Answered Prayers as Proof of God

[Thor]

Well Tack you said they would and they did, sad they do not understand how God cares for the ones who want to worship Him.

Your deity "cares for the ones who worship him" by standing by and doing nothing while his obedient servants suffer horribly painful afflictions such as cancer, arthritis, migraine headaches, etc... He also does nothing while natural disasters ravage the homes and lives of people who worship him.

You guys want God to just whiske away the problems of the world,why, so you can believe, it just does not work that way.

Maybe a platitude like this satisfies deluded believers, but, to me, it only exposes how weak the evidence is for the existence of your deity. And who said we expect your deity to "whisk away the problems of the world"? How about simply eliminating needless pain and suffering?

If you want results from your employer do you think its going to come because you ask him/her, or will the results come when you have shown your loyalty to said employer.

Pretty poor analogy. My employer is not omniscient and all powerful. In any case, if what you say is true, I would expect that nuns, priests, ministers and other clergy people would never suffer pain. All they would have to do is pray for "God" to end their suffering and he would! (After all, who shows more "loyalty" than a member of the clergy?) But we both know this isn't what happens. And you no doubt have some silly platitude to rationalize this obvious contradiction.

May be that God is waiting on a large group of people that are loyal to Him to ask that He help people to find clean drinking water

Oh, come on! This is the best you can come up with? And if this is true, let's get a large group of priests to pray for clean drinking water. That should do it, right?

so why don't you guys join in on the asking if you are so concerned about others.

Why would we pray to an imaginary being for anything? It does NO GOOD!

By the way what are you all doing to help those who need clean drinking water.

And what does this have to do with anything? Trying to avoid the question by turning it around on me?

I know that God has sent many people into the mission field to help with that very thing,

Uh, no. "God" hasn't sent anybody to do anything. The people that go on these missions do so voluntarily of their own free will. They were not ordered by some deity to pack their bags and go off on a mission.

maybe you guys need to go on a mission trip and see how others are doing Gods work with those who are in need.

There are many organizations around the globe that assist those in need without prosyletizing to people who are having a crisis. I'd rather go with one of them.

God's church provides more aide to the third world countries than you will ever know.

So what? See above comment.

God has said that He will work through mankind to help man, He wants us to be responsible partners with Him.

"God" said this? Really? When? Where? I missed it if it was in the newspapers.

We are responsible for the mess the worlds in

What a pantload. We are responsible for droughts, famine, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, killer microbes and intestinal parasites?

why is it that you think God should come behind us and clean up our mess,

How is it "cleaning up our mess" to ask your deity to cure children suffering from cancer? Or to restore sight to blind people? Or to make paralyzed people walk again?

is that what your parents did for you

Actually, yes. I think any good parent cleans up a mess caused by their kids if they can.

I think that you guys need to see the world and its problems for what they are

I think we do see the world's problems for what they are. Natural disasters, killer diseases, horrible accidents... these are all just the random things that happen to people in a dangerous world.

and quit blaming God whom you do not believe in for this mess we made.

Where have any of us "blamed god" for anything? We merely point out things that make no sense if your deity is truly loving and caring. We do say that if your deity actually exists and he does nothing to help a child suffering from cancer (when he is fully capable of doing so) that he is an incredibly heartless prick. But you give this deity a pass because.... Well, I really don't know why.

[Of_Tomato]

.. Well, I really don't know why.

Cause it makes him feel special and chosen. Riiiight up to that moment when he himself gets a sting of that good ol' cancer.

[KichigaiNeko]

I really can NOT understand WHY these fools wish to enslave themselves to an idea that has PROVEN itself to be false for over 2000 years???

WTF?? hock:

[Captain Scarlet]

.. Well, I really don't know why.

Cause it makes him feel special and chosen. Riiiight up to that moment when he himself gets a sting of that good ol' cancer.

Ah no when that happens it is because he wil have been chosen to be at gods right hand side. You cannot beat the conman; he has an answer for everything....just no evidence of anything

[Captain Scarlet]

For instnace 4 weeks ago we had no music at our service in our new church because no one knew how to play insturments. The worship team and I prayed for God to provide someone who could play music before servicestarted. After service we had a little luncheon and we invited some of the new faces in to eat with us. One of them played guitar and volunteered without being asked to play for our services. Next week we enjoyed the guitarbut after service the worship team and I prayed that we could find someone to use the keyboard that we had. The following week's service we had a new face who spoke to Sue about wanting to play the keyboard for us. Isn't that tangible and measurable? When we prayed over my son that his pain would stop and he wouldn't have any more pain when he lost his fingernail and it happened was that psychosomatic reasoning for an 8 year old? I know it's going to get written off as coincidence or some other excuse, but yoou can't say it's immeasurable or not "real". I'm sure you'll try though.

