Amen, Nan! I had a tragedy last year and God used it to bring me closer to him. I believe absolutely that He answered my prayers, just not the way I expected Him to.As to your hypothetical child, what makes you so sure she’d automatically have a miserable life? Look around you and you’ll find plenty of folks who became better, happier, and more fruitful people of God because they had to suffer along the way. That doesn’t mean they didn’t believe in prayer, or prayer didn’t work. It means God really does know what’s best for us. We can be 100% sure and dead wrong.
Nan
I agree. Sickness or death or disaster is not a whim. It is appropriate to pray to God about these things. Jesus himself prayed before he was crucified concerning the suffering he was about to undergo, yet he still said “thy will be done” (literally, that is a quote of Jesus) and the Father did not spare him the cross.I’m not talking about every “whim.” I’m talking about something gravely serious, for example curing someone with cancer. Is it your contention that a prayer seeking such a cure is not what was intended by the prayer passages in the bible?
Perhaps it would help if you compared the benefits of prayer to meditation or living in integrity with reality.**2565 **In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit… Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him.
Yeah, it’s pretty clear the tactic here is to pit one “Christian” belief against another in an effort to cause doubt. Too bad.I just did a quick skim through Imagine23’s previous posts. It appears our friend is an agnostic or atheist, not a Christian Scientist.
That is not the Christian definition of prayer, nor is it the primary purpose of prayer.Obviously prayer is a method that can be employed by various religious people as a means to various goals.
I was baptized by a Catholic priest as an infant. You’re also an atheist with respect to numerous Gods. For me you just add one more God, yours.Yeah, it’s pretty clear the tactic here is to pit one “Christian” belief against another in an effort to cause doubt. Too bad.
I’ve always loved that story. Many people who are not Christians set up false dichotomies between the good that God does and the good that people do. Christians don’t see the issue as God vs. physician. They see God using the physician to heal people. A doctor is not in competition with God, he is an instrument of God.Here’s a little story I’ve always liked:
A man lived in a town that was in great danger of being flooded by the storm. People were evacuating. Being a devoted Christian, he prayed to God to protect him from drowning.
Shortly after this, his neighbor drove by in a tractor and offered to give him a ride to safety. He refused saying, “The Lord will protect me.”
The water began to rise, forcing him to the second floor of his house. Another man passed him in a rowboat, and offered him a ride. Again, he refused, believing God would answer his prayer and save him.
When the water had risen so high as to force him onto the roof, rescue workers in a helicopter found him clinging to his chimney. they offered to carry him to dry land, but he told them no, for God would surely answer his prayer soon.
Not long after that, the man was standing before God, since he had drowned in the flood. He asked, “Lord, I prayed faithfully to you to protect me, and yet you let me drown. Why didn’t you answer me?”
And the Lord replied, “What do you mean? I sent you the tractor, the boat, and the helicopter, and you refused them all!”
Given the tone of your posts, I would hazard a guess that you’ve abandoned the CC, at least for now. Baptism alone will not save you if you are unwilling to believe and do the will of God.I was baptized by a Catholic priest as an infant. You’re also an atheist with respect to numerous Gods. For me you just add one more God, yours.
I’m not trying to pit anyone against anyone. I’m just pointing out that the faith of Christian Scientists is stronger than that of most Catholics.
How about the little fact that we are going to have to face God after we die and give him an account of how we’ve used or abused every gift and every talent that he’s given us, including His gift of the planet we live on. And be punished for all eternity if we can’t give a good account of ourselves. That’s plenty enough motivation for me or anyone to try and improve the world.“I happen to believe in one, which makes everything that happens on this poor little planet of ours much less important than you’d think.”
This statement encapsulates precisely what I find scary about religion and its followers. War, famine, tsunamis, global warming are not considered by some theists to be all that important because we’re all going to die and dance together in heaven. What motivation do you have for improving the world for future generations with this attitude?
Sounds quicker than a lot of 'em to me. But that’s beside the point in any event really.Being slammed against the side of your house at 200mph and then drowned sounds like a pretty bad way to die to me.
I hear Catholics and other Christians talking about prayer a lot, asking people to pray for them, but I doubt that most truly believe in prayer.
For example, a Catholic friend recently asked for people to pray for her because she was about to undergo surgery to cure a medical condition. I find that amazing. If she really believed in the power of prayer, why would she undergo surgery? Prayer by itself should be enough. Is the thought that God has the power to cure, but only if he has the assistance of a mortal physician? He can’t cure by himself.
On the other hand, I see Christian Scientists as true believers in prayer. They will actually receive prayer in lieu of modern medical techniques that have been proven to cure the ailments that affect us. They truly believe in the power of prayer.
