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I predict this thread reaching about 1000 posts in record time
I realize that there is another Bible thread below, but I wanted to go a little off topic and get some questions answered. How does free will relate to christianity. I know some people who credit God with everything that happens in their lives, but we make all of our decisions. As I said in the other post, "when something good happens to a Christian, it was God doing them a favor, when something bad happens to a Christian, it was God teaching them a lesson. When something good happens to a non-believer, it was free will and luck working, when something bad happens, Gods giving them what they deserve. So we only have free will if we are a bad person getting good things. Any other scenario we are the great puppets."
Another question was brought up by clambake when he said "Pray for little johnny's recovery! Opps, little johnny didn't make it. God decided it was johnny's time to die. So whats with all the praying if it's out of your hands?"
Any response would be appreciated.
I predict this thread reaching about 1000 posts in record time
I hope so, I sincerely would like to hear a swaying argument on this.
those are good questions. My understanding of what I've read is that we pray for the strength to accept God's will whether we consider it a bad outcome or good outcome. For example, if little Johnny dies we must draw strength in our grief and to understand what God wants from us. It all requires a lot of prayer and understanding."when something good happens to a Christian, it was God doing them a favor, when something bad happens to a Christian, it was God teaching them a lesson. When something good happens to a non-believer, it was free will and luck working, when something bad happens, Gods giving them what they deserve. So we only have free will if we are a bad person getting good things. Any other scenario we are the great puppets."
Hope that helps.
But we pray for him to heal Johnny, and then if he doesnt we say it was his will for him to die. If Gods will is independent of our prayers, then our prayers can't influence Gods actions.
A prayer for healing is praying for God to do what our will desires. We need to pray for God to strengthen us and for his will to be done. Praying and telling God to do things for you is not a prayer that I believe is biblical.
Yes, we pray for him to do what our will desires, but if he does not do what our will desires then we say that his will was for the boy to die all along. This implies that Gods will exists before our prayers, and therefore his decision is made. The boy will live or die regardless of our prayers. If God "answers our prayers" and the boy lives, should we then not say that God did not answer our prayers, but that it was all along Gods will that he should live.
You're not reading or understanding my responses. The bible doesn't teach us to pray for what our will desires. If you do so then I think you're wasting your time.
But your responses fail to answer my question. Why does a great majority make prayers such as that, and then have that outlook afterwards. And if we shouldnt pray for our will to be done then why should we ever pray for anything to happen? Gods will will happen regardless of our prayer, for us to pray for his will to be done is a touch egotistical, is it not? He doesnt need us to pray for his help.
The Bible says that we should pray to ask God for things.
The Bible says that our prayers have influence on God.
The Bible says that the prayer of a righteous man is potent and effective.
There are accounts in the Bible of God relenting due to the prayers of righteous men.
Studies have shown that sick people who are prayed for do better than those who are not.
But the Bible does not say that God will always do what we ask him to do in prayer.
This is like a father who eagerly desires to do for his children whatever they desire unless and until it is no longer in their best interest. Here, "best interest" is defined in the kingdom sense rather than the earthly sense.
the great majority don't read the bible to understand how to pray and what prayer accomplishes. Read the bible for answers and start with the Lord's prayer as a guideline of what your prayers should sound like. You should praise God, ask for his will to be done, ask for his direction, and ask for his forgiveness.But your responses fail to answer my question. Why does a great majority make prayers such as that, and then have that outlook afterwards.
At least that's my understanding of what I've read.
"Studies have shown that sick people who are prayed for do better than those who are not."
A big study, or two, of just a couple months ago showed that prayer vs no prayer had no effect on heart paitients.
Prayer for other people probably has more effect on the person praying than the person prayed for. I have nothing against prayer or people who pray, I have nothing against people believing whatever the they want to believe, eg, dubya is competent to be president.
Found it in my archives:
======================
March 31, 2006
Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer
By BENEDICT CAREY
Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.
And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.
Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.
The question has been a contentious one among researchers. Proponents have argued that prayer is perhaps the most deeply human response to disease, and that it may relieve suffering by some mechanism that is not yet understood. Skeptics have contended that studying prayer is a waste of money and that it presupposes supernatural intervention, putting it by definition beyond the reach of science.
At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new study was intended to overcome flaws in the earlier investigations. The report was scheduled to appear in The American Heart Journal next week, but the journal's publisher released it online yesterday.
In a hurriedly convened news conference, the study's authors, led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Ins ute near Boston, said that the findings were not the last word on the effects of so-called intercessory prayer. But the results, they said, raised questions about how and whether patients should be told that prayers were being offered for them.
