Quote on prayer!

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Psychoanalyzing God again? How confidently you look into the mind of a being so superior to you that our mind is to His not much different than that of a cockroach. No wonder you feel he could be interested in telling Him how inferior His judgments are to your suggestions. Of course, He could be amused..... But then, assuming He exists as has been proclaimed down the ages, I have no more capability of comprehending the creator of universes than you do.

Yes, and that is the point.

Actual experience trumps mere speculation every time!

You guys won't see eye to eye, one's christian and the other appears to be agnostic. Of course I'll get flamed and insulted for just saying this.

You can look at as psychoanalysis, but I disagree--or I just don't understand psychoanalysis (I had to take a lot of psychology courses for my degree and got just enough of Freudian psych to be dangerous).

Of course, no one can know the mind of God, but we all have SOME insight. The Bible, for example, does inform us that God indeed does want our prayers. Selfish? Maybe. But there is no harm at all in asking.

I like what someone said about the 16-yo and the Corvette. When I read the Bible, something I get is that when people ask God for things and He grants them, they often get more than they asked for. The best example I can think of offhand is Solomon, of whom it is written that he only asked for great wisdom and nothing more. He was granted wisdom and then virtually all the wealth of the world.

I remember once being really torn up over a girl who was horribly inconstant. Stupid me, I know, but I spent most of my days for several weeks praying over her. My prayers were very specific--I want THAT one. But in the end, what I believe God was telling me was to not sell myself so short. My wife and children are MUCH more than anything I ever expected and certainly more than what I ever asked for. So I'm not quite so afraid now of asking God for bigger and better, though I do the best I can to ask for the right things, same as Solomon asking only for wisdom. But just as Solomon accepted God's gifts of wealth, it's best to accept what God grants us.

I also believe that it's God's prerogative to leave prayers unanswered, itself also an answer. I also think God keeps silent on a lot of things, and the Bible tells us in those situations it's best to wait, no matter how long, or to consult someone in like faith who one can reliably trust to know the answer.

But as to being selfish? Well, I think a better request is an unselfish one. But that doesn't account for all the pain in the world. While asking for one's own relief from suffering might appear selfish, it's not an unreasonable request, either. Being unsatisfied with God's will? Hey, ask Jonah about that one. God made up His mind that He WOULD destroy Nineveh, no second chances. God chose otherwise when the people decided in their hearts to repent. Repenting and asking for mercy is certainly acting counter to God's will at a certain point in time. Even though God wanted to destroy them, He held back from destruction. So no, expressing dissatisfaction with God's will is not necessarily unreasonable, either. I think it has more to do with the spirit of the request and the heart of the believer.

Oh God, lord of this and many universes, hear my prayer! Am I justified in being curious about your motivations in killing my marvelous father, my wonderful mother, and just recently my lovely wife by infusing their entire bodies with horribly painful cancers to torture them for months before their minds disintegrated and they finally fell into a coma and died. Should I be grateful to your eminence for rendering my beautiful son a quadriplegic at the age of three to spend the rest of his short life on a respirator in untold miseries from subsequent regular organ failures to give my wife and I extraordinary recurrent nightmares for thirty years until my son passed away in misery? I am fully aware that people around the world suffer similar and worse miseries under your surveillance every day and do you require our eternal gratitude for these marvelous gifts or is it that you found it comfortable to keep your head up your ass while you require us poor creations of your huge wisdom to kiss it? Reply by e-mail. snail mail or thunder from the sky. as you will. Amen.

I would argue with that one, but not because He is not free to do as He wills. I just think that is a weak explanation stemming from human ignorance.

An example from Daniel has made quite an impression on me: He had asked for something and no answer came for about a week ... then the messenger explained he had been detained.



Sure, and I have come to accept my own occasional lack of any true "need to know".



Absolutely.

You have a point. I will have to reconsider my analysis.

I do agree that it is arrogant to think that one understands God or can instruct him on what needs to be done. Jesus said that the father knows what we need before we ask him; so what is the point of asking? I don't know. It might have something to do with the fact that we ask for what we want, which is not necessarily what we need.

Learning to align ourselves (or allowing ourselves to be aligned) with His will.

I think we can safely eliminate the first two, anyone could sign God's name to mail and do you know his signature? I doubt he could answer all of your questions with thunder from the sky, so what does that leave him?

There is a prophesy that says that in the later days young men well see visions and old men will dream dreams, so he might answer you in a dream – if you really want an answer. If I was God (which I am not) I would not leave your first prayer unanswered.

The crazes that infect the mazes of the human mind
Are not a reliable venue
To know the will of any gods of any kind
So e-mail or the post will have to do.
There is no human way I can conceive
That a God can make his words come true
So I'll leave it up to God
To devise a means quite odd
To verify his message from the blue.

I think the reason it would be so insulting would be simply that if he was all powerful and all knowing, he would already know what you want, so, it's like the kids saying "are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet."

To me, it's a moot point mind you for two reasons.
a) there is no god.
b) even if there were, then a quote from Genesis, sorry, i forget the cap/verse "And now they are like us" (ie, as gods) We are the most powerful beings in the universe... that we know of anyways... why? because we possess free will, we can alter reality... an "all knowing god" could not.. thus we can do that which it cannot, ergo, we are more powerful.

explanation... all knowing god cannot change the future, because he knows what it is already.

So.... stop asking yourself for help, and actually go out and try to make your own way in the world.

The logic there escapes me. If we can actually do that, why would not just go on ahead and do?

I echo you, I don't know why people don't just go out and do, rather than praying.

You can pray for a loaf of bread, or you can go and get a job, and buy a loaf of bread (or beg for one on the street.. or any number of alternatives)

But, i think you're getting at something else, you associate biblical story god powers with my words of us being the most powerful beings in the universe.
Well, i think the key here is the common misunderstanding of the word Omnipotent.
This word means "able to do anything that is doable" NOT "Able to do anything"

"It is doable" is based relatively upon one's current frame of reference.
So, yes it's possible to go to the moon.
different ways... join NASA, or build your own rocket.
inside those methods there are requirements, and alternative ways to reach the goal.

However It is NOT doable to fly to the moon tomorrow.
If you were in a different frame of reference (ie, if you were Neil Armstrong that day in 1969) then it would be.

It is doable to do most things actually, if you do not put time-limits on it. However we must release the self definition of ourselves when we release time limits given our finite longevity, and view mankind as a single entity for that purpose.

If the universe's laws permit it, we can do it, whether we do or not is irrelevant.

Hope that helps

I woke up alive this morning... and I can read using a set of eyeballs that are fused into my brain. That seems rather helpful.

Likewise, the word omniscient means knowing all that can be known. If man has free will, as you say, our choices effect what the future will be so the future cannot be known until we make them; so that rather kills your earlier argument about an “all knowing god cannot change the future, because he knows what it is already.”