The powerlessness of prayer

[six7s]

It was being saved, meaning it saved my life.

Ermmm...if your life was being subjected to a real, actual, happening risk (e.g you were actually falling to your death) that was removed, then yeah saved
Merely potentially at risk (e.g crapping your pants): Rescued

How this fits the thread is that God does things to help people

If you have any evidence of this, please present it

and I am convinced that it was God who sent an angel in this situation.

Maybe... ever wondered WHY you are convinced?

It was a very strange experience, that there was someone there, that looked like another kid, who seemed very mature and calm and knew exactly what to do to get me out of a bad situation.

You were crapping your pants, adrenalin surging through your brain and other muscles and yet you have total recall of the events? Wow! A miracle!

 

[Robert Oz]

God does not change his mind.

“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?” Numbers 23:19

“I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.” Malachi 3:6

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

Exodus:

32:9 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
32:10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
32:11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
32:12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
32:14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

 

[six7s]

If prayer does nothing else, at least (for some) it gives them something to do

For others, prayer is - literally - a waste of time

Once upon a time, in my late teens, friends and I were first on the scene of a rather horrific accident involving two cars;
one which had swerved (to miss the other car), flipped and hurled its (non-seatbelted) passengers into bloody lumps on the road
the other car's occupants - four seemingly mature adults - were shaken but not stirred to do anything other than pray for the 'lumps'

Rather than praying, one of us (in that pre mobile phone era) drove to the nearest house to call for an ambulance, one of us served as lookout to ensure no other vehicles crashed onto the scene and two of us attended to the worst casualty (silent, unconscious and not breathing) by administering first aid - pulling his tongue out of his throat and administering mouth-to-bloody-mouth

Call me Mr Confirmation-Bias, but I doubt that those who serenely prayed were of any use at all

Instead, I suspect that he lived because we tried to remain calm, think and remember what we had been taught on - curiously enough - a St John's Ambulance course that used the Dr ABC mnemonic (Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing and Circulation) but no mention of prayer

 

[Fnord]

For others, prayer is - literally - a waste of time
Once upon a time...

Good point. Prayer is certainly a waste of time when those praying have the opportunity to act on a situation and make it better. You have no argument from me on that! I remember that when I was homeless, Xians with ample room in their own homes tried to "comfort" me with the words "I'll pray for you."

When I made my post, I was thinking about those folks that have no means or opportunity to change a situation for which there is no reasonable expectation of improvment, such as those whose current situation is essentially a death sentence - the terminally ill, the paralyzed, or those otherwise condemned to die.

 

[Freethinker]

There are a lot of things to be protected from, like fires, wind, waves, cold, and other people.

All of which were placed here by the very same god you ask to protect you.

I do not see how it is ridiculous, unless you mean that you have to go through the act of praying, before you can get saved.

Do you suppose god placed a rattlesnake on the path, then heard your prayer and decided to move the snake someplace else?

Do you suppose he changes his mind based on your simply asking him to?

If I were shooting at you would you ask me to make sure none of the bullets hit you?

It is entirely ridiculous to ask a god to protect you from his own creations, just as it would be ridiculous to ask someone who was trying to kill you to protect you.

 

[TheAnachronism]

Exodus:

32:9 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
32:10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
32:11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
32:12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
32:14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

Thanks for the addition, Robert Oz, but would you mind explaining your own interpretation of this part of scripture in relation to this thread? I realized when making this thread that discrepancies over whether or not God has the capacity to change his mind exist in the Bible.

But is it your assertion that my first point is incorrect because God can, in fact, change his mind, and thus prayer is useful? Or are you merely pointing out that the Bible contains discrepancies, and thus is utter BS? I'm not quite sure if you are agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or just bringing up an unrelated point.

 

[MattusMaximus]

I know that God knows if I'm going to Heaven or Hell. Therefore there's no point in me doing anything, so I might as well slack off. But slacking off gets me into Hell. So I can't slack off.

Therefore God knows I'm not gonna slack off, and will thus get into Heaven. Therefore I choose to slack off.

Repeat ad nauseum.

This makes my head hurt

Is there any CTRL-ALT-DELETE function to stop that particular recursive loop?

 

[TheAnachronism]

Ethnikos, you really have to ask yourself why you would need to ask God to protect you. I can understand that when one is in a scary situation, it may be a sort of comfort to hope something (ie God) will protect him or her. But if you've read my opening post, it makes no sense to do so in a religious sense. It would seem to me, in fact, to be a slap in the face to God to suppose that (1) what we want at any given moment matters to him, (2) that he wouldn't already know what we want and (3) that we want things done our way and not his.

Why would one suppose that God, as presented in the Christian bible, would think to himself "gee, I was going to kill 'Ethnikos' in a horrible accident today, but since he's begging me not to, I guess I'll just change all my plans to conform to his/her needs." It just seems absurd to me, is all.

