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Does prayer work?

Prayer was originally a type of ceremonial ritual where you did various things to connect to a greater reality. shit like that. Even early christians had various rituals, even with psychedelics that go much like pagan rituals today. The modern day version is way different though, but its still effective IMHO. At the very least it can help ya.
 
EMORY STUDY

EMORY did a study on a large number of majorly sick people (organ transplants, emphisima, and cancer primarily)

originaly they had 2 groups.. one group was prayed for the other wasn't... neither was informed of the experiment... the group who was prayed for healed significantly quiker and also from that group no fatalities.

a second experiement was done. those told they were being prayed for and those that were not prayed for (not told they weren't beign prayed for.. not even told they werte part of a study)... the group told did even better then the original group who was prayed for an not told...

a mixture of psychology and religion..... and as for world having no peace.. well god has a plan and prayer doesn't have a damn thing to do with his will. :)
 
^sounds like a BS study. i'd like to see the results duplicated by someone else.
 
well the doctors didn't beleive it.. but what do doctors know about the spiritual plain neway?... i bet it can easily be duplicated... i've heard crazy stories (terminal illness bein cured, orhtodox jews gettin transplants in a matter of months and other jews waitign for years) .. but objectivly i see ur issue.. i'd love to see it duplicated too (i bet itd work again). you can find the study on the net though..
 
Sebastians_ghost said:
Does prayer work?
Click to expand...

yes, but not always how we desire it to. :\


Prayer is a very important aspect of spirituality. For me it works more in helping me express my feelings to god...asking him for guidance, help. Thanking him for the good things he brings me. Asking him to help my loved ones become closer to him. I know most of you won't understand or believe this...but he does speak back to me when I pray through the holy spirit. I literally pray all day long. I'm always talking to God.

I think a lot of people pray in times of despair and then get angry when their problem isn't solved. We cannot understand God's thinking.
 
Wanderer21 I understand what your saying. But if thats all that prayer is then really you could replace the name of Jesus with the carrot at the back of the fridge if thats what you believe in and it would work just as well.

Didn't Jesus say "ask anything in my name and it shall be done", "have faith of a mustard seed and you can move mountains", ect, ect. This IS a part of what the bible teaches prayer is, yet it sure don't seem to work when you look at it from that angle.
 
Scott--I also ask for forgiveness of my sins.

God isn't going to grant all of our prayers...I can pray until cows turn blue for a 911 twin turbo to drop out of the sky and land in my driveway...and it just isn't going to happen.

God knows what we need...we know what we want. When I pray, I don't ask for specific thing. i.e. I've recently been trying to figure out a career path--I haven't be praying for a job I wanted...but asking that he guides me into the right direction. The direction I will better serve him.

I know it sounds like bullshit...its faith...and no I couldn't replace my prayers with a carrot. Come on now dude 8)

I try to explain that I'm not just working thoughts out in my head...The holy spirit does talk to me...and the holy spirit does help me.

It's faith though. you believe or you don't.
 
You completely missed the point. Obviously the difference is faith. Thats so self evident it barely needs saying.
Let me try and put it differently:
The 'benefits' you receive from prayer WOULD be exactly the same if your belief TRULY was in a carrot. Understand.
In other words what you get from prayer comes from your faith and the actual act of prayer. Not from a response to that prayer. You admitted you don't even expect there to be an tangable response except that which arises from your belief in prayer. For example the forgiveness of your sins.
 
yeah I think I am missing your point. I really don't even understand what you are trying to say or ask me.

But let me put it in a different way and see if I answer your question.

As I've told other bluelighters in private discussion. I can tell when I start to ignore the lord, by not praying (I'm not into going to big organized churches and praising the lord in that regard--to me, that's man made-but totally another topic). Recently, I've found myself going through a cycle. When things are good, I don't pray. When things are bad...I pray so hard I cry sometimes.

I found that when I stopped praying things started going in a downward spiral hard and fast till I started praying again...then slowly picking up.

It's not like my life is falling apart or anything...but just my emotional stability and stress levels get ALL out of whack. (and let's eliminate the women's menstral emotional cycle too--because we are talking about spans over a month ;))

I believe that God is always listening. I believe that God tries to reach out to me every minute, every hour, every day. Giving me options to look to him or look to myself. When I look to myself, my friends, my family, my carrot, my sofa, my alcohol, my [fill in the blank]...I am getting further away from the place that God wants me to be. Circumstances enter my life...that again will leave me either looking towards the carrot or looking towards God.

The forgiveness of my sins comes in my belief that Jesus died on the cross for them...my faith in this event cleanses me from my sins. However, yes, we are supposed to ask for forgiveness...but God has forgiven us before we ask.

