The inefficacy of prayer

[chatpilot]

Brick-top I never said independant thought was prayer, if you read what I defined as prayer you would not be so confused.I defined prayer as the act of communicating with God it is worship and also pleading for intervention or guidance with your life and mundane affairs.When you pray in the traditional christian sense you are trying to communicate with a being outside of yourself.

[Meatball]

When I think of prayer, I usually think of praising God, and asking for things.

I can't remember to chapter, but in The God Delusion Dawkins references a study done to test the effect of prayer on terminal hospital patients. Needless to say it had no effect.

It's actually pretty heartbreaking. My girlfriend is part of a Bible-study group, and there is one member with some ongoing life problems who prays extensively on a daily basis for God to fix her problems. She is having relationship problems and has 4 kids. She thinks having more will help things. She always talks about how it feels like God isn't helping her, and everyone in her group goes on about how patience is a virtue and God works in mysterious ways and whatnot.

This is the same person who will go on about how great and wonderful and loving God is. I just feel like slapping her in the face and telling her, "GOD ISN'T ANSWERING YOUR PRAYERS BECAUSE HE DOESN'T EXIST. DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS!"

[Brick-top]

Brick-top I never said independant thought was prayer, if you read what I defined as prayer you would not be so confused.I defined prayer as the act of communicating with God it is worship and also pleading for intervention or guidance with your life and mundane affairs.When you pray in the traditional christian sense you are trying to communicate with a being outside of yourself.

I know, I was bored and wanted you to argue with me.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

[FutureAndAHope]

It is my opinion that God answers some prayers but others he does not answer. He answers enough for me to maintain faith in him. It is not so much answers to specific prayer as it is an understanding that he is real and has good plans for me.

As an example of answered prayer. I had a sex site continually send me pictures of semi naked chicks, it started to anoy me so I thought maybe if I sued them they would stop. I was not sure about it as I did not want to be harsh with them, and give them a bad impression of who God was. So I prayed about it. Some minutes latter I started my normal rutine of trying to convert Muslums to Jesus I would always randomly select a verse believing it was guided by the Holy Spirit. This day I did this and it came up with:

No, already it is altogether a defect in you, that you have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather take wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? - 1Co 6:7

So I knew instantly that God was not wanting any law suite.

[Ace Otana]

Praying is for the dependant.

Already said this on the 1st page.

also prayer is usless.

[Tiberius]

As an example of answered prayer. I had a sex site continually send me pictures of semi naked chicks, it started to anoy me so I thought maybe if I sued them they would stop.

You could have simply sent an email asking to be taken off their list. No idea why you were on it in the first place though...perhaps you aren't as "Christian" as you say you are.

[FutureAndAHope]

As an example of answered prayer. I had a sex site continually send me pictures of semi naked chicks, it started to anoy me so I thought maybe if I sued them they would stop.

You could have simply sent an email asking to be taken off their list. No idea why you were on it in the first place though...perhaps you aren't as "Christian" as you say you are.

I was not on a sex site, it was being sent to my myspace account. It was advertising using some sort of Bot.

[Tiberius]

Well then suing them wouldn't have helped anyway. Believe it or not, advertising is legal!!! WOW! Perhaps your brain realized this when you were thinking about suing them. I highly doubt it was your God.

[chatpilot]

Too funny, sex sites can send you emails to their hearts delight there is nothing illegal about that.You don't need your god to stop those emails from coming usually you can block them or you can also click on an option to not recieve anymore emails from them usually found on the bottom of the email.

[starbucks]

Prayer is not useless.

Atheists still pray, and in fact they do the same thing that Christians do when they pray. They think long and hard about questions or problems, and they eventually figure out what to do. The only difference is that Christians think God answered them, and atheists know that it was themselves.

I'll have to heavily agree.

Everybody PRAYS whether they are beginning their prayers with "Dear God" or not. It's called "hoping" and "wishing".