I think the whole idea is: you can't always get what you want, but if you pray sometimes you might just find you get what you need - seriously plagiarising The Stones for that - but I think at least from what I understand, that is the point of prayer.
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How come prayers that would unambiguously prove God's answering of prayers never get answered? How come it's only ones that could simply be coincidences? For example, how come "I wish I get a job" prayers get answered all the time, but "I wish to regenerate my amputated limb" prayers never get answered?
For example, a similar thing happened to my mother many years ago (referring to the above example about finding a job), but she found out it was because some company that interviewed her turned her down, but were still very impressed with her, so they passed the word on. But she didn't pray (as far as I know)...
Also, how do you know for sure when it's God actively getting involved in your life and when it's just a matter of pure coincidence?
No, I'm not going to throw a lot of scriptures at you, just maybe a few. For example, I recall (I can dig it up if you want) a scripture where Jesus unambiguously says that He will answer any prayers that we have... though Christians differ on whether or not to take the Bible completely or not completely literally.
For example, a similar thing happened to my mother many years ago (referring to the above example about finding a job), but she found out it was because some company that interviewed her turned her down, but were still very impressed with her, so they passed the word on. But she didn't pray (as far as I know)...
Also, how do you know for sure when it's God actively getting involved in your life and when it's just a matter of pure coincidence?
No, I'm not going to throw a lot of scriptures at you, just maybe a few. For example, I recall (I can dig it up if you want) a scripture where Jesus unambiguously says that He will answer any prayers that we have... though Christians differ on whether or not to take the Bible completely or not completely literally.
Most Christians believe that God will answer all sincere prayers.
The important thing is that getting a prayer answered is not the same thing as getting what you prayed for.
The important thing is that getting a prayer answered is not the same thing as getting what you prayed for.
But then that again makes it ambiguous and even more possible to be a complete coincidence. When you leave it up to the imagination to think whether or not a prayer was answered, a whole slew of possibilities could instead replace your original request, raising the likelihood that your prayer was answered by coincidence, not by God. How do you know when it's God and when it's coincidence?
ADDED: For example, if you ask God for a sign through a lightning strike, that's a pretty low chance of happening. But if you think that your prayer is answered even if it only begins to rain, then that's a higher chance of happening (and so on). Not to mention that if nothing happens, you usually forget about it.
Holycannoli
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Yes they can.
From Matthew:
From John:
From James:
This all ties into Matthew 16:16-19, perhaps the most important passages regarding this matter:
16 Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
Extreme power and responsibility was given to Peter that day. But he was guided well. Jesus also gave his disciples the power to forgive sins (part of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, since sin is what can prevent someone from entering). The disciples passed this power on through apostolic succession. Today's priests can trace their ordinations all the way back to the disciples and Jesus himself.
It's not absolutely necessary to confess to a priest. But not confessing to a priest, and only confessing to God through thoughts has a danger of not being sincere. Confession also brings humility; it's not easy to admit what you did wrong. Confessing also has the benefit of being able to be guided by a priest so you can avoid sin in the future. God gave his disciples and his priests this power for a reason.
Again, it's not necessary, but it's highly recommended if you're a Catholic. Perhaps other denominations that practice it recommend it as well?
Holycannoli
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That's a tough one because that's the very definition of coincidence. I think one would have to take into consideration what he/she prayed for and how God responded. If you pray for rain and it rains, did God answer your prayer? What if other people were praying for no rain?
You have to take this on a case-by-case basis.
EDIT: A lot of times the answer to a prayer is indeed in the form of a coincidence. Praying to regenerate an amputated limb is praying to alter physical reality in a miraculous way. It's possible, but I wouldn't expect a prayer like that to be answered the way the amputee might want, because what if being an amputee is more important for that person that having a limb regenerated?
As for prayers for things like jobs, it could seem like pure coincidence when they're answered. I personally got a call from someone I used to work with, who just happened to be working with a company I would enjoy working for, and who just so happened to lose their employee at the same time I was praying for some help. Coincidence? Sure, that's what a coincidence is. That's also what an answer to a prayer is
It's not a miracle or and altering of the laws of physics and reality, it's just a little divine help in a time of need.So then how do you know when God helps us in our lives and when he doesn't? How do you know whether he does so at all?
scy12
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What do you think about the potential of supernatural phenomena being the truth , if you don't have the evidence required to prove that they exist ? What would you think if i made the claim that behind me , there is an untraceable for everyone other than me, dragon ?
In my case, I would be inclined to think that I was not exactly in a position to judge the truth value of that claim; I would act as though it is not true but would understand why you might act as though it is true, and then leave it at that.
Prayer is a belief that god is active in the world and a longing for god to be active in one's life.
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
I'm not sure, but I speculate that it's because you can only pray sincerely for the things you think are possible.
On the other hand, would that even be an unambiguous proof? We saw in a thread a little while ago that a lot of men would insist that their penises had been stolen by sorcerors before someone else pointed out to them that this wasn't really the case, whereupon the men turned to insisting that it had been shrunk. If someone got an amputated limb regenerated, you might still insist that it had never been amputated and that the person had been deluding themselves.
Technically, it's always both, in the way that everything happening to a character in a book happens both because the author was involved and because of events in the world in the book.
But I suspect that this is unhelpful. What I think you want to ask is how I can know for sure which cases are intervened in by God immediately and which cases are the result of God saying "Let there be light" a long time ago, and my answer is that I can't. I am convinced but not certain.
Perfection
The Great Head.
