santing wrote: » JimiTime, Prayer is not a vendingmachine. It doesn't work like "put in enough" and make your choice. Prayer is having a conversation with God. It is discovering what his will is, because not our will, but his should be done! That is what the "faith bit" is about.
If we pray because we want something, we may end up asking selfish things - and God isn't obligued to answer those prayers.
So the right order is 1) discover what Gods will is 2) Pray for it.
JimiTime wrote: » I understand that, which is why i said that this power was bestowed on men chosen to wield it. I.E. Apostles. Their power was not about prayer as such, but them being given authority. Bind on earth is bound in heaven etc. I believe that we can have faith, but we do not have this authority which the apostles had. If we did, we could go as the apostles did, into nations of unbelievers and show signs of the Living God. BTW, this is stated for discussion purposes, i am an open book at the moment. Thinking out loud.
JimiTime wrote: » So we can't request anything that is our will? What of the cancerous child? Is it wrong to ask for them to be healed? Is that selfish? The Lords example of prayer tells us how to pray. Asking God for things is different to this is it not?
JimiTime wrote: » As I mentioned earlier, the question at the moment is, why not involve him in all parts of our lives? be it car parking or whatever? I've always felt uncomfortable asking for 'selfish' things, but at the end of the day, should I not ask, and let God decide his will for me?
JimiTime wrote: » ^^Don't know if your above point will make an atheist see any different, but I must say it sounds good to me. What i find about prayer, is that I shouldn't ask for those trivial things (parking spaces etc). However, I think your point above is a very good one. Got me thinking anyway. My brother and I had a similar conversation a while back. I was jokingly saying how myself and my wife would love a house in Dalkey. He said, well why not pray for it? I was saying 'It feels like a misuse of prayer'. I suppose I'm still a little uncomfortable with it, but I'll meditate on the point you raised.
I have been a Christian for a lot of years, and I have heard a lot of prayers: in churches and in Bible studies; on television and radio; everywhere. Praying is one of those non-negotiable parts of modern Christian culture. And yet I have heard very few prayers that sound much like Paul's. I don't mean I expect anyone to match his eloquence and understanding; I just mean a prayer that is concerned with the same issues that concern Paul. Too often we seem to have our hearts fixed on almost anything else. We want health and wealth and success and miracles and church growth and prayer in schools and a conservative president and a job and a good life for our children and...and... There is nothing wrong with any of these things, but they can be incredibly distracting from the main issue. You and I are on a life-and- death journey to the kingdom of God. We must grow in faith, be strengthened to persevere, find hope and joy in believing, hunger and thirst after righteousness, live as if the gospel were really true. If we do not, then we will languish and droop; we will fall by the wayside. Belief, encouragement, perseverance, hope, wisdom; these are not optional side-benefits for a certain class of Christian; they are the very stuff of Christianity itself. If we do not find that strength and encouragement which is from God, then we have found nothing at all; we are lost.
Quote: Originally Posted by wolfsbane Every thing that troubles His people is a concern to Him. Nothing is too small to bring....<snip><snip><snip> seriously, can you hear yourself? every single time this quesiton is brought up someone waves some obscure piece of scripture to dismiss it and brush away an inconvenient truth. you're talling me that your god wants innocent children to suffer and die as a lesson to others but he can still happily find time to mess around with your mundane little lives? what happened to children being innocent? okay, so god does what he wants and who are any of us to question it? excuse me? seriously. i question any god who would act in such a way. benevolent father my a$$! you have a book full of things he's supposed to have done in the world (all of which before the days of the camcorder I might add) yet when it comes to protecting innocent children he's too busy giving people directions in the back of beyond to do anything about it. I'm sorry but no, no way at all ever would I believe in such a god as that. how can any of you honestly, seriously believe in such propaganda? anyway back to the subject at hand.
I'm sorry to rain on your parade here, but every single 'miracle' performed by your god in this thread has also happened to the rest of us unbelievers too. atheists bump into each other at the oddest times too and in every corner of the world. I bumped into my old best mate from school who I'd lost touch with at a service station at the other end of the country in the UK about 10 years ago. my brothers wife bumped into her parents next door neighbours in a craft market on the other side of the world. 10 seconds either way and she'd never have even known they were in the same country, never mind the same town. i bumped into my girlfriends flatmate from a town in wales when i was in Oz. I've bumped into my step brother in Slane when neither of us even knew the other was in Ireland (both from the UK). he was only there for the weekend at the last minute and purely by a fluke ended up in slane. i was supposed to meet a half a dozen other people there and even with text messaging we never even managed to hook up (mind you were were all a bit p1ssed). if you were going to a hindu conference do you think you would have credited Ganesh with helping you bump into each other? so to answer your original question, your odds are actually pretty good that at various times in your life you will bump into people like this just like it's very likely that the rest of us (religious or not) will too. just as billions of monkeys mashing away at billions of keyboards will evertually write up the complete works of shakesphere, or even the bible.
