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Question for people who go to church

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when i was in high school my best friend got leukemia. it went on for about 2-3years. sometimes he would get really good, and it would be disappearing, then it would come back. He was not a christian but his parents were and he regularly attended church per their request. People always prayed over him and what not and he didn't mind and was never bothered by it, as far as i know. Whenever he went into remission people would blabber "oh miracle! praise god!" bla bla... Yah, then close to christmas a couple years ago, it came back and he died. Then they pawned it off as god wanting to end his pain or some crap like that. So hypocritical if you ask me. the truth, as i see it, is not much is known about cancer, or enough to predict what it is going to do. so, sometimes they got lucky with the chemo and it went into remission, but overall i think the combo of chemo and the strength of the disease did him in. It really is a sad story because he was such a great person and was smart as hell, but i suppose this is the way of life. The only thing i can agree with them on is that he isn't suffering anymore, which is good.
 
I have seen multiple examples in the church, and I believe that prayer does work in our lives, regardless of what others say or believe in.
 
Originally posted by: Skoorb
A study was done where people prays for sick people and it showed that it did not make a difference. I think it was at Duke?
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That is a stupid study. If faith could be empiraclly proven, it wouldn't be faith.
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They weren't trying to prove faith. They were trying to prove whether or not prayer increases the odds of recovery, which evidently it doesn't.
 
Originally posted by: skulkingghost
I have seen multiple examples in the church, and I believe that prayer does work in our lives, regardless of what others say or believe in.
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I can show you millions of cases where prayer has no impact on the well-being of individuals. I guess that's God's Will, huh?
 
Originally posted by: DarkThinker
I think it's absurd that some people believe in God and at the same time believe that prayer can't help, it's like saying God is deaf and blind and you still believe in him, I know I wouldn't.
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There's a difference between believing that prayer can't work, and believing that it won't work.

A question for you: Does prayer change God's will?

If it does change His will, then the statement that some people, "weren't meant to be healed to begin with" has no validity since prayers change God's decisions.

If it doesn't change His will, then it doesn't have any effect at all. If His will is constant, then He will heal people regardless of their prayer according to His pre-established will just as He lets people die regardless of their prayer.

The net result is that if prayer does change God's will, then those who are prayed for but not healed must be un-loved (or why else would God ignore their prayers?), but if prayer doesn't change God's will, then there's no reason to pray since the outcome is already decided.

ZV
 
Originally posted by: spidey07
Originally posted by: Leros
Originally posted by: spidey07
Sure.

Many members have beaten cancer when basically told there was no chance.
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I know a handful of people who have beaten cancer when there was no chance, and they were non-religious and nobody prayed for them.
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Umm, 100s of millions of people prayed for them every night.
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:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Pure comedy gold in this thread. 😀
 
Originally posted by: Throckmorton
Originally posted by: Skoorb
A study was done where people prays for sick people and it showed that it did not make a difference. I think it was at Duke?
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That is a stupid study. If faith could be empiraclly proven, it wouldn't be faith.
Click to expand...

They weren't trying to prove faith. They were trying to prove whether or not prayer increases the odds of recovery, which evidently it doesn't.
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There have been plenty of studies which show prayer doesn't work. However, there are also studies that show that a person's attitude toward getting better does make a huge difference, thus, knowing that people are praying for them to get better, and a belief that it helps, increases their odds of survival. However, when the prayers are separated from knowledge of being prayed for, there is no increase in survival rate. There has been *one* study which concluded otherwise. Later, there was a TON of controversy over that study which pointed to the results being faked. IIRC, there were 3 authors; one "withdrew" and pretty much said, "I don't want anything to do with that study", and one was fired (or something like that) after being found faking data in another study. Most recently, the only author clinging to that study and claiming its valid, is suing one of the others for defamation of character.

 
Originally posted by: skulkingghost
I have seen multiple examples in the church, and I believe that prayer does work in our lives, regardless of what others say or believe in.
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Good. The next time you see a person that has ALS pray your butt off. Find a soldier coming back from Iraq missing his legs and pray your butt off so that God will regrow those legs. Your chance of being successful in either of those cases is EXACTLY ZERO-FREAKING-PERCENT.

Why? Why do your prayers only work on things which can be cured with no intervention and why are those same prayers 100% useless on things that can't happen on their own? Are the people missing limbs not worthy? Has every person in history with ALS simply not prayed hard enough? Why does the great cosmic muffin only cure diseases that can cure themselves while he remains 100% impotent on diseases and conditions that don't. Doesn't it seem like it should be the other way around? What the hell good is God is he accomplishes things that happen randomly while he can't accomplish things that don't?


Don't hurt yourself pondering that.
 
Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
Originally posted by: skulkingghost
I have seen multiple examples in the church, and I believe that prayer does work in our lives, regardless of what others say or believe in.
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I can show you millions of cases where prayer has no impact on the well-being of individuals. I guess that's God's Will, huh?
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That's the thing. If your god helps you, he's great and deserves worship. If he doesn't help you, he works in mysterious ways and deserves worship. People are very naive, and easily lead
 
Originally posted by: DarkThinker
Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
Has there ever been a single documented case of a church performing an actual miracle healing? I'm not talking about tumors disappearing or leukemia going into remission, that sort of thing happens to worshippers and atheists alike.

Has a church ever cured ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease)? - Nope
Has a chuch ever regrown a missing limb? - Nope
Has a church ever cured adrenoleukodystrophy? - Nope

Funny how prayer doesn't seem capable of doing anything that can't happen without it.
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Nothing about your argument, but The quote from Thomas Paine makes it look like Turkish is a religion, though I am sure AT member Turkish would enjoy that :laugh: I wonder how accurate that makes the view of a man the caliber of Paine's seem about religion in general?

IMHO Thomas Paine lived his life finding flaws in Christianity and then reached his conclusion about everything else that is religion from there to reach Deism.
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In the 1790's when Paine wrote that the "Turkish" religion was a synonym for Islam. Language usages change over time. Do yourself a favor and become better educated before attempting to sound profound. When you trip yourself up incorrectly arguing semantics rather than substance you have no credibility.
 
so what if you are suddenly cured but never prayed?

does it prove that there is no god?
maybe it proves that god doesn't give a crap about lip service?

or maybe, just maybe, it doesn't prove a damn thing, just as anecdotal evidence of "faith healing" doesn't either.
 
Originally posted by: mordantmonkey
so what if you are suddenly cured but never prayed?

does it prove that there is no god?
maybe it proves that god doesn't give a crap about lip service?

or maybe, just maybe, it doesn't prove a damn thing, just as anecdotal evidence of "faith healing" doesn't either.
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The cop-out rebuttal for that argument is that there are people praying for you all the time, even if they don't personally know you.
 
Originally posted by: homercles337
Originally posted by: kranky
A few...

...snip....
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I LOLed at this post. I really hope this is a joke. 😱
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You've been around here long enough to have seen plenty of my posts. I don't troll. Those are situations I was personally involved with.
 
i dunno, i don't go to church alot (2-3 times a month, usually with my son), but i never heard them ask to pray for a disease to be removed from anyone. there are "pray for us sinners" and then a bunch of community related items (shortenened versions here) :

Father; for some community members us: Lord hear our prayer
Father; for the troops overseas us; Lord hear our prayer.

obviously it isn't a "faith-healing" church.

as a side note, i'd consider alcolholism and drug addiction deadly diseases and if you went to any AA or NA meeting, you'll find people who claim that God did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves.
 
Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Originally posted by: DarkThinker
I think it's absurd that some people believe in God and at the same time believe that prayer can't help, it's like saying God is deaf and blind and you still believe in him, I know I wouldn't.
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There's a difference between believing that prayer can't work, and believing that it won't work.

A question for you: Does prayer change God's will?

If it does change His will, then the statement that some people, "weren't meant to be healed to begin with" has no validity since prayers change God's decisions.

If it doesn't change His will, then it doesn't have any effect at all. If His will is constant, then He will heal people regardless of their prayer according to His pre-established will just as He lets people die regardless of their prayer.

The net result is that if prayer does change God's will, then those who are prayed for but not healed must be un-loved (or why else would God ignore their prayers?), but if prayer doesn't change God's will, then there's no reason to pray since the outcome is already decided.

ZV
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I agree with both DarkThinker and ZV's points but I believe that ZV's question is flawed. The meaning of the question appears to be "Does prayer override God's will?"

To say that prayer can change or override God's will is highly egotistic of man to think they have the ability to change the decision of a being they have already defined as above themselves.

To say that prayer has no effect if it does not change or override His will, is logically incorrect. God, as a sentient being, is perfectly within his rights to change his own decisions or course of action. Prayer is a means of calling God's attention to an issue. Prayer is a means of communicating concern over an issue to allow peace within oneself. Prayer is also a means of redirecting spiritual energy from people to other people.

God is omniscient yet he also needs to have his attention brought to certain issues for reconsideration or help. I see this as a logical flaw in the man-made definition of faith in God. However, this is one example why such faith is required. I doubt there will ever be a solid scientific and logical understanding of any religion. This is why religions are based on philosophies, not science. Religions provide people some comfort in the suffering of life and they provide wise direction from elders.

Religion is also a way of life that allows people to find meaning and happiness. We do not understand it much here in America because the religion of American's is defined by sports and the media. However, religion means far more to people from other countries throughout the world where sports and media are put in their proper place.
 
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