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Prayer's Needed.. Why??

Rather than calling it prayer, some of the pagans I know think sending positive vibes out there into the universe is a positive action.
 
Visbek said:
Yes. By DP standards, his question is downright tame.



No individuals are named. He's not talking about a specific situation. Plenty of religious people are willing to say far, far harsher things about materialists / atheists. Anyone participating in the philosophy subforum ought to recognize that tough questions will be asked.

I assure you, by the way, there are FAR more direct, condescending, insulting and vicious of ways to insult people who practice intercessory prayer.
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Well 6 pages of making sure everyone knows the OP is a very insensitive person. Good job all around. Hope he never looks into a dying family members eyes looking for help or answers.
 
Logicman said:
Nope, that's godless liberalism that's full of excuses and nonsense.



Next time you need a miracle make sure you face east and pray to Oprah.
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Blah blah blah. Try to address my actual points next time.
 
CRUE CAB said:
I read, and am sorry if my answers and tone are too straight forward for your types. People post the things like the OP, hoping for an argument.
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It's not your tone. It's the fact that you are misrepresenting what he is saying. Willful ignorance bothers me way more than a little attitude.
 
CRUE CAB said:
Well 6 pages of making sure everyone knows the OP is a very insensitive person. Good job all around. Hope he never looks into a dying family members eyes looking for help or answers.
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Right, it's his fault that prayer does no good, lol.

Such a load of ****.
 
CRUE CAB said:
Prove it does no good.
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Uh... okay?

Are there demonstrable effects of distant intercessory prayer? A me... - PubMed - NCBI
https://www.templeton.org/pdfs/press_releases/060407STEP_paper.pdf

As long as prayer is not the exclusive form of treatment, we can be virtually certain it doesn't harm anyone. It's not clear if intercessory prayer actually improves the mood of the prayer or recipient.

But statistically, so far it looks like intercessory prayer does not significantly change outcomes.
 
Prayer is a form of meditation [with how I see it]. It's a way to calm yourself and control your emotions in a situation where things are just out of your control.

Doesn't necessarily mean someone's expecting god to follow through with anything. Again - with how I see it [an atheist raised by Christians - minister father]
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Prayer is a form of meditation [with how I see it]. It's a way to calm yourself and control your emotions in a situation where things are just out of your control.

Doesn't necessarily mean someone's expecting god to follow through with anything. Again - with how I see it [an atheist raised by Christians - minister father]
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Nor does God always say 'yes'
 
CRUE CAB said:
Topic off limits? No, but did you read his reasoning in his OP. Very condescending and almost a hope to attempt an insult to anyone that does pray for a family member and or asks others to if they are of the same bend.
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That is not at all what I implied. I perfectly understand why people pray for loved ones when they feel powerless to help. That is not the question. The question is why would a loving and compassionate God not be motivated to help simply by seeing someone suffer, but rather would need a bunch of people to beg and plead with him to motivate him to intercede and heal that person?
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Prayer is a form of meditation [with how I see it]. It's a way to calm yourself and control your emotions in a situation where things are just out of your control.

Doesn't necessarily mean someone's expecting god to follow through with anything. Again - with how I see it [an atheist raised by Christians - minister father]
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Well prayer is actually a lot of different things depending on the prayer. One can pray for serenity (a meditation prayer). One can pray for guidance. One can pray to be thankful. One can pray to praise God. One can pray to ask for intercession. The prayers I am referring to in the opening post are the ones for intercession, specifically the ones where we ask God to help and heal a sick or injured love one.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Let me start by saying that I was raised Christian, but I am no longer religious. One thing that I often see are appeals like the following:

"My son [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]needs your prayers. He started shivering and spiked a high fever. We are at the hospital right now waiting for them to do some tests."[/FONT]

[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]"Our father was rushed to the hospital last night with chest pains. Please pray for him."[/FONT]

[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]"My wife's cancer is not responding to chemo. Please pray."[/FONT]

[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]We have all seen appeals like those. Parents whose child is sick or has been involved in an accident asking for others to pray for them. People praying for loved ones that are sick or have gone missing, or have been in an accident and so on. Of course we always feel for them, particularly when its a parent whose child is sick or injured. What I don't understand though is why if God is a good and loving god, does he need hundreds of people or more begging and pleading with him before he considers helping someone? It seems to me that if one is to accept the "power of prayer", then it follows that God is up there in heaven like this:

"Well sorry to tell you that you will have to watch your child die a long and agonizing death, but tell you what. If you get enough people down there to beg and plead with me on behalf of your child, I might, just might, change my mind."

Am I the only one that sees it that way?[/FONT]
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You're far from the first to question the practice.


However, the usual short answer is: Well it can't hurt.


Longer answer: group prayer is arguably endorsed in Acts, though there is some debate about collective prayer to meet a request/need.
 
Goshin said:
You're far from the first to question the practice.


However, the usual short answer is: Well it can't hurt.


Longer answer: group prayer is arguably endorsed in Acts, though there is some debate about collective prayer to meet a request/need.
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I understand the scriptural justification for it. There are examples of prayers for intercession throughout scripture with many parallel versus between the Gospels. My question was more about the logical / moral implication of a God that requires people to beg him in order to motivate him to heal someone or alleviate their suffering.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I understand the scriptural justification for it. There are examples of prayers for intercession throughout scripture with many parallel versus between the Gospels. My question was more about the logical / moral implication of a God that requires people to beg him in order to motivate him to heal someone or alleviate their suffering.
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If you wanna go there, I'll go there with ya, but be warned it is going to get theological. :)


What is the purpose of prayer?

