Does that really make sense? Or is it more likely that this was one culture’s way of explaining their world in the absence of a more detailed understanding?
Yes, I do believe it makes sense. I don’t believe we’re that much smarter than ancient people.
You’re talking about a group of people who had no concept of an atom or molecule, nevermind a bacterium or biological cell. Their explanations for their observable world were limited by the tools and collective knowledge at the time.
European Christians who first explored the New World were mystified that the indigenous Americans apparently brought rattlesnakes, wolves and bears with them, but didn’t bring any horses or cows when they populated the Americas. What they didn’t know at the time is that humans crossed the Bearing Straight Land bridge many thousands of years before horses were domesticated.
You have to look at Christianity’s origin mythology with the same skepticism as you do to Hinduism or the Greco-Roman religion. These are ancient peoples using their limited tools and knowledge to come up with explanations for the world around them.
prayer is a superstitious form of meditation, which serves a purpose.
There has been scientific evidence of the healing power of prayer in triple blind randomized controlled trials. The prayer may or may not involve a god, though. It's just sending good (or whatever) vibes. We're probably millennia away from solid indisputable proof if it's all actually legit, but I do believe in a living being's capacity for healing.
Let's consider by example what super-Christian, Paul the Apostle discovered was why God does not answer Yes to all our prayers. Although Paul had done many miracles through Jesus' power, when Paul asked 3 times for healing from a body malady ("thorn in the flesh") God said No, because "My grace is sufficient for you, Paul". That No answer sure didn't stop Paul from future prayer communication with God, because requests are only part of conversations with the divine.
How am I to believe that Paul’s vision of Jesus was genuine but Joseph Smith’s was not? Joseph Smith also has a number of miracles accredited to him through God’s power.
Prayer is more about developing relationship with God than any specific request.
How is that supposed to work for a two year old orphan with a brain tumor?
Whose relationship is He developing? And how are those agonizing final 18 months of that child's life what she "needs" in order to have a relationship with God? If God was omnipotent, He would (by definition) be able to think of better ways to develop relationships with His creation.
Yes, I do believe it makes sense. I don’t believe we’re that much smarter than ancient people.
You’re talking about a group of people who had no concept of an atom or molecule, nevermind a bacterium or biological cell. Their explanations for their observable world were limited by the tools and collective knowledge at the time.
European Christians who first explored the New World were mystified that the indigenous Americans apparently brought rattlesnakes, wolves and bears with them, but didn’t bring any horses or cows when they populated the Americas. What they didn’t know at the time is that humans crossed the Bearing Straight Land bridge many thousands of years before horses were domesticated.
You have to look at Christianity’s origin mythology with the same skepticism as you do to Hinduism or the Greco-Roman religion. These are ancient peoples using their limited tools and knowledge to come up with explanations for the world around them.
Different kind of smart, but your point is extremely valid. An example would be animals who have no problems detecting human illnesses or impending natural disasters.
Just how did Noah and his family round up all the animals a male and female for his ark? How did they do that?
So there was a pile of 998 dead bodies with the last two soldiers confronting Samson, what.....I got this?
God didn't know all the problems Lucifer was going to cause before kicking him out of Heaven?
So all the bad things we humans have had to deal with is because Eve took a bite out of an apple?
So we had Adam and Eve they had two sons Cain and Able, so where did that woman Cain hooked up with come from?
How can anyone believe anyone could kick butt on not 10, not 20 but 1000 soldiers, nobody thought to rush him maybe throw rocks at him what no spears to throw?
God is how old?
Yes something designed all this but the Bible stories are BS.
Would like to know about just who was Goliath? Apparently he had some brother giants. Who was mom and dad?
Maybe because the real purpose of prayer is to align your will with the will of an infinitely wise God, not to submit a wish list of things you think you need
That is just moving the goal posts. If you define prayer as "learning to accept your fate as God's will" then you have just defined Stoicism. That is not what anyone is talking about on this thread.
And it doesn't answer the question, for example, of how mentally disabled children who don't understand their own suffering are supposed to "pray" if they don't even have a notion of what God is. They might be abused day after day for years and even if their grandma is praying every night for the abuse to stop. It doesn't work. Is that the disable child's fault, the grandma's fault, or what? What a screwed up, horrible system.
p.s. And whose relationship with God is improved by allowing a disabled kid to be abused for a decade? I'd love to get a answer that is better than, "who cares, in the long run the time in Heaven will make a decade of abuse seem like nothing" since that doesn't explain why we need the decade of misery in the first place...
How do so many manage to begin and develope and finish their earnest arguments naming and supporting " God" --God says this, God wants that, God intends the other thing"-- without offering the slightest definition, description, or explanation of what or who that is? A. They can't. They are busy--and some are genial, honest folks, but that doesnt lend a lot of credence to their credos. what we don't/can't understand or even articulate reasonably, we create mythologies about.
