Prayer. What is it good for?

[Humanista]

I see a lot of prayer requests on Facebook. I also see a lot of excited posting about God rescuing people from tornadoes, car wrecks, drowning, plane crash, you name it. If anyone survives a tragedy or accident, it was because God saved their life.

So, recently in my area, there was a terrible car crash. A mom and her 3 children plus 3 other children. The mother and 3 of the kids (one was hers) died. One of the children, a 7 yr old, was unhurt.

Now, if everyone had somehow survived, Facebook would have been covered with Praise God for saving them.
Right after the accident, one child was in critical condition (she died the next day) and I saw a Facebook post about how everyone needed to pray for her to recover, that they should pray BOLDLY AND CONFIDENTLY (their caps, not mine) and spread this request to everyone they knew. As if God would be swayed by numbers, the more people who prayed, the more likely it became that he would not let her die.

Which of course begs the question, where was God when their car was about to plow into the back of a semi at 75mph? And since God apparently wanted the kids to die a horrible death, KNEW AHEAD of TIME that this was going to happen, why would he capriously decide to miraculously save the poor brain-dead girl?

Please don't cite "God's Mysterious Ways". That is a cop out. And please don't suggest that this horrific slaughter of beautiful children was so that the survivors and their families would go out and do great things as a result or learn a "lesson". No. It is unacceptable to me that in one breath you say how loving God is and in the next you justify a horrible event with "learning a lesson".

If God was removed from the accident and had nothing to do with it, then DO NOT go on and on about how he saved someone else. Either he always makes a choice about intervention, or he never intervenes. You can't have it both ways.

I've noticed no one on Facebook is praising and thanking God for sparing the 3 surviving children. Why? Because it implies he chose not to save the others.

Now Facebook is full of prayer requests (again the numbers. Does God have a prayer-o-meter that has to hit a certain number before he is moved to do something?) Now the friends of the victims are trying to get as many ppl as possible to pray that God comforts the family. What? God isn't comforting them all on his own? Or are there levels of comfort and they won't get the DeLuxe Package until 2500 prayers go up?

Now I understand prayer as a way to feel closer to God, to feel as though you're doing SOMETHING when you can't really do anything. But it's all for the person doing the praying. And that's fine.
What I will never understand is exhortation to get more and more numbers, or the idea that God can be persuaded by enough petitions to do something he wasn't already going to do. Look, God already knows, theoretically, the PERFECT thing to do. And he knows in advance he's going to do it. Nothing is a surprise or a moment of indecision. A Perfect Being can't be torn over what the best decision is. So prayer isn't going to change anything. It's a done deal. If NO ONE prays, he will or won't save someone. If a million people pray, he will or won't. His decision was made before the accident happened. And he knew it was going to happen, right? Because he knows ALL.
So pray away, if it makes you feel better. But don't go begging everyone on Facebook to pray as if it's an election and your petition will win if you get enough votes.

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to post 1 by Humanista]

You make an excellent point that I have often wondered about as well.

Along the same lines, I hear some Catholic friends happily talk about how this saint or that saint helped them to find their keys or helped with some other mundane task. My question would be: why would saints (or God) waste their time finding keys, helping people pass tests, etc. when there are people starving to death all over the place. Is providing food too complicated? They can find your keys, but can't find a box of cereal?

One also notices that people will praise God when something good happens, but never praise God when something bad happens. Shouldn't all decisions made by God be praise worthy? Perhaps they don't do this because it would show the pointless nature of praising an invisible deity to begin with?

What is it good for indeed.

[JP Cusick]

Now I understand prayer as a way to feel closer to God, to feel as though you're doing SOMETHING when you can't really do anything. But it's all for the person doing the praying. And that's fine.
What I will never understand is exhortation to get more and more numbers, or the idea that God can be persuaded by enough petitions to do something he wasn't already going to do. Look, God already knows, theoretically, the PERFECT thing to do. And he knows in advance he's going to do it. Nothing is a surprise or a moment of indecision. A Perfect Being can't be torn over what the best decision is. So prayer isn't going to change anything. It's a done deal. If NO ONE prays, he will or won't save someone. If a million people pray, he will or won't. His decision was made before the accident happened. And he knew it was going to happen, right? Because he knows ALL.
So pray away, if it makes you feel better. But don't go begging everyone on Facebook to pray as if it's an election and your petition will win if you get enough votes.

