Prayer is an illusion

[Rebecca_New]

I recently signed up to pray for one of our soldiers in Iraq. When he returned home safely, his sponsor called each of us to let us know of his safe return. Without our prayers he might have returned safely anyway-but the first thing out of my mouth was Thank You, God our Father.

 

[Exalt]

I recently signed up to pray for one of our soldiers in Iraq. When he returned home safely, his sponsor called each of us to let us know of his safe return. Without our prayers he might have returned safely anyway-but the first thing out of my mouth was Thank You, God our Father.

Why? What did God have anything to do with it?

 

[Diddi]

Hey! Great thread Exalt. I’m smiling because I could have written it myself back when I was in graduate school after I realized I was agnostic or shortly later when I realized I was atheist. Wouldn’t do me any good to tell you what happened to give me faith in God cause it happened to me, not you.

Reminds me of a story of the free thinker, a guy named Chris who thought about God more often and prayed more than most Christians do. He prayer consisting of constant testing of God’s powers and then arguing with God that He didn’t exist. He also argued with everybody around him.

After some development of the character where we learn of his passion for communing with nature, back packing and camping, the reader journeys with him into the wilderness where things don’t go so well this time. He loses some of his equipment in a ravine, then injures his leg trying to get it back. Now he is alone in the wilderness and barely able to move around and he starts screaming at God again. “Hey, how about a car! If your up there somewhere, car would come in handy bout now, you know!” Just then, he hears a car horn, looks around and sees this old Chevy, in really good shape, just sitting there real pretty. He limps over to the car but there’s nobody around. The keys are in the ignition. He gets into the car, sees the glove compartment is open, so he pulls out the owner’s certificate – and his name is on it. Then he notices something written, sort of smeared lightly,on the windshield. To Chris, love God.

He can’t help but be suspicious and looks around the car for evidence that somebody might be playing a prank on him but reasons that there is no way anybody could have gotten the car that close to him without him noticing, except maybe God. All of a sudden he’s down on his knees thanking God and saying how this (evidence) is what he needed all along.

Then he notices that his leg is healed, something he didn’t even ask for and the tears start flowing. He repents for ever having doubted and realizes how many things in his life actually pointed to God but he was too busy testing and doubting.

Eventually, he drives home a new man and people are amazed at the change in him. He starts witnessing his new faith in God and helping people in every way he can. Days pass and eventually, this young lady who had gone to high school with him asks him what happened to him that made him change. “See that car,” he replied. “I got injured on my camping trip and God healed me. He gave me that car. God IS real. I’m so sorry I never realized it before.”

“God gave you that car,” she asked. “Chris, you’ve had that car since high school. How did God give you that car?”

Sure enough, when he got back home, he looked as some of his old high school photos and there he was, with the same car. He remembered going to those places in his dad’s car, but in the photos where his dad’s car should have been, there was the Chevy.

Exalt, I didn’t get a Chevy, but God answered my prayers in a convincing way. It won’t do me any good to tell you about it until your ready for it. Bet you think the Chris in the story went nuts because of the fall, or something, right? Keep praying, even if it’s a screaming match. If you really want to find Him, He will let you find Him. (I’ll give you a hint. Try giving your life to Christ with complete trust. Let go of the pride.)

God love you,

In Christ

Diddi

 

[whatevergirl]

Hi Exalt–if you disbelieve us…what can we do to help you? I mean, everything everyone says you shoot down…so…not sure what you ‘want’ to hear…

…God speaks to us through people too…we are all hear to serve. Maybe you are hearing God’s messages through loved ones, friends…Moses spoke to the people, not God…But, God spoke to Moses…so he passed the message along…I suppose they could have said the same things. But, where would religion be if no one ever believed? Just some food for thought. Not trying to convince you or sell you a line. I want nothing more than for you to come to know that God wants the best for you…on your own.

 

[ALotLessThumb]

Truth is not what we want it to be, think it could be or would be nice (in our view) if it were true. Truth is correspondence between words and reality.

May you please show us how reality is fully exhausted by empricial nature?

To be exact, I started to observe, like an anthropologist would, people’s statements when they spoke of answered prayers, and it was just to obvious they generally pray on the fortune wheel of events, try and try again, until the needle falls on their number.

Why do you feel the primary reason for prayer is to receive?

