Proof God Does Not Answer Prayer

Logicman said:

This is the old "Telephone Game" absurdity as applied to the New Testament. That a story was given in the beginning and that as it passed through others, the story morphed into something else..

The reason that fails is that in the Telephone Game, as in real life, there was always a moderator present who knew the original truth, and corrected the end-result to show the error.

The fact is there have always been those keepers of the Word throughout history.

The other truth is we have the earliest manuscripts and writings of the earliest church fathers. Christ was resurrected then, and he's resurrected now.

You might also compare the "Great Isaiah Scroll" (of the Dead Sea Scroll) to the Book of Isaiah that we have today to see how nicely they still coincide.

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Are you suggesting that the bible hasn't changed?


Are you suggesting that the bible doesn't borrow HEAVILY from various other pagan religions for it's stories?

KevinKohler said:

Please.

I can think of no less than 3 glaring contradictions right off the top of my head....

The war that cast out Lucifer. All powerful beings don't wage war. It's not needed.

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I don't see why. But first you should answer this question:

How would you, as God, create man with free will and at the same time not give him the ability to do right or WRONG / SIN?

And if there's sin, then there's the war of good against evil.

Logicman said:

I don't see why. But first you should answer this question:

How would you, as God, create man with free will and at the same time not give him the ability to do right or WRONG / SIN?

And if there's sin, then there's the war of good against evil.

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Heavenly beings don't have free will, they are the arbiters of God's will. Ergo, saying that there was a war between two factions of heavenly beings...one backed by someone who is all powerful, while logically a fail, is just there for an interesting story. It's believed that portion was added in for the benefit of the Romans.

As to the concept of free will, that defies the concept of predetermination, doesn't it?

KevinKohler said:

The war that cast out Lucifer. All powerful beings don't wage war. It's not needed.

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According to medieval tradition when Lucifer and his pals were cast out of heaven they crashed to the Earth and in the process made a large hole which is the entrance to hell. Satellite photos have not yet revealed the location of this hole.

KevinKohler said:

Are you suggesting that the bible hasn't changed?

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Not to the degree that you think. For instance, document for me where the resurrection of Jesus wasn't in the earliest accounts / manuscripts?

KevinKohler said:

Are you suggesting that the bible doesn't borrow HEAVILY from various other pagan religions for it's stories?

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Yeah, I am denying it, and so far NOT ONE of you skeptics has been able to document it. You can't document WHO borrowed WHAT, WHEN, and HOW.

KevinKohler said:

Heavenly beings don't have free will, they are the arbiters of God's will. Ergo, saying that there was a war between two factions of heavenly beings...one backed by someone who is all powerful, while logically a fail, is just there for an interesting story. It's believed that portion was added in for the benefit of the Romans.

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You say it doesn't happen, but what evidence do you have that it doesn't? And who's to say God isn't a 'gentleman' who is allowing Satan and his hoards a certain amount of time to make their case that they can do things their way for the ultimate benefit of mankind? You actually do see that in Job chapters 1 and 2, where God allows Satan to make his case for a period of time, though in the end God blessed Job anyway.

KevinKohler said:

As to the concept of free will, that defies the concept of predetermination, doesn't it?

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Nope. Foreknowledge is not determinism.

Would appreciate you answering the previous question that went unanswered: How would you, as God, create man with free will and at the same time not give him the ability to do right or WRONG / SIN?

Logicman said:

I don't see why. But first you should answer this question:

How would you, as God, create man with free will and at the same time not give him the ability to do right or WRONG / SIN?

And if there's sin, then there's the war of good against evil.

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Ok, but if there was no challenge, everything was good, then there would be no need to strive and work for more.

Also, if there was no evil for contrast, then good would have no meaning.

BmanMcfly said:

Ok, but if there was no challenge, everything was good, then there would be no need to strive and work for more.

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I can't imagine a whole planet agreeing on something so that there would be no challenge to God. History shows us that doesn't happen.

BmanMcfly said:

Also, if there was no evil for contrast, then good would have no meaning.

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Exactly. Then people wouldn't know that God is good or that Satan is evil.

tosca1 said:

Watching the shorter video above reminds me of mishaps by Israel's enemies in the Old Testament - due to God's intervention! Remember the OT account of several armies from allied enemies who were ready to annihilate the Jews ended up confused?

