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My religious tradition taught me that if I prayed, God will heal, and if it didn't happen, it was my own fault. Yes, this is an extreme illustration of what can happen when such beliefs are taken literally, as they are with children, but this way of thinking stills exists to varying degrees in adults in Christianity because it is part of the religion to believe that prayers like this can be answered.
Adults can make choices that children cannot. We teach them to say please and thank you before they understand what that means, they are just words for them that might get them ice cream if they use the right word at the right time. But we expect them to grow up and understand they are not magic words that will make things happen, but acts of courtesy and socialization. That is a sea change in understanding.
I fail to understand why this does not seem to happen to some people when it comes to religion and the role of prayer in a spiritual life. Religion and spirituality is for adults. We can shape what was taught when we were children to what is meaningful to us now, and have a wider perspective on spirituality and its place in our life.
Some people may not and are comfortable with the basics, and i doubt they question their belief. It works for them.
If one wants more from religion one needs to do the work. Atheism is not the answer, it is just a lazy way of solving what is lacking.
Just a few posts ago, didn't you say that if you prayed to God for $1474.23, and the next day, someone gave you that amount, you'd become an "instant believer"?
Why are you setting a higher 'standard' for Thoreau -- an obvious believer -- than for yourself?
Either one would instantly make a believer out of me, Mink. I consider either one out of the realm of possibility under our natural laws.
I'm extremely un-religious, but have decades of answered prayers. By now, they probably are close to the three-digit range. I'm not keeping count, and have no need to track them.
It doesn't matter if no one believes me. I'm not interested in anyone else's opinion or approval. I have a quality relationship with God, and he and I know what's going on. That's more than sufficient.
Those who have already decided it's not true, or worse, want to mock God, don't deserve any help from him.
I don't know if you ever had any kids, but let's you had a son and/or daughter who had the same attitude toward teachers, counselors, and principals. Would you think it proper for those professional educators to not give your children any help as they struggle through school. And those educators are not even 'all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving gods'.
Your post is exactly what's wrong with christianity, and certainly doesn't follow the teachings of Jesus.
Oh, I get what kinds of three-digit prayers God answers for you, Thoreau. Things like he's helped you find your lost car keys a few dozen times and turns lights green for you when you're waiting too long at a red light and cures a headache for you now and then and makes the guy in front of you change lanes when he's driving too slow to suit your patience level. I get him answering those kinds of prayers for you.
Tell us: has he cured you of cancer or heart disease lately? Or restored sight to your blind eye? Or kept your house untouched in a hurricane when everyone else's around yours has been blown to the ground? No, I didn't think so.
Here again a post of yours with which I agree.
When I was a believer I didn't ask god for much for myself. But the few times I did -- such as getting a particular job...and I did -- it later occurred to me that let's see I was a science teacher (where there is often a shortage of applicants), I had an excellent academic record in college, I had excellent references, and I was complimented on my interviewing skills. No wonder I got the jobs.
But every time when growing up that I was in family situations where someone sick and the family was praying for recovery...the family member almost always died. Yes, a few pulled through due to talented surgeons...thus it was the surgeon's talent, not god answering a prayer. I can't think of a time when a friend or relative prayed for something, and got it, that it wasn't a likely outcome to begin with.
And what the excuses we hear from christians? "God works in mysterious ways". "God helps those who help themselves". "It wasn't meant to be". Fine. Then why pray?
Jesus prayed in the Garden for his "cup to pass"...but only if it was his Father's Will; not his own. He also instructed others to do the will of Our Father; not our own. Even when he taught the disciples The Lord's Prayer, the prayer has the words, "...thy will be done..."
Too often we pray and expect God to align HIS Will with our own and not the other way around.
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Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
Over time, I began to reduce my prayers to only ever asking for guidance, to be shown what I should do in any given situation. That seemed to actually "work" for period of time. I felt as if I was given answers, clear signs, or serendipitous occurrences that pointed me in the direction of which path I should take. That's gone silent, at least for now.
As a lifelong Christian now in my 50s, this what it has all boiled down to for me. I've come to realize by thinking about the past that I did not even always know what I really wanted when I prayed, much less what was good for me. And my prayers are not going to change God's plan, but they may very well change me. Maybe that's the point.
