The Power Of Prayer...Does It Work ?

[Constance]

His answer is not always yes,it can be no but it can also be NOT YET.

This is something that bears repeating.

[LordKAT]

You may call it what you will, but positive wishing/thinking/faith has value.

[Riley Skye]

It failed me completely. When I was little I always prayed to wake up as a girl but it never happened. It was one of the reasons why I became an atheist years ago, it felt like I was talking to myself. After awhile I honestly, and still think, that prayer is worthless. I always felt that action is the best way to relieve human suffering as we can make differences to ourselves and others.

[SilverGirl]

Funny story, I couldn't get my phone charger to work a few minutes ago so I prayed to God to get it to work and after a few more minutes, it started to work.    Prayer definately can work!  I don't know how long my charger will last but I'm glad that it is working now at least.

i'm sorry but i'm i can't take that seriously, if you want to prove prayer works, pray for something that wouldn't happen if you hadn't prayed, like tons of food just appearing out of thin air in Africa to feed people, not something that could happen anyway (like a faulty cable or bad connections inside your phone charger, which can work after you try messing up with the phone charger), also, being more specific with the prayer should be better to know if the prayer worked or if it was something that was likely to happen, and leave no room for subjectiveness

i don't believe prayer works, but that isn't a surprise coming from an atheist, my mother keeps trying to show prayer works through these simple situations like when she prays for her car keys and she finds it (after continuing to search for them, instead of not searching and seeing if the prayer works without her searching, which would be the point, because she would find her keys anyway without praying), but a lot of her simple prayers like these go unanswered, and she just ignores the results that didn't work and focus on the ones that "worked", this is called confirmation bias

[Brandon]

i'm sorry but i'm i can't take that seriously, if you want to prove prayer works, pray for something that wouldn't happen if you hadn't prayed, like tons of food just appearing out of thin air in Africa to feed people, not something that could happen anyway (like a faulty cable or bad connections inside your phone charger, which can work after you try messing up with the phone charger), also, being more specific with the prayer should be better to know if the prayer worked or if it was something that was likely to happen, and leave no room for subjectiveness

i don't believe prayer works, but that isn't a surprise coming from an atheist, my mother keeps trying to show prayer works through these simple situations like when she prays for her car keys and she finds it (after continuing to search for them, instead of not searching and seeing if the prayer works without her searching, which would be the point, because she would find her keys anyway without praying), but a lot of her simple prayers like these go unanswered, and she just ignores the results that didn't work and focus on the ones that "worked", this is called confirmation bias

Well sometimes God lets things happen for a reason like the starving in African and what not and I respect your beliefs but you can nessicarily use that as an excuse for why you don't trust God or believe in him he never works on our time and you have to be in the position to recieve him, I've seen people who had aids or cancer get prayed over with blessed oil and when they went back to the doc they couldn't find it. Like I said in a earlier post I had a lazey for the longest time when I was younger and it was horrible and they wanted to do lazer eye surgery but I was to young and my mom didn't want it so my family prayed over me and for my eyes to heal on its own and know if you look at me you would not be able to tell that I ever had a lazey eye unless I told you.

[King Malachite]

i'm sorry but i'm i can't take that seriously, if you want to prove prayer works, pray for something that wouldn't happen if you hadn't prayed, like tons of food just appearing out of thin air in Africa to feed people, not something that could happen anyway (like a faulty cable or bad connections inside your phone charger, which can work after you try messing up with the phone charger), also, being more specific with the prayer should be better to know if the prayer worked or if it was something that was likely to happen, and leave no room for subjectiveness

i don't believe prayer works, but that isn't a surprise coming from an atheist, my mother keeps trying to show prayer works through these simple situations like when she prays for her car keys and she finds it (after continuing to search for them, instead of not searching and seeing if the prayer works without her searching, which would be the point, because she would find her keys anyway without praying), but a lot of her simple prayers like these go unanswered, and she just ignores the results that didn't work and focus on the ones that "worked", this is called confirmation bias

I don't want to prove that prayer works and I have no interest in proving that it works.  The Bible tells me that prayer can work, so therefore I believe it as a Christian.  I don't knock anyone for not believing that prayer works though.  To each their own.

