Quote (marityme @ Aug 1 2010 01:16pm)

you have to actually get on your feet and do something, lol, prayers don't work

Quote (Hooo @ Aug 2 2010 01:01pm)

The Fact is that most people do it wrong.

Praying works. Scientifically prooven over and over again, but ok lets start at the beginning:

Praying is a word that means you do something.
What do you do while praying? What is praying and does it matter who you are praying to.

The last question is really the most difficult to answer on a good theoretical level.
Case A. God exists and you are praying to the right one and he listens, well good for you.
Case B. God exists and you are prying to the wrong one and ofc he doesnt listen, that means you are praying to nobody like in
Case C. God doesnt exists and you pray to nobody but yourself.

Please remeber that you pray also to yourself in Case of A.

In Case A. Lets just say God does what you want him to do, or at least what is best for you. The result would likely be similar but more powerful compared to B or C (which are basically the same).

In Case B or C the actual results come from within you, as you are praying to yourself.

Now what is praying.
Well I personally think praying is a mixture of many things. Among them
1) Thinking at Beta level
2) Visualising
3) Emotional underline to what you think in prayer, happens
4) Gives you a ritual, which also means all kinds of resources (steadiness, calmness, hope, etc...)
5) learning
6) exercise

I will not explain 1, 2, 3 and 4 because it will either take me too much time or seems obvious to me.

5 is allways following out of 6 however the results are not allways positive (you can learn behaviour or thoughts that are not good/working for you).

Why is praying exercise.
Well. If you have two teams of random people and you let them play bascetball against each other.
You excercise physically with one team for 1 day and you imagine the play and the win with the other team for 1 day.
The imagine team will win. period.

If good sportsmen imagin how they are running, climbing or whatever they like to do, their muscles fire, although they are lieing down. They excercise the right muscle sequence by imagination alone.

If you see things over and over again, of you think about things over and over again, you exercise them, this process is faster when in beta state (slower braincycles per minute - like when you are in prayer meditation sleep etc)
If you see good things over and over again, you excercise those.

Here now comes the real part.
If you want to pray for something then you better make sure u a) are in beta and
you pray for something positive, something you want

and not something you dont want. Lets say you dont want your Dad to die. What do you imagine? Right. A Dead person. Is this gonna help? No.
Well you could say: Doesnt matter, its not gonna hurt either.
Well i say maybe. Maybe not. Because theres a few thing you forgot: 1) what if praying really works interpersonal 2) it doesnt hurt thinking positive 3) your interactions with your dad will be based on the assumption that he is dieing which he will maybe pick up during conversation, which makes him also think that you think hes dieing, which is obviously not a good thing to think 4) you will not be able to think about what you can do to make him get well again productively

Im not a believer in the Bible, nor in Jesus or whatever, but I support the hope and the gift that this book is to so many people and I certainly do believe in prayers, although i think its a rather old word for it and many people do it and call it differently.
And to be honest if you look at those cases it doesnt really matter if god exists. If he does it maybe is better, if he doesnt praying still works (at least intrapersonel for setting the right frame on yourself)


So in short:
Think Positive of what you want (or what you want instead). Focus on that. Imagine that. Then pray for it with emotion.
Be ready to recieve and actually do something for it.

That is praying and how its done imo

Quote (njaguar @ May 30 2010 12:28pm)

Yes, there are many branches of religion, with varying differences. Some take the context more literally than others. I do apologize for the broad generalization, however, you cannot compare the actions of a few to the actions of the whole. As far as the disagreements about Jesus, that is a big reason why there is the Jewish and Christian religions, and the split of the two. Either way, it's a moot issue, and not based upon "new understandings" as science is, so it's not an apples to apples comparison.

1) Do you have children? Apparently not. We test our children all the time with simple things. Almost always we know exactly what the child will do, whether it be the right or wrong decision, however, we let them do it, because they have their own free will choice to do so. We allow them that freedom. So, just because we know what the end result will be does not make the test any less valid. For instance, most would agree that things that happen to us in life "build our character". You base this fallacy of an argument on a presumptuous notion that God wouldn't do things he already knows what the result will be. Again, I'll push it back to the example prior about it leading up to further lessons along the road of life (either for the person involved, those around them, or for generations in the future.)

2) God created man with free will. In the beginning, God gave man only a single commandment, which man failed to follow (eating the forbidden fruit). From that point forward, man was in a fallen state, where life was no longer gauranteed to be easy or carefree, good, etc. Again, you label this as selfish, yet I'd say it was selfish of man to turn away from God, given all the things he did. In the face of direct interaction and miracles (read the old testament, specifically Moses leaving Egypt), man still repeatedly fell back into old habits, and forgetting what God had done. Even with direct proof, man has the selfish nature to stray from God, not the other way around. Before the time of Jesus, the commandments required various sacrifices etc towards God, and though I cannot say for certainty, I would liken this again to the child growing up analogy. Man was in an infancy during that period of time, so certain requirements made sense. As time passed, and man progressed of it's own free will, certain changes made sense. When you have a toddler, you have certain rules that won't apply as they grow older. When you have a pre-teen, again, you'll have rules for that child that will no longer apply once they become a teenager. It's not that there is any inconsistency, it's that as man became more civilized (for matter of simplification), new policies made more sense. Imagine billions of people sacrificing sheep today. At some point, you don't have to be God to realize this is not a sustainable method of worship. The child to parent analogy really works well here; parents set rules and boundaries, and children are almost always pushing against them, for their own selfish desires. I don't have sheep, you probably don't have sheep, so sacrificing them makes little sense. However, sacrificing something we DO have does continue to make sense. During the old testament (pre-Jesus), those sacrifices were based upon the belongings of people at that time.

