My doctor asked me to pray.

[Godscreated]

pid='1233696' dateline='1459132676']
I didn't ask you to prove my prayer doesn't work, I ask you to prove my belief in answered prayer was an appeal to emotion and that my perception is flawed.
I have many relatives including my Dad that I miss very much, however I have the peace of knowing it's not a permanent situation, I will see them again. I am not in agony over their deaths either. My mother probably has only a couple years left, she doesn't fear her death, nor do I. I hate to see it come because I want to keep her here but, as we all know that's not possible everyone dies and when she does we will celebrate her life and look forward to seeing her again and we will.
As for those six arguments above, I'm asked to prove similar type arguments all the time. Yes if I'm required to bring proof then the same applies to everyone else. I hear it all the time bring me proof, bring me proof, bring me proof so I'm asking what is asked of me, seems reasonable, right?

GC[/hide]

Nope sorry, again, you are trying to make word salad to dodge proving your claim. 

Other people have different god claims and pray to those god/s too and they also think their prayers are answered too. They also have "experiences" they think are real, as real as you think yours was. What you and they don't consider is that is is nothing more than your wishful  thinking and gap filling. 

If you accept that praying to Allah or Vishnu or a statue of Buddha has no real effect on reality, then why do you expect me to swallow your version of "it works" either? I could care less which flavor of superstition you personally swallow, I don't treat your claims any differently than you treat the claims of others, I simply reject one more superstition than you do. "Prayer" is simply a result of wishful thinking based on selection bias and sample rate error. 

Nobody was praying to Jesus or Allah or Vishnu or Buddha or Yahweh or Apollo 200,000 years ago. Our planet is 4 billion years old and our universe is 14 billion years old. It takes 1 ray of light 100,000 years at the speed of light to cross our galaxy alone. We've only just now gotten 1 object out of our solar system and that took 40 years. Our universe has 100s of BILLIONS of galaxies in it, yet you, like most humans of ALL religions stupidly think that talking to yourself which is what you are really doing, has some sort of magical effect on your life.

There is no such thing as a cosmic sky hero by any name. Wanting one to be real does not make one real. We are not important to this planet, the planet is important to us. The planet does not depend on us, we depend on the planet. But we are NOT important to the planet or universe in long term cosmic time.

I am sorry that bothers you to think about being finite, it should not bother you. What should bother you is your bad logic based on old books that have no real modern knowledge of scientific reality. Prayer at best is a placebo, but you are NOT talking to invisible sky wizards anymore than the Ancient Egyptians were really praying to Ra or Horus or Isis. 

Nothing bad will happen to you if you figure out what we have. There is no sky bully to threaten you with hell. Nobody will smite you. You will simply grow up. 

So, every time you say "prayer works", fine, take your pet god claim out, replace it with with another god claim and ask yourself if it makes sense to fill in the gap with that one. If not, then take that logic you use to rightfully reject that logic, and be intellectually brave and aim that same logic at your own claims.  If you are unwilling to do that, you are not being objective or neutral. But you most certainly ARE NOT the only person, or only religion that thinks prayer works.

 Sorry you feel that way, it doesn't change the facts I have through my personal relationship with God, nor does your disbelief negate God, it does put you in dire straits, if that's where you want to stay it's your choice.

GC

[Brian37]

"Because you wouldn't exist if Allah didn't exist"
"Because you wouldn't exist if Yahweh didn't exist"
"Because you wouldn't exist if Bhrama didn't exist"

No see you ASSUME with no evidence that you got the right one. So what, so does everyone else with different god claims.

I have evidence, God has personally proven His existence to me, it doesn't matter whether you believe me or not, I still know He exists and your disbelief doesn't make Him imaginary, it does put you in dire straits though. God the creator is the only God to contact me, I've heard nothing from the rest of them and God says there are no other gods, so why shouldn't I believe there are no other gods, they've be absent from my life. If it's they don't care about me or want me then I don't need them either, right?

GC

GC

You love living in your own delusional echo chamber don't you?

"I have evidence, Allah has personally proven his existence to me".
"I have evidence, Yahweh has personally proven his existence to me".
"I have evidence, that Angel Morni made Joseph Smith the one true prophet"
"I have evidence, personally given to me that I was reincarnated from a prior life and Buddha told me".
"I have evidence, personally given to me that my Hindu creator god Brahma has proven his existence."