There are a lot of things to be protected from, like fires, wind, waves, cold, and other people. One case where I was saved was from falling off a thousand foot cliff, off a mountain and down to the desert gorge, below.
I do not see how it is ridiculous, unless you mean that you have to go through the act of praying, before you can get saved. Most of the times I was saved was when I did not have the time or presence of mind to pray, or was not fully aware of my danger.

 

[Robert Oz]

Thanks for the addition, Robert Oz, but would you mind explaining your own interpretation of this part of scripture in relation to this thread? I realized when making this thread that discrepancies over whether or not God has the capacity to change his mind exist in the Bible.

But is it your assertion that my first point is incorrect because God can, in fact, change his mind, and thus prayer is useful? Or are you merely pointing out that the Bible contains discrepancies, and thus is utter BS? I'm not quite sure if you are agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or just bringing up an unrelated point.

Not at all. I think prayer is as useless as wishing on a star or rubbing a rabbit's foot. Utter bunkum.

I was merely highlighting an instance where God not only changes his mind in the Bible, but answers a prayer (i.e. Moses' not to punish the Hebrews), thereby providing yet one more piece of evidence that the Bible is full of contradictions and, therefore, not the inspired word of a deity.

Nor is the act something that would be expected from an omniscient entity.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but I also find it fascinating that the faithful continue to believe in the words of the Bible considering the following passage:

Matthew:

7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
7:8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
7:9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
7:10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

...considering how many of the faithful die horrible deaths and lose loved ones in tragic accidents or "acts of God".

 

[Ethnikos]

Ermmm...if your life was being subjected to a real, actual, happening risk (e.g you were actually falling to your death) that was removed, then yeah saved...Merely potentially at risk (e.g crapping your pants): Rescued
If you have any evidence of this, please present it
Maybe... ever wondered WHY you are convinced?
You were crapping your pants, adrenalin surging through your brain and other muscles and yet you have total recall of the events? Wow! A miracle!

I used a couple of descriptive words about myself at the time this happened, like foolish and stupid. You have to keep that in mind to understand the story. I was busy analyzing the probability of being able to catch myself on a small ledge below, if I was to let go. I thought it might be easier to get back up from that ledge, than from where I was at. Of course, looking at it with hindsight and more experience, that would have been a poor choice and would have surely ended badly. I was making calculations in a fairly calm sort of way, given the circumstances. I came to my decision to go for it and was in the process of letting go, when I heard the voice and stopped.
When did I decide it was a miracle? Probably about 40 years after it happened. I was telling another story of a different miraculous rescue, when I thought about this one and made the determination that this was one, too.

 

[six7s]

I remember that when I was homeless, Xians with ample room in their own homes tried to "comfort" me with the words "I'll pray for you."

Charity begins next door?

...those whose current situation is essentially a death sentence - the terminally ill, the paralyzed, or those otherwise condemned to die.

When the going gets unreasonable, the unreasonable gets going

 

[Ethnikos]

All of which were placed here by the very same god you ask to protect you.
Do you suppose god placed a rattlesnake on the path, then heard your prayer and decided to move the snake someplace else?
Do you suppose he changes his mind based on your simply asking him to?
If I were shooting at you would you ask me to make sure none of the bullets hit you?
It is entirely ridiculous to ask a god to protect you from his own creations, just as it would be ridiculous to ask someone who was trying to kill you to protect you.

I was giving a list of things that immediately came to mind that I know about personally, that I needed to be saved from, at one time or another. My point is that the world is full of things that a person who puts themselves in a vulnerable position, may need to be saved. You may not agree with this but I could give you examples. If you decide to be a surfer, then you put yourself in the position of possibly being a drowning victim. On the other hand, someone who decides to not be a skier would not likely die in an avalanche. God made the snow, but I decided to not go below it, where it could fall on me.
One day I was climbing over a big rock-pile when right in front of me a rattlesnake rose up from under the rock I was on and blocked my path. I looked behind me and another one came up. Then ones on each side of me came up. I do not think God put those snakes there but I may have been lucky enough to stop when I was right in the middle of the rock, instead of on one of the edges, or something. They were very determined and apparently angry with me and I think would have bit me if I was close enough to them. So did God move them? No, but the fact that they came out in the order that they did, saved me.
God was not trying to kill me with a bunch of snakes, I chose to walk over a nest of rattlesnakes without realizing it. So, God did not change his mind.

 

[six7s]

This makes my head hurt

Is there any CTRL-ALT-DELETE function to stop that particular recursive loop?

function cutTheCrap(crapPost)
	{
		var postNum = crapPost.postNum;
		
		if (crapPost.author.wooist == true) 
			{
				alert ('So many idiots, so few bullets\n\nPlease breathe');
			}
		
		window.location.href = 'http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/report.php?p=' + postNum;
		
}

If that fails, try Alt + F4

 

[Ethnikos]

Ethnikos, It would seem to me, in fact, to be a slap in the face to God to suppose that (1) what we want at any given moment matters to him, (2) that he wouldn't already know what we want and (3) that we want things done our way and not his.

