Did praying ever work for you ?

crustyjuggler

Did praying ever work for any of ye ?
Examples when you prayed for something ,then it happened ?
How long should we pray each day ?

PDN

Yes, I find prayer frequently works for me.

As a church minister I get requested to pray for other people a lot. I would be a fool or a liar if I pretended that all these prayers get answered in the way I want. I've prayed for people with cancer and seen them go back to the doctor and get a clean bill of health. I've prayed for others and they've still died. However, it works sufficiently for people to keep coming back for prayer and for me to be encouraged enough to keep on praying.

A couple of examples:

When the new laws were introduced about Provisional Driving Licences it affected a number of people in our church. There were some non-nationals driving on Provisional Licences who had failed their test several times (one of them 8 times!) but needed their cars for work. I made a general statement during a sermon that God can even help us pass our driving test. At the end of the service there was a line of 9 non-nationals all seeking prayer for their Driving Tests. I have seen some of these people struggling just to park their cars in the church carpark. One of them once stood on the accelerator instead of the brake, demolished a wall and missed killing one of our ushers by half an inch. Therefore I was struggling to have much faith as I prayed for each of them. Since then 8 of the 9 have sat their tests. Much to my amazement they have all passed. One of them even stalled twice during their test and still passed. (BTW, I'm still undecided as to whether this instance of answered prayer is good or bad since the rest of us are sharing the roads with these people).

Another example. Three weeks ago in church I was preaching about showing forgiveness and understanding, not condemnation or judgement, towards those non-Christians who behave in ways we see as sinful. A lady came to me for advice/prayer after the service. She had a very good friend (not a Christian) to whom she had been very condemning over a moral issue. As a result her best friend had refused to speak to her for 6 months. I gave her the usual standard response (apologise to your friend, ask forgiveness etc). She said she had tried all this months ago, but nothing had worked. So we prayed together and asked God to restore the broken relationship. Four hours later the same friend turned up uninvited and unexpected at her home and expressed a desire to let bygones be bygones and to move on with their friendship.

Now, neither of these instances are miracles requiring any suspension of the laws of nature. They can easily be explained by referring to coincidence instead of God. However, many of us who pray see a consistent pattern where the more we pray the more these kind of coincidences happen.

You also asked how long we should pray for. I think the key thing is not the length of our prayers, but rather our relationship with the one to whom we are praying. Taking two seconds to ask my wife to kiss me is more likely to produce a positive result than writing a thousand letters to ask Halle Berry to kiss me! Therefore getting to know God is more important that learning techniques of prayer.

kelly1

crustyjuggler wrote: »

Did praying ever work for any of ye ?
Examples when you prayed for something ,then it happened ?
How long should we pray each day ?

Yes, prayer has definitely worked for me. My prayer for faith about 5 years ago in Lourdes brought me back to the Catholic faith after many years in the wilderness and several dead ends. I've also had many prayers answered concerning my personal struggles to live a good Christian life. I've had some remarkable responses to prayer for peace as regards personal/family relationships.

I don't think the length of prayer is as important as the sincerity but as our love for God grows, we naturally want to spend more and more time with Him in prayer. Prayer should be frequent though. Morning and evening definitely and during the day if at all possible. We should always try to keep a sense of God's presence within us and be ever willing to do His will. It easy to have a quick chat with God at any time during the day and ask for His help and guidance. Let's not forget to ask the Holy Spirit for His gifts and our Guardian Angle for his assistance.

God bless,
Noel.

oeb

Part of the reason why athiests see prayer as inefective, while the religious see it as highly effective is based on frequency. Most people (from what I have seen) who claim prayer works regularly for them are also people who pray nearly all the time. Because of that you are much more likely to pass coincidence off as prayer.

There is however one benifit to prayer as far as I am concerned, but it's a bit indirect. It helps people to stop fixating on failure, which can actually help people. You know how it is, if you are so worried that you will mess something up, all the stuff going on iin your head can frustrate and confuse you, causing you to make the mistakes you were so worried about. When you become convinced that an external force will help you with something like this, does it remove some of the worry (regardless of weather or not there actually is an external force)? But then again, that benifit is nothing that can not be gained by simple positive thinking.