Great, good for you, but again, so what. Get in line take a number. 7 billion humans and every single religion with multiple versions of the same holy writings, but lucky us, you were the one that somehow magically got it right. 

Now, again, we don't doubt you truly believe what you claim, but we do doubt your perception of reality, and for the same reason you rightfully reject all the claims above.

[Jello]

But for reals, GC, that's a pretty dumb way of looking at it

 Really care to explain why and then answer my question.

GC

Going "My god is real because i believe in him". 

I could sit there and believe that i have a million pounds, for as long as i want, wouldn't change that i don't. And you didn't ask a question, so i can't answer it.

[Godscreated]

Because you wouldn't exist if He didn't. There are no other gods, if there were why haven't they contacted me in any way, just curious if you have some knowledge of why please let me know.

GC

Actually, Jello's parents are responsible for Jello's existence. Not some god. As for *any* god contacting you, there has been no proof provided from you that any contact has been made and you are simply asking anyone reading that to just take your word for it. Sorry, but it's not that simple for logical, sane thinking people.

God is the reason for all life, if He didn't exist neither would life. I'm stating what I know and if your logic gets in the way of your salvation then what good is your logic, if you allow your logic to damn you into hell what good is it. What good is owning the whole world if you lose eternal life.

Talking to an imaginary figure is something I stopped doing when I was six years old and learned to make real friends and let my imaginary ones go.

I haven't ask you to talk to an imaginary being, the only thing you could ask for from God at this point is salvation, God's not going to respond to those who deny Him.

You have no proof of any god. Not yours, not anyone else's, so how do you, in fact, intend to show verifiable proof that your god is the right god? How do you know for fact, via verifiable proof that when you die, you've followed something real?

Yes I have proof, God promised we could know Him and He has done just that for me. He's revealed himself to me many times through our personal relationship. I need no verifiable proof from anyone, God gave it to me personally as He promised and you can have this also, when He calls seek Him.

I've extended the offer for a god, any god, to come have lunch with me and answer some questions. To date, my offer has not been taken up on. I'm still waiting.

 
You can't order God around, God will in His time call you, then you need to seek him out, if you do H will give you the answers.

GC

[Brian37]

Every believer of every religion claim sounds like Charlie Brown's Teacher

"Waaaa waaaa waaa waaa waa Jesus"
"Waaaa waaaa waaa waaa waa Allah"
"Waaaa waaaa waaa waaa waa Brahma"
"Waaaa waaaa waaa waaa waa Buddha"
"Waaaa waaaa waaa waaa waa Yahweh"

Get in line, take a number.

[Joods]

Too bad all those starving people living in third world countries or those tribal communities tucked way back, deep in a forest, who struggle to find food daily, don't know about YOUR god and prayer.

That's why we go to those places as Jesus ask us to, there are benefits outside salvation we introduce others to.

That's not prayer. That's actively doing something. See the difference? We're talking about prayer and the fallacy that people seem to believe that it works.

They all could have "prayers" for food answered in a snap. Cause that's how your god works, right?

No not really, we teach them how to farm ground and raise animals for food, this way they can provide food for themselves and their families and future generations. Christianity is a simple practice of teaching, you can find this throughout the NT.

Again - NOT prayer. See the portion of your quote that I bolded. To reiterate - NOT PRAYER. That is teaching skills of survival. You are trying to dodge the points I'm making.

No, sorry. If he existed at all, things like hunger and disease would be obsolete. He would take care of ALL persons on earth, regardless of their religious beliefs (or non-beliefs) because being the "loving" god you and others claim he is, he wouldn't want anyone to suffer.

He doesn't want anyone to suffer, however there is this sin thing that has brought suffering into the world and man continues with sin at a greater and greater rate. So there will always be suffering until sin is eliminated. Jesus himself told His disciples that we would always have the poor with us. If you hate so much to see the poor suffer then I'm supposing you are working to help them, if not shouldn't you, it is a man made problem after all. 

I myself AM poor. But I'm in school so that I can gain valuable job skills to be able to not only survive, but to thrive. Your god didn't have anything to do with that initial decision and he still doesn't have anything to do with it. I alone earn my grades. No god necessary. As for sin - god created that sin because he put it there as part of his "plan". If it wasn't part of his plan to make people sin, he shouldn't have put temptation there in the first place. And that's straying from the topic.

