The Problem With Prayer

[Lon]

I don't agree with everything the woman being interviewed says, but I think she gives a good answer regarding the reason God doesn't intervene:

Agree. The Wheat/Tares analogy is where my mind went back: Matthew 13:28 ...He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. ’

 

[rstrats]

Using the cancer analogy: I don't believe anybody is praying that God will take somebody with Cancer. In general, having the heart of God, I'd reckon those prayers are very much unified and in accord. T God is sovereign, always makes the best choices. Romans 8:28

I don't see what your post has to do with the comment that you quoted.

 

[marke]

There's a fundamental problem with the idea of praying for things and the concept of the Omnipotent God portrayed by mainstream religions.

Let me ask those who believe in this particular God, do you truly believe that:

1. Nothing happens on Earth except that God directly causes it or allows it to happen?

2. God's will is absolute and can not be changed or obstructed?


Think this through most carefully. Do you often say The Lord's Prayer?

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name
Thy Kingdom come, Thy WILL BE DONE
On Earth, as it is in Heaven"


We have to face up to what this means. Is God in charge of everything or isn't he?

If you believe he is, then YOU MUST ACCEPT everything that happens because IT WAS GOD'S WILL that it happened. He either directly caused it to happen or he simply allowed it to happen. Either way it's his will that it happened.

As we stand today, this "God" has allowed millions to die from Covid and/or the various medical interventions. This "God" is also allowing all the current deaths and suffering in the various wars (Israel, Palestine, Ukraine etc).

Either you believe God is in control or you don't.

If you do, then praying and asking for things like Aunt Sally to be healed of Cancer, is surely going against God's will is it not?

God either directly caused the cancer or allowed it to happen. Either way God wanted Aunt Sally to have Cancer. It's his will.

It would be pretty sick of "God" to give people Cancer just to see if people would subsequently pray to him for their healing. I mean that would really be a sick thing to do and certainly not the behaviour of a benevolent being. That's not the nature of God that religion teaches or presents.

So something is very off with the idea of praying.

What it boils down to is this.

If you believe the defacto concept of God peddled by the Churches (i.e Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient etc) then YOU HAVE to accept the WILL OF GOD and thus everything happening around you.

Thus the ONLY prayer one can realistically make is along these lines:

"Dear God, help me to understand your will on Earth and accept it for what it is and help me understand my part in it"

No point praying for Aunt Sally to be healed. She's only ill in the first place by Gods permission and/or action. Praying for healing would in fact be acting against God's will. You'd be praying for God to do something different to what he willed and the Bible tells us that God's will is absolute and unobstructable.

I know this will challenge many but in the end, to wonder is to begin to understand . . . . . . Jose Ortega

God instructs Christians to pray for many reasons, no doubt. One reason may be unearthed in the Book of Daniel, chapter 10, where we see Daniel praying ceaselessly while, unbeknownst to him, war was going on in the spiritual world affecting the answer to his prayer. The passafe suggests an unfolding of events in time that are quite possibly affected by prayer and which results are quite likely not dictated or determined in advance by God.

 

[Lon]

I don't see what your post has to do with the comment that you quoted.

He was saying the problem of prayer was thousands of opposing prayers. My point: Nobody prays for cancer to take someone, thus all/most prayer is in accord. I believe his point was that God hears opposing prayers and I was saying that it seems a faulty premise. Thanks for asking.