I am genuinely curious about this, please don't use this to mock religion. If you give all glory to God for all the great things in your life, that is fine by me. But what about when things aren't going right, why does the goal post move to 'God is testing me, making me stronger'? Like why can't God be wrong sometimes and called out for it? I just saw a friend on Facebook had the winning bid on a house and they thanked God for answering their prayers. What about all the people who didn't get the house and they might've prayed too? I just don't understand why God works for some but not others. And then if the house goes into foreclosure he is nowhere to be found.
Well so many praying that there has to be a ranking. If god likes you better your prayer will cancel the others out. Or someone is praying for you to fail while you pray to succeed and whoever gets the prayer in first gets preference
This is a great question! I'd love to provide some help in your understanding! Ashamedly, I am not the best at referencing scripture, but I will add a couple of links to articles with more detail and scripture!
God is perfect and sufficient, not lacking anything. Yet even through this, He desires a relationship with us, his creation. (If this doesn't make sense to you, join the club!) This is a display of His perfect love for us! In His desire for a relationship with us, He wants us to bring our wants, doubts, and fears to Him. Being the perfect and loving God, His plans are for our good and for His glory- the perfect God deserves all glory and praise, after all! Bringing our prayers to Him, whether requests or praises, is a way that we can submit to Him, acknowledging that He is the only One with the power and ability to meet/grant our needs. While we have the opportunity to bring these things before Him, He is still working for our good and His glory. Being an all-knowing and omniscient God, He knows what things are truly for our best in the long-run (no pun intended), and what things are not for His glory. He answers all prayers, though sometimes he answers "no" or "not yet." While that seems harsh, this is again an opportunity we have to submit to Him as a loving God and trust that He truly does have our best in mind. As "55 YO" mentioned earlier, and you may be able to relate too, there are many things we look back on where we thought there was something that we absolutely needed to happen, but now we can see that it's a good thing that prayer didn't get granted! Also, as we spend more time getting to know Him through prayer and reading scripture, along with other disciplines, we begin to be aligned more like His character and our desires better reflect His desires. Since He is a loving God that wants the best for us, when we reflect His desires, our wants become more aligned with His and those begin to be the things we bring to Him. This is the reason for Jesus saying "You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it." The more "faith" you have, the more your heart aligns with His, which means you are more likely to ask for things that He wants to provide!
I know this may seem confusing and maybe even contradictory... 1) I'm an imperfect human. Even though I intend to explain God's character clearly with this post, I can't confidently say that I was successful haha! 2) I would encourage whoever reads this and wants to learn more to look into the following links, and even continue searching the GotQuestions website with more questions concerning Christianity, God, and the Bible! It's a great resource! Thanks for reading this long message!
None of this makes sense. You said so yourself. Let's break down some of the contradictions:
1) If God is perfect and all-powerful, why does he desire the worship and relationship of his creations? Is he insecure?
2) Why would God create humans on Earth if he desires a relationship with us? Why not just keep us closer, in Heaven? What purpose does it serve to send his creations to another realm, to hopefully rediscover a relationship with him (if we're lucky)?
3) If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then prayers are a waste of time. The dye is cast - your destiny is already decided by God. Praying for another outcome is not going to change that.
4) If praying in fact could change God's mind, why would he listen to us? He knows infinitely more than us, so he should already know what's best for us. If God changes his mind based on a single prayer, maybe his grand design wasn't all that great?
5) If you pray really hard and are a devout Christian, yet still don't get what you want, is God punishing you? Were you not enough? Was 50 prayers to few, and 52 prayers would have done the trick?
The modern conception of "prayer" as you've outlined above seems to be a grown-up version of Santa Claus, asking for things you want from a supernatural being. When Jesus said "You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it" he probably meant "Prayer orients your mind and attitude towards a particular thing, and if you focus enough on that thing you'll get it." An ancient version of positive thinking and cognitive-behavioral alignment.
Look, I understand that faith requires you to suspend logic at times, but there are things are just so self-contradictory with modern Christianity that it falls apart at the slightest scrutiny. It's really hard to take seriously.
1) Because he wants to share His joy in Heaven with us.
2) Because of sin. Our first parents turned away from God committing the first sin. God cannot condone sin and Heaven wouldn't be Heaven if sin prevailed there.
3) God wants us to ask for what we need to help strengthen our Faith when H answers our prayers.
4) He doesn't change His mind - of course - but he wants us to ask in Faith so he can answer to show His love. If we receive good things without asking, in the everyday life, do we immediately thank God?
5) God will not give us something we pray for if we should not have it. Ask for greater Faith and He'll give you that.
Padre Pio prayed for a blind girl (Gemma) that was born without pupils. The 7 year old girl could see after his prayer - although she still had no pupils.
Padre Pio prayed for a blind girl (Gemma) that was born without pupils. The 7 year old girl could see after his prayer - although she still had no pupils.
Any evidence?
I’m an ex-catholic. Took me 16 years of my life to realize that I had been misled by those who love me most and want the best for me. I remember laying in my bed that night sobbing & laughing uncontrollably as a weight that never should have been there finally evaporated.
Now, I look at all my friends who still believe and I want them to be free. Is casual conversation with friends & sharing ideas the best way for them to leave their lie? I think so. Hasn’t objectively worked for me yet but progress has been made.