Also, with regard to the driving tests, I'm not too supprised. A good friend of mine (a godless heathen btw ) took the wing mirror off a car during his test and was still passed. I am hearing an awful lot of storys like that these days and it's a bit concerning to be honest, most of them seem to be related to tests conducted by SCS who have a significantly higher pass rate than the RSA)

Tim Robbins

Does praying work?
Anecdotally: Yes.
Empirically: No.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Does praying work?
Anecdotally: Yes.
Empirically: No.

Does praying work? In the experience of those who practice it: Yes.
In the opinion of those who don't: No

oeb

PDN wrote: »

Does praying work? In the experience of those who practice it: Yes.
In the opinion of those who don't: No

If I worship to sun, and if every day (sometimes multiple times) I ask it for things, to make my life better, to make people I know happy etc. Every time something good happens to me it is not too far of a jump for me to make the assumption that it is the sun granting my wishes. Can you understand that? I'm sure we can both agree that the sun does not grant wishes, but if I ask it ALL THE TIME, then coincidently some of them are bound to 'come true'.

This is similar to the process of cold reading, it's a technique that magicians and psychics (I don't use the term 'fake psychics' here, because that would suggest that there are real ones) use to 'read peoples minds' or to 'contact the spirits of the departed'. I'm sure you may have seen the likes of John Edwards and other leeches on TV using it. Cold reading works on the principles of hit and miss. It's selective memory, sure, I make a lot of incorect predictions, but it's the ones I get right that people remember.

Picture the compulsive gambler, they fixate on the wins, and pass off the losses as 'bad luck'. When we both know that it's simple probability at work.

If I pray for someone I hate to die, and they do. Is that gods work? Or is it a coincidence?

PDN

oeb wrote: »

If I worship to sun, and if every day (sometimes multiple times) I ask it for things, to make my life better, to make people I know happy etc. Every time something good happens to me it is not too far of a jump for me to make the assumption that it is the sun granting my wishes. Can you understand that? I'm sure we can both agree that the sun does not grant wishes, but if I ask it ALL THE TIME, then coincidently some of them are bound to 'come true'.

This is similar to the process of cold reading, it's a technique that magicians and psychics (I don't use the term 'fake psychics' here, because that would suggest that there are real ones) use to 'read peoples minds' or to 'contact the spirits of the departed'. I'm sure you may have seen the likes of John Edwards and other leeches on TV using it. Cold reading works on the principles of hit and miss. It's selective memory, sure, I make a lot of incorect predictions, but it's the ones I get right that people remember.

Picture the compulsive gambler, they fixate on the wins, and pass off the losses as 'bad luck'. When we both know that it's simple probability at work.

If I pray for someone I hate to die, and they do. Is that gods work? Or is it a coincidence?

No one has denied that coincidences occur. No one is claiming that 100% of their prayers are answered.

What is true is that there are many of us who have the experience both of praying and of not praying. We also have experience of times when we have prayed rarely and times when we have prayed much. Our experiences lead us to conclude that coincidences occur more frequently when we pray more frequently. We also find that our lives have improved considerably since we started praying.

Now, we have other people who try to tell us that we are deluded fools and that our prayers actually have no effect. These same people know little about us and even less about our experiences. We wonder why they feel the need to keep telling us how deluded we are. The only apparent reason is that they have taken an ideological position that there is no God, therefore their ideological stance necessitates a belief that prayer does not work, therefore they attempt to convince us we are deluded and our experiences are false.

Let me use an analogy. A woman suffers from coughing fits. She finds that when she eats mandarin oranges then she suffers a significantly lower number of these fits. Other people tell her that there is no medical reason why mandarin oranges should help her in this way. Indeed, they keep citing a study conducted in the US that indicated that eating fruit (but not specifically mandarin oranges) did not reduce the incidence of coughing fits. Now, should the woman stop eating mandarin oranges to keep other people happy, even if this causes her more coughing fits? Furthermore, why on earth would other people want her to modify her eating habits? What reason, other than ideological bigotry against mandarin oranges, would make them interfere?

oeb

PDN wrote: »

No one has denied that coincidences occur. No one is claiming that 100% of their prayers are answered.

What is true is that there are many of us who have the experience both of praying and of not praying. We also have experience of times when we have prayed rarely and times when we have prayed much. Our experiences lead us to conclude that coincidences occur more frequently when we pray more frequently. We also find that our lives have improved considerably since we started praying.