So I now pray "Your will be done" and "Help me to accept your will." Do I still pray for specific things at times and for guidance, of course. But I do this knowing that what is going to happen, is going to happen, and it may not turn out the way I wanted.
Also, as someone who has had a couple of devastating medical diagnoses (I'm completely healthy right now), whenever I go in for a test, or when I'm especially worried about a family member or friend, I also pray for peace of mind. I've wasted enough time worrying about terrible things which never actually happened and we are told plenty of times in the Bible not to worry or fear.
Adults can make choices that children cannot. We teach them to say please and thank you before they understand what that means, they are just words for them that might get them ice cream if they use the right word at the right time. But we expect them to grow up and understand they are not magic words that will make things happen, but acts of courtesy and socialization. That is a sea change in understanding.
I fail to understand why this does not seem to happen to some people when it comes to religion and the role of prayer in a spiritual life. Religion and spirituality is for adults. We can shape what was taught when we were children to what is meaningful to us now, and have a wider perspective on spirituality and its place in our life.
Some people may not and are comfortable with the basics, and i doubt they question their belief. It works for them.
If one wants more from religion one needs to do the work. Atheism is not the answer, it is just a lazy way of solving what is lacking.
This happens because our SPIRITS must develop and mature while living in physical bodies in a physical world. All our concerns focus on things physical as Thrill and his angst reveal. God is SPIRIT and His concerns are all about our SPIRITUAL development. The physical environment and concerns are the venue in which our SPIRITS are to develop but the physical concerns are NOT the focus.
Prayer is a SPIRITUAL request and contact with our Father for comfort and support in dealing with the physical concerns of this life, NOT our Genii to grant physical wishes. It is all about how we DEAL with whatever we face here that matters, NOT the physical outcomes per se.
There are two general kinds of prayer. One might be called meditative prayer. This is the "I'm not asking for anything, Thy will be done" sort of prayer. If the objective is letting go, releasing control, letting things be as they are, this kind of prayer is perfectly effective. It is the Christian analog to mindfulness meditation, in a sense. Its objective is acceptance, equanimity and peace, not some kind of particular outcome.
That's not the sort of prayer under discussion here. What we're talking about here is "According to your word I'm coming to you with a specific request because of a personal need" sort of prayer. And for the sake of argument we are assuming the "ask" is not somehow selfish or unreasonable or frivolous. "So and so is suffering terribly, please deliver them from this terrible disease" is not a selfish or wrong or frivolous or unreasonable request. It is other-directed and represents precisely the kind of compassion that I suspect most here can agree Jesus would approve of. Indeed, it's claimed in the gospels that Jesus frequently answered precisely such requests without a lot of fuss or equivocation or the need for the supplicant to fill out a form in triplicate to determine if the claim would be denied or not. He even is supposed to have raised the dead, resolving the request after the fact.
One productive avenue of discussion might be to debate whether it is ever god's will for someone to, for example, suffer terribly from a horrible disease. The general argument is that god, who knows all, sometimes achieves greater overall good from a particular evil. This is of course situational ethics, which Christians generally decry, but I have actually even heard the argument that god alone can engage in situational ethics because he alone is perfectly good and wise, knows the end from the beginning, etc etc.
If something like this is your argument, then it comes back to how would you ever distinguish answered prayer from the background noise of random happenstance? If god has the option to answer "no" or "later" or to deem a prayer unworthy without any useful feedback to help a sincere person to make more approved requests going forward, then there is no objective way to either give god glory for answered prayer or to say that god has not answered, or has answered badly. What WOULD work is for unselfish prayers for legitimate needs to be answered at least significantly more often than not. This could be measured as better health and longevity outcomes for Christians than for non-Christians; in less incarceration of Christians for crimes, vs non-Christians (think of all the worried parents praying for their troubled children to See The Light), and any number of other measures. That's still kind of a weak-sauce endorsement for this type of prayer, but it is at least something.
