It's quite simple---I don't know why I didn't see it before. First, Lord Jesus Christ restricts His followers prayers to "only in your secret place, for that is where Our Father God can hear you." Then He tells His disciples, "Wherever two-or-more of you are gathered together in my name, there I will be with you." So you see? If we're NOT alone, He has the excuse that He wasn't listening because we were probably just speaking for everybody to hear us talk; if we ARE alone, He has the excuse that "there were not 'two-or-more gathered in His name'." Proving that "prayer" is more for the mind of anyone listening than -for "audience with God." ... unless ... there are two different types of prayer: prayer to God's 'head' (done in your secret place, to get into His mind), and prayer to God's body the church to activate THEM into doing what God's head needs to do (like the pastor who 'prayed for' a million-dollar donation in Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich). What do you think?
I may be new here, but I think you're stretching it by putting a topic like this in a forum like this. Let me help you out in this regard. Prayer doesn't cost anything and it gives people a certain peace of mind. Haagen-Daz ice cream is the high end stuff that costs a bit of money, and gives certain people a peace of mind. So if you want to save money, pray.
There are a few prerequisites for having your prayer answered. You must have been living a pious life and have faith. It's that simple. The fact that Jesus told His disciples that He would live in their hearts implies that every follower of His who has Him dwelling in them will get his/her prayers heard anytime, wherever they are, regardless of whether they pray in secret or not. God is omniscient, don't forget that. And He does stuff when He feels it's right not when someone asks Him to do it for him as a favor and so on.
I 'searched' for "scam"--thinking that surely DPF has some 'scam-alert'-category--and this ("too good to be true" ... though I think it was actually referring to all those "MAKE BAZILLIONS DOING NOTHING"-ads) was the closest thing I could find. So "prayer" is just 'self-motivational speech?' That's fine, but a lot of people think it's "talking to Our Father God." I guess I'm just outlining 'who (Jesus says!) you're REALLY talking-to when you pray where you pray.' I believe in the "negotiation"-meaning of 'prayer'---we're not asking God to change His will (which He won't do anyway, Thank FSM!) but we're asking Him to 'have it delivered in some way we can handle.'
It's 2014 and people are still stuck praying to a book. This is a hopeless society. It's going to be destroyed in no time. A bunch of sleep walking sheep staying entertained to whatever is fed to them. You give the ones who wrote that book too much respect. The thing is, none of you really believe in it. Unless you're crazy. You need to be insane to actually believe in it. How to tell if you really believe in the bible. 1 - Are you scared to die? If you believe you are going to heaven, you would not be afraid at all. 2 - Do you get sad when people die? If you believe they went to heaven, you would be happy. 3/4/5/etc the rest are similar to the 2 reasons above. If you really believed, then death would be a celebration to you. Christianity, a Religion founded on alleged human sacrifice. Jesus dies for our sins. What does that even mean? Would our world be any different if that myth didnt exist? Small minds believe big lies.
That is a very-prejudiced point-of-view; and I agree, but not ... Perhaps you have not read the part that Christians DO believe:Log In ... IT says that "all is vanity"---nothing you do in this life will last forever, and you DEFINITELY can't take it with you when you go. And they're "sad" about death because DEATH IS NOT HOW/WHEN YOU GET TO HEAVEN! If you want to believe The Bible, it says "the dead in Christ will rise first" at His 'Coming in the Clouds' (the way His disciples saw Him leave, that's the way we're told He'll return). Oh, maybe to their mind it's 'instantaneous' (dying one instant, lounging in Heavenly hammocks the next); but to all humans (Christian & non-), that person is lifeless in the ground---an empty husk. And Christianity was NOT founded on human 'sacrifice.' You admitted you don't even know what it was founded on, so I'll try to tell you. "Sin" literally means 'missing the mark.' We are created by God to fulfill His purposes, but our own purposes blind us to His greater purposes for us. Jesus' community was a 'sacrifice'-based church---'how good you were' was shown by 'whether you had bought-off all your sins.' Jesus' death-&-resurrection essentially showed the truth of Ecclesiastes ... and the 'Jesus-death for our sins' is sort of a way of teaching our carnal minds that we don't NEED to sacrifice anything to Our Maker (but we DO need to let God have all the control that we- and our friends-can't take). ... But Back On Topic!!---What do you think about prayer? Is it essentially 'just talking to ourselves'?
What if all prayers are answered but sometimes the answer is either "no, that's not going to be possible", "maybe, if you do that and this to help it along" or "yes, but not right now"? That could be a possibility. Or JaydonTyler could be right in his suggestions. It's not easy to believe in something that has, or appears to have, so many contradictions that it is hard to know the right thing to do or say that would keep one on the right path. I think our world probably would be a bit different if that did not exist, they would most likely think something else and base their decisions on that instead. I try to figure the nature of time and culture's effect on the world in general but I can only scratch the surface and cannot comprehend the scope of it all, as Peri from "The Two Doctors" could not fully realize what it would mean if the universe they were in ceased to exist.
Energy is energy, and energy works, no matter who or how or why it is 'sent'. It simply exists. Everything is energy. The labels we give it are just that, labels.
