How can this be true?

[onenow1]

I understand that you believe that God answers prayers. I’m just look for something that separates that belief from other beliefs with other types of prayer. What do use to dismiss The Secret or other gods that you can’t with the Christian God?

Hi Mike ! This may be of help Mike; we pray to God, because we have the hope that our will conforms to His. Prayer is a request, not a command.

Here is a prayer I say every night: Dear Lord, the world and we, need your help for your glory and our salvation, in case you are waiting for us to ask again we are; Lord you always know what is best for us.

Thanks, we love You.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Our God is all-good, unlike all the devils who are false idols and unlike the devil working through the magic of “The Secret.”

First, I would say that practitioners of non-Christan religions that believe in prayer would say their god is all-good, all-powerful, and all-wise and would doubt the veracity of other gods and their ability to answer prayers. The strength of their belief is no different than yours. Second, those who believe they can get what is needed through paranormal or new age methods like The Secret of Pyramid Power would say you are wrong that their results come from devils. Instead they would say it comes from the mind and from the power of the universe itself (with no evil involved).

Because our God is all-good and all-powerful and all-wise, everything He Wills is ordered in such a way to HIs greater glory and honor and for the common good and the good of our souls. Everything. What appears to be a great setback or a great misfortune to us can actually, in the grand scheme of things, be our greatest blessing–and it always is a great blessing when we understand that all things are ordered for our spiritual well-being … both good and evil work to bring us closer to Christ and perfection.

To an outsider who doesn’t presuppose that your version of god is correct, it’s impossible to determine that based on the outcome of christian prayer.

The thing I’ve been focusing on is how do we verify those verses that the OP gave? How can someone look at the results of prayer and determine if it was successful or not? Because absolutely no imagined result could show the verses are false, how does one go about proving they are true?

Let’s say you know someone who prays to a brick wall for help paying his doctor bills. He then gets a check in the mail from the government because they made a mistake. You would not say the brick wall caused it to occur. If the same person makes the same prayer to a brick wall and instead gets a letter saying the government made a mistake and he owes more taxes, then that person says the brick wall is doing this for a greater purpose, you would find it ludicrous.
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I understand that you all believe in Yahweh, and you believe that he answers prayer; but as I’ve said that’s not what I’m looking for. I need to know how someone can analyze the results of praying to the Christian god vs. praying to other gods vs. using paranormal techniques vs. praying to a brick wall and determine that your prayer is most effective. The results of prayer’s results should be clear even to someone who doesn’t necessarily believe in that god.

Hi Mike ! This may be of help Mike; we pray to God, because we have the hope that our will conforms to His. Prayer is a request, not a command.

The scripture quoted in the original post makes it very clear that all requests will be answered without fail – yet prayers fail at an astounding rate.

 

[Frankenfurter]

How can it possibly be true that anyone who really believes he can defy the laws of nature will be able to, or that any prayer will be answered affirmatively if we just believe hard enough that it will be answered affirmatively?

Will dad really stand up and walk if I can just ask God to give his legs the strength, and really believe He will (without doubting) for the brief length of time it takes for me to make that request?

How can Christ’s words here in Mark 11:23-24 (and in Matthew 21:22) be taken any other way?

Please remember that this part of the Gospel is the Cursing of the Fig Tree. Jesus was angry after having just removed the money changers from the temple. His anger and frustration was with Israel - which was seen symbolically as the fig tree that he cursed which caused it to wither. Only when the disciplines asked him about this did Jesus start to describe that HE had the power to control nature. HE had the power (being God) to cause trees to wither, or cause mountains to move (which is a metaphor for anything difficult). Jesus is instructing them on WHY they do not also have that power.

The fig tree is also from the Garden of Eden and so we can see that it is original sin which blocks us from having the confidence that Jesus says we need when we pray.

So please consider that this passage is from an angry Jesus, a frustrated Jesus, frustrated with a people who have been stained by original sin, who lack confidence in prayer because they have become separated from God and unable to persevere in prayer to accomplish difficult things. They don’t really know God, they only have a vague belief in him.

I am sure that if your Father is to regain his legs, that he must first have faith that he can. That is a necessary step. It doesn’t mean that he will immediately be able to walk, but like all difficult things (moving mountains) faith that it CAN be done is a necessary step.

 

[ready]

First, I would say that practitioners of non-Christan religions that believe in prayer would say their god is all-good, all-powerful, and all-wise and would doubt the veracity of other gods and their ability to answer prayers. The strength of their belief is no different than yours. Second, those who believe they can get what is needed through paranormal or new age methods like The Secret of Pyramid Power would say you are wrong that their results come from devils. Instead they would say it comes from the mind and from the power of the universe itself (with no evil involved).

To an outsider who doesn’t presuppose that your version of god is correct, it’s impossible to determine that based on the outcome of christian prayer.

The thing I’ve been focusing on is how do we verify those verses that the OP gave? How can someone look at the results of prayer and determine if it was successful or not? Because absolutely no imagined result could show the verses are false, how does one go about proving they are true?

