Prayer

[FatAndFaithless]

That...sounds like a whole steaming heap of bullshit.

[vorlon13]

You just have to believe hard enough.

Sezzso in the bible.

Otta be easy enough for the True Believers®.

[purplepurpose]

I thought God would help babies with his endless Might. And yet...

[Minimalist]

[J a c k]

This is where I’m conflicted about believers. I’m fine with them having faith in their god until they make statements about god answering prayers if you truly believe and that if things don’t go your way, it’s because of free will and god’s greater plan. Fuck ignorant and empathy lacking comments like that.

Oh, you prayed for him to save you, but they still beat you and left you to die? Free will is a gift, ya know. You should be thankful. He has a plan. No, that’s not a contradiction.  

[Angrboda]

Prayer does work, wether or not YOU believe it does is irrelevant, it's only relevant to the person doing the praying.

What is your evidence in support of your belief that prayer works?

[FatAndFaithless]

Prayer does work, wether or not YOU believe it does is irrelevant, it's only relevant to the person doing the praying.

What is your evidence in support of your belief that prayer works?

I recall my fuzzy memories from Huggy's fuzzier logic and argument, I think it basically boils down to something like the placebo effect = faith/prayer healing.  Because the placebo effect is phenomenon we don't exactly understand, then it fits under the category of faith healing for Huggy.

[purplepurpose]

This is where I’m conflicted about believers. I’m fine with them having faith in their god until they make statements about god answering prayers if you truly believe and that if things don’t go your way, it’s because of free will and god’s greater plan. Fuck ignorant and empathy lacking comments like that.

Oh, you prayed for him to save you, but they still beat you and left you to die? Free will is a gift, ya know. You should be thankful. He has a plan. No, that’s not a contradiction.  

The most popular plan I heard is "Wait till heaven".

[SaStrike]

I agree with praying can be used to treat minor stuff, as in the placebo effect does work. Prayer is just one of the many fake treatments that falls under the placebo effect.

If you're trying to claim that prayer is NOT a fake treatment AND is part of the placebo effect then lol

[Huggy Bear]

Prayer does work, wether or not YOU believe it does is irrelevant, it's only relevant to the person doing the praying.

In relation to healing however, prayer does no good seeing how healing is a finished work, which is why the Bible states that "by his stripes we were (past tense) healed", you just need to have enough faith to accept it.

Science cannot contradict that fact hence they acknowledge that people can be healed solely on belief, also known as the placebo effect.

So, prayer sometimes works as a placebo effect. Right?

No, like I said, prayer is not necessary, only belief. For example, in the Bible, whenever one of the Jews wanted Jesus to heal someone, they would always ask Jesus to be physically present, and Jesus always obliged, why? Because their faith was dependent upon him physically being there. Yet when a Roman centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant he realized Jesus had authority and didn't need to actually go to his house but just needed to speak the words, hence he had greater faith.

a placebo works based on that very principle. A person who has no faith will place faith in a pill if a doctor says it will make him better, but one with greater faith just accepts that they are healed, no placebo necessary.

The person doing the praying is the one doing all the work, not the god, because there is no god.

I'm going to tell you guys a little anecdote, of an experience I've had involving prayer almost a year ago.

Some of you may remember a while back that I went to Haiti to attend my Father-in-laws funeral (I had posted up pictures in the photos thread).

The wife and I flew down to Florida to meet up with her family members and we were to catch a flight from Florida to Haiti as a group (there were 6 of us total, Me, the wife, her two sisters, brother, and niece). My wife's youngest sister (Dinah) works for Jet blue so we had passes and we were guaranteed to be on the first flight, (there are two per day). Long story short we missed our flight, since the funeral was the next day we had to get on the second flight or we basically couldn't make the funeral.

The problem was that seeing how only two flights left per day, both flights were fully booked, and to compound it even further, quite a few people missed the early morning flight and would likely be trying for the next flight and they had priority, since our guaranteed seating was for the first flight only.

We went to the customer service desk to plead our case but the agent pretty much just facepalmed and shook his head, and said that there was no way we were getting on the next flight, he motioned for Dinah to come look at the monitor (since shes an employee) to confirm he's not BS'ing, once she sees the monitor, I see this dejected look on her face and she says "were not getting on the next flight guys".

Out of this group, the wife, her oldest sister and me, are really the only that believe in God, Dinah is a straight up atheist, the other two I can't say for sure what they believe. Anyway as a last resort they ask me to pray. I admit, on these forums I talk a good game, I can tell you all day long, what the Bible says, but in practice I have very little confidence in my prayers, If someone asks me to pray for them, I feel as if someone else can do a better job, so if whenever you see me state anything about a "true christian" know that I don't place myself in that category.

Anyways, I was asked to pray, so we all join hands right there in the airport, I can't remember all I said but I let God know our situation was desperate. So after the prayer was done, Lisa, my wife's oldest sister tells her husband (who drove us over an hour to the airport) to wait, just in case we didn't make the second flight (unbelief is why prayer fails to work), I told her no, send him home, it's not enough to ask, we must believe we're getting on the flight.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. - Mark 11:24

So we go sit at the gate for the next 4 hours or so till they start boarding the next flight. Long story short, they board the plane and it's full, they are just waiting for one person when a medical emergency (nothing serious) empties 5 seats (the exact number we needed, since Dinah being an employee could ride jumpseat) across row 3, so not only did we get on the flight we were all sitting together.

So no one can convince me that God doesn't exist, I've seen too much evidence of the contrary.

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God never heal amputees.

Didn't Peter cut off someones ear one time...

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Two years ago, a member of the church where I work was diagnosed with colon cancer.  He was a brilliant 28-year-old cardiologist with a wife a new baby.
Not only did the church pray for him, the Diocese prayed for him, area Protestant Churches also added him to their list, and the churches of his co-workers did as well.
He was taken to the best doctors and clinics in the USA, and had at least one group prayer and anointing each week.  
He died.  Just as if nobody had been praying.  Now, all that prayer probably made his parents and brothers feel a bit better, maybe, but I dare anyone to go to his
6' 6" father and say "sorry, this must have been God's will and you'll find out why some day".   Yeah, I wonder how many millions of people it would take to get any actual proof of a God?

Catholics don't believe in "faith healing" beyond the Apostolic era...