does prayer accomplish anything?

[Bodhi]

give me a link

 

[Bodhi]

Actually, I found something on wikipedia.

Voluntary Nescience: The future is alethically settled but nevertheless epistemically open for God because he has voluntarily chosen not to know truths about future contingents.

Involuntary Nescience: The future is alethically settled but nevertheless epistemically open for God because truths about future contingents are in principle unknowable. William Hasker espouses this position.

Non-Bivalentist Omniscience: The future is alethically open and therefore epistemically open for God because propositions about future contingents are neither true nor false. J. R. Lucas espouses this position.

Bivalentist Omniscience: The future is alethically open and therefore epistemically open for God because propositions asserting of future contingents that they 'will' obtain or that they 'will not' obtain are both false. Instead, what is true is that they 'might and might not' obtain. Greg Boyd espouses this position."

^^^ All four types of open theism agree that the future is epistemically open for God meaning God does not have complete knowledge of the future. His understanding of what the future may be can only be based on probabilities and his knowledge of the past and present.

This view is also summed up here:

We believe that God could have known every event of the future had God decided to create a fully determined universe. However, in our view God decided to create beings with indeterministic freedom which implies that God chose to create a universe in which the future is not entirely knowable, even for God.
http://www.opentheism.info/

 

[jeffbundles]

Does prayer work it depends on who your asking prayer is all in the heart, personally i feel prayer works, if i pray for something and it doesnt happen it doesnt mean God doesnt want me to have it or he is not hearing me its just I wasent able to see his way of getting what i prayed for. Alot of people expect a big ass sign saying HERE IS WHAT YOU PRAYED FOR AND BY THE WAY ITS FUCKING GOD TO THE RESCUE for more shit nah its a thing where If you got a good heart and a alot of faith in what your saying it will come your way or you will receive signs. but if your praying with half your heart then he really doesnt see why he should answer. plus if you are only praying for something but dont respect God on a day to day basis that like asking you distant cousin who is a millionaire for 30 racks cause u need to pay off debts and all this shit. when really u can do it yourself and he doesnt fuckin rock with you like dat. So IMO it works its all on you,faith and your optimism

 

[kingblaze84]

So god has a plan and God knows all thats going to happen before it happens. And why does God know this? Because he planned for it to happen long before we were even born.

^^^ CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY ON GOD...

Taking that logic (which is Christian logic) into account. There is no need to pray.

SELFISH PRAYER: "God please save my grandmother from cancer"

According to Christian Logic: God gave your grandmother cancer and it is already preordained whether she will die from it or not. WHY PRAY?

non-selfish prayer: "Thank You God for blessing me with 2 beautiful children."

According to Christian Logic: You were going to have those kids if you wanted them or not. God already planned those kids for you.

Thus nothing is in your control. both Muslims & Christians say, "LORD WILLING" in any situation. Thus, it's the Lord's will/plan no matter what. Prayer or no prayer. Religion itself and the belief in an all-knowing, omnipotent God renders prayer pointless.

You shut this thread down pretty fast.....I'll say this though, prayer is usually for the desperate. If someone is desperate enough to give it a shot, I say go for it.

 

[kingblaze84]

Yes im living proof

Ok and what about all those people who didn't get their prayers answered? Was God just sitting on his ass then?

 

[kingblaze84]

Clearly you do not understand what is written there in the bible in the first place if your did we would not be having this old does freewill exist alongside god's omnipotence and omiscience debate.

I understand the Bible enough to know that it describes god as omnipotent and omniscient and the creator of all things.

God's nature is love.

Isaiah 45:7

I make peace, and create evil

God did not create all possible outcomes but they from his perspective all exist simultaneously before we have chosen them.

If God can see reality before we (assuming we created it since you don't want to place responsibility on god) existed to create it, then how does it exist?? If God is not the creator of reality, he is not the creator of everything.

so in other words god lets us choose which reality becomes actuality and judges us based on what really happened in our reality and what we don't choose never existed.

So God did not create reality but he's just sitting back letting us do our own thing and responds based on what we do?? He's judging based on something he didn't even create?

and what we don't choose never existed.

It did exist because you said earlier that God saw it

God did not create all possible outcomes but they from his perspective all exist

The Bible God is a mean, contradictory little cocksucker isn't he?

