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I mean, it depends what you mean by work.
Let's look at this logically.
In terms of some kind of god fulfilling all your petty wishes, clearly, not very likely.
That's the end of the argument for scientific materialists.
If one takes a wider perspective, praying may work in the following way.
What function might praying serve for humanity given so many throughout the world are attracted to it? I would argue praying is simply a psychological integration tool. They bring subconscious thoughts out of the shadow and make them conscious! We know that humans have many troubling emotions, thoughts and experiences throughout the day. Praying is sort of like putting them into a kind of filing cabinet, integrating them, putting them into context. So one doesn't take them into one's sleep and the next day.
On a more subtle level, it's clear to those who have done their own experimentations into the nature of their consciousnesses that there's more to it than scientific materialist explanations. We are energetic beings. Intent setting and that what we focus on throughout the day is extremely important. Collectively, we're merely made up of individuals. For those individuals who do the work to change, to be better people, impacts upon the whole. In that sense, good intent setting is clearly not a bad thing. Each of us do engage in 'evil', or shall we say, activities, of varying degrees of severity, that we're not exactly proud of. Small changes add up to a lot, provided one is genuine about change. This process of internal and personal change, should hopefully manifest itself in changes to how one engages with 'real life' and the real world in general!
I will never, ever, EVER forget the times hiding in my bathroom with my younger sisters downstairs wailing AND my parents arguing loudly DURING that non stop for HOURS on end. Yes, "religiously devout" parents ARGUING VERY LOUDLY with each other DESPITE my baby sisters CRYING like crazy right near them. And often DURING religious holidays too. I learned after some years of extreme anti god stances not to place the blame on God or religion for what happened. So I don't. I blame my parents. I use their religious devotion now my leverage. Threatening to once again completely dump god out of my life as well as tell their own parents/friends/religious community a lot of things should they dare cross me the wrong way. It's a snake move. I don't want to use it, but will if I have to, as they seem to value their (supposed) worship of god over me, then I will use that as a weakness in order to get justice.
Prayer may work. It may not. Often, it doesn't. There are occasions though. What is asked in prayer may not happen, but then pleasant surprises may pop up randomly. The thing that stings me about it was I was at many moments where I needed help. Desperate help, right at that moment. It never came. I had to recover on my own and its impossible now to do so fully. So perhaps when I am older, wealthier, much more independent and stable, i may turn to prayer, god, etc. Until/unless it happens, prayer from the heart isn't too likely from me.
It's demonstrably false.
Prayer has repeatedly failed tests. In fact in tests where sick people were being prayed for, between the group who knew they weren't being prayed for, the group that knew they were prayed for, and the group who were not told if they were being prayed for, the group that was told they /were/ being prayed for actually did worse. Suggesting that prayer might actually be responsible for a sort of performance anxiety and being detrimental to the individual.
Yes, it does. When you pray you need to first realise it's not about you and about what you want. There have been many situations where I have needed something urgently and so I trust to go before the Lord and ask for what I need. The Holy spirit will also guide you and give you understanding. But most importantly you need to have a relationship with Jesus first and foremost. He is there centre of it all.
Opinion
54Opinion
Praying is the equivalent of worrying. Doesn't help at all. People pray and it works out they chalk it up to the big guy upstairs. When it doesn't work out they claim it was not God's will. Just seems like praying or being religious has no wrong answers. Someone dies and everyone assumes you go to heaven even if they weren't saved. It is the guilt that drags you too hell. What better punishment than to relive a moment where guilt devours you for all eternity. Reliving that moment over and over, never ending day after day. Like any other dimension time is different in hell. I am sure two days on Earth are 20 years in hell. You could be saved and live the life laid out from the good book but guilt is the motherfucker that will punch your ticket to hell.
Praying is useless, it will not change the outcome of a situation. If you don't pay your light bill, pray and see how long your lights stay on. Don't go grocery shopping and pray, see if food and drinks replenish your cabinets. Millions upon millions of people pray for anything like winning the lottery to someone that has been stricken with cancer. But, they never rely on prayer to rid the cancer. It is used in conjunction with modern day medicine. If the medicine works it was God's work. If it doesn't work it was God's will.
The Devil gets a bad wrap. He is the warden of hell but yet he only punishes the bad people. Regardless of temptation or not. If you are strong enough to resist temptation than he leaves you alone. People are not always as good as they appear. There is darkness in everyone. Just remember that when you look at someone and think you know them.
Proverbs 15:29
The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.
Matthew 23:4 - 14
Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
I think the ONLY benefit praying has is to calm your own ass down. Sorta like meditation/relaxation. For example, if you are battling a disease like cancer and you pray it can bring you calm because it puts YOUR personal state of mind in a better place and the mind is powerful at controlling your own body and how you handle stress. But to think that praying for something outside of your brain to happen or to improve, like gun violence or the survival of shooting victims, is utter and complete nonsense. It's insulting when conservatives say to pray during a mass shooting and then take no real action. It's almost like they love to see these shootings happen. There is no other explanation.
Praying, and other spiritual methods, can work for a lot of people. For the scientific community, it's still a mystery as to why or how it works. Some theorize that it's a type of placebo effect, and that it could potentially be an option for people, because as long as a treatment work, it doesn't matter if we can decipher the mechanisms by which they do, especially since prayers and spirituality don't have as many (if at all) side effects compared to real drugs.