"One conclusion from this is that the role of awareness of prayer should be studied further," said Dr. Charles Bethea, a cardiologist at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and a co-author of the study.
Other experts said the study underscored the question of whether prayer was an appropriate subject for scientific study.
"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."
The study cost $2.4 million, and most of the money came from the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research into spirituality. The government has spent more than $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000.
Dean Marek, a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-author of the report, said the study said nothing about the power of personal prayer or about prayers for family members and friends.
Working in a large medical center like Mayo, Mr. Marek said, "You hear tons of stories about the power of prayer, and I don't doubt them."
In the study, the researchers monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals who received coronary bypass surgery, in which doctors reroute circulation around a clogged vein or artery.
The patients were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told that they were being prayed for; half were told that they might or might not receive prayers.
The researchers asked the members of three congregations * St. Paul's Monastery in St. Paul; the Community of Teresian Carmelites in Worcester, Mass.; and Silent Unity, a Missouri prayer ministry near Kansas City * to deliver the prayers, using the patients' first names and the first initials of their last names.
The congregations were told that they could pray in their own ways, but they were instructed to include the phrase, "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications."
Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.
In another of the study's findings, a significantly higher number of the patients who knew that they were being prayed for * 59 percent * suffered complications, compared with 51 percent of those who were uncertain. The authors left open the possibility that this was a chance finding. But they said that being aware of the strangers' prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety.
"It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?" Dr. Bethea said.
The study also found that more patients in the uninformed prayer group * 18 percent * suffered major complications, like heart attack or stroke, compared with 13 percent in the group that did not receive prayers. In their report, the researchers suggested that this finding might also be a result of chance.
One reason the study was so widely anticipated was that it was led by Dr. Benson, who in his work has emphasized the soothing power of personal prayer and meditation.
At least one earlier study found lower complication rates in patients who received intercessory prayers; others found no difference. A 1997 study at the University of New Mexico, involving 40 alcoholics in rehabilitation, found that the men and women who knew they were being prayed for actually fared worse.
The new study was rigorously designed to avoid problems like the ones that came up in the earlier studies. But experts said the study could not overcome perhaps the largest obstacle to prayer study: the unknown amount of prayer each person received from friends, families, and congregations around the world who pray daily for the sick and dying.
Bob Barth, the spiritual director of Silent Unity, the Missouri prayer ministry, said the findings would not affect the ministry's mission.
"A person of faith would say that this study is interesting," Mr. Barth said, "but we've been praying a long time and we've seen prayer work, we know it works, and the research on prayer and spirituality is just getting started."
* Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Matthew 26:
39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
...
42He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."
Christ's prayer at Gethsemane encapsulates your questions. Prayer is a testament of faith... You may not always get what you ask but you may find yourself blessed in other areas because of your faith.
Unanswered prayers often help us see God's Will working in our lives. Skeptics would reduce this to Christian rationalization, and perhaps they are right in some ways. It's certainly theraputic to say "Thy Will be done" because it gives you hope that, down the road, your life or the lives of others will be better off.
I saw this study,too. You beat me to it.
So the only thing you say is worth praying for is "strength"? Strength for good outcome or strength for bad outcome. Sounds like nothing more than a distraction from ones grief.
I'm a christian and at this point I have to agree with you Buttons. Prayer will not change God's will. What would surprise me is if there was any consistency to those types of studies. I'm sure there are studies that show people who are prayed for who do much better, but it's because God's will can't be explained through statistics.
If prayer will not change Gods will, why bother. Isn't that the point?
Perhaps. Is that a bad thing?Sounds like nothing more than a distraction from ones grief.
I believe that Christ's followers are blessed for their faith. A component of that faith is prayer. Others are worship, charity, deeds, etc. Those blessings may not make you wealthy or immune to deadly sicknesses, but they may give you peace of mind.
Of course it wouldn't protect me from a deadly sickness. That would be Gods will, right?
Because God tells us to pray, and we need to pray to help us follow God. Also, worshipping him in prayer is a sign of our faith.
sounds like if you don't get what you want from someone you want nothing to do with them.
Last edited by 2centsworth; 05-30-2006 at 01:57 PM.
God tells us to pray... to worship him. To worship him....Does God have an ego that needs to be stroked? I don't get it. Bosses demand worship, too.
Why don't you ask Him?
Worshipping God is a testament of faith. Also, worshipping your Boss would be a sin.
ok. "God, do you really need me to worship you?"
....waiting for response......
nope, the line is dead.
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