 

[zombie]

Clearly you do not understand what is written there in the bible in the first place if your did we would not be having this old does freewill exist alongside god's omnipotence and omiscience debate.

I understand the Bible enough to know that it describes god as omnipotent and omniscient and the creator of all things.

God's nature is love.

Isaiah 45:7

I make peace, and create evil

God did not create all possible outcomes but they from his perspective all exist simultaneously before we have chosen them.

If God can see reality before we (assuming we created it since you don't want to place responsibility on god) existed to create it, then how does it exist?? If God is not the creator of reality, he is not the creator of everything.

so in other words god lets us choose which reality becomes actuality and judges us based on what really happened in our reality and what we don't choose never existed.

So God did not create reality but he's just sitting back letting us do our own thing and responds based on what we do?? He's judging based on something he didn't even create?

and what we don't choose never existed.

It did exist because you said earlier that God saw it

God did not create all possible outcomes but they from his perspective all exist

The Bible God is a mean, contradictory little cocksucker isn't he?

No the god of the bible just does not fuck around.

 

[cannonspike1994]

no it doesn't

 

[GSonII]

Sad that people have to stoop to the level of believing in stuff like this. Shows how depressed people are that they know there only mere mortals who will live and die with nothing else left. I take solace in the fact that people are mentally strong the suicide rate would be much higher if we didn't pacify ourselves with the vices of the world.

 

[RAPH]

Proverbs 28:9

He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.

^^^

The reason that so many prayers are being ignored is simply because people are ignoring The Most High's word...

 

[Ajackson17]

Nope, the god of the bible doesn't exist and it is fabricated and cheapen copy of older more intelligent people's diety. Also, if there is a creator he would be finite, infinite since there is no such thing as infinite, everything has a level and it may be so high that we wouldn't recognized it's ceiling cap.

 

[luke1733]

Sometimes, but looks like you'll never know. I could share stories but from the statement I think it might be a waste of time.

 

[ineedpussy]

Sometimes, but looks like you'll never know. I could share stories but from the statement I think it might be a waste of time.

@luke1733 share those stories bro. we all need some form of help

 

[luke1733]

When I was about 14 I knew I didn't care about noone; my mother, father, friends, noone. Which you can guess what life that lead me toward to try and feel some type of stimulation. I prayed to have a feeling of compassion because other people started to comment on my heartlessness; so I did believe in God and that prayer was answered. Now, it's almost like be careful of what you pray for b/c I'm sensitive to almost everybody and what they feel now. I prayed that my parents would one day ask why I didn't really care for them, b/c it was messing my head up and my pride wouldn't let me let them know I wanted them to ask the question. They asked the question like the next week after my prayer and I answered them and it helped relieve a lot of the illwill I held toward them for playing favorites with their kids. I've often prayed for God to bring people to me that can help in my love and acts toward God and that I can help them and he often does this. Due to my hypocrisy I find it hard to be a role model, meaning it's easier to tell someone something than to show them, but this doesn't discount the fact that people do approach me with spiritual things when I truly don't go around speaking God's name in conversation just to be heard.

 

[luke1733]

Also I was in a car accident that nearly killed me (but I'm sure plenty of people say this, but hey). My car did a 180 on the interstate and a 18 wheeler was right in front of me coming toward me while my car was going backwards. I didn't pray this time, but I heard a voice tell me very calmly to "turn my steering wheel to the left". I did so and my car did not do a 360 but did turned back to the way it should be facing on the highway and then I hit the median of the wall. I totalled my car, the air bag came out and smoke was everywhere. I asked a lady the number to 911 after I got out my car; but I lived. Now, I could say I ain't hear no voice; voice was in my head, or I could say the real blessing would have been to never have been in the accident or have bad things happen to me but I had a feeling earlier that day too that something bad would happen. But I've felt that before too, so call it what you will. I didn't pray for it, but when your life flashes before your eyes and you ain't looking for God and God comes for you; then you do at that moment humble yourself to realize that somebody else or something else was with you.This is when you're not even trying to ask God; he makes his presence known and you don't confuse it with anything else.