Schuhart wrote: » I was Googling for another thread, and came across this which might be of interest. .... But I can actually follow what this guy is getting at, and I don't see it as raising the kind of issues that bothered me at the start of this thread.
PDN wrote: » If such a God exists, then it is plainly not superstition to pray to Him and to ask Him to intervene in our lives.
Wicknight wrote: » Yes it is. You seem to be working under the mistaken assertion that calling something superstition means saying it isn't real. That is not the case. I have a friend who puts his socks on a certain way every football game. When asked why he does that he says "Because i'm superstitious". Now clearly if that was him saying I do thing based on a belief in things that aren't true and are nonsense, it would be stupid of him to do his good luck ritual every time. A superstition is a belief, often irrational but then that is a loaded term around these parts, that some practice or ritual will alter the logical or reasonably predicted outcome of regular course of events. Whether or not it is real or not is largely irrelevant That is exactly what praying to a god is. You pray that your god will in some way change or effect the regular course of some event or outcome to be in your or someone else's favor. You pray that you won't drown when your car goes into a river. You pray that a friend has a successful heart operation. You pray that atheists find Jesus. All these things are a practice to supernaturally alter the regular predicted outcome in a positive favor. And it is exactly what having a rabbits foot is. They are equvelant. I really can't put it any more clearer than that PDN. Your insistence of arguing EVERY SINGLE LITTLE POINT that you consider may in some way make Christianity look equvalent to something you yourself have no time for is really tiresome. Please stop do thiat and next time simply listen to what people are saying. And can you please stop calling people trolls simply because they disagree with you
JimiTime wrote: » Thats the thing. I suppose the question I'm asking now is, Why wouldn't I invite Gods input into any aspect of my life? Why would I think I'm abusing prayer, if I need a parking space for example. Do I think God would be saying, 'r u for real, I aint got time'. I think Travel Junkie's post gave a great analogy about this. Certainly food for thought.
JimiTime wrote: » This discussion has moved on to something with a bit more substance (To christians anyway). maybe its time for some decorum, and leave it be. Its not that yourself and PDN are going to agree on anything.
wolfsbane wrote: » Specifically, in the case of children being abused/murdered for example, sometimes God permits such evil to happen, at other times He prevents it. Those who do the evil will pay for it in the Day of Judgement. Those who suffer it ought to learn from it how evil men's hearts are, and look to God to change their hearts lest they grow up to be just as wicked. They will be given grace to deal with their sufferings, if they ask God for it.
wolfsbane wrote: » Specifically, in the case of children being abused/murdered for example, sometimes God permits such evil to happen, at other times He prevents it.
wolfsbane wrote: » Those who do the evil will pay for it in the Day of Judgement. Those who suffer it ought to learn from it how evil men's hearts are, and look to God to change their hearts lest they grow up to be just as wicked.
wolfsbane wrote: » You are addressing PDN, but let me just say that 'coincidences' may well be just that, but when such happen in answer to prayer, the odds point more to intervention.
Wicknight wrote: » Agreed, moving on. What are you guys discussing?
vibe666 wrote: » for example. a child is dying of leukemia, which if it happened would be god's will but you seem to think that by praying you *may* be able to change the outcome so that the child could live. so are you saying that your prayer is able to change the mind of god? surely if you did not intervene and the child dies then that is gods will, but if you pray and the child survives as a result then you have changed gods mind into sparing their life but that doesn't seem to fit in with my understanding of gods will as cast iron and unchangeable. when god decides to do something that's it, end of story. how can you affect his decisions like this with prayer?
JimiTime wrote: » cheers WN. i know its a bit 'back seat modding' of me.
PDN wrote: » Wolfsbane, as a Calvinist, believes that God determines everything and so all that happens is according to his will. However, I should point out that this does not represent the views of many (probably most) Christians. Everything that happens is not necessarily God's will, otherwise there would be no such thing as free will. I certainly do not believe it is the will of God for any child to contract leukemia.
Fanny Cradock wrote: » From what we understand about the nature of God - or what I believe, anyway - the whole 'aint got no time' thing wouldn't be a constraint for God because he is outside of time. Still, I often feel the same as yourself.