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I guess...if you believe that ****.

shrubnose said:

Maybe God wanted to give the news media and us here on debate politics something to talk about, eh? :roll:

When God wants us to know something, He'll tell it to us.

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Maybe God owns stock in CNN.

Texmex said:

I guess...if you believe that ****.

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There are some ding-dong battles in the Lord Of The Rings.

Texmex said:

I guess...if you believe that ****.

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I though Tex Mex's were believers, having the Catholic / Christian heritage and all. But then you see them supporting anti-Biblical candidates like Obama and company and you wonder.

Logicman said:

I though Tex Mex's were believers, having the Catholic / Christian heritage and all. But then you see them supporting anti-Biblical candidates like Obama and company and you wonder.

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You mean you thought all Mexicans were Catholic? How foolish. Of course, you readily believe in fairy tales, so being wrong again means nothing.

Texmex said:

You mean you thought all Mexicans were Catholic? How foolish. Of course, you readily believe in fairy tales, so being wrong again means nothing.

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You're the one believing in fairy tales. You might want to read this to find out why.

rhinefire said:

A plane is flying with a mad man at the controls. 149 people sense all is wrong as the craft descends in the middle of a mountain range. All begin eight minutes of prayer and scream for God to help and his answer was "I'm not in right now. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Good bye". When will people of faith know there is no one to help them but themselves?

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Yet another sophomoric argument.

Here's a clue: It's "sin" usually because people get hurt or killed. God gave us free will, but not do-overs.

Paschendale said:

Tsunami said:

Flawed atheist logic. This is proof God doesn't answer ALL prayer, an obvious straw-man. If God exists he is fully capable of answering some prayers and ignoring some others. Having an answering machine doesn't mean you never pick up.

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So your argument then is that god is capricious and cruel? God could save children dying in agony, but chooses not to. And you think this is points in this god's favor?

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Great, the two things I hate about atheists, all in one thread. First the flawed logic, and now the arrogance to think a supreme being couldn't have a motive beyond their own understanding.

I don't claim to know whether God exists or what it might be thinking if it does, but I can certainly come up with a possibility that explains this beyond cruelty, first being that God allows us to exercise free will which results in both liberty and suffering. And that freedom is worth suffering for.

zyzygy said:

Give me an example of a mountain being moved by faith.

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KevinKohler said:

Tectonic plates move mountains.


But by all means, back that up. List the number of mountains to date that have been relocated via faith.

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I'm not really interested in a semantic argument over what exactly constitutes a mountain. But if you need to take it literally, this is the first thing that came to mind:

RabidAlpaca said:

The real evidence that there is no god was the holocaust. 6 million of his own people praying and suffering, and he wouldn't lift a single finger to do anything about it. Mortal men with everything to lose took fate into their own hands and risked their own lives to end the holocaust. What blows my mind is the religious who are so arrogant to think that god managed to ignore 6 million murders of his own people, but that he's going to intervene in their piddly ass problems.

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when we put our problems in context, it is humbling, isn't it? I study the Middle East (and other places) for a living. The Christian communities there are praying for God to rescue their children from being killed. It makes my own nightly requests for my children to sleep well and wake rested seem a bit shallow.

:shrug: but then, prayer isn't really about "Getting God To Do Something For You", now, isn't it? That's magic, and it has no place in Christianity. God isn't beholden to any particular law wherein if you invoke His name while standing in a certain position on a full moon/during the summer equinox while sacrificing a virgin rabbit (and good luck finding one) over a chocolate egg He has to do what you ask, so long as it requires the movement of no less than (3) people or expenditure of no more than (1,500) US Dollars (constant). Rather, prayer is intended to put us in a right place before God - it's for helping us to change, not Him.


What you are identifying here is the Problem of Pain and the Problem of Evil.


Both of these are stronger arguments when martialed for God, and rather weak when they are attempted to as arguments against Him, which is why the Apologists spend so much time on them. (A short, but good work on pain, if you are interested.) But it comes down to Love - mostly, love of us. Why Evil? Because God gave us free will. Why Pain? Because evil has effects.