Now, we have other people who try to tell us that we are deluded fools and that our prayers actually have no effect. These same people know little about us and even less about our experiences. We wonder why they feel the need to keep telling us how deluded we are. The only apparent reason is that they have taken an ideological position that there is no God, therefore their ideological stance necessitates a belief that prayer does not work, therefore they attempt to convince us we are deluded and our experiences are false.

Let me use an analogy. A woman suffers from coughing fits. She finds that when she eats mandarin oranges then she suffers a significantly lower number of these fits. Other people tell her that there is no medical reason why mandarin oranges should help her in this way. Indeed, they keep citing a study conducted in the US that indicated that eating fruit (but not specifically mandarin oranges) did not reduce the incidence of coughing fits. Now, should the woman stop eating mandarin oranges to keep other people happy, even if this causes her more coughing fits? Furthermore, why on earth would other people want her to modify her eating habits? What reason, other than ideological bigotry against mandarin oranges, would make them interfere?

And if that mandirin eating women tried to have 'the theory of the magic mandirins' thought in school. Would that be ok with you? And if members of the mandarin believers hastled you with leaflets when you were walking down the road, all the time claiming that doctors obviously know nothing about mandarins and their benifits, because only mandarinoligists are correctly qualified to deal with this. If laws were made to directly favor the people who believed mandarins cured coughing and their realated beliefes, while at the same time opressing the people who did not believe that mandarins cured coughing.


Would you speak out?

Fanny Cradock

oeb wrote: »

And if that mandirin eating women tried to have 'the theory of the magic mandirins' thought in school. Would that be ok with you? And if members of the mandarin believers hastled you with leaflets when you were walking down the road, all the time claiming that doctors obviously know nothing about mandarins and their benifits, because only mandarinoligists are correctly qualified to deal with this. If laws were made to directly favor the people who believed mandarins cured coughing and their realated beliefes, while at the same time opressing the people who did not believe that mandarins cured coughing.


Would you speak out?

Your battles against YEC being taught in schools and Christians handing out leaflets in the streets has nothing to do with this debate.

oeb

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Your battles against YEC being taught in schools and Christians handing out leaflets in the streets has nothing to do with this debate.

No, it has to do with PDN questioning why we feel the need to attack their beliefs. That is my reasoning. If it is wrong of me to answer a question, then why is the question asked?

PDN

oeb wrote: »

And if that mandirin eating women tried to have 'the theory of the magic mandirins' thought in school. Would that be ok with you? And if members of the mandarin believers hastled you with leaflets when you were walking down the road, all the time claiming that doctors obviously know nothing about mandarins and their benifits, because only mandarinoligists are correctly qualified to deal with this. If laws were made to directly favor the people who believed mandarins cured coughing and their realated beliefes, while at the same time opressing the people who did not believe that mandarins cured coughing.


Would you speak out?

As for your opposition to teaching prayer in schools, maybe you should save it for somebody who advocates such indoctrination? As a Christian secularist I have consistently opposed such practices.

I would certainly defend the right of the woman to present leaflets to other people who suffer from coughing fits advocating mandarin oranges as a possible solution. I would also defend the right of others to decline the leaflets and have that decision respected.

As for oppressing others etc, that has nothing to do with whether prayer works or not. Laws favouring those who pray, or oppressing those who pray, are equally wrong irrespective of whether prayer works or not. The same applies to laws restricting freedom of religion and oppressing believers - they are wrong irrespective of the truth or otherwise of Christian truth claims.

The OP wanted to discuss whether prayer had ever worked for any of us.

If you want to discuss indoctrination, oppression, or the teaching of religion in schools then find an appropriate thread or start one. I suspect you will find me in agreement with you on those issues. But don't start dragging them in here as red herrings.

Fanny Cradock

the original questions were:

Did praying ever work for any of ye?
Examples when you prayed for something ,then it happened?
How long should we pray each day?

This thread has nothing to do with YEC, A democratic right to freedom of speech or your unsubstantiated claims that Christians are favoured by the state or oppress non-believers.

Bduffman

PDN wrote: »

No one has denied that coincidences occur. No one is claiming that 100% of their prayers are answered.

But can you give a rough percentage of how many prayers actually work? I'll bet it works out about the same as the success rate of the wishes of non-believers.
This has been tested before but of course the results were dismissed by the claim that god will not respond when he is being tested - how convenient.

crustyjuggler

Thanks for all yer posts . Most were very helpfull .I was expecting maybe more stories possible a few miraculous ones but thanks all the same . God bless .