This is evidence that god is evil; facilitating a rousing chorus of "kumbaya mi lord" or "jesus is my saviour" is cruel. C'mon this isn't objective evidence, not scientifically conducted and above all not morally serious, for all the reasons stated by commentators on this thread. You know my horoscope is sometimes right as well, is that evidence FOR astronomy.

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Well Tack you said they would and they did, sad they do not understand how God cares for the ones who want to worship Him. You guys want God to just whiske away the problems of the world,why, so you can believe, it just does not work that way. If you want results from your employer do you think its going to come because you ask him/her, or will the results come when you have shown your loyalty to said employer. May be that God is waiting on a large group of people that are loyal to Him to ask that He help people to find clean drinking water, so why don't you guys join in on the asking if you are so concerned about others. By the way what are you all doing to help those who need clean drinking water. I know that God has sent many people into the mission field to help with that very thing, maybe you guys need to go on a mission trip and see how others are doing Gods work with those who are in need. God's church provides more aide to the third world countries than you will ever know. God has said that He will work through mankind to help man, He wants us to be responsible partners with Him. We are responsible for the mess the worlds in why is it that you think God should come behind us and clean up our mess, is that what your parents did for you, I think that you guys need to see the world and its problems for what they are and quit blaming God whom you do not believe in for this mess we made.

Would you accept anecdotal evidence of unanswered prayer as evidence god doesn't exist? Clearly you wouldn't; that would be called confirmation bias. As it happens I do not accept anecdotal evidence as evidence for a gods existence or non existence. However, I do accept evidence from the double blind scientific trials conducted. They have shown there is no corrleation between the act of prayer and the outcome requested by the prayer, infact there was a slight negative correlation; where does that leave your argument?; in the toilet. Will you accept it? No probably not.

[KichigaiNeko]

YOu mean Capt'n that the xtians are only coming to grips with this issue NOW???

This is a very OLD experiment (some 20 years or more) if I am not mistaken.

[Captain Scarlet]

YOu mean Capt'n that the xtians are only coming to grips with this issue NOW???

This is a very OLD experiment (some 20 years or more) if I am not mistaken.

Well KN it is a valid experiment and not superceeded as far as I'm aware. As a peice of objective evidence of a god/s existence you would have thought this experiment was right up there. It is certainly superior to any of the subjective experiences we are told about on here every day.

So where does that leave us, where these pathetic arguments from personal expereince always leave us. As soon as this hide and seek god has the lens of science is overlaid; there is an awkward silence, zip, nothing at all, empty heavens. We are then told that we cannot detect the supernatural, which not only presupposes a supernatural but also is demonstrabely false as miracles apparently occur daily...as they only effect the natural world they are detectable by science using natural methods. Only when tested they turn out to be....unsurprisingly nothing unusal, stunts, frauds, wish thinking. But the chrsitian who cuts his finger on a tin of cat food and prays for the pain to go away, still thinks it was god when the pain goes away. I wonder what the poor ba$tards who die every day in natural disasters and are equally devout think...oh no wait they are the lucky ones aren't they...?

[Minimalist]

Your deity "cares for the ones who worship him" by standing by and doing nothing while his obedient servants suffer horribly painful afflictions such as cancer, arthritis, migraine headaches, etc... He also does nothing while natural disasters ravage the homes and lives of people who worship him.

His deity is a scumbag. Explains everything.

[Thor]

Your deity "cares for the ones who worship him" by standing by and doing nothing while his obedient servants suffer horribly painful afflictions such as cancer, arthritis, migraine headaches, etc... He also does nothing while natural disasters ravage the homes and lives of people who worship him.

His deity is a scumbag. Explains everything.

That's as good of an explanation as any!

[bjhulk]

It is claimed that answered prayers strengthen the argument for the existence of God.

If that is so, why are unanswered prayers not counted against the existence of God?

Can we really accept as evidence a test where negative results are disregarded?

The only prayers that can be proved to be answered are the ones that God makes his chosen ones pray for. This is basically a test of faith and trust as he's making them sinless. Once we're sinless, then we never pray because we become God in the flesh. Those scriptures about Jesus kneeling down and praying are lies that were added by the Roman government who produced the new testament. Jesus never had to pray to God because God was using his body for his own purpose. God doesn't need anything but he knows the body needs food, clothes, water and a place to sleep. God makes sure that the body gets these necessities until it's killed. Jesus and all us saints get killed as we preach the gospel.