I am not being mean or nasty or even argumentative. I am not trying to convert anyone. I am just trying to understand a thought process. Yours.
The subject is prayer. People have been doing it forever with an astounding, documented, lack of success. Over the years studies have been done, statistics have been formulated and the success rate of prayer is dismal. There have been statements made that belief and prayer can be greatly helpful in healing the sick and emotionally injured. Other studies have stated that the important thing is the belief, sincere of course, that things will be better. It seems not to matter if you are praying to the easter bunny, or the supreme being. All that matters is a belief that something or someone, perhaps just yourself, will make you better.
The doctrine (christian) is even stacked against prayer. One of the prime impediments is the doctrine of free will. This eliminates prayer being a factor in dealing with your fellow man. Sure, you have free will, allowing you to screw up as you will. So does everyone else, including those who will wish you, or cause you, pain. It is their free will that causes it and God does not interfere. Pray for a safe journey? Useless! If somebody is going to get drunk and smash you all to heck, that is a factor of their free will. Untouchable.
Natural disasters are not covered by prayer. This is so obvious that it needs no explanation. What is the logic of praying to be saved from the very disaster God has set upon you? If God cares little for the hurricane or the tornado why in the world do you give thanks for escaping what was essentially a set up? This has even been immortalized in one of those old sayings that cannot be refuted. The rain falls on both the just and the unjust.
How about pestilence and plague? Suppose you pray to be healed and you are? How then would you rationalize all those other good folks, true believers all, perhaps better than you, who are not spared? Are they all being punished? For what? And has not your free will put you in the position where you could get sick?
So what is left to pray for? All I can see is that you pray for strength to get through the blunders of life, often yours, sometimes those of others. But there is always that free will thing and I continue to wonder if you get points for being a dufus.
Can you pray to get to heaven? I thought you either got there or not by works or faith or some kind of combination of the two. You either do it or you dont and praying is irrelevant.
So help me out. What is there to pray for? It seems that whatever it is you must bend the rules set forth in the doctrine itself.
My wife has participated in a church prayer chain forever. They pray for this and that, for healing, strength and guidance. Over the many years I have observed this I have seen not one miraculous healing. Folks still had their pain and sorrow. What relief they have gotten seems to have come from their fellow churchgoers. Through their free will as it were.
Quite frankly, it is impossible to make a case for prayer, at least not based on its success rate. So my question is, for those of you who do pray, why? Surely it cannot be for results
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
The subject is prayer. People have been doing it forever with an astounding, documented, lack of success. Over the years studies have been done, statistics have been formulated and the success rate of prayer is dismal. There have been statements made that belief and prayer can be greatly helpful in healing the sick and emotionally injured. Other studies have stated that the important thing is the belief, sincere of course, that things will be better. It seems not to matter if you are praying to the easter bunny, or the supreme being. All that matters is a belief that something or someone, perhaps just yourself, will make you better.
The doctrine (christian) is even stacked against prayer. One of the prime impediments is the doctrine of free will. This eliminates prayer being a factor in dealing with your fellow man. Sure, you have free will, allowing you to screw up as you will. So does everyone else, including those who will wish you, or cause you, pain. It is their free will that causes it and God does not interfere. Pray for a safe journey? Useless! If somebody is going to get drunk and smash you all to heck, that is a factor of their free will. Untouchable.
Natural disasters are not covered by prayer. This is so obvious that it needs no explanation. What is the logic of praying to be saved from the very disaster God has set upon you? If God cares little for the hurricane or the tornado why in the world do you give thanks for escaping what was essentially a set up? This has even been immortalized in one of those old sayings that cannot be refuted. The rain falls on both the just and the unjust.
How about pestilence and plague? Suppose you pray to be healed and you are? How then would you rationalize all those other good folks, true believers all, perhaps better than you, who are not spared? Are they all being punished? For what? And has not your free will put you in the position where you could get sick?
So what is left to pray for? All I can see is that you pray for strength to get through the blunders of life, often yours, sometimes those of others. But there is always that free will thing and I continue to wonder if you get points for being a dufus.
Can you pray to get to heaven? I thought you either got there or not by works or faith or some kind of combination of the two. You either do it or you dont and praying is irrelevant.
So help me out. What is there to pray for? It seems that whatever it is you must bend the rules set forth in the doctrine itself.
My wife has participated in a church prayer chain forever. They pray for this and that, for healing, strength and guidance. Over the many years I have observed this I have seen not one miraculous healing. Folks still had their pain and sorrow. What relief they have gotten seems to have come from their fellow churchgoers. Through their free will as it were.
Quite frankly, it is impossible to make a case for prayer, at least not based on its success rate. So my question is, for those of you who do pray, why? Surely it cannot be for results
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