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

Does praying work? In the experience of those who practice it: Yes.
In the opinion of those who don't: No

Does praying work?
In the experience of those who practice it: anecdotally yes but empircally no.
In the opinion of those who don't: anecdotally yes but empirically no.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Does praying work?
In the experience of those who practice it: anecdotally yes but empircally no.
In the opinion of those who don't: anecdotally yes but empirically no.

Merriam Webster Online Dictionary wrote:

Empirical - 1 : originating in or based on observation or experience <empirical data> 2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory <an empirical basis for the theory> 3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment <empirical laws>

Those of us who have long experience of praying meet the dictionary definition of 'empirically'. We base our belief on our observation and experience, and have tested our beliefs in many different situations.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

Those of us who have long experience of praying meet the dictionary definition of 'empirically'. We base our belief on our observation and experience, and have tested our beliefs in many different situations.

You do know there's also empiracle evidence for placebos?
Perhaps if you wish to go down the empiracle path you should aim to out perform the placebo.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote: »

You do know there's also empiracle evidence for placebos?
Perhaps if you wish to go down the empiracle path you should aim to out perform the placebo.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by going down the empirical path. You were the one who used the word 'empirical' and I've pointed out that our belief based on personal experience is indeed empirical. Maybe you were thinking of another word?

As for placebos, I think that would be more applicable to a clinical trial. As far as I know there has never been a clinical trial of the effectiveness of the prayers of born-again Christians. Come to think of it, given the absence of such a trial, and given your lack of experience of prayer, that would make your assertion about prayer not working entirely anecdotal, wouldn't it?

So you are offering your anecdotal opinion, which coincidentally supports your faith position as an atheist, against my empirical based opinion. Can you see why I am less than impressed?

oeb

PDN wrote: »

I'm not quite sure what you mean by going down the empirical path. You were the one who used the word 'empirical' and I've pointed out that our belief based on personal experience is indeed empirical. Maybe you were thinking of another word?

As for placebos, I think that would be more applicable to a clinical trial. As far as I know there has never been a clinical trial of the effectiveness of the prayers of born-again Christians. Come to think of it, given the absence of such a trial, and given your lack of experience of prayer, that would make your assertion about prayer not working entirely anecdotal, wouldn't it?

So you are offering your anecdotal opinion, which coincidentally supports your faith position as an atheist, against my empirical based opinion. Can you see why I am less than impressed?

By saying it is empirical you are saying that it can be proved or disproved. Prayer can not.

There have been clinical trials with regard to prayer. I believe I discussed this and provided links recently. Either in this thread or the evolution one. One trial in particular showed a significant benifit to people who prayed, but every subsiquent one showed either no benifit, or so little that it could be easilly classified as a placebo. In some in fact, the people who did not pray / were not prayed for) actually preformed better than those who did (In some trials).

Unfortuantly, one trial out of many being positive can not be used as a scientific endorsement. Firstly, I am not aware who actually carried out the study, and secondly followon tests have shown that the results are not repeatable. And being repeatable is one of the most basic and yet most important requirements of science.

PDN

oeb wrote: »

By saying it is empirical you are saying that it can be proved or disproved. Prayer can not.

That depends whether you see life as existing outside of a laboratory. The fact is that we learn lots of things in life based on experience. I can prove whether my wife is a good cook or not by eating a few of her burnt offerings. You can prove whether prayer works or not by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, praying for a few years, and then your experience will show you if the prayer has worked or not. The dictionary definition of emirical includes this kind of proving and disproving.

Studies have been carried out whether prayer in general works. In other words participants included Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, nominal believers etc. Now stop & think for a moment. This methodology in itself demonstrates that the researchers are operating on the assumption that all religions are equal.

Now, let's apply the same methodology to a medical trial. You want to assess whether medicine in general can help relieve the symptoms of influenza. Therefore you select your participants for the trial and give them a range of different medicines. You also give a harmless placebo to a control group. Your hapless subjects receive decongestents, insulin, beta-blockers, antibiotics, anti-AIDS drugs, medicine for epilepsy, treatment for hemerroids, warfarin and a host of other medicines. We can both predict the result of such an experiment. It is unlikely that you will see a statistically significant rate of improvement among your subjects as compared to the control group. This is because the right sort of medicine is limited to a small number of participants and its effects will be masked by the damage caused by inappropriate medicine.