As C. S. Lewis phrased it, “He already knows what we need, but He does want to be asked.” Our free participation is required to receive His grace. Hence, we pray.For reasons best known to Himself, God sees fit to do His Will in the world, not by His own action alone, but by secondary & created causes too. He has no need of the Bible - but we do. He needs nothing - not Churches, Bibles, Christians, a human race, or any other thing in all creation. The utter redundancy, uselessness, & needlessness of all these things means that by using them, He is acting in a way which is utterly unnecessary. There is no such thing as an indispensable or necessary creature - yet He is the Creator. And perhaps this tells something about His Love - for love, of its very nature, cannot be forced: it is poured out freely, as a gift, or it is not love at all. IOW - it is infinitely unnecessary.
And this person praying may get what they want, that is, the sister will pull through the surgery ok.Obviously prayer is a method that can be employed by various religious people as a means to various goals.
In this discussion, I am referring simply to the idea of one praying for God to help him accomplish a specifically requested end result. For example, “God, my sister is having a risky surgery tomorrow that has only a 40% success rate, please make sure she gets through allright.”
You’re drifting a little bit off topic but I would like to respond.That fact that there is suffering, and may continue to be suffering as a response to prayer, in no way contradicts that a greater good is being brought about.
Peace.
John
Yeah I understand how you guys explain the obvious failure of prayer. If your sister is cured then you say “look God cured her! God is great!” If she dies, then you say “God is still great, he brought her to his kingdom!” If she’s permanently comotosed, then you’d invent something else like “her soul is content, even though her physical body is suffering.”And this person praying may get what they want, that is, the sister will pull through the surgery ok.
On the other hand, God may do what He wants and call His daughter to Him.
The person who prayed will be dumbfounded that God didn’t answer His prayer, but God did, just not in the way the person wanted.
It is upto the person to then discover how God’s action was done to benefit the person’s life who prayed also.
It may be they go on to become a highly skilled grief counsellor, after handling their sister’s death so well.
It may take many years before this person discovers what God’s answer was to their prayer.
Prayer is not asking for something and demanding that it happen.
It is offering to God our wishes, and allowing God to do His will with this particular incident in our lives.
C.S. Lewis wrote some great fiction. I wouldn’t include the above in that group.As C. S. Lewis phrased it, “He already knows what we need, but He does want to be asked.” Our free participation is required to receive His grace. Hence, we pray.
Nan
The reason that in fact this is not at all off topic is because your whole topic is based on a very different view of what’s at stake when we pray.You’re drifting a little bit off topic but I would like to respond.
The above statement is fairly disturbing and it is hard for me to comprehend how someone could think in this way. So you’re little brain may think that you don’t want your loved ones to be kidnapped, tortured and murdered, but if that happens (in spite of your daily prayers to keep them save) that’s fine because it’s part of God’s master plan.
Do you actually believe that? I guess if you deluded yourself into believing that, it would help numb the pain when something bad happens. I just don’t have that same power of delusion.
In response to your last paragraph. That statement is true although you have absolutely no proof there is any “greater good” accomplished by the fact that children around the world are abused and murdered every single day. It is a non sequitur to conclude that since all this suffering is taking place, there must be some greater good purpose for it.The reason that in fact this is not at all off topic is because your whole topic is based on a very different view of what’s at stake when we pray.
When you can’t see why we would accept that God may want us to use a doctor rather than seek supernatural healing–or for that matter, why we would cut up our food with a knife rather than pray that God separates it into bite-sized pieces for us–you are not at all understanding what ultimate good we are asking for.
Yes, Imagine. I do, and many do, expect that a happiness that is beyond time and is greater than can be understood, is more important to God and to us than what’s happening in this tiny space of time.
Doesn’t mean I don’t fear suffering and grieve when others suffer. To suggest that this fact somehow proves that no greater good is worth it, seems a non sequitur.
Peace.
John
It’s because God wants us to come to Him of our own Free WIll, nor as a bunch of coerced robots.In response to your last paragraph. That statement is true although you have absolutely no proof there is any “greater good” accomplished by the fact that children around the world are abused and murdered every single day. It is a non sequitur to conclude that since all this suffering is taking place, there must be some greater good purpose for it.
Why is that the case? Why is there any purpose at all. Maybe it’s just tragedy plain and simple. It’s bad. There is no good that comes from a lot of things that happen.
I was not offering proof that my view of prayer is correct. I was responding to your point that such of view is deluded. Your understanding of my view was incorrect, so I explained.In response to your last paragraph. That statement is true although you have absolutely no proof there is any “greater good” accomplished by the fact that children around the world are abused and murdered every single day. It is a non sequitur to conclude that since all this suffering is taking place, there must be some greater good purpose for it.
Why is that the case? Why is there any purpose at all. Maybe it’s just tragedy plain and simple. It’s bad. There is no good that comes from a lot of things that happen.