Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

[unknown soldier]

If there's one issue that keeps apologists busy, it's the issue of unanswered prayer. Skeptics often point out that the hungry children who pray for food often die of starvation. If God exists, then why don't we see better results from prayer? Christian apologist Kyle Butt answers this question on pages 229-244 of A Christian's Guide to Refuting Modern Atheism. He explains that effective prayer must conform to the following:

1. Prayer must be "in the name of Jesus." That is, prayer must be in accord with Jesus' teachings and authority.
2. It is necessary for prayer to be in accord with God's will. God has a way of doing things that no prayer can change.
3. The person praying must believe she will receive what she requests. Otherwise, she won't receive what she requests!
4. The person praying must be a righteous person. So all you sinners, forget it!
5. Prayer won't work if the petitioner prays with selfish desires.
6. Persistence in prayer is important. One or two prayers might not be enough.

I'm eager to read what other members here have to say about these guidelines, but allow me to start out saying that if 1 is true, then anybody who is not a Christian won't benefit from prayer. I wonder if those non-Christians see that their prayers aren't doing any good.

Guideline 2 seems odd. It's like God saying: "I'll do anything you ask as long as I want to do it."

I'd say that 3 can result in a "snowball effect" which is to say that if a doubter's doubt can lead to a prayer not being answered, then the doubter might doubt even more!

Regarding 4, it seems to me that sinners need answered prayer more than the righteous.

Guideline 5 also seems odd because if you're petitioning God for something you want or need, then you are thinking of yourself, and what's wrong with that?

Finally, 6 doesn't explain why God can't just grant the petition with one prayer request, and neither does it tell us how many prayers it takes to succeed. Could it be that the person praying is praying for something that in time she'll get whether she prays or not?

[brunumb]

How do you know that you even have completely free will now? There is no way of telling. If someone offers up a suggestion and your response is "Why didn't I think of that?", that's a pertinent question. Did some external agent prevent you? You have not really explained how you lose all free will if only certain actions are prevented by you not considering to act on evil thoughts because of an external agent that is in a way acting as your conscience.

What do you mean "lose all free will"? If I am forced to choose X (X being the good option), then I have no freedom to choose X or Y.

If you are faced with ten doors to go through but somehow only the thought to select door one never enters your mind due to some agency, how does that prevent you from choosing to go through any of the other nine?

You have also not addressed the key point I made. How do you know that you even have completely free will now? Is there any way of telling?

[brunumb]

Ordering people to carry out wholesale slaughter is not quite as benign an activity as suggested by the phrase setting things right in the world.

Is allowing people to continue to harm others "setting things right"? That's the alternative. The people hadn't listened to more peaceful attempts to change their ways.

What peaceful attempts were made? Are you saying that God could not come up with any alternative to mass slaughter in order to set things right? It seems like there were only two alternatives. Ask them nicely and if that doesn't work, kill them all, men, women, children, livestock, all except for young virgins of course. Sorry, but that doesn't wash.

[brunumb]

When you remove the killings brought about by natural disasters, you are left with humans acting as alleged intermediaries carrying out the will of God. It's almost as if there is no God involved at all, just people trying to justify their barbaric actions.

How did you get from "alleged intermediaries" to the conclusion that they are not intermediaries at all?

And yes, it will be our interpretation, our opinion, but so what?

It means that no one is in any position to claim that they are doing God's will.

I agree we need humility in our claims, but you seem to have an idea that we shouldn't claim anything unless we are 100% certain it is true. I don't agree with that.

If we have no definitive way of telling if someone is doing God's will, then anyone claiming to do so is only an alleged intermediary. Why should we accept their word for it, particularly when that work may involve actions that we personally find reprehensible? If someone is telling you to kill others claiming it is God's will, then I think it is perfectly reasonable to be certain that it is true.

[brunumb]

I do not think death is an evil. It is part of the cycle of life which is natural and unavoidable. What is evil is killing the innocent and denying them the experiences that a full and rewarding life has to offer. Even killing the guilty should not be considered as the right thing to do.