 

[luke1733]

Had guns pulled on me 3x and I prayed for my life and well..here I am typing. Again, anything is arguable. Why did God allow for a gun to be pulled on me? Why somebody else get shot whose faith was stronger than mine? Well, God is no genie and prayers aren't a wish list; it's more like acknowledging God because well he's God and he does what he wants; not what I want.

 

[luke1733]

Another dude's testimony who I semi-witnessed was an atheist (not proclaimed atheist, just said he did not believe there was a god). He and I fell out over some petty stuff but that's besides the point or story he told me about. This guy was my mechanic. He had insurance on his business but didn't. This is what happened. He used to give his employees (which he only had 4 working for him) blank checks to write out to other car companies nearby for materials he needed. So, one of them began stealing his checks somehow; I'm not sure how he did it. So the owner which is the mechanic I knew had to close the account on a Friday when he found out. His insurance was under this account. That next day another one of his employees somehow had one of the cars catch on fire as he was working on it. The fire got to the other flammable liquids and blew up the entire business and over 100 cars. It was all on the news in ATL.

 

[luke1733]

His insurance didn't cover any of it because his account was closed Friday. So he had to pay out his pocket for most of the cars and the rest he got sued for by the people. I walked over to his business the next day and he was having to clean up all the debris. Nothing left it looked like a nuclear bomb went off. He told me he had nothing. He was a real funny guy and still trying to make jokes, but wiping tears from his eyes at the same time. I gave him a couple hundred and he took that and gave it back to his workers because they ain't have no jobs. He did this after telling me he ain't have no food to feed his 3 kids and wife. I helped him clean up and left. A couple of weeks later I checked in on him and he told me this story.

 

[luke1733]

He was in his kitchen 4am in the morning with the gun to his head about to commit suicide and the phone rang. He picked it up and it was his wife's preacher. He told me then he believed in God. After that he started going to church. A little while after that a guy up the street less than 2 miles from his old business was trying to get out of his car business and retire but he still owed on the building. So they just did a transfer and signed over the lease and he got a better building with barely nothing to pay on it. He still talked about all his tools were gone and he couldn't take out a loan big enough to buy back all the tools he needed to fix Lexus's and Toyota's. This is when somebody at the church he started going to just came up to him and gave him all the tools he needed. Now, this same dude later had some differences with me, but I can still look at his story and see God the same way he did. Plus when I drive buy the now 3rd building he's in; it looks like he's doing pretty good financially.

 

[luke1733]

Last note I'm gonna write, is none that stuff has to be life-threatening or some win the lottery stuff; and through studying I learned that's really the wrong way and opposite way we're supposed to pray. I just wrote what came to mind when I remembered prayer working in that type of way; but it's kinda weird because honestly the mechanic didn't pray and didn't believe in God. I've also had an uncle who's a chiropractor in New Orleans with terrible things happen and he believed and still does believe strongly in God. His brother died mysteriously a couple of days before Katrina. A day after the funeral Katrina hit and destroyed his business, house and the whole city. I don't have to explain that. He then moved to Huntsville Alabama to try to rebuild and those tornadoes came and destroyed his house, business and customers again. He has 3 girls and one son and a wife who are my cousins/aunt and all of them were in college and had to drop out because my uncle was paying their bills. He decided not to leave and the tornadoes came back again and destroyed his stuff again. He moved his family with the rest of my folks in Maryland for about a year b/c he was worried about them, but he stayed in Huntsville and rebuilt his practice again and now he drives from New Orleans from Huntsville and runs two of his businesses and put his daughters through college. They're all back in Huntsville now and like I said he still works in both cities and does that drive weekly.

I can't call that a blessing,but just a crazy story. That's it for me writing on this topic. By the way, the blasphemy on your first statement saying that curse to God is even forgivable according to God's word, but it's just not cool to curse who you don't know from reading what you wrote. I don't know you, and I am assuming this but I can still guess (since even people who don't believe in God but read what his people say are his words have enough respect to recognize the wisdom of those teachings enough not to say that) you haven't read his words and studied his word. You probably read some verses from many religions and witnessed how the people act and used common sense and said it ain't for you. It probably isn't. I can understand not doing so, you do what you feel and if it doesn't bother me or noone else then I say peace, but to curse on someone who you might even like just to do so--then that it isn't good man. I don't know some Native Americans gods or Buddha (even though I've read some on Buddha) but just outta respect