I always assumed that God did things for His own purposes. I might be wrong. Kind of a quid pro quo deal. I might be a witness to how great God is or some other thing that is incomprehensible to me but makes sense to God. All I may have been asking for was to stay alive and it goes right along with a normal instinct of self preservation. So, it takes no real effort on my own part. It is not so much the act of praying but that I was confident to trust God to help me survive my own foolishness. As far as I know, I did not deserve it but maybe God enjoys someone who believes in Him in a very practical sort of way.

 

[Ali]

There have been many posts on the JREF forums which, in no uncertain terms, discuss the uselessness of prayer in conjunction with the scientific method; ie prayer has been shown not to affect the outcome of a situation. Obviously, this observation could be highly variable depending on who is observing, and the argument probably wouldn't convince those who already believe that prayer has some effect.

Searching through the forum, I don't know if a thread has been specifically created to debunk the Judeo-Christian tradition of prayer in theological terms. If so, please excuse this attempt.

I am not a theologian by any means. In fact, I'm blithely unaware of most things religious, but hopefully this thread will provoke some discussion, and hopefully my thoughts are not too off base. My argument looks something like this:

1) God does not change his mind.

“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?” Numbers 23:19

“I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.” Malachi 3:6

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

2) Prayer goes against the traditional sentiment expressed in The Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done..."

I realize that prayer is deeply individual, but it seems to me that prayers can usually be broken up in to two groups. The first is what I call "proactive prayer," and would include something like "please let grandma get well." The second I call "Thanksgiving prayer," and would be something like "Thank you, Lord, for all that I have."

My previous arguments are directed towards proactive prayer, which seems to me to be very common. If my arguments are not off-base, it seems to me that prayer should be viewed, even by Christians, as not only powerless and useless but also, on account of point 2, somewhat heretic.

Okay, agree or disagree. Like I said, I have no background in theology, and for all I know this could already be some huge debate raging in that field. At any rate, I hope that people can find some more good points for/against prayer.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand; it’s very simple: if a person continually blasphemes then any payer he comes up with is useless.

 

[TheAnachronism]

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand; it’s very simple: if a person continually blasphemes then any payer he comes up with is useless.

This makes...well, not sense. Maybe it makes cookies. Really poorly baked cookies.

I wonder where in the Bible it says that prayer is useful unless one happens to be an habitual blasphemer.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

For many people, prayer is only marginally about asking for goodies. It's more about changing oneself -- focusing one's mind on the important things and continuously developing one's relationship with God.

In that sense, it can have positive, or at least intended effects. Or so I'm given to believe.

In other words, as the evidence mounts that prayer has no effect other than placebo when the prayee knows prayer is occurring, change the definition of what prayer is lest one might have to confront the fact prayer is as effective as carrying a rabbit's foot.

Prayer is no more and no less than a million other rituals humans have performed over the years to affect the natural Universe. We discovered through careful observation that these rituals have no effect other than a bit of placebo. Prayers do not make you a better person. They don't help you focus your chi. There is no god answering any prayers and rabbits' feet do not work either.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It was being saved, meaning it saved my life. I think I would not be alive right now if I did not get help.
How this fits the thread is that God does things to help people and I am convinced that it was God who sent an angel in this situation. It was a very strange experience, that there was someone there, that looked like another kid, who seemed very mature and calm and knew exactly what to do to get me out of a bad situation.

So you ignore the fact that if you believe in such a merciful god, it is that same god who sadistically set you up for the danger in the first place.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Good point. Prayer is certainly a waste of time when those praying have the opportunity to act on a situation and make it better. You have no argument from me on that! I remember that when I was homeless, Xians with ample room in their own homes tried to "comfort" me with the words "I'll pray for you."

When I made my post, I was thinking about those folks that have no means or opportunity to change a situation for which there is no reasonable expectation of improvment, such as those whose current situation is essentially a death sentence - the terminally ill, the paralyzed, or those otherwise condemned to die.

Magical thinking is indeed a human coping mechanism especially useful when grieving. You don't need a god belief to accomplish stress reducing magical thinking but I can see where including a god belief does no harm in such a case. But the fact I am an atheist does not prevent me from exercising the same coping mechanisms in similar situations.

You do this by imagining the things you could have done or the things that might have been different. After time, this stage in the grieving process passes whether you injected god fantasies into your thinking or not.

 

[Ali]

I wonder where in the Bible it says that prayer is useful unless one happens to be an habitual blasphemer.

One bible says this, another bible says that, another book says... : what we have to do is to see what makes sense....
If you go by the book you’ll lose your way.....