None of this makes sense. You said so yourself. Let's break down some of the contradictions:
1) If God is perfect and all-powerful, why does he desire the worship and relationship of his creations? Is he insecure?
2) Why would God create humans on Earth if he desires a relationship with us? Why not just keep us closer, in Heaven? What purpose does it serve to send his creations to another realm, to hopefully rediscover a relationship with him (if we're lucky)?
3) If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then prayers are a waste of time. The dye is cast - your destiny is already decided by God. Praying for another outcome is not going to change that.
4) If praying in fact could change God's mind, why would he listen to us? He knows infinitely more than us, so he should already know what's best for us. If God changes his mind based on a single prayer, maybe his grand design wasn't all that great?
5) If you pray really hard and are a devout Christian, yet still don't get what you want, is God punishing you? Were you not enough? Was 50 prayers to few, and 52 prayers would have done the trick?
The modern conception of "prayer" as you've outlined above seems to be a grown-up version of Santa Claus, asking for things you want from a supernatural being. When Jesus said "You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it" he probably meant "Prayer orients your mind and attitude towards a particular thing, and if you focus enough on that thing you'll get it." An ancient version of positive thinking and cognitive-behavioral alignment.
Look, I understand that faith requires you to suspend logic at times, but there are things are just so self-contradictory with modern Christianity that it falls apart at the slightest scrutiny. It's really hard to take seriously.
1) Because he wants to share His joy in Heaven with us.
2) Because of sin. Our first parents turned away from God committing the first sin. God cannot condone sin and Heaven wouldn't be Heaven if sin prevailed there.
3) God wants us to ask for what we need to help strengthen our Faith when H answers our prayers.
4) He doesn't change His mind - of course - but he wants us to ask in Faith so he can answer to show His love. If we receive good things without asking, in the everyday life, do we immediately thank God?
5) God will not give us something we pray for if we should not have it. Ask for greater Faith and He'll give you that.
There are many, many children throughout the world who have been repeatedly abused and violated by people around them who should be their protectors. This is happening today and it will happen tomorrow. And you believe that God hears their prayers of anguish and suffering to make it stop and make them safe and you believe that God declines to intervene.
A common response is that “we can’t know God’s will.” That’s an awful cop out. Any upstanding person would intervene, wouldn’t they? We would do whatever we could to protect those children.
This “God’s will” cop out harkens back to the Book of Job, when God allows Satan to torment Job over and over again, culminating with sending a big storm to his home which causes its collapse and kills his whole family. And when Job pleads and begs God for an explanation, God furiously expounds on Job’s insignificance in his grand design.
No thank you. I’m glad there’s no reliable evidence to suggest such a character exists.
Padre Pio prayed for a blind girl (Gemma) that was born without pupils. The 7 year old girl could see after his prayer - although she still had no pupils.
Any evidence?
I’m an ex-catholic. Took me 16 years of my life to realize that I had been misled by those who love me most and want the best for me. I remember laying in my bed that night sobbing & laughing uncontrollably as a weight that never should have been there finally evaporated.
Now, I look at all my friends who still believe and I want them to be free. Is casual conversation with friends & sharing ideas the best way for them to leave their lie? I think so. Hasn’t objectively worked for me yet but progress has been made.
Yes the evidence was that she could see. The doctors confirmed it. Oh,,,do you mean that you need to see it to believe it?
1) Because he wants to share His joy in Heaven with us.
2) Because of sin. Our first parents turned away from God committing the first sin. God cannot condone sin and Heaven wouldn't be Heaven if sin prevailed there.
3) God wants us to ask for what we need to help strengthen our Faith when H answers our prayers.
4) He doesn't change His mind - of course - but he wants us to ask in Faith so he can answer to show His love. If we receive good things without asking, in the everyday life, do we immediately thank God?
5) God will not give us something we pray for if we should not have it. Ask for greater Faith and He'll give you that.
There are many, many children throughout the world who have been repeatedly abused and violated by people around them who should be their protectors. This is happening today and it will happen tomorrow. And you believe that God hears their prayers of anguish and suffering to make it stop and make them safe and you believe that God declines to intervene.
A common response is that “we can’t know God’s will.” That’s an awful cop out. Any upstanding person would intervene, wouldn’t they? We would do whatever we could to protect those children.
This “God’s will” cop out harkens back to the Book of Job, when God allows Satan to torment Job over and over again, culminating with sending a big storm to his home which causes its collapse and kills his whole family. And when Job pleads and begs God for an explanation, God furiously expounds on Job’s insignificance in his grand design.
No thank you. I’m glad there’s no reliable evidence to suggest such a character exists.
We shouldn't blame God for the sins of men. He could destroy the world but chooses not to (yet) "for the sake of the elect"
The non-religious have a point - why would God do any of this at all? So Adam and Eve sinned. Why were they allowed to sin in the first place? The Creator could have just made that impossible.
The religious also have a point - something is going on here; this creation didn't just pop into being randomly. There has to be a Creator and a point, even though knowing those things might be impossible.
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