Another point is people give thanks to God for all the good. He’s the source of all good. All the bad is mine for the blame. That is serious black and white thinking and a serious attributional bias.

Why?

In your other post, you linked to the wikipedia “freethought”- why do you not call it what it is, positivism?

 

[whatevergirl]

I have heard non believers say that what seems like answers to prayers are really coincidences. I don’t think so…I have many specifically prayed for things…happen. Really.

 

[LilyM]

Hi Exalt–if you disbelieve us…what can we do to help you? I mean, everything everyone says you shoot down…so…not sure what you ‘want’ to hear…

…God speaks to us through people too…we are all hear to serve. Maybe you are hearing God’s messages through loved ones, friends…Moses spoke to the people, not God…But, God spoke to Moses…so he passed the message along…I suppose they could have said the same things. But, where would religion be if no one ever believed? Just some food for thought. Not trying to convince you or sell you a line. I want nothing more than for you to come to know that God wants the best for you…on your own.

More importantly - where would ISRAEL have been? Where would France have been if no-one had believe Joan of Arc when she said God spoke to her and told her to lead them in driving out the English invaders?

 

[holly_potter]

True miracles confirm that prayers work, not just the “I got better next week” kind. True miracles are things that are highly improbable to ever happen in the mortal world.

Alas, you can’t prove that prayers work if people don’t believe in miracles, even the Vatican- and scientific-studies.
All arguments have to have some sort of common ground, and lacking this ground, I wonder how to prove that prayer works?

 

[RobNY]

I was an agnostic for some time and I understand the difficulty about prayer and there have been times even after I came to believe when I wondered whether or not I was simply talking to myself. But whenever I feel that way I remind myself that my journey to Catholicism involved study. I gradually became convinced of the truth of the existence of God and of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Once I had that firm foundation the questions about prayer were answered. I recommend you read St. Theresa of Avila. Edith Stein, considered the foremost female philosopher of the 20th century, read the life of St. Theresa and converted from agnosticism to Catholicism. You may also find CS Lewis helpful. He was an athiest who became a great Christian Apologist. They are only two of many great intellectuals who came to believe. They could certainly see through myths far more easily than I, and they did not doubt the power of prayer.
I have a feeling you were deeply disappointed in your prayer life and cannot get over the hurt. I am praying for you.

Indeed. I recently picked up a book by Fr. Thomas Dubay, “Fire Within,” which details St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa of Avila on prayer. I would recommend this to the OP.
Prayer, it turns out, is not what you thought it was. Hehe. At least not just what I thought it was.

LogosSokratikos responds that, " Nevertheless, biographies of folks that were convinced are not evidence."

Thomas Dubay presents contemplative prayer, and so does St. Theresa, etc, and he makes an interesting point. As the call to holiness is universal, so is the call to deep, infused prayer. That is to say, to contemplative prayer. This is what leads theologians like Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange to conclude “the non*extraordinary character of the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith and of the union with God which results therefrom.” Infused contemplative prayer is the “normal way of sanctity.”

If any of the doubters here wish to test their doubt solidly, I recommend that they read Fr. Dubay as an able guide to these great contemplative saints, and then read these saints themselves (as Edith Stein did), and then to put this very question into practice with their entire lives. What Fr. Dubay, and Fr. Lagrange, and St. Theresa, and indeed, the Catholic Church think is that the reward for holiness is the great grace of infused prayer, which itself then spurs the recipient to tremendous holiness and heroic virtue (saintliness).

If contemplative union with God is an able proof to you, Exalt, of a God who is not only personal but also intimate, then you owe yourself this much-- test this claim that infused prayer is the normal path of sanctity, that all are called to it. To start testing this, pick up a copy of Fr. Dubay’s book, and see if you’re up for it. I don’t think you’re here just to be a pain-- I think you’re honestly looking for truth, and I think this may be a pathway which could prove successful. You made a comment about going to God and going to China-- and I differ but slightly on it. While we cannot experience God wholly and completely on earth, we can have a foretaste of that heavenly reward in intimate, contemplative union with God.

-Rob

 

[LogosSokratikos]

Hey! Great thread Exalt. I’m smiling because I could have written it myself back when I was in graduate school after I realized I was agnostic or shortly later when I realized I was atheist. Wouldn’t do me any good to tell you what happened to give me faith in God cause it happened to me, not you.

Reminds me of a story of the free thinker, a guy named Chris who thought about God more often and prayed more than most Christians do. He prayer consisting of constant testing of God’s powers and then arguing with God that He didn’t exist. He also argued with everybody around him.

After some development of the character where we learn of his passion for communing with nature, back packing and camping, the reader journeys with him into the wilderness where things don’t go so well this time. He loses some of his equipment in a ravine, then injures his leg trying to get it back. Now he is alone in the wilderness and barely able to move around and he starts screaming at God again. “Hey, how about a car! If your up there somewhere, car would come in handy bout now, you know!” Just then, he hears a car horn, looks around and sees this old Chevy, in really good shape, just sitting there real pretty. He limps over to the car but there’s nobody around. The keys are in the ignition. He gets into the car, sees the glove compartment is open, so he pulls out the owner’s certificate – and his name is on it. Then he notices something written, sort of smeared lightly,on the windshield. To Chris, love God.

He can’t help but be suspicious and looks around the car for evidence that somebody might be playing a prank on him but reasons that there is no way anybody could have gotten the car that close to him without him noticing, except maybe God. All of a sudden he’s down on his knees thanking God and saying how this (evidence) is what he needed all along.

Then he notices that his leg is healed, something he didn’t even ask for and the tears start flowing. He repents for ever having doubted and realizes how many things in his life actually pointed to God but he was too busy testing and doubting.

Eventually, he drives home a new man and people are amazed at the change in him. He starts witnessing his new faith in God and …]

Exalt, I didn’t get a Chevy, but God answered my prayers in a convincing way. It won’t do me any good to tell you about it until your ready for it. Bet you think the Chris in the story went nuts because of the fall, or something, right? Keep praying, even if it’s a screaming match. If you really want to find Him, He will let you find Him. (I’ll give you a hint. Try giving your life to Christ with complete trust. Let go of the pride.)

God love you,

In Christ

Diddi

Wonderful stories like those come into my inbox all month. They’re anecdotes. Their value is just the same as me saying, “Hey, ETs from Orion’s Belt just contacted me…” etc, you know what I mean.

If I believed in those anecodtes I’d be five different religions already! I would’t feel sorry for those atheists God didn’t throw them a Chevy at the right moment and went to hell, 'cause dang, I’m saved and I’m going to heaven with a “loving” God with no sense of Justice.

Remember, there’s no salvation except in the Catholic Church. Therefore, nearly all these folks:

http://religion-cults.com/Overview/rel_pie.gif
… most of the pie don’t get their Chevy, won’t find the saving faith. Will you look at the pie, consider your chances of having found the saving faith, and think “Oh how God loves me”? Why not wonder why God hates everyone else! (Clue: Maybe theism doesn’t hold water, and following it creates these preposterous paradoxes, scenarios or whatever you want to call them… they’re still squarely contradictions).

And I wonder if God would through in a Chevy in infidel Somalia, they could sell them for food and go to heaven.

It just doesn’t happen. Also, why would an atheist pray? Because society brainwashes us into that, and therefore is actually doubting of the fact?

God saying “Oh I’m going to test these dumb, faulty humans, give them no evidence, hundreds of competing religions, and then hold them accountable for not believing” is like me testing a remote control car with worn out batteries, and then kicking the shoot out of it for not running. Should that god exist, it could be considered to be suffering from a personality disorder.

 

[LogosSokratikos]

And Diddi, your quaint anecdote’s miracle is a non-miracle. He always had that auto all along. Is that how you will save the concept of answered prayers? Miracles are the non-miracles around you?

Quite clever, 'cause there aren’t any. So since there aren’t any, let’s call these non-miracles “miralces”. That’s wanting to believe in unicorns no matter what.

The religious meme contains praises for faith in the face of non-evidence, incoherencies and absurdities, that way you’ll cling on always as a test of faith.

But then, did you ever consider that when all is said and done, you will end up with just that-- non-miralces, incoherences and absurdities?

Truly, believing in the unlikely is inviting belief in the untrue.

 

[RobNY]

Remember, there’s no salvation except in the Catholic Church. Therefore, nearly all these folks:

Be careful not to build a strawman of the Catholic doctrine. As expressed by the second Vatican Council and the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is not simply the case that those who are outside of the visible Church are damned. I believe such a thing is called the “Feenyite” heresy. In fact, magisterial documents such as Dominus Jesus have a very positive view of the working of grace among people, even those outside the Catholic faith. Paragraph 20 of Dominus Jesus

For those who are not formally and visibly members of the Church, “salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit”;81 it has a relationship with the Church, which “according to the plan of the Father, has her origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit”.82

What the Church does assert is that salvation has a mysterious ecclesial and Christocentric reality, but not the position which it seems you expressed in your post. We simply do not know how God’s grace is acting in those outside the Church-- our only promises of grace, which is an invisible reality, are tied to the sacraments, which others lack, so we must remain agnostic as to the state of grace of other people. It is not simply the case that they are damned.

-Rob

 

[whatevergirl]

I suppose the most important question is…even if one isn’t Christian…historical evidence teaches that Jesus did exist. And Jesus taught/told people to pray.

If He prayed…who are we to dispute it? Whether you believe Jesus to be the Messiah or not…Jesus prayed. And, unless you disbelieve that Jesus was sent from God…then, you have a problem with the theory that prayer doesn’t work.

 

[whatevergirl]

More importantly - where would ISRAEL have been? Where would France have been if no-one had believe Joan of Arc when she said God spoke to her and told her to lead them in driving out the English invaders?

Right! I know…think about it all, and it really is mind boggling.

 

[thechrismyster]

Dear God,
gimme gimme gimme.
sincerly,
Mr. Christian

is that what prayer is?

i can’t remember the last time i asked God for something in prayer. He gives me all i need, and a thousand times more. I never ask him for anything. he knows what i need, I know he’s smart, if i need something, he ALWAYS takes care of me and my family.
theres always bread to eat, a roof over our heads, and my family.

what more do any of us need?

most of my prayer is of the appreciative variety.

Thank you for this gift of life, family, friends… thats the jist of my usual prayers. Thats when I feel God.

20 or 60 or 100 years from now, we’ll all be pushing up daisies… this part of living is the fun part. Thank God instead of asking for things like he’s a JC Penny catalog in the sky and you’ll understand prayer better.

 

[LogosSokratikos]

Be careful not to build a strawman of the Catholic doctrine. As expressed by the second Vatican Council and the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is not simply the case that those who are outside of the visible Church are damned. I believe such a thing is called the “Feenyite” heresy. In fact, magisterial documents such as Dominus Jesus have a very positive view of the working of grace among people, even those outside the Catholic faith. Paragraph 20 of Dominus Jesus

What the Church does assert is that salvation has a mysterious ecclesial and Christocentric reality, but not the position which it seems you expressed in your post. We simply do not know how God’s grace is acting in those outside the Church-- our only promises of grace, which is an invisible reality, are tied to the sacraments, which others lack, so we must remain agnostic as to the state of grace of other people. It is not simply the case that they are damned.

-Rob

From the Cathecism:

848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”

Emphasis in red mine. My argument holds. (There’s ambiguity in the teaching. Not surprised.)

 

[thechrismyster]

Wonderful stories like those come into my inbox all month. They’re anecdotes. Their value is just the same as me saying, “Hey, ETs from Orion’s Belt just contacted me…” etc, you know what I mean.

If I believed in those anecodtes I’d be five different religions already! I would’t feel sorry for those atheists God didn’t throw them a Chevy at the right moment and went to hell, 'cause dang, I’m saved and I’m going to heaven with a “loving” God with no sense of Justice.

Remember, there’s no salvation except in the Catholic Church. Therefore, nearly all these folks:

http://religion-cults.com/Overview/rel_pie.gif
… most of the pie don’t get their Chevy, won’t find the saving faith. Will you look at the pie, consider your chances of having found the saving faith, and think “Oh how God loves me”? Why not wonder why God hates everyone else! (Clue: Maybe theism doesn’t hold water, and following it creates these preposterous paradoxes, scenarios or whatever you want to call them… they’re still squarely contradictions).

And I wonder if God would through in a Chevy in infidel Somalia, they could sell them for food and go to heaven.

It just doesn’t happen. Also, why would an atheist pray? Because society brainwashes us into that, and therefore is actually doubting of the fact?