Source: Kohls, N., Sauer, S., Offenbächer, M., & Giordano, J. (2011). Spirituality: an overlooked predictor of placebo effects? Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.
God does not override free will.
the republicans who think prayer is the answer to gun violence are IDIOTS.
Banning guns is the answer to gun violence.
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people..." they say.
I say, "guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people..."
I'ts like 1000 times easier to commit a murder with a auto-loading gun than it is with a knife or other weapon. Why republicans can't see that is beyond me.
No, prayer has never been the answer to murder, because God does not stop the free will of the murderer to do wrong, because maybe God wants to see whether humans are smart enough to solve teir own problems.
The purpose of prayer is NOT to get God to solve all of our problems for us. The purpose of prayer is to ask God for his WILL and then obey Him.
There are books on the subject and there was even a study:
Investigating Prayer: Impact on Health and Quality of Life By Ian Olver - the jist of which is that yes, it works.
The longer version of which is that it depends who is doing the praying, and that it's not just the prayers but the support and network too, that matter.
Regarding your assertion on shootings. Those people are just giving platitudes and sound bites. They probably don't know any prayers or supplications.
It works if you combine it with the law of attraction. Don't pray for bad things to end. Don't pray for safety. This only confirms that things are bad and dangerous.
The best quote I've heard goes something like this "Pray for peace and you will be given wars to end. Pray for wisdom and you will be given problems to solve. Pray for strength and you will be given mountains to climb."
Pray for the good that's already in the world. Don't pray to end homelessness, pray that more mansions are built. Don't pray for peace, pray for your circle to expand.
yes it definitely does. if you've been working this entire moth and you pray for money to be addet to your bank account, it will work.
but if you pray for being healed form cancer or finding the love of your life, that doesn't work.
so basically what i'm saying prayer doesn't work, unless you do something for it. and even if you do something for it, you won't get what you wanted lots of times. so might as well just do what needs to be done and use the time you would normally waste on prayer on working towards your goal, cause that can actually get you somewhere.
It worked in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series!
I think God really listen to me. I mean there is a song “God why are you silence?” But for me he listen to me and watch over me all the time. He once spoke to me in my right ear. He told me not to be scared 2 times. I mean right side and 2 times confirms it’s real God. I mean even if he didn’t speak to me, I feel him all the time. He is just on every step of me. He interrupted on everything I do. I don’t need to pray that much but I started pray everyday 30 minutes. I pray with tongue. I don’t know what I am really praying but I am sure it’s something I want to ask to God. Some people in my church back in Korea can interpret people praying tongue and I confirm that I pray for something actual things in my life. I think that God indeed listens to you when you pray. He will give things that you ask reasonably. I don’t know what other people. They seem like busy taking care of small things in life and God won’t bother them? But my experience is total opposite. He listens to me everything.
God took from me a 20 year drug addition. My prayer asking him to take it from me because I could not stop on my own. He answered my prayer and the next day I was no longer a drug addict. No withdrawals, no going back to them at all. That was over thirty years ago that God answered my prayer and changed my life.
In life sometimes we all need someone or something to look up to & if people feel the need to pray more power to them. On the the other hand some joker his & fan club were going door to door handing out papers. I was out side at the time & the gang leader came up to me & handed me a paper & I said no thank you. After talking he said he would pray for me & I said you could pray all you want it wouldn’t help me. After that I said You’re In Sales & Everything Comes Down To A Management Decision.
In fear of getting hell, from any conservatives, I will agree with you. I'm a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal. Once after losing a job, a 'religious friend" said: I'll pray for you" ! ? I agree with you entirely.
Yeah, it did when I was young. When I was young i'd always pray and was a good girl, then everything I prayed for came true. I didn't pray for like materialistic shit, more like everything to be alright and stuff. But now I find that praying doesn't work probably because i'm actually a pretty bad person now.
Well prayer is good. Since you do watch the news you could imagine that God is quite busy and may have his hands full. There is also the devil making bad things happen. Its a crazy mixed up world always have been.
Take a 100 years ago hitler killed 6 million people. Also people walked around with guns and shot raped and killed all the time. It does seem bad and it is now but its actually improved.
Just keep praying it continues to get better
Somehow pious people are statistically poorer than atheists. I guess if praying worked this statistic would be opposite.
Studies have been done on this. There has never been a single study to support the idea. But every time a study says it's bullshit, a bunch of christians get together and convince themselves that there's something wrong with science, and they decide to fund a NEW study, which will definitely show prayer works.
Rinse. Repeat.
How many shooting do you see in Columbia? Or Africa? Or Honduras?
The numbers of each those countries of crime and shooting is about 5000 times high than all of U. S put together.
Why you or no one ever talks about that?
Because no one research shit anymore.
U. S media is open. Which is what people think where information comes from.
America this America that. That statement would’ve been true if the whole world crime was zero or almost close to zero. But they ain’t.
In my opinion praying is a coping mechanism. Its a way to pass on a problem. Like your example its a way to say you're doing something about it without actually dealing with the said problem. In other examples its a way to release built up anxiety by putting it in gods hands.
Faith is a great motivator and source of strength. It can give someone the strength to overcome adversity, peace in the midst of chaos, comfort in times of loss... And the will to commit genocide. So, pros and cons. As for the existence of supernatural beings? I doubt it