God is omniscient. Nothing you say is news to him. So why pray?

It is for our spiritual benefit, and communion with God. It teaches us to rely on Him, to turn things over to Him, to seek and accept His will, to turn our hearts and minds towards Him.

It's part of a bigger picture where all the pieces ultimately fit together in a plan only God is big enough to see: all our troubles and triumphs, all our joys and trials.

Why ask God for anything then, since He already knows? It is an act of faith; God honors faith, and faith benefits the spirit of the person praying.


Why do it in groups then? Well, it can't hurt... :D
 
Goshin said:
It is for our spiritual benefit, and communion with God.
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How does asking a deity to stop a disease, in one specific person, qualify as a "communion?"

Communion is the sharing of intimate thoughts and feelings. But by your own stipulation, your deity is omniscient, and doesn't need to be addressed directly to know you care about a specific person. You also aren't receiving any actual communication from the deity; it certainly isn't sharing its intimate thoughts and feelings with the supplicant.


It teaches us to rely on Him, to turn things over to Him, to seek and accept His will, to turn our hearts and minds towards Him.
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If you had a choice between taking antibiotics or praying, which should you choose? Since antibiotics work without prayer, how exactly are you relying upon the deity?

If you were accepting the deity's will, why would you ask the deity to change the course of events?


It's part of a bigger picture where all the pieces ultimately fit together in a plan only God is big enough to see: all our troubles and triumphs, all our joys and trials.
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How does a small child dying from leukemia fit into the deity's plan?

If by definition you can't judge the plan, how do you know it's benevolent? How do you know that particular person's disease is part of it? How do you know the deity doesn't enjoy human suffering?

Do you have free will? How can you simultaneously have truly free will, and be subject to the plan of a deity?

Do you know what an unfalsifiable claim is?


Why ask God for anything then, since He already knows? It is an act of faith; God honors faith, and faith benefits the spirit of the person praying.
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Why is it an act of faith to ask the deity to intervene? If intercessory prayer does not change the outcome -- as is frequently the case -- then why do you regard this as your deity honoring faith? If you beg a deity for 6 months for your wife's cancer to go into remission, and she dies from cancer instead, then was your faith honored? How did your spirit benefit?What about people who have a crisis of faith, when extensive intercessory prayer fails?
 
Visbek said:
How does asking a deity to stop a disease, in one specific person, qualify as a "communion?"

Communion is the sharing of intimate thoughts and feelings. But by your own stipulation, your deity is omniscient, and doesn't need to be addressed directly to know you care about a specific person. You also aren't receiving any actual communication from the deity; it certainly isn't sharing its intimate thoughts and feelings with the supplicant.



If you had a choice between taking antibiotics or praying, which should you choose? Since antibiotics work without prayer, how exactly are you relying upon the deity?

If you were accepting the deity's will, why would you ask the deity to change the course of events?



How does a small child dying from leukemia fit into the deity's plan?

If by definition you can't judge the plan, how do you know it's benevolent? How do you know that particular person's disease is part of it? How do you know the deity doesn't enjoy human suffering?

Do you have free will? How can you simultaneously have truly free will, and be subject to the plan of a deity?

Do you know what an unfalsifiable claim is?



Why is it an act of faith to ask the deity to intervene? If intercessory prayer does not change the outcome -- as is frequently the case -- then why do you regard this as your deity honoring faith? If you beg a deity for 6 months for your wife's cancer to go into remission, and she dies from cancer instead, then was your faith honored? How did your spirit benefit?What about people who have a crisis of faith, when extensive intercessory prayer fails?
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When all is said and done my answer to all your questions is: Faith.
 
Visbek said:
You understand that's not an answer. Right?
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You realize you're being unnecessarily argumentative. Right?

What are you, the answer police? You get to decide what constitutes an answer? Typical.....
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Let me start by saying that I was raised Christian, but I am no longer religious. One thing that I often see are appeals like the following:

"My son [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]needs your prayers. He started shivering and spiked a high fever. We are at the hospital right now waiting for them to do some tests."[/FONT]

[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]"Our father was rushed to the hospital last night with chest pains. Please pray for him."[/FONT]

[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]"My wife's cancer is not responding to chemo. Please pray."[/FONT]

[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]We have all seen appeals like those. Parents whose child is sick or has been involved in an accident asking for others to pray for them. People praying for loved ones that are sick or have gone missing, or have been in an accident and so on. Of course we always feel for them, particularly when its a parent whose child is sick or injured. What I don't understand though is why if God is a good and loving god, does he need hundreds of people or more begging and pleading with him before he considers helping someone? It seems to me that if one is to accept the "power of prayer", then it follows that God is up there in heaven like this:

"Well sorry to tell you that you will have to watch your child die a long and agonizing death, but tell you what. If you get enough people down there to beg and plead with me on behalf of your child, I might, just might, change my mind."

Am I the only one that sees it that way?[/FONT]
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Since goods must be apportioned by God according to the variety of circumstances, he has established in certain cases, that he will make prayer the cause of him assigning certain goods in certain cases.
 
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