Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
and yet you still engage, so i must take this as a sign, along the lines of your stated desire to "know truth," which you have demonstrated actually means "reinforce what i already know," and so, since you have made that abundantly clear, while i have also made abundantly clear that i have no desire to just hand you some pearls on a plate, in order that you may again turn and trample me, and increased punctiliousness on my part is only redeemed by your increased confusion, it seems best to possibly start over, and maybe even open up a third front, seeing as how we seek to reach your third ear?
"Do you have any?"
yes, i do;
if you will but commit yourself to a real question, and allow yourself to be led, just a bit, as in Abel, rather than to continuing to follow, a la Cain, you might come to see this truth, from your own lips, so to speak, wherein it might be appreciated by you--if in fact "truth" is actually your goal--and could not be disputed; wherein i might be rewarded with, usually, silence, which i would accept gratefully. peace.
I understand your point brother...you're saying prayer is a slot machine, and the house always wins. I think of prayer like I'm having a conversation with God about pretty much everything...I don't wait for management by crisis to call on Him...it's continually, in season and out of season. Have a blessed day.
You too. My belief based on the statistics and personal observation is that prayer is an invaluable tool for comfort in times of crisis. When we act proactively in the face of impending tragedy it helps us to be able to know we did everything within our power to help a dying loved one and prayer is the only proactive action we have at our disposal when the Dr's have done all they can and nothing has helped. We pray; the relative dies and we can say, "I did what I could" and that comforts us in our bereavement.
The mistake is to take Jesus' words literally, "If you ask the Father for anything in my name He will grant it." Era has already pointed out that James' words have been mistranslated all to hell so that the meaning has totally changed. That would mean Jesus never meant his words to be taken literally--that we we would literally get ANYTHING we asked for in prayer and that includes healing. Nevertheless, that's the way the translators translated it and the way most Christians interpret it and that's why we get loss of faith when something we think is a literal promise from Jesus has been broken by Jesus. As the famous quote goes, however, the buck stops at Jesus' desk. As the purported son of God He's the one who bears full responsibility for a bogus promise made in his name that fails time and time again.
Ha! Just the pot calling the kettle black. And you believe in talking asses--Numbers 22:28. How naive is that????????
Christians do the same thing: believe every single claim made in the Bible no matter outlandish or ridiculous or unbelievable it might be. Maybe Moses peered into the future and saw the "Francis the Talking Mule" flicks when he was writing Numbers. Wouldn't surprise me.
Of course ignore what words mean and put your own view of them and then diss those who ... know better. If God exists a talking mule is easily possible. Now should I believe what is actually written/meant or use your view that denigrates God?
there are no talking mules, wadr. At least not in Scripture. that one exists so that you may reveal where you stand on "talking mules in Scripture," wadr.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thrillobyte
As the purported son of God He's the one who bears full responsibility for a bogus promise made in his name that fails time and time again.
but you again accept the interpretation of the Apostates, and refuse to witness the verse as it stands, right in front of you, that you continue to misquote, or at least misrepresent, that would preclude any praying to God as if He were Santa Claus. "In My Name" or "In God's Will" is not some prepositional phrase to make assumptions upon, regardless of any other passages regarding healing that are erroneously conflated with this one.
prayers in Christ's Name, or in the Father's Will, are abundantly effective, trust me, and would even avail you if you understood that you are asking for a lesson; you are asking for your eyes to be opened on a matter of conscience. you are, essentially, asking for pain; because we perceive change as being painful.
and there is no precondition for praying this prayer. there is no reason that you could not pray it, from your own understanding of "Creator," whatever that may be, by simply verbalizing your desire to know a thing that is in God's will for you to learn. to change. notice that no preconditions--except the aforementioned one that you continue to dismiss, in your desire to reinforce what you already know--exist, in Scripture. peace.
James 5:14-15
Now let's make sure we've got this straight: the Bible is inerrant. That means that it is God talking DIRECTLY to humanity, not James. It is God Himself making this promise to men,
A person would Not call the elders for physical sickness, but a medical doctor as gospel writer Luke was a physician.-Colossians 4:14
So, the sickness of James 5:14-15 is about ' spiritual ' sickness.