But this assumes that this life is all there is, doesn't it? Christianity teaches that this life is not all there is. So, to analyze Christian responses, one needs to take all of this into account. If that is true, then is it evil for the innocent to die?

What Christianity teaches about an after life is also just assumption. If the innocent die unnecessarily and there is no afterlife that is evil. Just denying them a full life even with some sort of afterlife is unjust. It brings into question the value of human existence and the value of human life. It's easy to devalue both with nothing more than promises that something will come after.

[unknown soldier]

Why not just accept barbaric Bible passages for what they are?

This kind of response is a cop out. Rather than explain why one interprets a passage in a certain way, one simply says "that's what it says" as though their interpretation is the default. No, everyone needs to back up their interpretation.

I can explain it. I just take a passage for what it says regardless of whether it conforms to my predispositions or not. If I'm told that I will receive all I ask for in prayer, then I understand it as telling me I will receive all I ask for in prayer! Yes, it's obviously wrong to claim we will receive all we ask for in prayer, but I can live with a Bible that makes false promises. I have no need to try long and hard to make a false Biblical promise out to be not a false promise. That's an apologist's job to explain away Biblical errors.

You didn't explain anything there, you just repeated the same cop out with more words. You aren't taking that passage for what it says. You are taking one part of that passage out of its context and then applying another context to it and giving us that as an interpretation of the original passage.

No I'm not.

In some healings Mark has one person being healed while Matthew will have two. I do think those probably are talking about the same healing and that in one of them the number healed is wrong; it was either one or two.

Why not zero healed? Apologists typically avoid any possibilities that if considered would make their beliefs out to be flat-out wrong.

God is justified in killing anyone, not just infidels. God used the Israelites as part of His judgment on the Canaanites (and others). God also used other nations as part of His judgment on the Israelites in the Hebrew scriptures.

That's essentially what the attackers on 9/11 were thinking. Just change some of the names.

If one were making a myth to show the power of their war god, then they wouldn't have those "resilient" evil people sticking around. That makes no sense. It's the same author saying all were killed and then showing that not all were killed.

I just got done explaining all this.

They were viewed as a cohesive story line. Joshua is one of the two spies who had faith in God that they would gain the promised land.

If God was behind the attack on the homeland of the Canaanites, then Joshua wouldn't have needed to spy on the Canaanites. Joshua could have gotten all his information from God. Maybe Joshua's prayer didn't work because Joshua was being selfish when he prayed, or it wasn't God's will.

You didn't answer my question, so I will answer it for you; according to the story as you understand it, God didn't know that they would repent. The Bible God is not omniscient. His omniscience was made up by theologians much later.

Where does the story, as I understand it, say that?

It's implied when God is unable to tell if his victims would "repent."

No. It's evil to kill anybody if it isn't necessary especially if you're a God who supposedly can find nonviolent solutions to social problems.

What are those solutions God should have found?

If God existed, then he wouldn't need to be violent at all. He could simply alter human relations to solve social problems.

Yes, reason with me about the purpose of human life and whether or not people choose to live in relationship with God or not.

People can't have a relationship with something that doesn't exist. It's one of an infinite number of ways that our wills are limited.

...I don't have the will to murder and rape...

Then you don't have free will.

I want the evil wills gone through my free choice.

So you want the free choice to give up free choice. What's the point in that? Why not just have limited choice to start if you don't want free choice?

I have no love. That is the harm that would take place.

So you can't love unless you can hate. Why not?

We try to control the choices of others through threats of punishment. We try to physically limit some choices of others. Why is that not an exercise of free will?

We take away the will of others so they don't have free will.

In that case you call a failed prayer a "no" to your prayer. That's as silly as to think an object you can't lift is telling you: "You can't lift me!"

I'm not making any sense of this. You said that people who prayed for healing and didn't get that healing "got no answers at all, actually (post 25)." I said they got an answer: "No." What does your comment above have to do with that?