Such a trial would prove that medicine in general (ie not prescribed appropriately) does not statistically improve your chances of recovering from the flu. However, the trial's results are meaningless if you want to discover whether a particular treatment works or not.

Similarly the rather silly experiments conducted concerning prayer demonstrate that prayer appears to be ineffective if you take the view that it doesn't really matter who you pray to and how you pray. That is a conclusion that I heartily agree with!

oeb

PDN wrote: »

That depends whether you see life as existing outside of a laboratory. The fact is that we learn lots of things in life based on experience. I can prove whether my wife is a good cook or not by eating a few of her burnt offerings. You can prove whether prayer works or not by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, praying for a few years, and then your experience will show you if the prayer has worked or not. The dictionary definition of emirical includes this kind of proving and disproving.

Studies have been carried out whether prayer in general works. In other words participants included Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, nominal believers etc. Now stop & think for a moment. This methodology in itself demonstrates that the researchers are operating on the assumption that all religions are equal.

Now, let's apply the same methodology to a medical trial. You want to assess whether medicine in general can help relieve the symptoms of influenza. Therefore you select your participants for the trial and give them a range of different medicines. You also give a harmless placebo to a control group. Your hapless subjects receive decongestents, insulin, beta-blockers, antibiotics, anti-AIDS drugs, medicine for epilepsy, treatment for hemerroids, warfarin and a host of other medicines. We can both predict the result of such an experiment. It is unlikely that you will see a statistically significant rate of improvement among your subjects as compared to the control group. This is because the right sort of medicine is limited to a small number of participants and its effects will be masked by the damage caused by inappropriate medicine.

Such a trial would prove that medicine in general (ie not prescribed appropriately) does not statistically improve your chances of recovering from the flu. However, the trial's results are meaningless if you want to discover whether a particular treatment works or not.

Similarly the rather silly experiments conducted concerning prayer demonstrate that prayer appears to be ineffective if you take the view that it doesn't really matter who you pray to and how you pray. That is a conclusion that I heartily agree with!

From what I remember, these prayer experiments have normally been conducted with a single faith group (Typicially it is people other than the people who are sick praying for them) Oddly enough, all these other prayer groups are as convinced as you are that their prayer works. It's hypocritical of you to tell me that your reasoning is sound, and then turn around and refuse to accecpt the exact same reasoning from another faith. Their 'evidence' is just as strong as yours. Do you really think Born Again Christians (I think I recall you calling yourself a born again christian right?) are unique in their claims that their prayers are answered? Every faith that believe that results can be got by praying can reason using the exact same evidence as you.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

I'm not quite sure what you mean by going down the empirical path. You were the one who used the word 'empirical' and I've pointed out that our belief based on personal experience is indeed empirical. Maybe you were thinking of another word?

Unless you out - perform placebo empiracally, your empirical evidence is useless. Most people know this when the word empirical evidence is used.

As for placebos, I think that would be more applicable to a clinical trial. As far as I know there has never been a clinical trial of the effectiveness of the prayers of born-again Christians. Come to think of it, given the absence of such a trial,

Well it would be impossible to arrange a clinical trial for bumping into your friends who give you cars or who you exchange directions with. But there have been some trials of prayer as Robin has pointed out to you several times.

and given your lack of experience of prayer, that would make your assertion about prayer not working entirely anecdotal, wouldn't it?

So you are offering your anecdotal opinion, which coincidentally supports your faith position as an atheist, against my empirical based opinion. Can you see why I am less than impressed?

I have 12 years experience of Christian prayer actually. Perhaps you should think a little more before you put people in convenient little boxes. I just realised that when I stopped these little co-incidences that I was attributing to Prayer also happened.

I accept that prayer may help addicts and people with pyschological and emotional problems, fully accept that. So does councilling and so does playing sport. But I don't accept that prayer can change things outside people's pyschological state. For example, prayer as much as you want but you won't be able to achieve anything that can't happen without prayer.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Unless you out - perform placebo empiracally, your empirical evidence is useless. Most people know this when the word empirical evidence is used.

No, the word 'empirical' has usage and meanings unrelated to placebos. However, my past experience of discussing language and etymology with you leads me to think that this is not worth pursuing further since you tend to use vocabulary in a rather unique way.

