Prayer

[Minimalist]

Too old and too lazy.  I'd rather hang out with my dogs.

I'll gladly license anyone who wants to take a run at it!

[purplepurpose]

Never would have thought that God is such an ass according to popular religion.

[Banned]

Going by experience alone, all prayers are recorded, not all are heard, and of those heard some are answered and some are not.

Regarding the placebo effect, I guess it is supposed to help the believer, but I missed the part about how it might help someone prayed for, or rearrange a non biological situation.

Prayer is talking to God, regardless of your belief or status, and any such prayer is recorded and known about by God.
Whatever prayer can accomplish is up to the individual to research and experiment with. You are allowed to test God, if you are prepared to be respectful.
Understanding a scientific approach would be handy, but honesty with God is essential. Game playing, manipulating and lying doesn't work with God.

First you must believe that he exists, and secondly you must believe that he rewards those who seek him diligently - not lazily.

We'll talk about those poor babies later.

[The Grand Nudger]

You have experience of all prayers being recorded?  You've seen the tapes?  You know, from experience..that a few slip through the omniscient cracks?  Did god tell you this when you were netflix-n-chillin or something?  Is this when you saw god take a look at some prayers, that he heard, and go..."meh......... nah"?

[Succubus]

Yes, I'm most curious as to thoughts are recorded.

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Going by experience alone, all prayers are recorded, not all are heard, and of those heard some are answered and some are not.
<guffsnip>

Same as wishing on the lucky rabbits foot then?

[The Grand Nudger]

Not quite, rabbits, at least, exist. 

[Cod]

First you must believe that he exists, and secondly you must believe that he rewards those who seek him diligently - not lazily.

And thirdly, you must like talking to yourself, and fourthly you must be prepared for disappointment.

[Fake Messiah]

Mormon prayers get answered all the time, at least according to Mormons. Does that prove that Jesus was in North America? If Tom Cruise prays for a box office hit next summer, and gets it, would that mean Scientology is true? People in ancient Rome prayed and surely some of them believed that the gods answered their prayers on some occasions. If a Christian prayer can be called proof of Jesus, then a Roman prayer must be proof of Neptune.

Couldn't it be that believers simply are making the honest and common error of selective memory when they review their personal prayer histories? Mistakes of this kind are easy to make. It seems to be human nature to focus on the few hits and forget all about the many misses when it comes to something we want to be true. Psychologists even have a term for it and actually call it "confirmation bias" and psychics know all about it. Because it is very much like when psychics claim to talk to dead people or predict a customer's future, they know that they only have to be right a few times because most people will forget the incorrect statements.

I mean if any prayer works, one would think it would be a mother's prayer for the health of her baby.Few prayers are more sincere or more passionately delivered, especially if the baby is seriously ill. Unfortunately, these prayers do not seem to work well at all. This is obvious because there are many highly religious nations with horrible infant mortality rates.

[Banned]

Note that none of the above replies have anything to say about their own personal experience, once again no surprise there at all,
but if they had normal reading and comprehension skills, they would have seen in my post that if you want evidence - YOU have to get it, for yourself.

[Fake Messiah]

Note that none of the above replies have anything to say about their own personal experience, once again no surprise there at all,
but if they had normal reading and comprehension skills, they would have seen in my post that if you want evidence - YOU have to get it, for yourself.

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