I'm making perfect sense. It's just plain dumb to think that what you cannot do or cannot get is something or somebody telling you: "No." When a prayer fails all that failure is is a failure. When something fails there is no answer except what you might imagine.

Do you want to be allowed to murder?

First, I have never wanted to murder anyone, so let's remember to keep the focus more broadly to fit what we've been talking about.

Do you want to be allowed to murder? Yes or no?

I want to refrain from all evil by choice.

I want to be disallowed to do evil. That way I can never harm anybody. You, on the other hand, want to keep the option alive. I see no reason for that unless you think you may wish to do evil to others and want to carry it out.

Besides, you can choose to refrain from evil. I'm just saying that if I had my free will, then I would freely will that you cannot choose to do evil.

So, in that sense, I want to be allowed the freedom to commit evil or not by my choice, yes.

If you don't want to do something, then why would you want to be able to choose to do it? That makes as much sense as wanting the option to bathe in a sewer!

Why do you think Christianity is about meeting some moral standard of goodness to be accepted by God?

Oh--just little things like The Ten Commandments and The Sermon on the Mount. I've read both. They're in the Bible. Jesus preached the latter and told people to obey the former. Based on what I've read and what Christians have told me, there are indeed rules God wants us to obey. If we disobey, then he gets very upset and punishes us.

I'm not making this up.

That couldn't be farther from the truth.

So you disregard The Ten Commandments and The Sermon on the Mount.

God wants us in a love relationship.

I understand that God cannot take rejection.

Tanager: It's not be this good and you can be in God's presence...
vs
Jesus: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

...it's be in God's presence and you can start doing good things.

You can't do good things unless God is there. I don't have that problem.

God will start setting things right in us, so that we can be a part of setting things right in the world.

Then there is no free will!

[The Tanager]

If you are faced with ten doors to go through but somehow only the thought to select door one never enters your mind due to some agency, how does that prevent you from choosing to go through any of the other nine?

It doesn't. But we are talking about God doing away with evil, not just some evils, right?

You have also not addressed the key point I made. How do you know that you even have completely free will now? Is there any way of telling?

Why do I need to for this discussion? We were judging whether a good God would choose to give people free will or not. I said a good God would choose to give free will because it includes the possibility for love when determinism doesn't. You asked me to demonstrate that love would not be possible in that situation. I started making my case. If you want to discuss whether free will or determinism is true, then start a new thread, tell me about it, and I'll share my thoughts. We have a lot going on here already for it to get derailed into that important discussion.

What peaceful attempts were made? Are you saying that God could not come up with any alternative to mass slaughter in order to set things right? It seems like there were only two alternatives. Ask them nicely and if that doesn't work, kill them all, men, women, children, livestock, all except for young virgins of course. Sorry, but that doesn't wash.

In the Bible we always have God giving people warnings, asking them to change their ways and follow Him, not just the Israelites but other nations as well. They had hundreds of years. What other alternatives do you think there should have been, that weren't understood as being given?

If we have no definitive way of telling if someone is doing God's will, then anyone claiming to do so is only an alleged intermediary. Why should we accept their word for it, particularly when that work may involve actions that we personally find reprehensible? If someone is telling you to kill others claiming it is God's will, then I think it is perfectly reasonable to be certain that it is true.

I didn't say we should accept their word for it. But that doesn't mean we must reject it as untrue. As to the standard, in everything but pure mathematics, the standard is beyond reasonable doubt, not beyond any possible doubt.

What Christianity teaches about an after life is also just assumption. If the innocent die unnecessarily and there is no afterlife that is evil.

Christians have reasons to hold the beliefs they do that aren't mere assumptions, but that is a different question. You have been arguing that if Christianity were true, then God would be evil. You can't throw out parts of Christianity being true to support that claim because you've already assumed Christianity is true for your critique.

Just denying them a full life even with some sort of afterlife is unjust. It brings into question the value of human existence and the value of human life. It's easy to devalue both with nothing more than promises that something will come after.