TravelJunkie wrote: » I think the emphasis is not on the nature of God, but rather on us. Time is a constraint for us, and giving time to God is a sacrifice we make for Him.
Wicknight wrote: No worries, I do (as I'm sure you all have noticed ) have a tendency to argue and argue a point into the ground when I feel I'm right or being misrepresented. It tends to end up being rather counter-producive because everyone stops reading my posts except for the person I'm arguing with who never agrees with me anyway, so the odd cop on post is not only ok but often welcomed
Wicknight wrote: » Is it not evil in itself to permit such evil to happen if one has the ability to stop it? Could I say that I didn't stop my son being sexually abused by his teacher because I wanted the rest of my children to know that sexual abuse happens and is bad? Do you think anyone here would have time for such a nonsense excuse for allowing my son to suffer? What is with you guy and the focus on the punishment aspect. What is the point of punishment if one could have stopped the event in the first place. Again using the example of my (theoretical) son, which do you think would be better for my son, if I allowed him to be sexual abused and then punished the teacher who did it, or if I stopped the sexual abuse in the first place. Do you think in the former case my son would by thanking me because the teacher has been punished for what he did, or do you think he would be very angry that I had the power to stop the harm in the first place yet allowed it to happen, even if I then punished the abuser after he had harmed my son. No, the odds point more to coincidence. If you are praying your brain is in the mode to assign purpose to non-connected events and you will see "intervention" everywhere.
TravelJunkie wrote: » The abuser is influenced by the world, not God.
Wicknight wrote: » Not, as PDN points out, according to Wolfsbane who seems to take a Calvinistic approach to issues of free will. But still, even taking a non-Calvinistic position, God still permits evil. To say otherwise would be to limit God, to suggest that his hands are tied some how. What ever the reason, and most Christians assume there is a good one, God permits evil and goes further by creating a universe that facilitates evil.
Wicknight wrote: » But still, even taking a non-Calvinistic position, God still permits evil. To say otherwise would be to limit God, to suggest that his hands are tied some how. What ever the reason, and most Christians assume there is a good one, God permits evil and goes further by creating a universe that facilitates evil.
vibe666 wrote: » I'm finding it strange that as a believer you seem to be debating on the same side of this as wolfsbane yet your views on exactly what god is and how he interacts with the world are at odds with each other and pretty much mutually exclusive. for your view of god to be correct wolfsbane's view must be wrong and visa versa. i know you follow the same book, but your interpretations of what's in it's pages seem to be very different and for one view to be correct the other must be incorrect and indeed a lot of other branches of christianity and particuarly every other brand of religion going from islam to hinduism etc. etc. must also all be wrong. how can you be so sure your views are the right ones?
you mentioned talking with god before in prayer and hearing him and listening to him and I'm sure many other christians and various other faiths claim the same thing but for even one of those faiths to be 'the one true faith' means that the rest of you are basically just talking to yourselves (and listening) and you know what they say about people like that. are you REALLY sure that YOU alone are right and following the version of god that actually exists then in a roundabout way you are saying that every other believer on the planet with a different faith than yourself is just talking to themselves and as a result pretty much just stark staring bonkers? AND if you believe that, then what are the chances with all those millions of poor lost and deluded souls out there that you really really really are right and not just as much of a victim of a similarly (but a tiny bit different) deluded faith as everyone else?
Charco wrote: » I read a short piece by Mark Twain yesterday which deals with the question of God's inaction when it comes to evil, I thought he made his point well:Thoughts of God"It is plain that there is one moral law for heaven and another for the earth. The pulpit assures us that wherever we see suffering and sorrow which we can relieve and do not do it, we sin, heavily. There was never yet a case of suffering or sorrow which God could not relieve. Does He sin, then? If He is the Source of Morals He does -- certainly nothing can be plainer than that, you will admit. Surely the Source of law cannot violate law and stand unsmirched; surely the judge upon the bench cannot forbid crime and then revel in it himself unreproached. Nevertheless we have this curious spectacle: daily the trained parrot in the pulpit gravely delivers himself of these ironies, which he has acquired at second-hand and adopted without examination, to a trained congregation which accepts them without examination, and neither the speaker nor the hearer laughs at himself. It does seem as if we ought to be humble when we are at a bench-show, and not put on airs of intellectual superiority there."
TravelJunkie wrote: » I think there is a place and time for acceptance of things we do not fully understand. Surely this is the essence of faith.
PDN wrote: » So, even if I am deluded, I'm having a great life. Paschal's wager beats the odds again!
Wicknight wrote: » Yes but think at how much happier you would be if you had all that and atheism as well :pac:
