Which is more effective: Prayer or Action?

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Flyingg said:
…]For an unbeliever can pass his exams without praying but a believer can’t pass his exams by praying alone…]
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That’s a very good point you make. I never thought of it like that.
 
Is this like the old faith or works question?

Work like everything depends on you, pray like everything depends on God.
 
You said:
Work like everything depends on you, pray like everything depends on God.
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This is mutually exclusive, because for every moment you spend praying, you spend less time working; and for every moment you spend working, you spend less time praying.
 
Dorothy said:
It’s common sense that one needs to study in order to pass their exams.

Praying helps them to have calm and clarity while taking the exam.
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In somehow I agree with you on this, prayers can help in giving the believer some trust in himself and little power, its all a psychological thing, because to the believer praying is important for him to release the stress, but there is other thing that can be used and have the same goal, for example I release the stress by the eucouragement of those I love, friends, family and it means a lot to me as much as praying does for a believer, or other things can be mentioned here etc… Its something psychologically effective.
Julia_Mae said:
Well, this is the issue of the OP setting a question which is incomplete. Effective at what?

Someone who becomes a doctor can study all he wants, pass perfectly all exams and have as complete knowledge as anyone of medical matters and there will still be situations where all the doing on earth with be ineffective in restoring someone to health.

One prayer can.
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Thanks to the doctors in this case because they spent long years of their lives in doing their job, if prayers are truly effective in this case, you won’t see people studying to become doctors, if prayers help, a 12 years old child can make an operation without the knowledge that the doctor have and succeed.
je333 said:
Millions of pryaying hands are the ones who dictate the action or make it possible for action. 🙂 So someone must have been praying for an unbeliever to study to pass the exams.
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How?
jmcrae said:
And praying helps you to know what you should study, since no one has unlimited time to memorize everything they heard over the past four months.
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No, common sense does this, to know the important things that might be asked in the tests.
 
Bohm_Bawerk said:
This is mutually exclusive, because for every moment you spend praying, you spend less time working; and for every moment you spend working, you spend less time praying.
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Work can be prayer too. If our purpose is to do the will of God then everything we do, including work, is prayer.
 
Flyingg said:
Thanks to the doctors in this case because they spent long years of their lives in doing their job, if prayers are truly effective in this case, you won’t see people studying to become doctors, if prayers help, a 12 years old child can make an operation without the knowledge that the doctor have and succeed.
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I agree very much with this. I believe that in this context, Society as a whole isn’t unintelligent. Society as a whole will use the most efficient means possible to get an objective achieved. The very fact that people in the real world are more likely to work at something rather than pray about it is itself an indication of the ineffectiveness of prayer. Virtually everyone would rather take an ill person to a doctor rather than pray for his/her wellbeing. In some jurisdictions as a matter of fact, it is illegal to do the reverse - to pray for an ill person and neglect taking them to a doctor. This also seems to indicate that legal institutions recognize the ineffectiveness of prayer. If not the outright ineffectiveness, then the ambivalence and uncertainty that inevitably comes from praying that an objective will be achieved.
 
It is my understanding that you don’t pray for something that you can get through action. For example, praying for personal holiness, for vocatons, for conversion of sinners.

You pray for things you cannot get through action and you also pray for help doing actions, for example, asking God to help you pass an exam.

You don’t pray for the fridge door to open, that is something that you can attain through action.
 
ora et labora …
this is the famous saying of the benedictine it means pray and work… Action and prayer is always together…

god bless us all
 
Bohm_Bawerk said:
I agree very much with this. I believe that in this context, Society as a whole isn’t unintelligent. Society as a whole will use the most efficient means possible to get an objective achieved. The very fact that people in the real world are more likely to work at something rather than pray about it is itself an indication of the ineffectiveness of prayer. Virtually everyone would rather take an ill person to a doctor rather than pray for his/her wellbeing. In some jurisdictions as a matter of fact, it is illegal to do the reverse - to pray for an ill person and neglect taking them to a doctor. This also seems to indicate that legal institutions recognize the ineffectiveness of prayer. If not the outright ineffectiveness, then the ambivalence and uncertainty that inevitably comes from praying that an objective will be achieved.
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What do you do with someone with a sick soul? Take them to see a surgeon?
 
You said:
Its a soul in need of spiritual medicine.
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how can you know that a soul exist and what is a spiritual medicine? If you have a person that is sick in body and sick in soul. Which medicine do you offer to that person first? The biological medicine or the spiritual one?
 
Flyingg said:
how can you know that a soul exist and what is a spiritual medicine? If you have a person that is sick in body and sick in soul. Which medicine do you offer to that person first? The biological medicine or the spiritual one?
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How can you know that a soul does not exist? Spiritual medicine is prayer!
If you have a person that is sick in body and sick in soul. Which medicine do you offer to that person first? The biological medicine or the spiritual one?
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Both! In that order.
 
You said:
How can you know that a soul does not exist? Spiritual medicine is prayer!
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I’m not the one proclaiming that a soul exists, the proof is for you to make, the one saying that something exists.
 
Flyingg said:
Try this to find out: When you have exams, you are between two options:

1- Study to pass your exams.
2- Pray to pass your exams.

Guess which one truly does work? Yes, the one on your mind Studying! For an unbeliever can pass his exams without praying but a believer can’t pass his exams by praying alone.
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Hey flyingg,
(I will assume you are an atheist. Do correct me if I am wrong.)

This is a terribly unreasonable post for an atheist. This is filed under the same Dawkins/Harris approach of the verifiability of prayer.

While there are many Christians who think that prayer gets things, that is not what prayer is for. Those who think that (namely atheists) are subject to the same rational scrutiny they put us in. It is fallacious to continue to prove wrong what we don’t believe in the first place. I believe that is informally known as “straw man fallacy”.

Most Catholics don’t pray for physical things. They pray for spiritual things; the welfare of others, a growing relationship with God, betterment of our personhood… And oftentimes, the prayers are seen to have “worked” because their is sufficient evidence for them to see that those things have changed.

So, please stop assuming that prayer is only for things.
Flyingg said:
2 hands working are better than millions of praying hands.
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I need proof of that.

That is, I need proof that not only are those 2 hands working to the exclusivity of praying hands, but also that the end result is better than people praying to the exclusivity of working hands.

You are going to have a hard time with that first one because the Catholic Church at all times throughout the world pray for pretty much everything.

The ball is in your hands now. The person making the assertion must prove.
 
Just a heads up…

A debate on the existence of the soul will inevitably lead to a debate on the existence of God. And I believe that topic is banned in this forum.
 
Greetings to those posting in this thread and or reading it,

Action and prayer are not mutually exclusive. If both are done out of charity based on humility then both are quite effective.

I cannot separate the two. We are called to pray without ceasing. This seems to imply action and prayer as well. As another poster pointed out, work and prayer.

I hate to say the answer “both” as well, and I tried not to say it either. But I would have to say both.

However here’s a new twist. If someone is in mortal sin, then some actions and some prayer might be effective as to the effect of the person coming to a state of repentance and Confessing. However in a state of mortal sin if one is doing actions and or praying to earn graces for themselves or another, one cannot do this in a state of mortal sin.

God Bless.
Anathama Sit
 
For an unbeliever can pass his exams without praying but a believer can’t pass his exams by praying alone
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Bohm_Bawerk said:
That’s a very good point you make. I never thought of it like that.
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Well, you should not think of it like that. That is not how prayer works. Granted, I am not an expert on prayer, but I do know what it isn’t. And so far, you and flyingg have only attacked what prayer isn’t.

(This is my first attempt at double quoting. I hope I did it right!)
 
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