[SilverGirl]

I don't want to prove that prayer works and I have no interest in proving that it works.  The Bible tells me that prayer can work, so therefore I believe it as a Christian.  I don't knock anyone for not believing that prayer works though.  To each their own.

i'm sorry then, when you said this:

Funny story, I couldn't get my phone charger to work a few minutes ago so I prayed to God to get it to work and after a few more minutes, it started to work.    Prayer definately can work!  I don't know how long my charger will last but I'm glad that it is working now at least.

to me it looked like you were trying to, you even gave an example, i apologize though if i got it wrong

Well sometimes God lets things happen for a reason like the starving in African and what not and I respect your beliefs but you can nessicarily use that as an excuse for why you don't trust God or believe in him he never works on our time and you have to be in the position to recieve him, I've seen people who had aids or cancer get prayed over with blessed oil and when they went back to the doc they couldn't find it. Like I said in a earlier post I had a lazey for the longest time when I was younger and it was horrible and they wanted to do lazer eye surgery but I was to young and my mom didn't want it so my family prayed over me and for my eyes to heal on its own and know if you look at me you would not be able to tell that I ever had a lazey eye unless I told you.

i do not see any reason not to help people starving if he has the power to help, this is not why i don't believe in god though

i do not understand what you mean by the position to receive him, can you please clarify?

as for your other examples, the body can cure diseases with it's own immune system, if prayer works as good as you say, should be easy to demonstrate with very clear and numerous examples, right?

[King Malachite]

It's proof to me that prayer works because of my experience, but I'm not out trying to convince those who believe otherwise. It would be foolish to think that a person who has it in their heart that prayer doesn't work would change their mind because of a cell phone charger.

[Brandon]

i'm sorry then, when you said this:

to me it looked like you were trying to, you even gave an example, i apologize though if i got it wrong

i do not see any reason not to help people starving if he has the power to help, this is not why i don't believe in god though

i do not understand what you mean by the position to receive him, can you please clarify?

as for your other examples, the body can cure diseases with it's own immune system, if prayer works as good as you say, should be easy to demonstrate with very clear and numerous examples, right?

Again God lets things happen for reason, What I mean b position is you have to want God to move for you and your prayers have to be powerful and you have to believe it because if you don't how you expect him to move, And come on know Aids and Cancer that was only a healing from God I also like th ecuses made for that, Just like my lazey eye, Like I say I respect your beliefs but what I funny is everytime I mention my lazey eye you by pass it and can't say anything to it I noticed you mentiined everything but that   I find that funny but I understand why you wouldn't believe that but as I stated of course he's not gonna move if you didn't believe in him from the start I would do the same thing if I was him why Imma move for you when you don't even have faith in me.

[SilverGirl]

Again God lets things happen for reason, What I mean b position is you have to want God to move for you and your prayers have to be powerful and you have to believe it because if you don't how you expect him to move, And come on know Aids and Cancer that was only a healing from God I also like th ecuses made for that, Just like my lazey eye, Like I say I respect your beliefs but what I funny is everytime I mention my lazey eye you by pass it and can't say anything to it I noticed you mentiined everything but that   I find that funny but I understand why you wouldn't believe that but as I stated of course he's not gonna move if you didn't believe in him from the start I would do the same thing if I was him why Imma move for you when you don't even have faith in me.

actually, when you said lazy eye, you wrote lazer eye, and i didn't understand what you were talking about, anyway, when people start going to the church instead of going to a hospital and do controlled tests to see if prayer makes a difference or not in healing, i'll be more interested in faith or prayer healing claims

so the position you mean is accept that the prayers work before testing if they work? i'm sorry but things don't work that way

what excuses? the burden of proof is on you to prove that aids and cancer where cured because of prayer to a specific god, not me disproving your claim, scientists and doctors would also be very interested in that, all you done is say some people were healed, who? where? when? do you have their medical exams before and after the cure so we could take a look? did you record the prayers? how do you know it was the god that cured of their illness and not something else that happened? feel free to provide these for your eye healing as well

as for god letting things happen with a reason, there is no reason not to save someone if you have infinite power and can do so with no effort, for example, if i let someone rape and kill a child when i have the power to stop him and instead of stopping him say: "you can do what you want now, but when you are done, i'm gonna punish you", people will consider me an evil monster, i would stop the perpetrator and save the child, but apparently god doesn't, and he isn't considered evil either, which puzzles me, but this is another matter, let's not derail the thread from prayer

[Jessica Merriman]

as for god letting things happen with a reason, there is no reason not to save someone if you have infinite power and can do so with no effort,

Not a reason you can see. I am not G-D and only G-D has a right to whatever with us, the creation of.