Well it would be impossible to arrange a clinical trial for bumping into your friends who give you cars or who you exchange directions with. But there have been some trials of prayer as Robin has pointed out to you several times.

And as I have pointed out several times the methodology of those studies makes them irrelevant to this thread.

I have 12 years experience of Christian prayer actually. Perhaps you should think a little more before you put people in convenient little boxes. I just realised that when I stopped these little co-incidences that I was attributing to Prayer also happened.

The word 'Christian' gets bandied about loosely on these fora. Sorry Tim, I cannot conceive that anyone could have had 12 years of even the loosest association with any kind of real Christianity and yet be as ignorant of basic Christian concepts as you appear to be. Your claim to have 12 years experience of Christian prayer is less credible than JC's claim to be a scientist.

I accept that prayer may help addicts and people with pyschological and emotional problems, fully accept that. So does councilling and so does playing sport. But I don't accept that prayer can change things outside people's pyschological state. For example, prayer as much as you want but you won't be able to achieve anything that can't happen without prayer.

And I entirely respect your right to hold to such a faith position based on your anecdotal evidence. I'm a tolerant kind of chappie.

PDN

oeb wrote: »

From what I remember, these prayer experiments have normally been conducted with a single faith group (Typicially it is people other than the people who are sick praying for them) Oddly enough, all these other prayer groups are as convinced as you are that their prayer works. It's hypocritical of you to tell me that your reasoning is sound, and then turn around and refuse to accecpt the exact same reasoning from another faith. Their 'evidence' is just as strong as yours. Do you really think Born Again Christians (I think I recall you calling yourself a born again christian right?) are unique in their claims that their prayers are answered? Every faith that believe that results can be got by praying can reason using the exact same evidence as you.

I'm not trying to be funny, but I have read your post several times and your logic escapes me entirely. There are different religious groups who believe mutually exclusive things. According to the law of non-contradiction they can not all be right. Why is it 'hypocritical' of me to believe that my belief is the right one?

I do think God, as a merciful Being, will occasionally answer prayers that are uttered in ignorance by adherents of false religions. However, I believe that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is necessary if someone is to see their prayers answered with any kind of frequency.

MrPudding

PDN wrote: »

I do think God, as a merciful Being, will occasionally answer prayers that are uttered in ignorance by adherents of false religions.

That is quite convenient, one less thing to explain.

MrP

PDN

MrPudding wrote: »

That is quite convenient, one less thing to explain.

Or one more thing explained. Not quite sure how convenience comes into it. A coherent belief system should seek to explain things.

oeb

PDN wrote: »

I'm not trying to be funny, but I have read your post several times and your logic escapes me entirely. There are different religious groups who believe mutually exclusive things. According to the law of non-contradiction they can not all be right. Why is it 'hypocritical' of me to believe that my belief is the right one?

I do think God, as a merciful Being, will occasionally answer prayers that are uttered in ignorance by adherents of false religions. However, I believe that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is necessary if someone is to see their prayers answered with any kind of frequency.

Every religious person that I know (From multiple faiths) claims that prayers come true (sometimes). Every single one of them has the same sort of story's you do, and tells me that their god is granting them their prayers. They also announce (just as you do) that the more often they pray, the more often their prayers come true, to the extent where they pray nearly all the time, and as such write off every bit of good fortune that comes their way as god's work. Which I face with the exact same skepticism as I have shown you.

I call you a hypocrite because you expect us to believe these claims from you, while stating the inefficiency of the prayers of other faiths. They all claim their prayers are answered, and I am sure they would disagree with you as to whos prayers get answered more.

For the record PDN, I am sorry if it feels like I am constantly attacking you, or your religion specificially on this forum. I don't mean to focus directly on you, you are just probably the most vocal believer here, and certainly the most willing to debate with us. I just disagree with your hypothesis and I don't leave things go too easilly .

PDN

oeb wrote: »

I call you a hypocrite because you expect us to believe these claims from you, while stating the inefficiency of the prayers of other faiths. They all claim their prayers are answered, and I am sure they would disagree with you as to whos prayers get answered more.

I don't expect you to believe anything. You are the one who comes to the Christianity forum to try to convince others to your point of view. All I do is patiently answer your questions.

