Considering the Effects of Prayer

Originally posted by Suzianne
Doesn't it have to do with not believing what I said is true? Then yes, it has plenty to do with bias.

"Because prayer is communication with God. God gets involved through the Holy Spirit." This separates prayer from those other things. The implication here is that those other practices do not "communicate with God", and are therefore nonsensical. Th ...[text shortened]... olling, you just made me waste ten minutes with an explanation of what should have been obvious.

If anyone is acting like RC, it is you.

Thanks for finally attempting to address it instead of continuing to pretend that you had.

Do you believe that you think that "the other practices are irrational in and of themselves" because of YOUR "bias"?

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Some non-religious people do pray, at least occasionally. A self-described 'agnostic' told me that she prays, explaining, "I don't really expect God to listen, and I'm not even sure that God exists. Yet when I pray, I tend to feel better. And anti-depressant drugs tend to have worse side effects." So, given that she seems motivated chiefly by the practical consequences, I don't know how I should tell her that praying must be irrational for her.

Based on what you've said here, I'm thinking chances are that she recognizes that it's irrational. Once again, what's at issue are the underlying beliefs.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I didn't say it had anything to do with your Dad and his praying. What I said, is that passing off false stories as fact - when you know they are false, makes you a liar and you should desist. I don't think the argument that 'it might have been true if we substitute some other unknown country and unknown soldiers in an unknown field, so I might not be lyi ...[text shortened]... t it.
And no, I am not calling you out as a liar, I am trying to give you some friendly advice.

I wasn't "Lying", nor trying to make any falsehood. It was something i was told by friends of my dad. All of whom fought in WW2. I had made the assumption that they were talking of something that took place in the war.

After it was pointed out to me that what i had heard was something from WW1, i knew i had erred.

Aside from my great knowledge of WW2. ha ha. What of the Philippines, as i was asking?

Originally posted by Pudgenik
I wasn't "Lying", nor trying to make any falsehood. It was something i was told by friends of my dad. All of whom fought in WW2. I had made the assumption that they were talking of something that took place in the war.

After it was pointed out to me that what i had heard was something from WW1, i knew i had erred.

Well I must have missed the post where you said you had erred. I thought you continued to insist that the story was true even after it was pointed out that it wasn't.

What of the Philippines, as i was asking?
I couldn't be bothered to look it up. You have already established a reputation for telling untrue stories.
My point was not to call you a liar, my point was that you should check your facts before telling stories or you will pretty soon find that nobody believes you. This is a common problem on this forum. There are a number of theists that will get behind any claim or any argument that they think supports their religion without actually checking the veracity of the claim. Then when they realize the claim is false they end up looking foolish. Some of them compound the matter by holding on to the claim for dear life and never admitting their error.

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When I said "Answered, no. Heard, yes.", I was responding to a post which was saying something to the effect of "we cannot be sure when we pray that God will answer us or that he has even heard our prayer."

We cannot be sure he will answer us, because, of course, that is God's option. We can, however, be sure that God hears us. And yes, it is an issue of faith.

I can only speak from personal experience. Twice, God has sent angels to answer my prayers. I'll not go into it here, but it was not mere hallucination, what the angels said to me was proved to me the next day on the first occasion. The second has yet to be 'proved' but I believe it, too, I have the evidence of the first occasion to drive my belief that God intervenes for us and does answer prayers. Thus, it is not a huge leap to understand that He always hears our prayers, even when He chooses not to answer them (or when the answer is 'no', as it must be on occasion).

I understand you do not believe. You have not been given sufficient reason to. I have, not once, but twice, yet once was good enough for me. Indeed, zero times would have been good enough, because I already believed in God and still would have to the end of my life even if my prayers had never been answered.

As to the person in a coma, in that case, no, you cannot be sure the person has heard you. The difference is that they have not written a manifesto, post-coma, that states they do hear you when you speak to them. It is up to you whether you believe the possibility exists that the person did in fact hear you, and whether you continue to speak to them as if they do hear you.

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Well, as we've both stated, it's an issue of faith. This is why some people think prayer to be efficacious and others do not. And if I get evidence that seems to point to it being the work of God, I'll thank God and He probably won't mind if I give Him credit for something He had no hand in. True, almost anything could be coincidence, but many people also do not believe in coincidence, either.

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In your case, it is good that you have more talent, as you say, for I doubt you will get any help from God through prayer, with your attitude. So prayer would be a waste of your time.

Originally posted by RJHinds
In your case, it is good that you have more talent, as you say, for I doubt you will get any help from God through prayer, with your attitude. So prayer would be a waste of your time.

Pssssst, hey, Ron... You know that trying to be a hardass all the time isn't going to get you many converts, right? It's just not doing anyone any favors.

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Well you still avoid my question of the Philippines, and that does make me wonder, 'why'?

Or that you purposely move away from the story i told of my dad. You keep rehashing something i've explained twice as my error.

So are you really more interested in trying to make me as a fool, or are you really here to use your expertise in true history? As in the Philippines?

Originally posted by Pudgenik
Well you still avoid my question of the Philippines, and that does make me wonder, 'why'?

Or that you purposely move away from the story i told of my dad. You keep rehashing something i've explained twice as my error.

I can't speak for Duchess64 but I'll tell you why I did that. The story you told about your dad cannot be confirmed. All we have is your word.
As for the story about the Philippines, I have a lot of experience with people who tell one story after another, and the moment you point out one is untrue, they simply move on to the next, usually without even admitting that the first one was untrue - so Kudos to you for admitting your error on that one.
But lets say we do look at that story of the Philippines and it too turns out to be untrue. What then? Will you produce another story?
If it turns out to be true, what then? Does it prove that prayer works? Are there aspect of the story for which God answering prayer is the only reasonable explanation? If so, why didn't it make headline news? What insight do you have that the rest of the people who heard of it did not have?

[edit]Regarding the story of your dad, even if you were a very trustworthy person that we all knew personally, personal testimony simply isn't good enough reason to accept that something extraordinary happened.
For example, think about what sort of evidence you would require from someone who claimed teleportation was possible. Would you accept a story about his dad teleporting?
I can tell you stories from friends of mine in Zambia who have witnessed various forms of magic. Would you accept those stories as evidence of magic?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I can't speak for Duchess64 but I'll tell you why I did that. The story you told about your dad cannot be confirmed. All we have is your word.
As for the story about the Philippines, I have a lot of experience with people who tell one story after another, and the moment you point out one is untrue, they simply move on to the next, usually without even ad ...[text shortened]... eadline news? What insight do you have that the rest of the people who heard of it did not have?

There are many gifts we receive through prayer. Whether we believe that prayer truly works or not.

Example, the calming affect of people in torment (at hospitals, funerals etc.) Or in the bolstering of courage during a battle (what may have happened in Belguim).

I was trying to show something that is known, or that i thought was known as a more direct example of prayer and life in the world.

Certainly it would take me time to hunt down all the people involved in my dad's prayers for those children, who are now grown. But even if i got them on here, would you really believe what they had to say as an eye witness account.

It seems all we do here is question everything, proof proof proof. Did anyone ever tell you it takes Faith to believe in God?