Ask Your Question today
In this time of crisis a lot of people turn to prayer for help. I was curious what others think about prayer. I believe it is a waste of time and give people the feeling that they are doing something to help when in fact they are doing nothing. I don't fault people for doing because it brings some people comfort, but I do not believe there is any power in prayers since they fall on deaf, or should I say nonexistent, ears.
| Unsure | 5 | |
| Yes | 24 | |
| No | 18 |
If you were on a hunting trip in Montana and had to scale a tree to keep from being eaten by the Wolfpack beneath you, would you pray to some god, or call as loud as you could for help? Which one do you think would give you the best chance for survival?
I've never met a single person that believed in some god or religion that wasnt programmed to believe in it at a young age. It's called brainwashing.
In a hardship, people pray and hope like hell god saves them. But when they get the help they need, who gives it to them? Who brings food, or a shotgun, or vaccination? Not other people praying for help, that's for sure, but people who did everything they could to do for themselves and bring help to their fellow man. How many people huddled around a crucifix praying to the lord have ever helped anyone?
No. Even if I believed in a god, I wouldn't believe that he actively intervenes in the world to help people. Otherwise why would he refuse to help children trapped in child slavery rings but decide to help some spoilt first world person who's just going through a bit of a tough time? (That's not to say that anyone going through a tough time should cheer up just because others have it worse though). I doubt someone that all-wise and all-loving would choose to help people only when the mood strikes him, just on a whim. So if there were a god then he created the universe but then just sit back and let it unfold how it will, it's up to us to sort our own problems out.
The people who pray hear the prayer... even if no one else does...
Such people will tell you that prayer works.... why? Perhaps because some "infinite intelligence" planted a thought or idea in their mind. Perhaps because the very act of hearing their own prayer opened their own mind to possibilities...
Neither can be proven or disproven.
You can find many millions of people from all cultures and parts of the world who swear that prayer works. So the social evidence is very solid that it does work.
Yeah prayer works man, Just like santa claus and the easter bunny are real. Me! I just stole harry poofters magic wand and just make shit I want appear.
Maybe subconsciously it makes you do something to proactively help the situation. Purely speculation but I like to believe its has a small impact on a situation. Enough will pointed at a direction will eventually get someone to do something.
I pray.
I believe without question that sometimes it works.
I've seen things I can't explain.
That said, the idea of:
' thoughts and prayers '
After a mass shooting, or disaster.
Is a blastphemy to me.
Faith without works is dead.
God didn't pass the law that lets a retard buy an AR and shoot up a theatre, mall, concert, school, etc.
God allows evil to happen.
God gave man an ability to see evil, and to overcome or avoid it.
By greed, and stupidity if you vote against your own best interests.
God will allow you to suffer.
You suffer, then pray.
Ballot comes up, you vote to suffer some more.
God won't stop it.
You chose it.
That' s free will.
If you're still not clear.
read just the red words of jesus, or the diety of your choice.
mohamed, budda, etc.
Does that describe trumpty?
You got what you asked for.
It's hard to explain to nonbelievers because they already made up there minds and to me it's like talking in circles with them .
But I will say God is real I feel him within me and it is amazing and I wish everyone could experience it .
Maybe they have and just never notice it .
It's the height of egotism to believe that a deity which is supposedly in charge of the whole frigging universe and has been in that position for nearly 14 billion years gives a flying fuck what some pathetic little human happens to believe he or she really wants at one particular moment.
I completely agree. Except, I believe that all hypotheses including those like yours must be tested. So once long ago, my family was starting to get totally fucked up; it was falling apart. So I did something I had never done before. I prayed that the Grand Cosmic Consciousness would channel his grace through me and my finger tips to my family even though I would be unaware of it. I never told anyone. I no longer cared what happened. Now the story gets strange. About two weeks later, many people started saying that I was instilling beauty into everything I touched and was completely unaware of it.
This raises weird questions. I won't go into them, but there are many explanations for what happened. I neither believe nor disbelieve any of them because it would be unscientific to ignore the inconclusiveness of the methods and design of this experiment.
Good for you. I had a similar experience. My dog was going to be put down. I didn't know what else to do. So I asked the Great Spirit (I didn't know what else to say at the time, I didn't really have Faith in the usual sense) to channel healing energy through my hands to the dog's body. I just sat like that for a few mins visualizing the blue energy pass through the dogs body. Nothing else happened, the dog didn't react. I went off to bed. But the next day he was fine. And lived quite a few years more. Some years later I did find God, when I'd reached the bottom of the barrel of my life (amazing how many people come to him that way, maybe because it's only at that point they're ready to hand over everything to him and let go of it themselves). My life did change. I saw rather remarkable answers to my prayers that couldn't be ignored as coincidence. The key thing was that answers to prayers from God are normally accompanied by a deep sense of inner peace, a peace that's hard to describe unless it's been experienced. God is always accompanied by peace and beauty. God doesn't always answer prayers in the way, or timeframe, we expect. There are too many reasons to go into here, but some of them are (a) sometimes he has a better plan, we just can't see it at the time. We need to trust him and roll with it (b) it's all about relationship with God, it's not magic tricks. God wants us to want him, not the favours he can do (though he likes doing them and making us happy - when it's good for us and the right thing for us). Imagine it this way: God is like the dream parent. Think of your own mum or dad. Human relationships are rarely perfect, and some of you may have rotten mums or dads (or great ones). Good parents like to see you happy and do things that will help you to be truly happy. So sometimes they may have to say 'no' to you for your own good. Sometimes they say 'yes' for the same reason. Of course if they give you something nice, they would like you to look beyond the gift at the person that's giving it. Not many parents are terribly happy when their children only like them because they pay for everything, hand over the bank card etc. So when it comes to prayer, and whether it works, I suppose an important point is 'relationship'. It's not magic tricks. Even people who don't believe in God may find their prayers being answered if they pray - I think this may be God's way of offering them an invitation to a deeper relationship with Him. If you get this grace, I urge you with all my heart to seek further. Hope this helps.
What you have said is the closest thing to my experience that I have ever heard. At the same time, I take solace in Mathematics (especially the field of Statistics), and feel it's a human mandate to accept the cold impersonal nature of the universe just as it is, without supernatural belief. Once upon a time, Jesus of Nazareth said something useful, "... If the salt becomes tasteless, wherein lies it's savor?... You are the light of the world." But other than that, cultural anthropology tells us that religions become adaptive by causing conformity to benefit the group, not thru the inner peace and sound reasoning of each individual.
Very few people have my mindset. The empty prospect of either no God, or an impersonal one brings me comfort while simultaneously bringing awareness of a beautiful essence in a dimension larger than the space time of the wondrous physics, chemistry, evolution, and ecosystems of cosmology. Nothing fascinates me more than things I don't understand, especially secrets that can be cracked by empirical science.
I would say praying is pointless. Human sacrifice seems to be far more useful however. There was a time our most beautiful children were given good lives then sacrificed to the gods.