Let’s say you know someone who prays to a brick wall for help paying his doctor bills. He then gets a check in the mail from the government because they made a mistake. You would not say the brick wall caused it to occur. If the same person makes the same prayer to a brick wall and instead gets a letter saying the government made a mistake and he owes more taxes, then that person says the brick wall is doing this for a greater purpose, you would find it ludicrous.
http://www.muchsarcasm.com/pics/godwall.gif
I understand that you all believe in Yahweh, and you believe that he answers prayer; but as I’ve said that’s not what I’m looking for. I need to know how someone can analyze the results of praying to the Christian god vs. praying to other gods vs. using paranormal techniques vs. praying to a brick wall and determine that your prayer is most effective. The results of prayer’s results should be clear even to someone who doesn’t necessarily believe in that god.

The scripture quoted in the original post makes it very clear that all requests will be answered without fail – yet prayers fail at an astounding rate.

There is only ONE God who is all-good, and that is our God, the Blessed Trinity. “The Secret” is magic, and thus of the devil, not of the mind–the mind alone does NOT have that kind of power, and science will never be able to prove that it does because the mind on its own just can’t do what paranormal “scientists” (quacks) say that it does–demons are responsible for telepathy, telekinesis, etc.–not the mind alone. I will not argue with a non-Catholic who refuses to believe that the Blessed Trinity is the only all-good God, etc… I am leaving this thread and will pray for Blessed Mary to enlighten you and help you, for you are far from the truth. God bless you.

 

[adamhovey1988]

Somehow I thought this link would be appropriate as a response to one of the posters. catholic.com/blog/trent-horn/prayer-science-and-the-existence-of-god

 

[mikekle]

I tend to believe Jesus was speaking the truth, the problem is, not too many (if any) of us has enough faith in anything to make it come to fruition, or not enough people with equal levels of faith in one goal to make it happen.

Just imagine if 1 single child had enough faith to literally make a mountain float up and drop into the ocean…ANYTHING is possible with God.

Its kind of sad that we have never heard of anyone with this level of faith though, at least Ive never heard of such a person.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Somehow I thought this link would be appropriate as a response to one of the posters. catholic.com/blog/trent-horn/prayer-science-and-the-existence-of-god

The article talks about the control group and how we can’t be sure that they are not being prayed for in some way. This is true, and it is something scientists have to do deal with in other experiments. Factors in a control group’s home life (which is hard to regulate) may have an impact on members of that group. It is not perfect, but we can say that the subject group is being prayed for 100% while the control group is an undetectable number between 0 and 100%. With a sample size large enough we can be more confident of more members of that control group receiving no prayer from any source. If we say that the control group is receiving less prayer than the subject group than the results should bear that out… but they don’t.

So then the article describes interpreting the results. Trent Horn brings up one of the most common cop-outs when it comes to prayer: That you can’t test God and that he doesn’t want humans to test him. It’s good to know that God might be willing to say no to a child’s prayer for her mother when he otherwise would say yes solely because he doesn’t want to be tested.

This same cop-out is used by psychics. Why didn’t my channeling work? The spirits don’t want to be tested. Why didn’t my reiki healing work? By trying to test the results your body was not receptive to its effects.

Trent Horn is trying to suggest that results don’t matter, but Mark 11:23-24 is all about the results. Ask and ye shall receive. What’s interesting is how those that defend prayer have to add to scripture (which one is not supposed to do according to Revelation 22:18) to explain why it utterly fails so often. Homeopaths (those who say that less of a chemical in water makes it more potent) say the same thing when studies show how homeopathy doesn’t work – ignore the results and believe that it works. Yet, James Randi one time before Congress took an entire bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills to no ill effect.

Finally Trent Horn outright states something which is not true, that atheists claim that because prayer is as effective as praying to a brick wall then that means his version of god doesn’t exist. Atheists know that you can’t disprove god, since it’s such a nebulous concept (and that believers often put the goalposts on wheels for easier movement). Prayer’s repeated and embarrassing failures don’t prove God doesn’t exist, but it’s something to think about when deciding if he does. It does show that Mark 11:23-24 isn’t true as written and all sorts of caveats and exceptions have to be added in the hopes of salvaging its accuracy.

But in the end it all comes down to this, do you want a God that’s as useful in answering prayers as a brick wall?

 

[zz912]

SeekerM, it has nothing to do with sincerity; it has to do with God’s will. A person with the faith of a mustard seed is going to desire God’s will to be done, not their own. Too often, we pray self-centered prayers. This is where we go wrong. Our prayers need to be for the entire Body of Christ and for mankind in general because we are all human. We pray for an individual’s salvation because we know God desires to save. However, we do not know when it will occur or how, and the person’s own will has to be factored in.

God answers every prayer. But we forget that sometimes the answer to that prayer is “No”. Other times it is “Not yet”. And sometimes it is “Yes”.

The answer that God gives for every prayer is for our benefit.

 

[mikekle]

God answers every prayer. But we forget that sometimes the answer to that prayer is “No”. Other times it is “Not yet”. And sometimes it is “Yes”.

The answer that God gives for every prayer is for our benefit.

This is NOT true, Ive tried praying hundreds, if not 1000s of times thru out my life, but never did I feel Gods grace, forgiveness, presence, or anything for that matter. It was not a NO, YES, or NOT YET, it was nothing, no reply.

This has made me very skeptical over the years, although I do still believe God to be our creator and creator of everything in the universe, I just wonder if God is actually the way he is portrayed in the bible, Ive never seen any evidence of that in my life, but Ive also been told Mother Teresa never once felt God either, or had any prayers answered, so maybe Im not alone in this?