God saying “Oh I’m going to test these dumb, faulty humans, give them no evidence, hundreds of competing religions, and then hold them accountable for not believing” is like me testing a remote control car with worn out batteries, and then kicking the shoot out of it for not running. Should that god exist, it could be considered to be suffering from a personality disorder.

your post is a distillation of every freethought and atheistic blog out there.

Life isn’t hard. people make it hard…

You have a great life, obviously a computer, a breath, a pulse.

God has given a great gift to you. True prayer is a meaningful ‘thank you’ to the person who gives you breath.

It’s not cowering to a scary God figure in the sky.

It’s a thank you for the gift of life I have. and i’ll tell you, God, again tomorrow how much this life i have really is incredible.

prayer is appreciation and happiness.

Something atheists are so upset about, because they’re searching for meaning in themselves. and never find it. because thats not where the meaning is.

 

[LogosSokratikos]

I suppose the most important question is…even if one isn’t Christian…historical evidence teaches that Jesus did exist. And Jesus taught/told people to pray.

If He prayed…who are we to dispute it? Whether you believe Jesus to be the Messiah or not…Jesus prayed. And, unless you disbelieve that Jesus was sent from God…then, you have a problem with the theory that prayer doesn’t work.

Historicity? That is disputed, at best. And also, searching historical and archaeological evidence to support what? The gospel accounts? Try explaining this. There is no evidence for which the texts contradict each other. Really, what did happen at easter? In a court of law, when someone is contradicting him/herself telling their account, they usually declare the account untrustworthy and discard it.

 

[LogosSokratikos]

your post is a distillation of every freethought and atheistic blog out there.

Life isn’t hard. people make it hard…

You have a great life, obviously a computer, a breath, a pulse.

God has given a great gift to you. True prayer is a meaningful ‘thank you’ to the person who gives you breath.

It’s not cowering to a scary God figure in the sky.

It’s a thank you for the gift of life I have. and i’ll tell you, God, again tomorrow how much this life i have really is incredible.

prayer is appreciation and happiness.

Something atheists are so upset about, because they’re searching for meaning in themselves. and never find it. because thats not where the meaning is.

It isn’t hard. The complication is that you are confronted with the task of believing in the midst of so much incoherence. My world is simple and coherent: no spooks, no baroque theologies, no threats of eternal damnation, no miracles to boggle the mind, only the clearly demonstrated. Naturalism sweeps out the rubbish. No complication.

A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell. C.S. Lewis

Hinduism must be very glorious, then. If the glory of one god cannot be put out, imagine the glory of more than thirty (the Devas have 33, plus the savior, Lord Krishna, born of a virgin in a cave)!

 

[RobNY]

From the Cathecism:

Emphasis in red mine. My argument holds. (There’s ambiguity in the teaching. Not surprised.)

The Church holds both that, “there is no salvation outside of the Church” (see the catechism, and Dominus Jesus, etc.), and that faith is necessary to please God. These nuances in the teaching are assuming this as the foundation, not ignoring them.

What you are trying to tell me is that the Church doesn’t teach what she teaches. When she promulgates a Catechism, etc, her own living, teaching authority is the only competent authority to determine what she means. The Church is saying this is what she means when she says this, and you are responding by saying, no, the Church doesn’t mean what she says she means.

Besides, you are taking it out of context.

**847 **This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

337

**848 ** "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338

What the CCC in paragraph 848 is saying is that God can lead those ignorant of the Catholic religion to a faith which pleases Him. It is referring to the previous paragraph which speaks of people who may achieve eternal salvation who follow God’s will with sincerity as they know it through their conscience, because they do not know God’s will as revealed in the Catholic religion through invincible ignorance (“though no fault of their own”). It is not saying that God is leading them to the Catholic faith in its fullness, otherwise it would not contrast it immediately with, “the Church still has the obligation” to evangelize everyone.

This is clearly teaching exactly what I was saying-- and this is no mystery, Cardinal Ratzinger was intimately involved with all three documents-- those of Vatican II, the CCC and Dominus Jesus. The “ambiguity” which you claim for the teaching is clearly expressed in the Vatican council documents (which is what CCC 847 quotes), the Catechism, and Dominus Jesus-- it is no ambiguity but a part of the Catholic teaching on salvation and the Church.

-Rob