John A. Broussard

I tend to agree, but I can't see why people who believe in god need to pray for anything. Can't god figure out on her/his/its own what's best without the prayer.

Something here doesn't figure.

AnimatedMalamute

Excellent :thumbs:

Pertaining more to the OP, what about the fact that we're not really supposed to pray for everything to get better...? Not sure the exact reference at the moment, but, unless I'm mistaken, isn't there a passage that says we are to occasionally suffer on earth (to toughen us up, I suppose)? If that's the case, why pray when god specifically isn't going to answer?

-AM

Lógos Sokratikós

I don't agree with the terms of the poll:

Prayer may work, very probably because trusting a deity to help you with the upcoming horrible college exams or to keep up with the payments for your loan may work. Sheer logic shows us so, and there is certain evidence that faith* helps emotional well-being. Only in the realm of mental health.

On the other hand, totally apart from it's use as an organic, inborn substitute for Prozac, if it did work, everybody would win the lottery (remember Bruce Almighty?), etc. No such thing.

When you get what you want (oh, no no no, God's no big sky santa, no no! ) you attribute it to the mercifulness of the deity, and when you don't get what you want, you think it was not the will of the divinity... "It was not in his divine plan"... he knows better than we, yada yada" and you feel loved anyway.

Gimme. Ay. Break.

Childish,
Naive,
Gullible,
Servile,
Let me repeat:
S-E-R-V-I-L-E,
Oedipical,
...


*NOTE: Faith in anything, nothing in particular, and it surely doesn't do homage to any of the popular divinites around, since the same goes for your Mormon god or the Indian-next-door's pantheon.

May IPU shower you with blessings...

MadPhatCat

Check. They are all possible. And you also imply that some possibilities are "better" than others (which is what my question was) since according to you some possibilities are more "useful" than others. Remember this for later.

:rolling:
I was asking about your belief in your God answering prayers. There isn't just one idea of God. Why does your God make more sense than ANY other alternative? You aren't just an agnostic theist, you are Christian agnostic theist. Why does your Christian prayer belief make more sense than the other major religions' prayer beliefs? Why does it make more sense than saying "I don't know"? Why is it more "useful"?

Not what I was asking chief. No one said everything was random, and I never said you had to pick the prayer/random events possibility, I asked you why, when you admit that no one can know, you decide to be Christian. You made a jump, and you can't tell me why.

Useful for scientific inquiry? :rolling:
Oh you are a riot!

Anyway, I see no evidence of gnomes. I see no reason to believe in them (evidence doesn't support their existence), so I am without magic pain causing gnomes from the seventh dimension belief. If evidence of these gnomes is found, let's say an extraordinary amount of evidence, then I would have a reason to believe in them. Then I wouldn't be an agnomeist anymore. You on the other hand want to believe in something when the evidence doesn't justify your belief. If you want to talk about useful, can you guess which method is more useful?

You really want to go down this road? Useful? Scientific inquiry , mental health,daily life, you really think believing strongly in something that lacks sufficient evidence is useful? Astrology, Psychics, Bloodletting, exorcisms, hmm, I could go on and on. Apparently as long as a belief is possible, and a person thinks the belief is "useful", it is ok to have. That's your position? If so, I can put you into some pretty ridiculous company. What say you? And please, no more jokes, try your best to be serious. I almost peed my pants when you brought up science.

K

ManM:

I'm afraid I have to disagree on that point. In your analogy, the boy will not get ice cream unless the mother stops to get it (barring some strange circumstances as in the example I proposed).

Unlike in you analogy, when a person prays for something, there is nothing that says that she wouldn't have gotten the prayed for thing without praying. Afterall, people who pray sometimes get what they want and sometimes they don't EXACTLY the same way people who don't pray sometimes get what they want and sometimes don't.

I think I know a way to rescue the analogy in a way that we both will find satisfactory.

A mother drives her two sons by an ice cream store, a donut shop, and a candy store on the way home from school. Every day one son asks, silently in his head, for ice cream. The other son really likes candy, but doesn't think about asking for it in his head. Some days the mother stops at the ice cream store. Other days she stops at the donut shop. Still others she stops at the candy store. Most days she doesn't stop at all. Does the boy's silent petition for ice cream work?

MadPhatCat

If ManM every responds to this thread again I bet he would find your analogy acceptable. Of course, he wouldn't have a good response to your question, which is probably why he is MIA.

Also, I would like to note, you even removed the bit about the boy petitioning specifically to the mother. In your analogy, the boy is just wishing for, asking for ice cream... you didn't say to who. It could be Santa, Elvis, the Christian God, Aunt Bessie or the Mother.

This is important because we could expand the analogy further and have a dozen boys driven in a van. One silently asks the Mother for chocolate, one likes donuts above all else but doesn't ask anyone. One silently asks Allah for milkshakes, one likes Big Macs but doesn't ask. One silently asks Elvis for tacos..... and so on. Do any of the petitions work?

BlessNot

Do you pray to any of these gods you believe in even though you believe (assume) they are without omniscience?

If these alleged gods you believe (assume) are without omniscience, how is it possible for them to keep up with billions of prayer requests?

It seems like not only is omniscience an impossible attribute but so would a god without omniscience as well. Neither of these alleged deities can possibly exist outside the human mind.

Therefore, gods exist in the mind only.

Which brings me back to what I said in the first post:

Pray does not work.

God does not exist.

Ojuice5001

Yes. But like I said, I don't ask for specific interventions. Just other forms of communication.

Good question. I don't know the answer with any confidence. Maybe they have a kind of automatic process that takes prayers into account without the god paying attention to each individual prayer. Or maybe they have a division of labor that makes it manageable. Or it could be something else.

And I don't assume that the gods keep up with every last one of those billions of prayer requests. But it is enough that there is a point in praying.

Proxima Centauri

When gullible people believe they are being prayed for and believe that prayer works it can have a Placebo Effect. The effect of placebos is well known and has been proved. it can also work if they pray themselves and believe God will answer the prayer.
When gullible people believe that God is against them and will not help them or when gullible people believe that they have been cursed this can have a Nocebo effect.

Jobar

I agree that petitionary prayer is quite useless. However, I sometimes think of the prayer that Clarice Starling used in the novel Silence of the Lambs- "Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to be still."

That sort of prayer does work. It's a koan- an unanswerable riddle which can, approached properly, silence the internal dialogue and chatter most everyone carries on in their own mind most of the time. It can leave us concentrated on the external world, our full attention directed outwardly, simultaneously relaxed and alert. It can, indeed, teach us to be still.