by song19 36 Replies latest jw friends
What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.
-- Abraham Lincoln, quoted by Mary Todd Lincoln in William Herndon's Religion of Lincoln, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beleifs of Our Presidents, p. 118
from: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/lincoln.htm
I think God is like a CEO of a corporation -- remote, distant and cold. I think he's far too busy to bother with piss ant nothings like me.
Now if I had money, or fame, or had accomplished something with my life, then yeah I think he would notice. But as it is, I truly believe he doesn't know who I am and doesn't care to know.
I've got this feeling when I die I'll either float around lost in the shuffle or just exist in cold emptiness.
This is why I find the atheist's answer to afterlife more comforting. I'd rather face oblivion, nothingness than what I think is going to happen.
Chris
Lincoln said, "I had a good Christian mother, and her prayers have followed me thus far through life."
Fromthis website:
Lincoln never joined a church nor ever made a clear profession of standard Christian beliefs. While he read the Bible in the White House, he was not in the habit of saying grace before meals. Lincoln's friend Jesse Fell noted that the president "seldom communicated to anyone his views" on religion, and he went on to suggest that those views were not orthodox: "on the innate depravity of man, the character and office of the great head of the Church, the Atonement, the infallibility of the written revelation, the performance of miracles, the nature and design of . . . future rewards and punishments . . . and many other subjects, he held opinions utterly at variance with what are usually taught in the church." It is probable that Lincoln was turned against organized Christianity by his experiences as a young man in New Salem, Illinois, where excessive emotion and bitter sectarian quarrels marked yearly camp meetings and the ministry of traveling preachers
I didn't mean to imply that Lincoln was a total unbeliever, just that his beliefs may not be what you may think. All of which has nothing to do with the OP, which is the effectiveness of prayer.
CyrusThePersian
What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.
-- Abraham Lincoln , quoted by Mary Todd Lincoln in William Herndon's Religion of Lincoln, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beleifs of Our Presidents, p. 118from: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/lincoln.htm
Context? Whose decree?
Second Inaugural Address of March 1865: "Both [North and South] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."
His decree. God's. Lincoln had Calvinistic ideas.
BTS
The Mormon boys who I have been having discussions with asked me if I thought God answers prayers and I told them no, I don't think He answers all prayers.
Then one of them asked me if I thought God answered my prayers. After I thought about it I said, "Yes, God answers my prayers everyday but, I don't ask for much."
BFD
Like many of us, Lincoln had his religious ups and downs, his confident faith and his doubts. His personal relationship with God was something that developed over a long period of time. In his younger years he said lots of things about God and religion that atheists like to point to as they mock Christianity. But in the late summer of 1862 when he was 53, Lincoln told his advisers that he was keeping a divine covenant. He had made a promise to his "Maker," he explained, that he would issue an Emancipation Proclamation if the rebel army were driven out of Maryland. He told his advisers that he was keeping his promise though he knew some would think it strange for him to make the decision on that basis. But, he said, "God had decided this question in favor of the slaves."
Two years later he was gently mocked by his old friend Joshua Speed when Speed caught him reading the Bible. Speed asked him if he had recovered from his youthful skepticism. Lincoln, according to Speed, said that he had, and he urged Speed to do the same. Regarding the Bible, Lincoln told Speed that he should "take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man."
Lincoln never accepted the Trinity, and mainly for that reason some claim he never became a Christian, even though it is known that he often attended a Presbyterian church in Washington. He also attended a Unitarian church with Millard Fillmore in Buffalo. He is considered a "borderline Unitarian," but he mainly believed in each person's ability to create his or her own religious philosophy. And, unlike many modern Unitarian Universalists, Lincoln held a high regard for prayer.
I don't know. When I was a jw I would pray for my husband's abuse to stop, and the only time it did was when I left. Was that an answer to my prayers, or was it just me taking action?
After being df'd I stopped praying for several years, until I visited a "worldly" friend of mine from childhood who was dying from brain cancer. She was a big born againer, and during a tearful conversation, she asked me to pray for her. She wasn't afraid to die and was firmly convinced that she was heaven bound. But she wanted to see her only child off to his first year of school, to let him out into the world. so to speak. The doctors told her that it would never happen, as the tumor was inoperable and growing larger by the day. I also told her that it wasn't me she should want praying for her. She was very familiar with the jws and my df'ing and said, "You are exactly the kind of person I want praying for me." It was so touching, so I prayed and prayed. She called me a few weeks later to say that the tumor had stopped growing and thanked me for my prayers. She died peacefully six months after her son started the first grade.
I prayed ferverently for my dear Aunt Shirley, but she died after being in a coma for four months, just three days shy of her 60th birthday. Did she die, because I waited until she was in a coma to pray for her? I don't know, but I certainly hope not. I went through months of agony and anger over her death and then our beloved cat disappeared. I prayed and prayed and prayed, even making my husband get on his knees every night with me. He thought it was ridiculous, but as usual, he humored me. The mailman brought that crazy cat home to us seven days later, finding him sick and wandering the street in front of our house.
Sorry to say, I don't have a sure answer for you. I do pray now more than when I was a jw, and I don't have near the hassles and heartache that I did then. I guess it doesn't hurt to pray, as long as you can handle the disappointment of your prayers being answered. It probably also wouldn't be a good idea to let prayer take the place of taking action.
Yes Father answers my prayers. Sometimes in normal ways and sometimes in remarkable ways - but it is all a miracle to me, none the less.
A few good scriptures on this matter:
"Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them." - Mark 11:24
"But he must ask in faith without doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed around by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord." - James 1:6, 7
--Prayers should be accompanied by belief and faith.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you." - John 16:23
"And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him." - 1 John 5:14, 15
--Prayer requests should be in Jesus' name and according to God's will. (This is not just tacking on "in Jesus' name, amen" to the end of a prayer like they are magic words. Rather, the Name of Jesus represents his nature, character, and authority and ours prayers should be in harmony with this - this is the same as praying according ot the will of God.)
Actually my faith was much stronger when I was in the "in between years" after leaving the JW's but before I started communicating with the EX-JW world.
Junction Guy, I make the same observation myself about myself and my situation.
I like it here, its very entertaining and addictive. But I find myself gravitating to the atheistic and evolutionary comments, which is my fault, This place is just like a T.V. I control it.
The great issue of life for everybody is God/ No God.
And every coin/ issue has 2 sides. If one finds belief in God is beneficial, then time spent at a place like this has to be balanced out at site that promotes belief in God.
I came accross this site here, someone else recommended it and I find it, for me a positive balance to JWD. http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/
Sometime you have to feel bad to appreciate feeling good. So after staring at the bad side of the coin, flip it over and enjoy the good side.
Each person has to decide which side of the coin they enjoy looking at.
Nope.
MMO
