by whereami 56 Replies latest jw friends
I always pray. How do I know when they are answered? It's when things happen to you for the good that comes from an entirely unexpected source or unbelievable event to help with certain requests or problems.
Sometimes though, I do not get everything I ask for and later on I'm glad I didn't get what I asked for as it would not have been good in the long run.
But, I still believe in the power of prayer in answer to the question.
Outaservice
I think if you believe in God, then there is power to prayer, whether it be because you feel better about the situation afterwards ("the peace of God") or because what you prayed for comes true (whether by the will of God, circumstances, or you yourself made it happen).
For me, even when I was a believing JW, I never prayed. I still don't.
Taken from hear: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/goldstein09/goldstein09_index.html
9. The Argument from Answered Prayers
1. Sometimes people pray to God for good fortune, and against enormous odds, their calls are answered. (For example, a parent prays for the life of her dying child, and the child recovers.)
2. The odds of the beneficial event happening are enormously slim (from 1).
3. The odds that the prayer would have been followed by recovery out of sheer chance are extremely small (from 2).
4. The prayer could only have been followed by the recovery if God listened to it and made it come true.
5. God exists.
This argument is similar to The Argument from Miracles below, except instead of the official miracles claimed by established religion, it refers to intimate and personal miracles.
FLAW 1: Premise 3 is indeed true. However, to use it to infer that a miracle has taken place (and an answered prayer is certainly a miracle) is to subvert it. There is nothing that is less probable than a miracle, since it constitutes a violation of a law of nature (see The Argument from Miracles, #11, below). Therefore, it is more reasonable to conclude that the correlation of the prayer and the recovery is a coincidence than that it is a miracle.
FLAW 2: The coincidence of a person praying for the unlikely to happen and its then happening is, of course, improbable. But the flaws in The Argument from Cosmic Coincidences and The Argument from Personal Coincidences apply here: Given a large enough sample of prayers (the number of times people call out to God to help them and those they love is tragically large), the improbable is bound to happen occasionally. And, given the existence of Confirmation Bias, we will notice these coincidences, yet fail to notice and count up the vastly larger number of unanswered prayers.
FLAW 3: There is an inconsistency in the moral reasoning behind this argument. It asks us to believe in a compassionate God who would be moved to pity by the desperate pleas of some among us — but not by the equally desperate pleas of others among us. Together with The Argument from A Wonderful Life, it appears to be supported by a few cherry-picked examples, but in fact is refuted by the much larger number of counterexamples it ignores: the prayers that go unanswered, the people who do not live wonderful lives. When the life is our own, or that of someone we love, we are especially lia
Sorry everyone, but for some odd reason I'm not able to copy & paste the whole point.
Just go ahead and click the link and scroll down to point 9.
There you will see that there is actually 4 FLAWS, not three.
I don't believe there is some god out there listening and answering prayers for obvious reasons one being that if there was some type of good omnipresent-omnipotent deity out there prayers would not be a conditional requirement for his help he would just do it prayer or no prayer.
Also when you look at the amount of prayers offered to the biblical deity and the ratio of answered ones being extremely small indicate He's not listening which becomes extremely apparent when his worshippers call to him for aid when they are facing some grave situation and they get slaughtered anyway.
I do feel how ever that it can be a good psychological tool to express and get to know oneself but that it has draw backs if one just prays and fails to do what is necessary in their situation(faith sometimes can be a bitch).
Caliber, I've just read the link you suggested. After explaining, among other examples, how even seeds sprouted faster thanks to prayer, the conclusion is this:
"These studies have shown conclusive evidence of the power of prayer. Time after time the outcomes of these tests have shown the reality of the force of a higher being and our ability to communicate with Him".
Sure, God answers prayers for plants to bloom, whereas millions of people earth wide don't receive anything no matter how loud or often they pray... Come on!
To me, the only logical conclusion after reading the article is that we do transmit our positive energy to the objects of our prayer, and that can have an influence on how they feel. That's all.
Everytime I see pictures of starving children/landmine victims/any natural catastrophy all I can think of is the people in the western world who claim that god has answered their prayers. On what possible basis can anyone in the western world claim that their prayers are answered by a truly just god when you think of all the untold suffering that goes on in this world.
Anyone who claims that their god answered their prayer is an egotistical fool deserving of nothing but scorn and derision.
