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If prayer really worked then no one would die, no one would suffer and no one would have problems.
...
If someone you are praying for doesn't get better, etc. does that mean that god doesn't hear your prayers, or simply what is meant to happen is going to happen and your prayers have no impact on anything.
Those who believe that prayer is about asking for changes in outcome, or that no one would die, no one would suffer or no one would ever have problems, don't fully understand prayer.
Sometimes prayer is thanking God for all He's done for us. Sometimes prayer is seeking blessing for others according to His will.
To your second question, it's not that black or white.
Yes, from Theravada Buddhism but not the corrupted version in Mahayana Buddhism. (You were in Mahayana, no, Arq?)
No. I was Therevadin. First in a monastery in Bangkok and then (after I'd married Mrs Arq), the Mahasi Vipassana meditation centre in Yangon, so she could get some respite from my attentions.
I could never be doing with all that clutter of demigods in Mahayana.
Those who believe that prayer is about asking for changes in outcome, or that no one would die, no one would suffer or no one would ever have problems, don't fully understand prayer.
Sometimes prayer is thanking God for all He's done for us. Sometimes prayer is seeking blessing for others according to His will.
To your second question, it's not that black or white.
Well, there we are again. You are either doing it for yourself (because you think God doesn't know how thankful you are? You need to keep reminding yourself). Or you are asking for blessings. You think God doesn't already know whether he is going to grant them or not?
The paradox of Why Pray at all? remains. A rep if you solve it.
Prayer works for those who DON'T believe as you do.
There are those who believe in fate, another term for what will happen will be. And some understand, but some cannot. Prayer can be something to sooth a loss, so it will be an act of kindness (Think of someone who lives in contant pain, with no relief to be found. Fate won't change, but the timetable might, a tightrope many fear, but which may found a pathway around, for now. Not forever. But more precious time may be worth it.
So prayer can change the roadway a little, create a detour for now, but it won't change the end. But that time may be used to say and do what there was never time for before.
We adjust with prayer and other means of guiding energies but the ultimate is not lost, just pushed down the road.
I'm pagan/wiccan but believe that which we call 'God or Godess is a different mirror of the one Christans call their God, but belief systems are things we use words to express our interpretation of something for which likely there may be no 'words'.
Everything does not happen for a reason, some things are random.
Or... those random things are mearly small adjustments to the road, and are necessary for the ultimate goal. They are so random, and any action they lead to may be the reason, or not, for a goal. But those only related by time may be part of the ultimate destination, just not ones you can see yet. We contain a universe in our heads, and both the small and bigger choices make us 'me'.
Predestination, as I understand it, is a prewritten script of the universe, spanning time and generations. It helps individual organisms like us to grow in a 'set' reality for a time, and challenges them to instead make tomorrow their own. If these 'other options' are just different pathways, but only to the end result, then there remains all the ways master plans end up someting different when they arrive.
Or, you could argue that that the sometimes intentional, usually the sum of other but different bricks is mearly a related cousin of its origional. But change can be great or small, long seeded and survived or an idea implanted to grow, or random collusions which together make it 'new'.
Maybe as life as we know it, and as we suspect it will be 'out there' is a combination of anticipated change, and adjusted uses of what was before mixed with a few 'new' for a new time collection of what makes the unknown.
Posts like this confuse me. Did you come here to tell us something or ask a question? Is this open to debate? Because the phrasing is pretty "Yeah, this is what i believe, so suck it". In which case you could just say that to someone in real life. If you are trying to engage people, then don't state things, ask questions.
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Why, that sounds exactlu like Vipassana Meditation in Buddhism.
