the ability to somehow “attach” our suffering to the Cross, and that all the pains we experience in life can be used by God to help build up the “Body” of his Church on Earth and in heaven. That’s why you’ll sometimes hear Catholics telling each other to “offer up” their pain to God. Not all denominations within Christianity go as far as that, but all Christians do acknowledge that God is able to connect a mystical value to our suffering that we can’t always see.
 
Perhaps the greatest good that can come of suffering is its potential to make a person more Christ-like. When you’re hungry or hurt or poor, for instance, you’re experiencing the very same things that God Himself did. Therefore, it’s possible to be even closer to Him and more like Him. This intimacy with the Lord can bring you a kind of joy and peace you cannot find anywhere else.
 
Father John Corapi of EWTN always urges his TV viewers to “be clay.” What he means by that is that people need to be sufficiently flexible in their thinking in order to be able to listen to the will of God. After all, if God is an artist and one of his objectives is to make you into a better, holier person, then it matters very much what kind of “material” you’re made of. If you’re cold, hard, and inflexible, like marble, what would God have to do in order to change you? He certainly wouldn’t be able to simply pull and stretch you gently into a different shape. He’d have to take a mallet and chisel and begin hammering at you until you finally started to assume the shape He intended for you from the beginning. To be clay, of course, means that you’d be softer, more impressionable, more open to the creative desires of God.
 
In a crude sort of way, the choice we have about suffering is the same choice we have when it comes to throwing out the garbage. We can either put it in the recycle bin, or we can throw it in the trash. If we pray to God, Please bring good out of this bad situation, He can take any kind of pain we give Him — even something as trivial as a toothache — and recycle it so that it actually benefits our soul in the long run.
 
Every one of your tears, every one of your weaknesses, every one of your humiliations, every one of your failures — every single bad thing that ever happens to you in life — can be transformed. Out of every adversity, God can produce some higher good. Out of every loss, God can find some marvelous gift to give you. Out of every death, God can bring forth new life — if only you ask Him.  

copyright Source:www.carm.com

[Jackalope]

Some of you in this thread - not mentioning any names, mind you - have a real problem in how you address your intended audience.

CARM.

[Cecelia]

Yep, Prayer is super powerful.

Which is why it's ended all wars, poverty, hunger, disease. It's why people who can't walk suddenly stand up and walk all the time. It's why churches and schools never get shot up. It's why missing children never stay missing for long.

Oh wait... no. Prayer isn't very powerful at all. It hasn't accomplished anything. You'll get as much from blowing out candles on your birthday cake, only at least then you get cake at least. Prayer is nothing more than wishful thinking and confirmation bias.

[Reforged]

---

Prayer is the practice of the presence of God. It is the place where pride is abandoned, hope is lifted, and supplication is made. Prayer is the place of admitting our need, of adopting humility, and claiming dependence upon God. Prayer is the needful practice of the Christian. Prayer is the exercise of faith and hope. Prayer is the privilege of touching the heart of the Father through the Son of God, Jesus our Lord.
 
The Bible speaks much of prayer. But, sometimes, too often, we ignore prayer and seek to accomplish in the strength of our own wills those things that we desire to have or happen. For those of us who are too often guilty of this, we need to bow our knees, confess our sin, receive God's forgiveness, and beg that the will of the Lord be done above our own. God is sovereign and loving, and He knows what is best for us and others even if it doesn't always seem to make the most sense.
 
We so often come to the Lord with legitimate requests for healing, conversions, and needs, and yet the answers we hope for often do not come. We wonder and sometimes doubt. Yet, we persevere and praise God. We pray because we know that God hears us and because we desire to see results. We should pray by faith, trusting God. We should pray consistently, trusting God. We should pray for healing, trusting God. We should pray for others, trusting God. We should pray, and when our prayers are answered or are not answered, remember this: If we knew what the Lord knew, we wouldn't change a thing.
 
Prayer changes the one praying because, in prayer, you are in the presence of God as you lay before Him your complete self in confession and dependence. There is nothing to hide when in quiet supplication we are reaching into the deepest part of ourselves and admitting our needs and failures. In so doing, our hearts are quieted and pride is stripped and we enjoy the presence of God. James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."
 
There is another benefit of prayer: peace. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus," (Phil. 4:6-7).
 
I suppose that we can test our prayer life and dependence upon God by the peace or lack of peace in our hearts. In all things we are to seek the Lord and in His continued presence. Peace will surely be our gain.
 
Prayer is the practice of the presence of God.
All over the world right now, people are asking the question: Why doesn't God answer me when I cry out to Him? How can we reconcile the idea of a God who says, Ask and it shall be given to you" with the fact that this same God often refuses to grant us what we desire most?
 
There are requests God always says no to, no matter how earnestly we pray. For example, if a person wants to embezzle money from his job or commit adultery with a coworker, God is not going to give him any assistance. (That doesn’t mean the person who wants to pursue these things won’t be successful anyway. God has given us the awesome gift of free choice, and that includes the choice to do terrible things.)
 
Then there are the prayers God says no to for reasons that are not so obvious. There is an old expression that says, “God gives us what we need, not what we want.” God is concerned about only our ultimate good, which boils down to whether or not we make it to heaven. When we ask God to grant us something, He says yes or no based on what He knows will happen to us in the future as a result of that decision. Will we, and the people who are affected by us, be more likely to go to heaven or not?
 
But if God gives us only what we need and what is good for our spiritual growth, it follows that there are certain prayers God always says yes to! All one has to do is look to the Bible, the writings of Christian theologians over the centuries, and the testimonies of thousands of people right now whose prayers are being answered. God loves to say yes to us. Not only to “small” prayers, but to big, practical, and profound ones as well.
 