In addition to that, prayer shouldn't even be required or necessary since god supposedly has a "plan" for each of us. So praying for the outcomes that WE want is really pointless since it's clearly not what HE wants, nor would it be part of his plan.

I see by this statement you made you're deficient in bible knowledge to an extreme amount.

I might not know as much as some people here, but I know enough that I can accurately make the statement I made about his supposed plan.

God's absolute will can't be changed, God's plan for any life is not set in stone, a person has free will and God will adjust the plan to help us in our ignorance of what's best. Prayer is not about what we want, prayer is about staying in the plan God has for us, this type of prayer is only for the Christian.

The free will argument is pointless. We won't go there because it's been argued to death on these forums. As for your saying a certain type of prayer is for the Christian, Show me proof of that and I'll show you Jewish people who will strongly disagree with you. Besides, you have no guarantees that your god is *the* god. 40,000 other religious types can't be wrong and yours just "happens" to be right on your say so? Give me a break.

God's not going to help those who deny He exists,

People living in tribal/jungle areas don't know he exists, therefore they can't deny it. So what about those people? They just get to be punished with starvation and disease because, reasons? Your argument does not make sense and all the people "praying" for those who are:
1 - starving and;
2 - don't know of the existence of any sort of god, is pointless, according to your reasonings.

Prayer is part of having a relationship with Him, not for get what you want, it's not a credit card you can throw around. Be fore arguing pray you should learn what prayer really is.

Try telling that to the thousands of your fellow christians who constantly pray over their food or pray before a game or because they got a touchdown in football (Tebowing comes to mind), or they pray to find their car keys or money etc etc, ad nausem. They are the ones you need to be telling this to. I already know prayer doesn't do shit.

God + prayer = a completely stupid waste of time and there is zero proof that it works. Testimonials are subjective and can't be verified for their truthfulness or accuracy. Witnessing isn't proof of prayer working either since, again, it is subjective.

It's verified in those individuals who have a living relationship with God and in actual truth that's really all that matters. You're trying to apply science to a spiritual life and it just doesn't work that way.

Then if that's all that matters, stop trying to convince a forum full of atheists that we need your god because in all actual truth, we don't care about your non-existent god and that's really all that matters. Not a single believer has ever come on here with verifiable proof of any existence of any god. So, really, thanks but no thanks. We don't need your imaginary friends.

Admit it. There is no god. There is no plan. And prayer doesn't do shit. Anyone can make excuses for it all they want but answered prayers aren't real. The end result is always the result of someone actually doing something that accomplishes said desired result. You know, like doing the work required to solve a problem. No god ever steps in and uses their so-called omniscient powers to help out.

I'll do no such thing Satan.

Oh... so now I'm satan? I see how this works. An atheist makes a valid, reasonable point (this happens all the time) and rather than you just saying, "Well, I'm okay with your non-beliefs and you're okay with my beliefs and we'll just leave it at that and I won't try to shove my religion or my god down your throat.", you resort to calling me satan.  Whatever helps you sleep at night buddy, but I don't think that your god would approve of your not-so-christian attitude towards your neighbor. What's that commandment? Oh that's right... Love thy neighbor.

[Joods]

God is a whore and apparently, he loves to "give it" to people personally. We have this verified by ONE singular member here who insists on such a deep level that we can no longer deny it.

I just wonder who his pimp is.

[IATIA]

My lack of faith and disobedience can stifle god's ability to act?

Wow, I am way more powerful than I thought.

An iron stake works pretty good too.

[Brian37]

My lack of faith and disobedience can stifle god's ability to act?

Wow, I am way more powerful than I thought.

An iron stake works pretty good too.

Killing a god is as easy as realizing it is merely a product of human's imagination. The hard part is getting to the point you realize it is all crap. Takes some longer than others, and some are so drunk on wishful thinking they never leave. But once you are there, it is easy.

[Athene]

Admit it. There is no god. There is no plan. And prayer doesn't do shit. Anyone can make excuses for it all they want but answered prayers aren't real. The end result is always the result of someone actually doing something that accomplishes said desired result. You know, like doing the work required to solve a problem. No god ever steps in and uses their so-called omniscient powers to help out.

I'll do no such thing Satan.

Thanks, GC. That one made me laugh out loud.

I get that it was tongue in cheek, but for a moment I thought of you being utterly serious as you wrote that; And it was hysterical.