Can prayer change God's perfect plan?

[Harry Nevis]

It meant to do that from the very beginning (nudge nudge wink wink).

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bold mine

False assertion. Asking for daily bread is a petition.

Move along.

If God tells you to ask for it is it a personal petition? Not according to any modern dictionary. as a petition in this instance represents a formal request of a personal want. If one is mandated the one 'request' something then it ceases being a request. It ceases being a want and becomes a Need.

When in doubt, redefine.

[brewer]

It meant to do that from the very beginning (nudge nudge wink wink).

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bold mine

False assertion. Asking for daily bread is a petition.

Move along.

If God tells you to ask for it is it a personal petition? Not according to any modern dictionary. as a petition in this instance represents a formal request of a personal want. If one is mandated the one 'request' something then it ceases being a request. It ceases being a want and becomes a Need.

Can you tap dance any faster???

[Valyza1]

I wouldn't say my faith is relatively strong, but that isn't really necessary to answer the question.  As far as I see it, nothing can change God's Perfect Plan.  Your prayer is part of your free will, but YOUR free will is part of God's Plan.  People object  to the idea of one's will being free if God already knows what it will be, but what God KNOWS is irrelevant to freedom.  It's what God IMPOSES that restricts freedom.  And God does not impose your will from being acted upon, thus it is free.  And He doesn't need to in order for His Plan to succeed, because your will changes by itself.  

Excuse me but if this is your belief.. Then what do you believe happens to babies (innocents) who are killed before choosing your god? If free will is the reason for all the suffering in the world, how is it so easily removed from babies, or "people who haven't heard the word of god"? Where's their free will?

Not sure I understand your objection. I wasn't talking about Free Will being the cause of suffering, I was talking about it being a reality of human life. You don't even need to believe in God to believe in Free Will. But my point was that if you do believe in God or, more topical to this discussion, any omnipotent being, you aren't required to stop believing in Free Will as the two concepts don't, of necessity, contradict each other. One's will is free in the sense that one has the power to pursue what one wishes. The baby has the power to pursue a piece of candy. He or she may encounter resistance, but if they want the candy badly enough they can keep pursuing it. Eventually, the appetite will subside enough for the baby to no longer want to pursue the candy, either because of substitution or exhaustion, but the baby is always free to pursue that candy by whatever tools it has at it's disposal (crawling, crying, reaching, etc). All God's omnipotence means is that He knows what's going to happen. But he's not imposing that knowledge onto the person. If He didn't know, then the question of why He doesn't intervene would be more pertinent, I should think. Generally speaking, the only reason to intervene in anything is to either ensure the occurrence of a desired result or prevent the occurrence of an undesired one. If you already know the result, there's no point in intervening unless you enjoy being part of the process.

[Drich]

If God tells you to ask for it is it a personal petition? Not according to any modern dictionary. as a petition in this instance represents a formal request of a personal want. If one is mandated the one 'request' something then it ceases being a request. It ceases being a want and becomes a Need.

When in doubt, redefine.

When it doubt look up the word sport.

[Catholic_Lady]

It is mainly used for making fun of people of faith and pointing out every time a religious person does something bad.

I'm confused, if that is all it is here for why are you here? If we are just bullies why are we friends with you?

Well that's really not fair. I never said that's all AF is here for and I definitely never said you're all just bullies.

I was specifically referring to the religious section of the forums. And I wasn't even referring to what it was made for. I was referring to how it has mostly been used. 

If you look through the threads on that section, I don't think it's fair to deny that several of them are simply made to mock or make fun of or point out the wrong doings of religious folks. And for those threads that weren't started with that intention, a look through the posts in them will show that many turn out that way. 

Also, I wasn't the only person to say that. Homeless Nutter back on page 1 responded in a similar way. No one told him he's wrong.   

I'm not hurt by this or anything, by the way. Neither am I complaining, and neither do I think anyone is a bully or a bad person for doing it. I was answering the newby's question in the way I've seen it. I don't think this is the right place for her to be asking religious questions, and as Jesster correctly said, she'd be better off going to a Christian forum with those.

[Drich]

If God tells you to ask for it is it a personal petition? Not according to any modern dictionary. as a petition in this instance represents a formal request of a personal want. If one is mandated the one 'request' something then it ceases being a request. It ceases being a want and becomes a Need.

Can you tap dance any faster???

Read the op and my first response. it's all there. I simply narrow the focus of what my answer was so that you guys can't play word games.

[Harry Nevis]

When in doubt, redefine.

When it doubt look up the word sport.

Why?  It doesn't help to understand your delusions, Dick.

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Can you tap dance any faster???

Read the op and my first response. it's all there. I simply narrow the focus of what my answer was so that you guys can't play word games.

But that's just what you're doing, Dick.

[Catholic_Lady]

A few things.

First, what do you mean exactly by "God's perfect plan?"

God's plan for us the big picture, and that is that we live this life in a way that reflects love and goodness in our hearts so that we can go on to enjoy it to its fullest in the afterlife. We can choose to follow that plan or not, but that is up to us.

Some people like to think that every little thing that happens was purposely made to happen by the hand of God Himself. But that is simply not true. God is not a micromanager. He created this world with us in it and allows nature to happen as it will, and allows us to make our own choices. I know many Christians buy into this "everything happens for a reason" mentality, but that is simply not true, imho. God's plan is with the eternal result, big picture. Not with details of this life which are insignificant when put into perspective.

Second, God exists in a dimension that is outside of time. So He already knows that we will pray before we do so because He has already seen us do it. Think of it as looking at a cube - you can see all 3 dimensions at one glance. If time is a fourth dimension, imagine that God can see all of it at once, in a similar way.

So for example: a couple wants a child but is battling infertility, and they pray to God every day asking to be blessed with a child. They end up getting pregnant with a healthy baby against all odds. God answered their prayer. But God already knew ahead of time that this child would come into existence because He already knew that the parents would pray for one and that their prayers would be answered. This child didn't change anything. God already knew the parents would pray and He already knew He would answer those prayers.

bold mine

I'm really confused. First it does not micro manage or predict the future and lets nature take it's course, then in your scenario it micro manages, the future is known, and there is a predetermined outcome.  

If it already knows that a single person will pray and what will be prayed for and how the prayer will be answered (micro manage a detail of one persons life), the person has no free will. They are simply following a predetermined path.

I don't see how that's contrary to free will. My belief is that God knows what will happen because he can see all of time happening all at once, not because He is controlling everything that is happening. We still choose our actions 100%. He just knows what those actions will be because He is seeing us do it, not because He controls what we do.

[Silver]

When a supposed omniscient being knows precisely what course we will take, free will is an illusion because we will always choose the path that god has already perceived rather than having the free will to choose the other path.

[vorlon13]

Perhaps God's Perfect Plan has fractal properties allowing for a diffusion of cause/effect parameters that would allow correlated dispersal along the time line from a user interface and yet maintain the preordained perfect outcome ??