It’s often hardest to understand why God doesn’t answer prayers that are not necessarily sinful in nature: Why didn’t God cure my mother’s cancer? Why doesn’t He get me a raise so I can pay my bills? Why doesn’t He send me a boyfriend? Why did He make my son autistic?
 
God’s will is inscrutable, and to a certain extent we have to accept that. But our suffering can sometimes be part of God’s plan for us. That’s why “God, please bring some good out of this bad situation” is one of the most powerful prayers in the universe — and one that God always says yes to — but it’s also one of the toughest to pray. When we’re right in the midst of suffering, it’s very hard to calmly consider all the wonderful things that might lie in store for us in the future. That’s why clichés like “Look at the bright side” can be off-putting.
 
And yet expressions like these don’t usually become clichés unless there is some truth to them. Somewhere along the line, human beings noticed that bad things can give way to good things or even lead to them.
 
At its core, the question of how to transform suffering into happiness is a religious one. Ultimately, it is God alone who has the power to bring good out of bad. Though it’s true that God doesn’t always reveal to us the reasons for the bad things that happen, He promises to get us through them. He also pledges, to those who ask Him in prayer and to those who are trying their best to do his will, that He will bring good out of every single misfortune they encounter in life; that He will somehow, in the end, turn every instance of suffering into an opportunity for greater, deeper happiness.
 
If you were going to memorize only one verse in Scripture, Romans 8:28 might be the one to choose, because it holds the key to this promise. If you learn it, the “slings and arrows of life” may indeed knock you down, but none will ever penetrate so deeply that you will be overcome and destroyed. The verse simply states: “All things work together for good, for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” If out of the hellish darkness of the Crucifixion God brought the miraculous light of the Resurrection, He can certainly take the bad things that happen to us in our lives and bring some kind of blessing out of them.
It’s important to note, however, that although God allows plenty of bad things to happen in life, He doesn’t purposely cause them. On the contrary, God mourns with us when we are in agony. He is just like any father who feels bad when his children fall and hurt themselves.
 
God does not cause pain in order to force human beings to act in certain ways. At the very same time, it is 100 percent accurate to say, “Not a single sparrow falls to the ground without the permission of our heavenly Father.” This great paradox — how God can remain “in charge” and yet allow people to have free will — lies at the very crux of the problem of human suffering. We frankly don’t know how God is able to reconcile such seemingly opposed realities.
 
However and whyever it occurs, most Christians believe that suffering has a redemptive value. There’s a mysterious line in Saint Paul that says: “In my own flesh I fill up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for the sake of his Body, the Church” (Colossians 1:24). Catholics have always interpreted that to mean that God gives us the ability to somehow “attach” our suffering to the Cross, and that all the pains we experience in life can be used by God to help build up the “Body” of his Church on Earth and in heaven. That’s why you’ll sometimes hear Catholics telling each other to “offer up” their pain to God. Not all denominations within Christianity go as far as that, but all Christians do acknowledge that God is able to connect a mystical value to our suffering that we can’t always see.
 
Perhaps the greatest good that can come of suffering is its potential to make a person more Christ-like. When you’re hungry or hurt or poor, for instance, you’re experiencing the very same things that God Himself did. Therefore, it’s possible to be even closer to Him and more like Him. This intimacy with the Lord can bring you a kind of joy and peace you cannot find anywhere else.
 
Father John Corapi of EWTN always urges his TV viewers to “be clay.” What he means by that is that people need to be sufficiently flexible in their thinking in order to be able to listen to the will of God. After all, if God is an artist and one of his objectives is to make you into a better, holier person, then it matters very much what kind of “material” you’re made of. If you’re cold, hard, and inflexible, like marble, what would God have to do in order to change you? He certainly wouldn’t be able to simply pull and stretch you gently into a different shape. He’d have to take a mallet and chisel and begin hammering at you until you finally started to assume the shape He intended for you from the beginning. To be clay, of course, means that you’d be softer, more impressionable, more open to the creative desires of God.
 
In a crude sort of way, the choice we have about suffering is the same choice we have when it comes to throwing out the garbage. We can either put it in the recycle bin, or we can throw it in the trash. If we pray to God, Please bring good out of this bad situation, He can take any kind of pain we give Him — even something as trivial as a toothache — and recycle it so that it actually benefits our soul in the long run.
 
Every one of your tears, every one of your weaknesses, every one of your humiliations, every one of your failures — every single bad thing that ever happens to you in life — can be transformed. Out of every adversity, God can produce some higher good. Out of every loss, God can find some marvelous gift to give you. Out of every death, God can bring forth new life — if only you ask Him.  

copyright Source:www.carm.com

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If you can explain what exactly you were hoping to inform us of and why you needed to copy and paste an entire two pages of someone elses work in order to do that I will give you a voucher for one free back rub.
Begin.

[Jackalope]

If you can explain what exactly you were hoping to inform us of and why you needed to copy and paste an entire two pages of someone elses work in order to do that I will give you a voucher for one free back rub.
Begin.

It's easier than thinking for one's self?

[Reforged]

If you can explain what exactly you were hoping to inform us of and why you needed to copy and paste an entire two pages of someone elses work in order to do that I will give you a voucher for one free back rub.
Begin.

It's easier than thinking for one's self?

Ah ah ah. He needs to learn for himself.
No cheating.

[drfuzzy]

Oh great.  A troll, then a wall of text.  Not a scientific brain cell between 'em.  Oh what are we to do?  We are surely out-thunk!!!