[SilverGirl]

Not a reason you can see.

perharps , but that is enough for me to consider him evil

I am not G-D and only G-D has a right to whatever with us, the creation of.

i'm sorry but i'm not sure what you meant, english is not my main language so i really don't understand what you meant , i do not want to put words into your mouth, but is this what you meant? that's what i got from what you wrote

"I am not G-D and only G-D has a right to do whatever he wants with us, he is our creator. "

[SarahM777]

i'm sorry but i'm i can't take that seriously, if you want to prove prayer works, pray for something that wouldn't happen if you hadn't prayed, like tons of food just appearing out of thin air in Africa to feed people, not something that could happen anyway (like a faulty cable or bad connections inside your phone charger, which can work after you try messing up with the phone charger), also, being more specific with the prayer should be better to know if the prayer worked or if it was something that was likely to happen, and leave no room for subjectiveness

i don't believe prayer works, but that isn't a surprise coming from an atheist, my mother keeps trying to show prayer works through these simple situations like when she prays for her car keys and she finds it (after continuing to search for them, instead of not searching and seeing if the prayer works without her searching, which would be the point, because she would find her keys anyway without praying), but a lot of her simple prayers like these go unanswered, and she just ignores the results that didn't work and focus on the ones that "worked", this is called confirmation bias

Interesting question but have you thought about this? Is it not possible that God has provided many with so much more then what is really needed so that those who are greatly blessed may provide for those who do not have out of love and compassion for those who do not have those things? Do we really need as many shoes as have? Do we really need to have HBO,STARZ and Cinemax all at the same time? Do we really need that brand new $50,000 sport car? Do we really need to see a new movie every week? Etc,etc,etc Or can we live quite well without some of it?

[SilverGirl]

Do we really need as many shoes as have? Do we really need to have HBO,STARZ and Cinemax all at the same time? Do we really need that brand new $50,000 sport car? Do we really need to see a new movie every week? Etc,etc,etc Or can we live quite well without some of it?

ahh! i finally got back to the laptop and can answer you, i'm sorry for taking so long to answer you

there is probably no need to have the objects you described, but everyone has the right to do whatever they want with their hard earned money, even burning it if they so desire, they have no obligation to do charity with it, and no obligation to spend money only on things that are necessary

god however, being onmipotent, could easily provide anything the person needs, as he has infinite resources, and not giving critical things such as food or curing diseases that would save someone's life, means he allows suffering even though he can prevent it with no negative consequences for him, like the example i said before, saving the child from being raped and murder is doable, but he does not and supposedly just punishes the person that did it after, if it was any person doing that, it would be called an evil person, and considered an accomplice in the crime

Interesting question but have you thought about this? Is it not possible that God has provided many with so much more then what is really needed so that those who are greatly blessed may provide for those who do not have out of love and compassion for those who do not have those things?

as for you saying that god has given a lot to some so that they could do charity to others that need it (instead of the simpler explanation, which requires no god to it, that richer people are just more talented in acquiring those resources with hard work and effort, and may or not do charity but have no obligation to do so), he, being omniscient, already knows if these people will do charity or not, so a much easier and faster solution would be just to give directly to those that need it, since it's obvious not everyone does charity, i think the simpler explanation i provided seems more reasonable to me

[Constance]

Sunday night I had a nightmare in which I was stabbed by a cis woman. That nightmare left me shaken and agitated. I posted about this on Facebook and my daughter shared a link to a ritual for cleansing and empowerment. It's a ritual that she wrote and uses after nightmares.

Monday night I worked this ritual before I went to bed, modifying to suit my needs and praying to my various deities (I'm a Christo-Pagan and am polytheist) to aid me in removing this negativity and turning it into spiritual fertility. I slept soundly that night.

Is this demonstrative of anything? Perhaps, and perhaps it's just demonstrative of a coincidence. Yes, I have an odd relationship to prayer for someone who's been accepted to seminary.

I can't deny that this might have been ritual nothing more than positive reinforcement and the results of a self-fulfilling prophecy. But even if so, who cares? To quote a friend and mentor, "Proof is irrelevant nor required."

For me, proof negates faith whereas doubt actually makes my faith stronger.

