Kachana

When someone prays to God, I think it can be shown that in effect, the individual is either asking for an evil outcome, or passing judgment on God's character (which can also be considered evil). Consider:

1. God knows everything, and further knows what is objectively best in every situation.
2. You do NOT know what is objectively best in every situation.
3. God makes happen what is objectively best in every situation (with the possible caveat of altering people's use of their own free will).

So, to pray to God given the above premises and to ask Him to fulfill a particular request is to ask God to do what you personally and ignorantly think is 'right', with the assumption that this is at odds with what God would do anyway (otherwise there would be no point in asking). Therefore, you are asking God to halt his objectively perfect course of action for a course of action you subjectively prefer, in effect, asking God to commit evil by replacement of His perfect plan with your personal desires.

An example: Say a close friend is in hospital with cancer. Given God's perfectly good nature, you have every reason to trust in God and expect Him to do the objectively right thing (which we must remember can sometimes involve someone dying). To pray and ask God to save this person is to request that God substitutes his objectively perfect course of action for an outcome you personally like. This is asking God to commit an evil act as it deviates from His perfect plan.

One way to avoid this conclusion is if the individual who is praying does want the objectively right outcome. But now we have a situation in which a person is asking God to do the objectively right thing, which is to assume that God may not have done the objectively right thing without your prayer, a judgement that God is not capable of following through with His perfect course of action without you personally reminding Him!

So, why pray?

Daggah

Because God is Santa for adults, that's why.

(hats off to you, Kally )

Seeker196

Also doesn't "God" come right out and say that he creates 'both good and evil' in the merry old OT?

Therefore he wouldn't always want what is 'objectively best' in every situation.

Heleilu

Because petitionary prayer is essentially a magic ritual. Magic doesn't have to follow the usual rules of logic.

Kachana

This is where I think most Christians would disagree. The consequences of and reasons for prayer are held to be logical in nature.

If they were not, then Christians would not pray at predictable times (e.g. when someone is ill, or at times of war), and neither would they flaunt reasoned empirical studies allegedly showing the positive effects of prayer. Nor could they have reasoned arguments amongst themselves about what the Bible prescribes for praying methods, frequency of prayer, and topics for prayer. That so many discussions of this nature take place suggest that the reasons for praying can be argued about about and logically dissected, instead of being removed from the field of human enquiry.

Perhaps some Chritians would be happy to hand wave the problem away like this, but I would expect this to be an unsatisfying refutation to any apologist worth his or her salt.

sidewinder

I agree with your analysis. Prayer makes no sense. According to modern day Christians, God knows everything that will happen. Which means it's all going to happen according to his plan. There's no stopping his plan. So why bother praying because God's not going to change his mind. He can't change his mind.

Of course, this view is in direct conflict with the Biblical idea of prayer and the actions of God. It seems the Bible teaches that prayer does affect the decisions of God. The idea is that God is limited in his omniscience. He doesn't know how things will turn out because humans are basically free creatures. God in the OT changes his mind on more than a few occassions.

ManM

According to St. John Climacus, "prayer is by nature a dialog and a union of man with God." It is not necessarily a request.

Dread Pirate Rasputin

That was quite an evasion of the question. I would venture to say that a large majority of prayer is request-based. We're not asking about meditation here.

JL

God is purely good. The universe/reality/nature (generally speaking) is amoral. But God is omnipotent. The contradiction is blatant as Kachana's pointed out. So "The Lord works in mysterious ways." Christianity is nothing without faith. Otherwise such an irrational worldview could not exist.

Pangea

When people talk about documented positive effects of prayer, I kind of equate it to those hypochondriacs (sp?) who talk themselves right into cancer. Positive or negative thought works wonders Kind of like the placebo effect.