Do you believe in the Power of Prayer?

[2-0-NINE]

The ability of God to answer your prayer, from my perspective. Can I easily give you other points of views? Sure.

 

[DenverInput]

honestly there are times after i pray when i feel a since of power, and i feel better about my situation for what ever im praying for.

 

[Hemp]

I believe in the power of BELIEF.
BELIEF is the power to change the internal reality (which is all there really is, cuz we all have different assumptions on what the external reality is, making our assumption internal).


the biggest delusion man has been living is this subjective false sense of reality.

 

[XxtraMannish]

The ability of God to answer your prayer, from my perspective. Can I easily give you other points of views? Sure.

You missed the point. If you can pray for something and it may or may not happen, then there is no "power of prayer" since you can simply NOT pray for anything and it still may or may not happen. What difference is the prayer making if it does not even change the probability of a given event occurring/not occurring?

 

[thatguy]

the power of belief in a spiritual sense is called faith, due to the fact the bible says "with faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains" it doesnt say "god" will do it for you, you would be able to do it.

for xtramannish, hows this for another view on things. it says in the bible "by his stripes we are healed" correct? and he got his stripes or his lashings at crucifixion over 1000 years ago. assuming people aren't taking this out of context it would mean that god doesn't hear your prayer and then decide whether or not to answer it, its already been answered all that time ago, you just need the faith to bring it into existence. if prayer worked for even those with no faith in it, then there wouldnt be any point to having faith

 

[ThaG]

The ability of God to answer your prayer, from my perspective. Can I easily give you other points of views? Sure.

Give em

We would also like it very much if you provide some unambiguous evidence that God answers prayers

 

[ThaG]

You missed the point. If you can pray for something and it may or may not happen, then there is no "power of prayer" since you can simply NOT pray for anything and it still may or may not happen. What difference is the prayer making if it does not even change the probability of a given event occurring/not occurring?

Now this is where you can really go out and test it experimentally - does it really increase the probability of something happening

The experimental setup is simple - a control group without prayer and a test group with prayer, then you compare, of course both groups are large enough for the data sample to be statistically significant

This has been done and the result is well-known - there is absolutely no correlation between prayer and the probability of certain event happening

But wait, God is probably not willing to let us test his existence and that;s why he refused to answer those prayers because they weren't sincere....

 

[thatguy]

^ well i believe sincerity, amount of faith, good intentions, and relationship with god help a prayer be answered. if both test groups dont have a relationship with god, and both test groups have no faith that the prayer will work, then it will show the results you explained.

 

[XxtraMannish]

for xtramannish, hows this for another view on things. it says in the bible "by his stripes we are healed" correct? and he got his stripes or his lashings at crucifixion over 1000 years ago. assuming people aren't taking this out of context it would mean that god doesn't hear your prayer and then decide whether or not to answer it, its already been answered all that time ago, you just need the faith to bring it into existence. if prayer worked for even those with no faith in it, then there wouldnt be any point to having faith

Run that by me again? And for the record I voted "Not Sure"

 

[Fucky McFuckerson]

Still no one answered me...who created god?

 

[XxtraMannish]

^^^The Fairy Godmother, stupid.

 

[Fucky McFuckerson]

^^^The Fairy Godmother, stupid.

I should have known.

 

[thatguy]

well what created the atom in space that made the big bang? and what created the space it was in?

 

[ThaG]

well what created the atom in space that made the big bang? and what created the space it was in?

It most certainly wasn't an atom, but what was before that - we don't know and we're not afraid to admit it, in contrast to the other "school of thought"...

 

[thatguy]

my point is, there is no way to determine a starting point in either theory due to the fact our minds cant comprehend the idea of something always being there.its hard to explain, but i think you see where im going

 

[2-0-Sixx]

I wouldn't say our minds cannot comprehend it; we simply are missing data.

 

[thatguy]

im saying we need to have a starting point, and in both there is no starting point, and never will be because of questions such as who created god, and who created the thing that caused the big bang? so neither theory can be fully proven unless because something cant come from nothing, and if both these things came from something, where did that something come from? i hope you see what im trying to say


heres something interesting that a friend brought up to me. consider the fact that god created time, if this is so, it isn't something that he is effected by. therefor he wasn't here forever, cause forever isn't a viable concept to him, due to the fact it doesn't apply

im unlike most believers in creation, i dont care to turn anyone to my side of thinking, and i dont believe i have all the answers. i honestly doubt either side is entirely right due to the fact i dont think anyone is special enough to have an answer to such a puzzling mystery, its just interesting to discuss

 

[ThaG]

im saying we need to have a starting point, and in both there is no starting point, and never will be because of questions such as who created god, and who created the thing that caused the big bang? so neither theory can be fully proven unless because something cant come from nothing, and if both these things came from something, where did that something come from? i hope you see what im trying to say


heres something interesting that a friend brought up to me. consider the fact that god created time, if this is so, it isn't something that he is effected by. therefor he wasn't here forever, cause forever isn't a viable concept to him, due to the fact it doesn't apply

im unlike most believers in creation, i dont care to turn anyone to my side of thinking, and i dont believe i have all the answers. i honestly doubt either side is entirely right due to the fact i dont think anyone is special enough to have an answer to such a puzzling mystery, its just interesting to discuss

OK, OK, you're twisting things now - none of the main religions ever bothered to provide explanation of the big bang and the concepts of time and space because at the time these religions were created, there was not a single theoretical physicist to ask these questions

What religions talk about is a personal God who listens to prayers and sends his son to humans to save their souls...

This doesn't make sense at all when you start asking questions about the universe and the Big Bang because of the scale of those problems compared to our own small insignificant existence. It doesn't make sense even when you just look at what the universe actually is and it makes even less sense in the light of discoveries in life sciences and chemistry...

I hope you see my point - it is completely useless to try to defend religion on the basis of our ignorance about certain fundamental questions

 

[Hemp]

And what of exercising telepathy with the deceased? Communicating with your own subconscious? Sending positive energy to someone in need, blessing them?

im telling you these ppl dont believe in such things about the subconscious.

 

[ParkBoyz]

The poll results are surprising..