[MadelineB]

Prayer absolutely can work, which is why enlightened leaders such as the current Dalai Lama discourage conversion. For millions or billions of people, the precise things they believe matter less in reality than that they believe, and have learned through prayer, meditation, or whatever form of focused, accepting intention they have learned to utilize, to affect the subtle aspects of themselves and through that their world.

I would not have survived my early years without faith (lowercase) and many miracles occurred through prayerful focused intention.
I am a rare one who needed to change belief systems completely, but I follow the same star.
Remembering what it felt like within me when I was a frightened pre-teen left alone with a feverish and miserably sick little sister and how afraid a and full of hurt for her, I knelt and prayed and felt a wash of love and comfort, and felt the sickness dissipate and be replaced with healthy sleep, years later I can feel the same accepting love and hold the same intention and heal others with the same calm assurance I had at twelve. All faiths, including non-faith, that are effective, draw on the same truths and same power for good, call Him, Her, They, it, or us what you may.

[Anatta]

Prayer absolutely can work, which is why enlightened leaders such as the current Dalai Lama discourage conversion. For millions or billions of people, the precise things they believe matter less in reality than that they believe, and have learned through prayer, meditation, or whatever form of focused, accepting intention they have learned to utilize, to affect the subtle aspects of themselves and through that their world.

I would not have survived my early years without faith (lowercase) and many miracles occurred through prayerful focused intention.
I am a rare one who needed to change belief systems completely, but I follow the same star.
Remembering what it felt like within me when I was a frightened pre-teen left alone with a feverish and miserably sick little sister and how afraid a and full of hurt for her, I knelt and prayed and felt a wash of love and comfort, and felt the sickness dissipate and be replaced with healthy sleep, years later I can feel the same accepting love and hold the same intention and heal others with the same calm assurance I had at twelve. All faiths, including non-faith, that are effective, draw on the same truths and same power for good, call Him, Her, They, it, or us what you may.

Kia Ora M,

It's interesting you should mention this...The Dalai Lama quite often when giving a talk to Westerners will say "stay with the belief system you were born into" that is 'if it an't broke don't fix it'...But part of his push to stop conversion is  due the Christian missionaries trying to convert poor Buddhists, especially in Mongolia...

The mind (in the right hands) is such a powerful tool and judging by past posts by you (on other threads) it would seem you are well on the way to mastering it....

BTW It's good that prayer worked out for you...But do you really think help came from beyond ie, a god of some sort ? Or could it be, you just changed the way you looked at things and the things you looked at changed ?

Metta Anatta

[Brandon]

actually, when you said lazy eye, you wrote lazer eye, and i didn't understand what you were talking about, anyway, when people start going to the church instead of going to a hospital and do controlled tests to see if prayer makes a difference or not in healing, i'll be more interested in faith or prayer healing claims

so the position you mean is accept that the prayers work before testing if they work? i'm sorry but things don't work that way

what excuses? the burden of proof is on you to prove that aids and cancer where cured because of prayer to a specific god, not me disproving your claim, scientists and doctors would also be very interested in that, all you done is say some people were healed, who? where? when? do you have their medical exams before and after the cure so we could take a look? did you record the prayers? how do you know it was the god that cured of their illness and not something else that happened? feel free to provide these for your eye healing as well

as for god letting things happen with a reason, there is no reason not to save someone if you have infinite power and can do so with no effort, for example, if i let someone rape and kill a child when i have the power to stop him and instead of stopping him say: "you can do what you want now, but when you are done, i'm gonna punish you", people will consider me an evil monster, i would stop the perpetrator and save the child, but apparently god doesn't, and he isn't considered evil either, which puzzles me, but this is another matter, let's not derail the thread from prayer

I said lazey eye but the doctor wanted to do lazer eye surgery but my mo chose prayer and yet and still you are bypassing it its proof look at my eyes in the pic my eyes look normal.

[SilverGirl]

I said lazey eye but the doctor wanted to do lazer eye surgery but my mo chose prayer and yet and still you are bypassing it its proof look at my eyes in the pic my eyes look normal.

i became a microbiologist after studying for 10 minutes yesterday, just talk to the peanut jelly alien that lives in saturn, he can confirm my story

do you believe me? if not, why?

see how i can just assert anything i want? that doesn't make it true

like i said before, feel free to provide your medical tests, preferably examined and commented by doctors, records of the prayers and proof showing the link that the specific prayer caused the healing, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

[Jessica Merriman]

i became a microbiologist after studying for 10 minutes yesterday

Finally! Some one who can explain cellular mitosis to me!