When does you get a soul?
Atheism is the belief that you might as well pray to the moon for all the good it will do you.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
The reason for prayer always seemed a bit strange to me.
God allready knows of your plight, right? Or could it be that in his 'decisionmaking' the prayer gets involved? Maybe beforehand. If this feller prays for X, he will get Y. If he doesn't he will get Z. Sort of like the great plan, but with options.
We do have free will after all, but it's not certain that Z is better then Y.
I'm always so easily confused by this.
God allready knows of your plight, right? Or could it be that in his 'decisionmaking' the prayer gets involved? Maybe beforehand. If this feller prays for X, he will get Y. If he doesn't he will get Z. Sort of like the great plan, but with options.
We do have free will after all, but it's not certain that Z is better then Y.
I'm always so easily confused by this.
The reason for prayer always seemed a bit strange to me.
God allready knows of your plight, right? Or could it be that in his 'decisionmaking' the prayer gets involved? Maybe beforehand. If this feller prays for X, he will get Y. If he doesn't he will get Z. Sort of like the great plan, but with options.
We do have free will after all, but it's not certain that Z is better then Y.
I'm always so easily confused by this.
We don't have free will with an omniscient God, even compatabillists can't argue their way out of that one, most chose not to, those that have any sense that is, or pseudo compatabillists like Daniel Dennet. Free will is incompatible with religion, and the compatible argument leads to a circular argument that redefines what free will is. As the Abrahamic faiths describe free will, you are shooting yourself in the foot, by claiming omniscience and free will can exist in anything but terms of an illusion of free will, that doesn't really exist. Since God knows how everything in the Universe will evolve from now till the end of time, there are no possible futures only one future, and no fancy argument that you are not aware of that gifts you magically with free will. There's no getting around it, compatibillism is a cop out, that redefines free will to make it fit with religion. Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.
This leads to two conclusions, God is liar, which is supposedly impossible or that mankind is wrong about God. Or that the future does not exist, which solves both the problem with omniscience and free will rather neatly, and just so happens to be the theory of choice for the discerning scientific philosopher.
There is one further answer and that is that God is not subject to logic nor is his universe therefore always subject to logic, which leads to even more frightening and untenable conclusions than it solves and thus is ignored by most.
Long story short Gods omniscience ≠ free will.
To God asking for something when your life is predefined from the moment you are born to the moment you die, makes no sense. From those who believe they have more than one future despite God making that impossible in all but terms of a belief, then it's not so silly. It still makes no sense, but then there you go. If religion ever made sense then I'd probably be much more inclined to follow it.
Let's face it to God the Universe is a game that is already played, and he must of been bored shitless to have created such a stupifyingly pedestrian Universe. It's like playing monopoly with predetermined dice rolls for everyone, whilst reading your lines off cue cards. Might as well just not bother. On the other hand you could accept that mankind is not above making things hard for himself logically, and since the faiths have been pondering this question with no real resolution for over a thousand years, I'm not hopeful they will come up with an answer. And let's face it faith changes with all the alacrity of an ice age.
In The OT God seems to be less than omniscient at times, either that or he's just cruel. Then man claims he is absolutely omniscient without proviso, then realises he just shot religion in the foot logically, so spends the next millenia or two either trying to make religion compatible with logic, or playing semantic games with logic and the definitions of free will, to try and avoid the question.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Sidhe, I agree, but I doubt believers will. My question was not asked out of argument sake, but pure curiousity.
Venturing off into the slightly rediculous. Multiple dimensions. Maybe there are multiple predetermined dimensions, and God can see all of them. Your decisions determine which one you branch off into.
And then again .... probably not
Venturing off into the slightly rediculous. Multiple dimensions. Maybe there are multiple predetermined dimensions, and God can see all of them. Your decisions determine which one you branch off into.
And then again .... probably not
Sidhe, I agree, but I doubt believers will. My question was not asked out of argument sake, but pure curiousity.
Venturing off into the slightly rediculous. Multiple dimensions. Maybe there are multiple predetermined dimensions, and God can see all of them. Your decisions determine which one you branch off into.
And then again .... probably not
The problem with that is, that God to be omnisicent would have to know which universe the finite but ridiculously large number of possible choices lead to would create. And so you still don't have free will, as God knows all of your possible decisions, and where they will lead in every possible multiple dimension.
The only answer is to say the future does not exist, and God is omniscient and thus having such a grip on the Universe, can almost with 100% accuracy predict what may happen. Otherwise your shafted. Omniscient means infinite knowledge, infinite precognition and infinite wisdom.
Of course some believers don't believe that, but some just accept either there is no free will, or that God has a few grey areas or other such compromises. Otherwise they end up basically talking rubbish from a philosophical perspective. If the illusion of free will is enough for any man then so be it though. Who am I to argue?
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Ah, but in multiple universes, there are multiple you's.
The one that took the decision to go right, and the one that went left. It makes no difference from Gods point of view, since whatever decision you make, it changes nothing. But for your conscious self it changes as it determines which alternative universe/dimension you choose. At the same time, your alt is taking the other path. But that alt is linked to another consciousness.
So accoording to God, you took both decisions, according to your perspective you took only one.
The one that took the decision to go right, and the one that went left. It makes no difference from Gods point of view, since whatever decision you make, it changes nothing. But for your conscious self it changes as it determines which alternative universe/dimension you choose. At the same time, your alt is taking the other path. But that alt is linked to another consciousness.
So accoording to God, you took both decisions, according to your perspective you took only one.
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