For the record PDN, I am sorry if it feels like I am constantly attacking you, or your religion specificially on this forum. I don't mean to focus directly on you, you are just probably the most vocal believer here, and certainly the most willing to debate with us. I just disagree with your hypothesis and I don't leave things go too easilly

No need to apologise. I enjoy these discussions. It helps me relax, particular since the weather has been too foul this year for riding my motorcycle.

It's always refreshing to debate with someone who thinks logically and actually listens to others' points of view.

MrPudding

PDN wrote: »

....particular since the weather has been too foul this year for riding my motorcycle.

Pah, and you are a fair weather biker....:D

MrP

MrPudding

PDN wrote: »

Or one more thing explained. Not quite sure how convenience comes into it. A coherent belief system should seek to explain things.

Yes, but why your god will answer the prayers of a false religion, with a similar frequency to the rate at which he answers yours, should raise a question or two. But if you are happy to say that he will do this simply because he is merciful means you don't have to worry about why your god would answer the prayers of people who don't pray to him whilst leaving some of your prayers, and indeed the prayers of other that follow your god, unanswered.

MrP

Fanny Cradock

PDN wrote: »

No need to apologise. I enjoy these discussions. It helps me relax, particular since the weather has been too foul this year for riding my motorcycle.

More man than myself, PDN. I think I've hit the posting wall over the last few days. Need to get my breath back.

PDN

MrPudding wrote: »

Yes, but why your god will answer the prayers of a false religion, with a similar frequency to the rate at which he answers yours, should raise a question or two.

I don't believe he does answer them with the same frequency.

But if you are happy to say that he will do this simply because he is merciful means you don't have to worry about why your god would answer the prayers of people who don't pray to him whilst leaving some of your prayers, and indeed the prayers of other that follow your god, unanswered.

I answered a question from oeb asking if I thought that followers of other religions experienced answered prayer. I am happy that God shows mercy on them and occasionally answers their prayers. I've already stated that I don't believe this happens with the same frequency as with those who have a personal relationship with Christ.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

No, the word 'empirical' has usage and meanings unrelated to placebos.

It doesn't matter if the word 'empirical' has usage and meanings unrelated to placebos, unless you outperform placebo your evidence is useless.

However, my past experience of discussing language and etymology with you leads me to think that this is not worth pursuing further since you tend to use vocabulary in a rather unique way.

The way I used the words 'person', 'empirical' or 'placebo' are hardly unique.

The word 'Christian' gets bandied about loosely on these fora. Sorry Tim, I cannot conceive that anyone could have had 12 years of even the loosest association with any kind of real Christianity and yet be as ignorant of basic Christian concepts as you appear to be. Your claim to have 12 years experience of Christian prayer is less credible than JC's claim to be a scientist.

Oh so you know their prayers I said to. That really is ridiculous.
The Christianity I was taught, was about the idea of compassion, helping poor and disadvantaged people and argued against the insults like the ones you fire at me in this forum.

And I entirely respect your right to hold to such a faith position based on your anecdotal evidence.

It's not a "faith" position and it's not "anecdotal". There's plenty of scientific evidence of sport, exercise releasing endorphines. Pyschologists follow strict scientific procedures. That's most of the members in the ISS are psychologists.

I don't have scientific evidence for prayer being able to deal with addiction or pyschological problems but I accept it helps in certain cases. If there were absolutely no benefits to prayers, religion, faith it would never haved existed. It's existed in every culture. So it must benefit, whether we can put data on it or not. Is that a "faith" position. No it's simple deductive logic. It is based on "anecdotal" evidence. No. It's looking at every culture within our species, past and present.

That said, give me better evidence and I happy to change my mind.

MrPudding

PDN wrote: »

I don't believe he does answer them with the same frequency.

But they say they do.

PDN wrote: »

I answered a question from oeb asking if I thought that followers of other religions experienced answered prayer. I am happy that God shows mercy on them and occasionally answers their prayers. I've already stated that I don't believe this happens with the same frequency as with those who have a personal relationship with Christ.

OK, so these other people that tell similar stories to you are liars and you are telling the truth. Got it.