3) You must take the entire story into context, which you did not. It's not a rigid guideline, but a rough generalization about the principals behind it. It's a way of saying "if you're selfish, and ignore the needy, you are not a just man". It's basically another way of saying do not be oppressive or suppress the needy. (The needy in this story being defined in this case as the poor and oppressed). It's an elaboration and another way of explaining the commandment to love thy neighbor.

About deaths from religious wars: Go research how many billions (yes, BILLIONS) of abortions there have been. It far surpasses even the most gruesome of wars. Additionally, almost everything you take foregranted today is based upon religion. America, the first colleges (Harvard), our governments, etc, etc. Yeah, religions are awful! Hitler (one of the more well known leaders responsible for millions of deaths and a large scale war) was very anti-religious (specifically, anti-Catholic/Christian). He believed in a form of social Darwinism, ie, cleansing of the human race. Once again, you presume that all wars are without purpose, or that all were due to religion, which is patently untrue, and a gross generalization. Civil wars are fought on basis of principals. Without the American Civil War, the USA would be a very different place today. Death is tragic, but to say all war is unnecessary is a Utopian pipe dream.

What makes it better is that you cannot refute imperically anything written therein. You can only place conjecture or try and twist words to suit your own needs. It also does not change in the way that science does; it is the word of God.

So while you may criticise Christianity, I think you need to understand that you do not know even the basic fundamentals of it, nor does it appear that you pretend to. Science originally was defined as a pursuit to understanding God's work and creation. For a lot of scientists today, that still holds true. As I stated to the other fellow, I suggest you actually do some research and studies, instead of trying to present things in an absolute "as is" manner.

I will repeat this only one last time- do not spam this forum with your questions. Use the PaRD for your anti-religious discussions.

Quote (CPK001 @ May 27 2010 08:51am)

I was in your position once. Until 2 years ago when I was on my solo experience on a leadership camp. I got lost almost instantly after getting dropped off at my dedicated area. I was wandering around for over half an hour and I had no idea where I was. In the end I decided to pray to the Lord to help me find my way back. Instantly after praying I went in a random direction where I found a famililiar pathway, followed it back up and I found my way back to my dedicated location.

That was my turning moment. My prayers were answered instantly.

Quote (Orioncyc @ Aug 2 2010 10:22pm)

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Quote (Hooo @ Aug 3 2010 07:22am)

First: Please do not quote a wall of text.

Back to Topic. First of all I pretty much said that Gods existance is not neccessary to pray. I didnt say you shouldnt believe or that God doesnt exist.
But if you define Praying as talking to god, you just see praying as Case A, which is perfectly fine and maybe praying is talking to god (and the one described in the bible too!).
You say that God is neccessary to believe in, so that prayer works and that is ofc why prayers work and I say:
OK. If you are right (what i do NOT exclude, i even think it would be best that way) still praying is a form of communication which works a certain way and everything else i posted still counts.
It is not that I dont understand, I understand it very well, because I have been a real christian believer for many many years and maybe I am still, but that is not the point in this discussion. The point being is (as topic gives)
Why it makes sence to still pray, even if you feel God is not answering.

And the answer to that is: If you do it right there is no harm in praying and believing and expecting, but you must (as a christian) believe in God in order for you to believe that prayers work.


If you say what praying in itself is, how it is done and how its history has evolved over century. Then you must go further in explaining IF you want to define what praying is.

The thing is that Mankind often has multiple Words for one Thing or Action, or at least for very similar things and actions.

I in fact do not think of "like self-help, self-motivation, meditation, positive-thinking and whatnot" as a big difference to prayer and if you look closely the #1 difference there is is that you are communicating not only to yourself, but to GOD.
There is no other major difference in all those other names for what i think is basically the same thing (at least i cannot make it out)
So if you (like the topic is suggesting) think God does not answer anymore the prayer you do becomes one of the above, which (scientifically prooven) work.

The Question is if they work to that extend which they work without god, if you believe god does all the work and in the same time loose faith in god.
I cannot say, but my personal guess is that for a real christian prayers without believing God listens are pretty useless.

Quote (Orioncyc @ Aug 4 2010 09:50pm)

and so imo the answer to the topic starter's question is not that he wasn't thinking positive enough or he was "self-helping" himself the wrong way, but seeing as how he himself said he's a Christian, then the problem is he has a lack of faith and relationship with God to understand that his life is always in God's hands, even if he THINKS he's not getting an answer.