But the existence of Evil comes with it's own set of problems. If you are going to accuse God of running a world in which Evil is allowed full reign, you have to start with at least the presupposition of His existence. Otherwise, the case for Evil collapses ("evil" compared to what?).

And while Pain can come from good things (Your muscles burn after exercise. Your hand stings after high-fiving your best friend. Children are delivered by childbirth.), pain is also undoubtedly the intended and at usually at least the immediate result of Evil. But there is a catch - we are playing checkers against a God who is playing 3-D chess, and who knows what all our moves are going to be. The Bible (and non-biblical history) is replete with examples of how our petty attempts at evil can be turned by an awesome God to the greater good - it is, in fact, sort of His signature move. It must be terribly frustrating for evil, watching actions intended for wickedness play into His plan for the salvation of the world. And so a man flies a plane into a mountain. Who knows what may come of it. Only He to whom the future is not a darkened window.

Those on the plane pray for physical salvation and do not receive it? Well, it's not because God didn't love them, or because He didn't consider them important. Quite the opposite, in fact. Christians have an excellent example of what to do when even our most heartfelt, desperate prayers don't get answered - Jesus Christ. Jesus prayed fervently, desperately, every bit as much afraid as the passengers on that plane to avoid the cross. The Bible records that he was so locked up (in a state of shock, really) with terror as he stared at the prospect of being whipped, flayed, beaten, and slowly tortured to death that blood squeezed from his eye sockets as he begged his Father to find another way. The answer was "No", and Jesus accepted his Fathers' will and went faithfully to enact it. And look at what an incredible thing God was able to do with the evil of mankind that day - forgiveness for sinners, freedom for slaves, joy for the hopeless.

RabidAlpaca said:

ctd...

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Your example of the Holocaust is also an excellent and amazing lesson on the need to have faith when we can't possibly - with our limited range of vision - understand what is going on around us. Imagine if you can even for a second the horror and confusion and bleakness of finding yourself in a death camp, or in a ghetto awaiting transport, or in a position of leadership being asked to betray some of your people to save others. Watching the bodies pile up, with no end in sight save maybe the Allies win, if anyone is left alive by then... think of the faith it would take to still believe and trust in His plan.

...yet the Holocaust didn't end the Jewish people. And, after more than two millenia, the state of Israel was the result. Amazing.

Interestingly enough, the Nazis weren't the first empire to try to wipe out the Jews, and this wasn't the first time that God has used suffering to reprove, improve, and restore the Jewish people.



Now it is possible to point at a plane crash and state that no good has come of it compared to it's cost - but it is not wise, because that argument carries within it an incredible statement of.... faith. Implicit in the argument is the hidden belief that if evil's deeds appear pointless to you, then they must be pointless in fact. It's an incredible (astronomical, really) statement of faith in the supremacy and power of ones' own cognitive abilities over the combined rest of reality.




God could wipe out Evil and end Pain, sure - but to do so, He would have to destroy us. He may keep some automatons around, flesh robots who walk around all day and by their programming can never choose to do anything that isn't in His will, but it wouldn't be us, it wouldn't be the Humans that He made in His image, with power and might, with all the good and the evil that can flow from that.

Humanity's common culture, believe it or not, appears to be getting at least less brutal, and as the values taught by Christianity (the inherent worth and dignity of the individual, benefiting yourself by seeking to benefit others) spread across the Globe, we may even be getting somewhat better. I don't pretend to know the specifics of the Plan. I couldn't even tell you the specifics as it pertains to me. I'm getting on a plane this week and may join those folks soon. And sure, if my plane starts to go down, I'll probably pray that God finds a way to save my life - even Jesus did that, after all. But if His answer is "no", well, then, I suppose I'll do my best to accept it faithfully (It's a hard thing to fight your self-regard and physical instincts) and I hope that my wife will do the same, and teach our children to do the same. After all - what has happened to me? A few minutes of terror, and then I have gone Home. If someone blew me apart with a bomb - well, the (cosmic) joke is actually on them. I am the winner, and they the loser, both in this world, and the next.

shrubnose said:

But it can't stop planes full of people from crashing into them,eh? :roll:

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You're confusing did not with can not.