Do unanswered prayers cause atheism?

DOC said:
Well as I heard one preacher say, God does answer all prayer, he just sometimes says No (also the time might not be right for the prayer to be answered).
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They have to say that, to somehow explain the odd and total silence from heaven.


And we are all going to die no matter how hard you pray for as the bible says:

it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
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You know what else the bible says?


Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Matthew 7:8 "For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7:9 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

Matthew 7:10 "Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

Matthew 7:11 "So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him?"

Also, I've heard it said that if you are not living a good life God is less likely to give you your desires. In other words if your committing sin one minute and praying the next, it is likely that you won't receive your desire.
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You've heard it said? You've heard it said? What, said by people, or said by god? Doesn't what god's already said trump anything man might have said since? Of course it does!


Matthew 7:8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Romans 3:23 ...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Ecclesiastes 7:20 There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.

So then, everyone has sinned, but everyone who asks receives. It doesn't sound to me as if your god was trying to tell you that sin would keep your prayers from being answered. Or is god just that fracking stupid, that he can't remember or keep his own promises?

But I guess since you've heard people say otherwise, it's better to listen to them than to the bible, right? Because the people you've "heard" obviously know better than god, don't they?
 
Madalch said:
I've occasionally argued with theists about the existence of god, and their "best" argument was, "Did something horrible happen to you to convince you that there was no god? Did you pray for a pony for Christmas when you were six and didn't get it?"

They've convinced themselves that can be no rational reason to reject their religion, so it must be an emotional/irrational reason. The poor baby didn't get what he wanted for Christmas, and is now rebelling against god in revenge.

It's an argument so insulting that I can only put it down to projection.
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Like what a certain theist here with a three digit alias projects: We're angry at Christ, and pretend to be atheists on account of that presumed anger.
 
DOC said:
Well as I heard one preacher say, God does answer all prayer, he just sometimes says No (also the time might not be right for the prayer to be answered).
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I always wanted to ask the follow-up question, "So, how is that different from praying to a gallon of milk?"
 
alfaniner said:
I always wanted to ask the follow-up question, "So, how is that different from praying to a gallon of milk?"
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People don't die for a gallon of milk like the apostles did, and a gallon of milk doesn't create the most moral and sublime teachings known to man as many believe Christ teachings were.
 
slingblade said:
They have to say that, to somehow explain the odd and total silence from heaven.




You know what else the bible says?


Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.



Matthew 7:8 "For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7:9 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

Matthew 7:10 "Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

Matthew 7:11 "So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him?"
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Yes, but he says all of the above immediately after this verse:

Matthew 7:6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

This implies that God is not going to give anything to those who are living non-sacred unbelieving lives.

He is not going to free Charles Manson from prison right after he is sentenced to 20 years for being involved in several murders because Manson decides to pray one night - that is just common sense.

Also there are at least 12 interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount (from which those verses came). The 12 are listed here under the sub-heading "Interpretations":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermon_on_the_Mount
 
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DOC said:
People don't die for a gallon of milk like the apostles did, and a gallon of milk doesn't create the most moral and sublime teachings known to man as many believe Christ teachings were.
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Neither did Jesus.
The New testament isn't a new or novel morality.

Not even Jesus' tacit condoning of slave beating.
 
Psi Baba said:
Praying to God works like requesting songs on a radio station. Radio stations have a set playlist that they are going to follow and don't really take requests. Most people who call in requests just ask for the same old crap that the station plays all the time anyway. So what usually happens is: caller requests a song; DJ says, "sure, we'll get that on for ya"; song eventually comes around in the normal rotation; DJ announces the song as having been requested, thereby perpetuating the illusion that the radio station takes requests.
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One of the local stations here doesn't even bother changing the playlist each night, sometimes for days on end. Lately I've been noticing that each night as I set off for work, the same song is playing. It gets silly when they replay a request, along with the tape of the caller requesting it, and the spiel about how they take requests so it's 'radio put together by you'. I call in requests for common songs, that are out of their current rotation, and they never get around to playing them. Sounds a lot like what we expect from prayer; what's going to happen happens, regardless of the prayer.
 
"When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself." - Peter O’Toole
 
Anyone who thinks prayer is "Gimme, gimme, gimme" or that it should prevent people from dying has never been very serious about prayer.
 
154 said:
Anyone who thinks prayer is "Gimme, gimme, gimme" or that it should prevent people from dying has never been very serious about prayer.
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Don't tell us. Tell the guys who wrote the book and put verse after verse in it about what you can expect from god when you pray.

Asking god for boons, favors, help, aid, rescue, that's all part of it. It shouldn't, in a system most of us would consider honest and mature, be all of it by any means. But the promises are definitely part of it. They're in the book. Why are they in the book if we aren't supposed to ask for things? And not just once. They're in the book several times, phrased in several ways.

I'll quote them for you, every one I can find, don't think I won't. I've done it before. They are quite clear: ask, and it shall be given. Period. So why is it so often not given? Why make that promise and then renege?

Jesus made promises. I've read them. Why are they in there if they weren't meant? Does god lie? Is he just a big tease?

Why are they there, if we aren't to ask for anything in god's name?
 
As you know, you're not asking me anything, you're telling me.
 
DOC said:
Well as I heard one preacher say, God does answer all prayer, he just sometimes says No (also the time might not be right for the prayer to be answered). And we are all going to die no matter how hard you pray for as the bible says:

it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

Also, I've heard it said that if you are not living a good life God is less likely to give you your desires. In other words if your committing sin one minute and praying the next, it is likely that you won't receive your desire.
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Concerning the hilited area: Here's the rub. How can one either verify or falsify the efficacy of prayer if a negative result still means God is listening? Likewise, referring back to the joke that was alluded to elsewhere in the thread - where God says to the man (or woman) who drowned in a flood, "What do you want? I sent a squad car, a helicoptor and a boat" - if the answer to prayer, particularly a prayer for deliverance, comes in the form of human agency, how do you know you can ascribe it to divine intervention? A case in point would be the allies in World War II liberating the death camps: Divine intervention or (rather late, considering the Holocaust) human action?
 
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