Now some examples of how prayer and my faith have helped me personally (btw: I've only recently come back to my faith after a long absence): helped me get into grad school, has helped keep me safe from harm, helped me find the right path in my career and do well on the LSAT, he has helped me meet more christians and given me opportunities to discuss spirituality and christianity with them and with non believers interested in learning. He's helped me with my temper/anger issues. Helped me learn how to grow past sexual and physical abuse. The list could go on and on and on.

See the thing is...no matter what I list as to what I've prayed about and what has happened to me...a non believer and somone who doesn't even want to enter the idea of christianity just says--the above is normal life. We all have job changes, we all can work hard and do something, we all can meet who we want and learn what we should. However, I disagree. The above have been challenges in my life for quite sometime. They have been obstacles and circumstances that I could not overcome without the Lord's help. I know because I tried them on my own and failed. With the Lord's help, guidance and desire I am where I am today.
 
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Now some examples of how prayer and my faith have helped me personally (btw: I've only recently come back to my faith after a long absence): helped me get into grad school, has helped keep me safe from harm, helped me find the right path in my career and do well on the LSAT, he has helped me meet more christians and given me opportunities to discuss spirituality and christianity with them and with non believers interested in learning. He's helped me with my temper/anger issues. Helped me learn how to grow past sexual and physical abuse. The list could go on and on and on.
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These things were all done by you. Now sure I understand that you believe that God through prayer gave you the strength, yet still if you just sat on your ass, none of it would of happened.

These these hardly prove anything but that you believe in prayer which we already know.
Ever heard of self fulfilling prophecies.
 
see you missed the entire point of the last paragraph. did you stop reading just because you got to a point that you could criticize? ;)

Although all of those things were done by me. I tried each of things things time and time and time and time again...and could NOT do it. It got to the point where I almost quit and stopped trying.

Finally when I turned to God and started seeking help from him...its almost as if I saw the path. Things started working out more for me.

as I said before it all goes back to faith. you mocked me when I said this...but any example I give you of ANYTHING, you are just going to say "you did that yourself"

Let me ask you this...have you ever been so low in your life that absolutely nothing you tried nothing you did nothing helped?

I've been there...I spent my life there...then finally I started trusting the lord and praying to him and loving him...things haven't been the same since
 
sorry if you think I have been 'mocking' you. I promise that is not my intention. This is a discussion about whether prayer works. Thats all.
And yes I have been 'there' I have tried to kill myself before, have been and still am addicted to opiates. And guess what, I was even a very devout christian from 18 to 26. So I know were your coming from. I just disagree.
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I give you of ANYTHING, you are just going to
say "you did that yourself"
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Yes That is exactly right. And tell me, looking at everything you have said objectively. How do you know the difference that prayer makes in your life is nothing more than placebo.
 
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or...

prayer is so damn subjective that it's just like faith.

you can say anything was an answer to your prayers.
 
this is not aimed specifically at wanderer but its a more generalised comment.

"i prayed to god. things got better therefore god made them better" is a great example of the post hoc fallacy.

alasdair
 
You know why its so hard to explain the effects of prayer...because its a feeling inside of you.

It's like love. Everyone kinda knows what love is. They know how love can make you feel wonderful. The know what its like to be love and to love...but ask them to explain it and you get a whole bunch of sentences that mean something only to that person. Words and thoughts that describe that person's encounters with love. Words that can be debated and disagreed with, while others will cheer you on because they understand what you are saying. Love is especially hard to explain to someone who has been hurt by it and now jaded

The same is with prayer and God's love. It's very hard for me to explain to you, especially via message board, how prayer and God have helped me change my life around. How things always seem to go better when I've prayer for resolution and guidance. Likewise to the emotion of love...its especially hard to explain and define prayer to someone who feels slighted by God, to someone who totally thinks its hogwash, to someone who believes in forces rather than spirits.

It's easier to reject God than to believe in him.
 
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It's easier to reject God than to believe in him.
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What a lazy, useless statement. Belief is not a matter of choice. Either you find that something makes sense to you or it just sounds like a load of crap. Saying that one belief is easier to live than another is beside the point. You can't just choose to believe something.

I'm sure for a person who grew up in an atheist family and non believing friends who has to take flack that statement is true.

But just the same a person who grows up in a christian family, culture, friends would find being an atheist harder, with all the flack and pressure to 'turn back to God' on them. |Such a broad statement as yours is just ridiculous.
 
wanderer21 said:
It's easier to reject God than to believe in him.
Click to expand...

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly.

That said, I don't reject God. I would very much like to believe in an omniscient, omnipresent being that watches over me for a benevolent purpose.

The evidence hasn't been persuasive enough, but I remain optimistic. :)

*fwiw, I grew up in a Roman Catholic largely observant Eastern European family*
 
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