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Have your prayers ever been answered?

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snapcap
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07 Feb 2012, 12:46 am

Declension wrote:
The claim that prayers are answered is a scientific claim. It deserves a scientific test. Has there ever been one?

I think that a lot of "prayer" effects can be explained using the idea of probability. Even if you believe in prayer, just assume that prayer has no effect, just for a moment. Imagine a world where prayer has no effect, and yet many people pray for things that may or may not happen.

What would you expect to happen in such a world? Well, we would expect that sometimes, people's prayers would be answered! Just by chance.

Well, if your prayer has been answered, maybe you're just one of those lucky people! It doesn't have to mean that God did anything.


I think pray works via positive thought. It could also release chemicals that numb the person praying, in cases of high stress. When people in tense situations make it out, a lot of them describe their thoughts and prayers were the only thing that got them through. I'm sure it is pretty powerful when it looks like you're not going to make it, but you managed to, and the only thing you really did was pray. But I don't think praying has any real measurable benefit as far as being able to whisk you to safety. Unless the perps are religious, and you start shouting prayer's and passages from scripture at them. They might be too ashamed to carry out their crime.


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AngelRho
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07 Feb 2012, 4:04 am

ValentineWiggin wrote:
but can't manage to do a lil sumthin about the sex trafficking of children?

Doesn't that reveal something interesting about the god?

Sure. God can inspire people to action in the face of injustice. How do you know (assuming you acknowledge that there is a God, of course) that the rage you feel about sex trafficking wasn't put in your heart to move you to action? Perhaps God is telling you He wants YOU to do something about it and that He will empower you to play a role in ending the horrors of child trafficking.

Note: I also don't believe that one has to believe in God to be used by God.



Oodain
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07 Feb 2012, 6:38 am

how do you know it is?

you own imagination, spurred by others of the deluge.


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Last edited by Oodain on 07 Feb 2012, 9:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

AceOfSpades
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07 Feb 2012, 8:01 am

AngelRho wrote:
ValentineWiggin wrote:
but can't manage to do a lil sumthin about the sex trafficking of children?

Doesn't that reveal something interesting about the god?

Sure. God can inspire people to action in the face of injustice. How do you know (assuming you acknowledge that there is a God, of course) that the rage you feel about sex trafficking wasn't put in your heart to move you to action? Perhaps God is telling you He wants YOU to do something about it and that He will empower you to play a role in ending the horrors of child trafficking.

Note: I also don't believe that one has to believe in God to be used by God.
You know you're proving her point right? It still stands that God saves some people through miracles while other people are left to fend for themselves with nothing more than faith.

Note: I also don't believe that one has to believe in gravity to be subject to it, but then again gravity doesn't just pick and choose who is subject to it.



ValentineWiggin
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07 Feb 2012, 8:12 am

AngelRho wrote:
ValentineWiggin wrote:
but can't manage to do a lil sumthin about the sex trafficking of children?

Doesn't that reveal something interesting about the god?

Sure. God can inspire people to action in the face of injustice. How do you know (assuming you acknowledge that there is a God, of course) that the rage you feel about sex trafficking wasn't put in your heart to move you to action? Perhaps God is telling you He wants YOU to do something about it and that He will empower you to play a role in ending the horrors of child trafficking.

Note: I also don't believe that one has to believe in God to be used by God.


I don't see any evidence of a god of any kind, so I don't really need to make up explanations involving one for the existence of human emotion.


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01001011
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07 Feb 2012, 11:52 am

AngelRho wrote:
God can inspire people to action in the face of injustice.

What nonsense gibberish is that?



MCalavera
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07 Feb 2012, 4:41 pm

AngelRho wrote:
ValentineWiggin wrote:
but can't manage to do a lil sumthin about the sex trafficking of children?

Doesn't that reveal something interesting about the god?

Sure. God can inspire people to action in the face of injustice. How do you know (assuming you acknowledge that there is a God, of course) that the rage you feel about sex trafficking wasn't put in your heart to move you to action? Perhaps God is telling you He wants YOU to do something about it and that He will empower you to play a role in ending the horrors of child trafficking.

Note: I also don't believe that one has to believe in God to be used by God.


Bullcrap.

If God can stop it, he should take the responsibility to take action if he cares and loves those children.

This kind of talk that people like you spout are only said when people don't want to face the fact that there's what resembles a clinically narcissistic freak in their god.

Narcissistic fathers like to talk the talk of love but fail to walk it. And that's what your silly god loves to do. Talking love but showing the opposite.