I agree that prayer is mostly a waste of time except just to make the praying person to feel better.

Of course there are other interpretations of prayer which are more substantial.

As in we pray with our actions.

As like praying to quit smoking as a prayer is absurd - just quit smoking and that action is the prayer.

Pray to feed the hungry - no - go out and start feeding the hungry - and that action is the prayer.

When driving a car then we really do need to drive safe and careful and take our precautions and those actions make the driving into a prayer.

In this way true prayer would be 24 hours every day without any start or finish to the praying.

When a person is doing right as their prayer in action - THEN - then they can expect that God is on their side.

[Kenisaw]

Now I understand prayer as a way to feel closer to God, to feel as though you're doing SOMETHING when you can't really do anything. But it's all for the person doing the praying. And that's fine.
What I will never understand is exhortation to get more and more numbers, or the idea that God can be persuaded by enough petitions to do something he wasn't already going to do. Look, God already knows, theoretically, the PERFECT thing to do. And he knows in advance he's going to do it. Nothing is a surprise or a moment of indecision. A Perfect Being can't be torn over what the best decision is. So prayer isn't going to change anything. It's a done deal. If NO ONE prays, he will or won't save someone. If a million people pray, he will or won't. His decision was made before the accident happened. And he knew it was going to happen, right? Because he knows ALL.
So pray away, if it makes you feel better. But don't go begging everyone on Facebook to pray as if it's an election and your petition will win if you get enough votes.

I agree that prayer is mostly a waste of time except just to make the praying person to feel better.

Of course there are other interpretations of prayer which are more substantial.

As in we pray with our actions.

As like praying to quit smoking as a prayer is absurd - just quit smoking and that action is the prayer.

Pray to feed the hungry - no - go out and start feeding the hungry - and that action is the prayer.

When driving a car then we really do need to drive safe and careful and take our precautions and those actions make the driving into a prayer.

In this way true prayer would be 24 hours every day without any start or finish to the praying.

When a person is doing right as their prayer in action - THEN - then they can expect that God is on their side.

I agree with you, from an atheist point of view anyway. When someone says I will pray for them, I say go and pick up a hammer and help them fix their house instead, that way you know something got done. Instead of praying for hurricane victims, send old clothes and donate a few bucks, that way you know someone is getting needs met.

The old saying actions speak louder than words rings pretty true...

[OnceConvinced]

Many Christians believe that the more people praying the more likely God is going to help. Based on:

Matt 8:19-20
Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.

I guess it's a kind of a peer pressure thing. Gang up on God and he'll do what you want.

When it comes to the Internet though, I'm not really sure how people thousands of miles apart, praying for the same thing can be considered a gathering. It seems very lazy to me so I can't see why God would make special considerations just because thousands of lazy people are sitting in front of their computers praying.

[JP Cusick]

Many Christians believe that the more people praying the more likely God is going to help. Based on:

Matt 8:19-20
Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.

I guess it's a kind of a peer pressure thing. Gang up on God and he'll do what you want.

This is accurate that people / Christians justify their kind of prayer by those verses, but they were never correct in their interpretations.

First off it is really Matthew 18:18-20

If we apply action to the interpretation then the verses have much deeper meaning.

Verse 18 = To bind or to loose something is an action and not just words or saying prayer.

Verse 19 = When two people agree then they would go out and do it.

Verse 20 = This is saying that they get a third person to help, and being "gathered together" really means together to do the action.

The idea of 2 or 3 people together saying prayers without doing anything is a big misunderstanding of the Gospels which tells us to go do.

As said here in Matthew 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

When it comes to the Internet though, I'm not really sure how people thousands of miles apart, praying for the same thing can be considered a gathering. It seems very lazy to me so I can't see why God would make special considerations just because thousands of lazy people are sitting in front of their computers praying.

It would be "a gathering" if they were actually doing something through the internet.

Otherwise I agree that words only as prayer is just vain and pretentious.