When you go to the fast-food restaurant & order your food, and the server asks for payment before he gives it to you; do YOU ever reply 'yes, but not right now'? I guess a little "message" there, is that appropriate prayer is more like 'pounding the palm of your catcher's-mitt' ('Alrite God; you're sending it, and I'm ready to catch it now!') than like "submitting a personal request." Because the Ideal Example prayer-to-God--known as The 'Our Father'--prays "Our Father ... Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done ..." Its only "personal" requests are 'make sure there's enough for us to eat, forgive us as much as we forgive others, don't make us get into too much trouble & help get us out of the trouble we're in.' Jesus might as well have added, 'Just do that, and we'll handle the rest!' Not exactly. I'm not sure how that has anything to do with 'Jesus lawyer-ing His way out of answering prayers,' but ... do you watch Through the Wormhole, with Morgan Freeman. One night, they explained how all that works out---something-like "matter is energy that has slowed down, and/or energy is matter that vibrates' or something. And the labels we give it name-&-(partly)-control it, when we ALL agree on those labels!
I hope you won't get offended, but the forum is more on shopping discounts and anything financial or material, so I think even if you posted this in the Scam Section, it's still off topic in my opinion. I think you're better off posting this in a religious forum.
Maybe you regard 'Our Father's promises' as "something you like to imagine in your spare time"--having nothing to do with how you live your life. But I know people who pin all their hopes & dreams to the belief that God answers prayers, and so judge an entire church on the fact that the person hasn't received the blessing they've prayed for. The truth is, there's a condition to that "whatever you pray for, believe that you receive it and you will have it"-myth---you have to need it "for the advancement of the kingdom of God on Earth"---i.e. 'your want' changes from "what makes your body feel good" to "what is better for all of your neighbors." And no, I'm not posting this on a religious forum because a) they've got Scripture-covered 'blindfolds' on (and respond like some have before ... "Maybe His answer is 'Not right now' baa-aa-aa-aa-aa") & b) I'm not talking about 'religious' people---I'm talking about the "trick" the religions use to get people to join ... "Come to this house; be one of the sanctified people ..." (The Who's TOMMY)
Actually, I have stopped going to church since the year 2000, so you should know that I'm not really religious. I also have stopped praying to God because I have become aware that the reason why He doesn't answer prayers is that some unfortunate events are predetermined so we really can't avoid it, we are meant to experience them. So no wonder that even if the prayer asks for something positive like for a family member to get well from cancer for example, He still doesn't answer it because it's His will.
That's why I said (above):An infamous example: Jonah sent to Nineveh to tell them that God was going to destroy them (the reason why Jonah was "swallowed by the whale" was that he was running-out on that job---sailing in the opposite direction). Jonah gets to Nineveh, tells them that God will destroy them because of their evil ways, and then is annoyed by God's decision to forgive them when they fast-in-sackcloth & turn away from their lascivious lifestyle. An atheist might use that as aNOTHER nail-in-the-coffin for theism ('prophet says God's gonna do something, but nothing happens; textbook falsity!') But "Faith In God" STARTS with 'taking God's existence & -status as "self-evident truths",' and sees that the interplay between God & the city of Nineveh was more a "negotiation"---God says, 'Evildoers will be destroyed'; the people destroyed the evil, and thus lived. (I can't think of any 'prayer' that went on during that story--save Jonah's "promise to God" that he'd go to Nineveh after surviving the whale, & Jonah's prayer for some shade to sit & wait for Nineveh to crumble--but it shows that 'the will of God' sits somewhere between "where we started" & "where he WANTED us to go FROM THERE (having almost-nothing to do with 'where we might be headed')." So 'right prayer' seeks to put us back to "when things were good." (The Bible's book of James tells us "If you do not get what you want, it is because you do not ask; and if you ask and do not receive, it is because you ask amiss." That is ... 'because you ask contrary to the original will.')
All I know is that I consider myself to be of the Christian faith, along with having studied the bible for many years and while we may not always understand why God answers prayers the way that He does, I respect the fact that He knows what's best for me. A great documentary; especially as it relates to the world today is called "The Daniel Project" and it answers a lot of questions concerning bible prophecy for those of you who might be interested. Definitely a different type of post than other posts that I've seen on this forum, however very interesting nonetheless!
Prayer is not a scam and I don't believe Jesus makes "excuses" not to answer prayers. I feel like there really are two types of prayers. There are the personal prayers you do in private. You pray for help, peace, for the poor, to praise, whatever. He wants you to do it in private because he doesn't want you to be showing it off like you're so good. Like if you gave a homeless guy $100 and then bragged about it so people thought you were this selfless good person. The second, is when you're with a group or congregation and you pray for the same thing. Like a prayer chain, like when you pray for people in a disaster or a missing loved one.
I don't know if you're being sarcastic and cynical but I don't think this is appropriate for the forum. As far as I know this forum really deals with various shopping experiences and services in a wide range of categories. As for religion, that's your personal perspective and you have a right to that. I just think it probably belongs on a forum dealing more with religion or politics surrounding religion to be more accurate.
"Having God answer their prayers" is a service Christians (especially newer Christians) believe that Christianity offers. "Religion" is not 'personal perspective,' that's "Spirituality"; 'religion' is literally 'agreeing on what the books say.' As for 'appropriateness for this forum': Christianity is BASED ON the fact that we "don't pay full-price" for our inherently sinful nature
You've got a point there. We have a saying here, you might not know it but it says that let God do His part which is to pity us and let's do our part to do what we need to. I've had a hard time trying to translate that. How I interpret it is that let's just do our part and God will do His.
Close---you've got to remember that our part involves 'using what God HAS ALREADY GIVEN US.' If we don't use THAT, how can we expect Him to do more?
First of all, I would like to say that I'm an agnostic when it comes to the existence of God. Simply put, I don't know if there's a God but there's no evidence (from where I stand) that such a deity exists. Speaking of the concept of prayer, why should it matter how or where you pray? What about a soldier in the middle of a firefight praying? Will God not answer his prayer because he's doing it in a noisy place? If there is such a God, the location of where a person prays should not matter at all.