Well here is my real problem with what you say. You follow the one true god, and these other poor saps follow a false religion and a false god. The thing is, they don’t know what they follow is false, this puts them into a fairly difficult position. They don’t know what they are doing. And here’s where it get really nasty. The one true god, the one you follow, will occasionally grant their prayers, bearing in mind these are prayers to a false god, thereby reinforcing this poor sap’s belief in the false god. Hardly seems fair, does it? Quite underhanded actually. I can imagine the conversation on judgement day:

OTG: Sorry mate, off to hell with you.
PS: But, I did everything that was asked of me!
OTG: Ah, but you followed a false god. I am the one true god and you did not follow me. Even though I am all powerful and knew this was going to happen because I created you I am still going to punish you because any sin you do is infinitely offensive to me because I am infinitely holy and good.
PS: Hold on a minute. I was praying to a false god?
OTG: Yes.
PS: But my prayers were answered. I prayed for things and he granted them.
OTG: Actually that was me.
PS: But……
OTG: It’s OK, you don’t have to thank me. Just doin’ my job.
PS: But how was I supposed to know I was following a false god if you answered the prayers I made to the false god and thereby reinforced my belief in the false god?
OTG: Off to hell with you and stop asking awkward questions!

Sounds a bit underhanded to me.

MrP

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Oh so you know their prayers I said to. That really is ridiculous.
The Christianity I was taught, was about the idea of compassion, helping poor and disadvantaged people and argued against the insults like the ones you fire at me in this forum. .

So nothing about Christ or the Bible, then? Sounds more like niceianity rather than Christianity.

Christianity is about following Christ as a disciple. It is about having a relationship with Him. It is about seeking to live according to His Word as revealed in the Bible.

You, however, have stated on this board that you don't understand the concept of a personal relationship with Christ, and your ignorance of the Bible is apparent - not just in regard to details but major whopping stuff. You once claimed that the word 'faith' does not appear in the Bible, which indicates to me that you had never so much as glanced at the New Testament.

All this is incompatible with your claim to have practiced Christian prayer for 12 years.

I don't fire insults at you. I point out the illogical nature of your thinking. If I wanted to insult you I would pick on petty things like your spelling. Your problem, Tim, is that your posts come across as extremely pompous and at times breathtakingly ignorant of the matter under discussion (Christianity) yet if anyone points your errors out to you then you get increasingly defensive and hysterical. It's not like it's just me that finds this - remember the Dawkins child abuse thread on A&A? Or your thread in Feedback?

Now, I myself have been accused of being pompous, condescending etc. - but I'm thick skinned enough to laugh it off or make a joke about it instead of derailing every thread. If you make dogmatic or silly assertions then people will call you out on it. That's what happens on internet discussion boards - much better to learn to live with it.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

So nothing about Christ or the Bible, then? Sounds more like niceianity rather than Christianity.

No plenty on Christ and the Bible. The Gospels and other Bible verses are read every week at Catholic mass.

Christianity is about following Christ as a disciple. It is about having a relationship with Him. It is about seeking to live according to His Word as revealed in the Bible.

Christianity is slightly different in every denomination of it. The RC denomination places more emphasis on morals and humanistic values. At least the one I got did. It also isn't afraid of any part of Science. Thankfully lessons it learnt from mistakes.

You, however, have stated on this board that you don't understand the concept of a personal relationship with Christ, and your ignorance of the Bible is apparent - not just in regard to details but major whopping stuff. You once claimed that the word 'faith' does not appear in the Bible, which indicates to me that you had never so much as glanced at the New Testament.

I didn't "claim" that. I asked:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055080846&highlight=bible+faith+word&page=4

This is because it's been a long while since I read the texts. Usually you ask questions unless you think you know everything. I don't claim to know everything.

All this is incompatible with your claim to have practiced Christian prayer for 12 years.

Incompatable with your version of Christian prayer. But there are Christians who would consider your version of Christianity not to be Christian.

I point out the illogical nature of your thinking.

You think you do. But you generally rely on really cheap insults rather anything logical.

Your problem, Tim, is that your posts come across as extremely pompous and at times breathtakingly ignorant of the matter under discussion (Christianity) yet if anyone points your errors out to you then you get increasingly defensive and hysterical.

By all means point out errors. But attack the post not the poster.

Now, I myself have been accused of being pompous, condescending etc. - but I'm thick skinned enough to laugh it off or make a joke about it instead of derailing every thread.

IMO you derail threads by initiating unnecessary personal remarks.

If you make dogmatic or silly assertions then people will call you out on it. That's what happens on internet discussion boards - much better to learn to live with it.

You also meet people who would rather fire unnecessary personal remarks than have an intellectual discussion. But hey - that's the real world too.