All I know is that I have observed extraordinarily virtuous and good people, beloved and treasured people, suffer terribly from horrible disease, and even die in the end, despite dozens of Christians, including so-called "prayer warriors" being in agreement together to pray for the person's deliverance. Afterwards there was no assessment as to what went wrong (or right), the tragic outcome and the resulting suffering of the bereaved was just assumed to be god's will somehow, although no one could even be arsed to speculate about what that will actually was. The attitude was really just a big shrug, in a sense. Oh well -- you win some, you lose some! It wasn't presented insensitively (usually) but that is the net-net of the thing.
There was of course the comfort that the person was now beyond the reach of their suffering, but that doesn't require a god to explain it or take credit for it. I could have put a bullet through their head and achieved the same effect -- except with greater mercy.
At the end of the day, non-meditative prayer, if you will, ends up being a constantly moving goalpost. The Bible will say things like, "ask and see if I don't open the storehouse of heaven and shower blessings down upon you", suggesting that the bar to worthiness and correctness is pretty low; it will say that your prayers don't work because you just aren't doing it right; and it will say pretty much everything in between. That leaves plenty of wiggle room to (1) offer up the promise of obtaining god's assistance with requesting prayers as one of the benefits of being god's child and (2) explain away all the times it doesn't produce desired or needed results and (3) still laud god for every time there's even a partial answer or an answer that has a totally naturalistic explanation, like doctors.
God's got a pretty good gig there! All the credit for success, none of the blame for failure. Failure is all YOUR fault somehow.
This happens because our SPIRITS must develop and mature while living in physical bodies in a physical world. All our concerns focus on things physical as Thrill and his angst reveal. God is SPIRIT and His concerns are all about our SPIRITUAL development. The physical environment and concerns are the venue in which our SPIRITS are to develop but the physical concerns are NOT the focus.
Prayer is a SPIRITUAL request and contact with our Father for comfort and support in dealing with the physical concerns of this life, NOT our Genii to grant physical wishes. It is all about how we DEAL with whatever we face here that matters, NOT the physical outcomes per se.
As a lifelong Christian now in my 50s, this what it has all boiled down to for me. I've come to realize by thinking about the past that I did not even always know what I really wanted when I prayed, much less what was good for me. And my prayers are not going to change God's plan, but they may very well change me. Maybe that's the point.
So I now pray "Your will be done" and "Help me to accept your will." Do I still pray for specific things at times and for guidance, of course. But I do this knowing that what is going to happen, is going to happen, and it may not turn out the way I wanted.
Also, as someone who has had a couple of devastating medical diagnoses (I'm completely healthy right now), whenever I go in for a test, or when I'm especially worried about a family member or friend, I also pray for peace of mind. I've wasted enough time worrying about terrible things which never actually happened and we are told plenty of times in the Bible not to worry or fear.
Great post.
I still pray for my adult children, that no harm comes to them, that they will always find happiness, but I know it is for my own satisfaction, not that my prayer is going to do something for them even as I hope it would!
It is quite a puzzle for me that adults who have lived a long life can think prayers are miracles that will make things happen for us, just for us. It is unscientific to say the least.
All I know is that I have observed extraordinarily virtuous and good people, beloved and treasured people, suffer terribly from horrible disease, and even die in the end, despite dozens of Christians, including so-called "prayer warriors" being in agreement together to pray for the person's deliverance.
Everyone dies. Jesus also suffered horribly and died. You should be asking not why certain prayers don't seem to be answered, but why it is that people get sick, people get in terrible accidents, and even if there is temporary healing, they all die in the end.
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What WOULD work is for unselfish prayers for legitimate needs to be answered at least significantly more often than not. This could be measured as better health and longevity outcomes for Christians than for non-Christians; in less incarceration of Christians for crimes, vs non-Christians (think of all the worried parents praying for their troubled children to See The Light), and any number of other measures.
You are suggesting putting God to the test. Jesus quoted Moses, who said, do not put God to the test.
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This happens because our SPIRITS must develop and mature while living in physical bodies in a physical world. All our concerns focus on things physical as Thrill and his angst reveal. God is SPIRIT and His concerns are all about our SPIRITUAL development. The physical environment and concerns are the venue in which our SPIRITS are to develop but the physical concerns are NOT the focus. 