Compare Psalm 141:5; Isaiah 61:3
By going to the elders then a person could feel unburdened from their feeling guilty of sin.
Oil ' spiritual oil ' of God's Word ( Scripture ) would be like soothing oil to the remorseful sinner.
Does prayer settle the mind, unlock thoughts, and aid in making a better choice/choices that may turn out well in the end?
Does prayer help the feeling of "helplessness" that we feel while a loved one goes through the process of dying? Does it help the person passing, pass easier?
No omni god, but prayer works.
Like many self help rituals do.
no magic,
but the placebo effect is real.
The stance that we are part of a system that may be a live is more valid than we are not. So thinking about it and loved ones through the connections that are there is fine. Statistics do say that some will live. But that's because we don't know what happened. When we do, it won't be probability, it will be a mechanism.
I am not sure revenge is a reason as reason is itself.
A person would Not call the elders for physical sickness, but a medical doctor as gospel writer Luke was a physician.-Colossians 4:14
So, the sickness of James 5:14-15 is about ' spiritual ' sickness.
Compare Psalm 141:5; Isaiah 61:3
By going to the elders then a person could feel unburdened from their feeling guilty of sin.
Oil ' spiritual oil ' of God's Word ( Scripture ) would be like soothing oil to the remorseful sinner.
A person would Not call the elders for physical sickness, but a medical doctor as gospel writer Luke was a physician.-Colossians 4:14
So, the sickness of James 5:14-15 is about ' spiritual ' sickness.
Compare Psalm 141:5; Isaiah 61:3
By going to the elders then a person could feel unburdened from their feeling guilty of sin.
Oil ' spiritual oil ' of God's Word ( Scripture ) would be like soothing oil to the remorseful sinner.
I agree, wholeheartedly, Matthew. If a person asks the elders to pray for him because because of spiritual "sickness" that's perfectly okay because it is a spiritual matter, not a physiological one. The mistake comes when millions of people riddled with cancer call for their elders to come and pray over them to be cured of the cancer itself. Now someone in here ridiculously suggested that the physical cancer might be caused by a sinful condition which then manifested itself into a physical cancer. The two are separate issues. Cancer is cancer and prayer cannot touch that cancer far as a physical healing goes. If the person gets prayed for and the cancer goes away it's a coincidence because the statistics show that 80% of cancers prayed for go on to kill the Christian; 20% spontaneously remiss or respond to treatment and this is claimed by Christians to be an answer to prayer. It is not. Had the medical establishment not intervened most of these 20% would have died. A small fraction would have spontaneously healed because nature did its job and the person's immune system sprang into action to repress the cancer. I read of stories frequently where a Christian claims he got cured by God of cancer only to die a year later when the cancer returns. Either God is an incompetent healer or He had nothing to do with the first healing.
imo, had the medical establishment not been empowered to intervene, and the natural healing industry suppressed, all of the cases of cancer--that manifestation of spiritual sickness, as surely it is, even if it is traceable to poor nutrition choices, which are essentially spiritual; "i want to save money on food" iow--or practically all, could have been healed by natural means.
and yet you still engage, so i must take this as a sign, along the lines of your stated desire to "know truth," which you have demonstrated actually means "reinforce what i already know," and so, since you have made that abundantly clear, while i have also made abundantly clear that i have no desire to just hand you some pearls on a plate, in order that you may again turn and trample me, and increased punctiliousness on my part is only redeemed by your increased confusion, it seems best to possibly start over, and maybe even open up a third front, seeing as how we seek to reach your third ear?
"Do you have any?"
yes, i do;
if you will but commit yourself to a real question, and allow yourself to be led, just a bit, as in Abel, rather than to continuing to follow, a la Cain, you might come to see this truth, from your own lips, so to speak, wherein it might be appreciated by you--if in fact "truth" is actually your goal--and could not be disputed; wherein i might be rewarded with, usually, silence, which i would accept gratefully. peace.
mmm-hmm.
ty
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