What is a full life to you? Why do you think my view devalues human existence, even this part of human existence, rather than just valuing different things or valuing them differently?

[The Tanager]

I can explain it. I just take a passage for what it says regardless of whether it conforms to my predispositions or not. If I'm told that I will receive all I ask for in prayer, then I understand it as telling me I will receive all I ask for in prayer! Yes, it's obviously wrong to claim we will receive all we ask for in prayer, but I can live with a Bible that makes false promises. I have no need to try long and hard to make a false Biblical promise out to be not a false promise. That's an apologist's job to explain away Biblical errors.

You didn't explain anything there, you just repeated the same cop out with more words. You aren't taking that passage for what it says. You are taking one part of that passage out of its context and then applying another context to it and giving us that as an interpretation of the original passage.

No I'm not.

If the passage was only the one line, without any context, your interpretation would have more merit, but it's not. So, unless, you have a case instead of saying some form of "that's just what it says," that is what you are doing.

Why not zero healed? Apologists typically avoid any possibilities that if considered would make their beliefs out to be flat-out wrong.

Sure, that is an option but you didn't ask me to give all the options considered.

That's essentially what the attackers on 9/11 were thinking. Just change some of the names.

First, notice that you've changed what was being talked about but are treating it as all the same thing. You claimed that I was saying that if you don't get anything good from your enemies, then you should kill them and that this was the same thing the 9/11 attackers were thinking. I corrected your misunderstanding because I actually said that we should seek the good of our enemies and leave the consequences of that up to God.

Then the new issue, which is still not an accurate comparison. Believing that God gives you the right to kill anyone who disagrees with your religion is not the same thing as God using nations to judge each other, including judgment of the "chosen" nation. The Israelites didn't think they were to go all over the world killing "infidels".

If one were making a myth to show the power of their war god, then they wouldn't have those "resilient" evil people sticking around. That makes no sense. It's the same author saying all were killed and then showing that not all were killed.

I just got done explaining all this.

And I thought your explanation was flawed. Rather than just stating that, I shared why. If you want to move the discussion rationally forward, then you should continue explaining your view to meet my critiques.

If God was behind the attack on the homeland of the Canaanites, then Joshua wouldn't have needed to spy on the Canaanites. Joshua could have gotten all his information from God. Maybe Joshua's prayer didn't work because Joshua was being selfish when he prayed, or it wasn't God's will.

Why do you think the point of having them spy was to get intel for God? Why couldn't it have been to work something within the Israelites?

You didn't answer my question, so I will answer it for you; according to the story as you understand it, God didn't know that they would repent. The Bible God is not omniscient. His omniscience was made up by theologians much later.

Where does the story, as I understand it, say that?

It's implied when God is unable to tell if his victims would "repent."

Where is God unable to tell if His victims would repent? What's the passages or evidence for that?

If God existed, then he wouldn't need to be violent at all. He could simply alter human relations to solve social problems.

So, take away free will. You were supposed to offer an alternative other than that.

People can't have a relationship with something that doesn't exist. It's one of an infinite number of ways that our wills are limited.

You have just made a very strong, positive claim here. What is your support for the claim that God doesn't exist?

...I don't have the will to murder and rape...

Then you don't have free will.

Why do you think having free will means having every single desire one could have? That's not what it means. I don't want to murder and rape, but my will is free to do so, if I wanted to.

So you want the free choice to give up free choice. What's the point in that? Why not just have limited choice to start if you don't want free choice?

No, I want to freely choose good over evil. That's not giving up free choice, but freely exercising it in a specific (and good) way.

So you can't love unless you can hate. Why not?

By definition. There must be a choice between what the loving thing to do would be and what the unloving/hateful thing(s) to do would be. I imagine you are thinking that there are various options in between the loving and hateful things available but, if so, then why do you think that? If you love someone, you want the best for them. Anything else is less than, whether you want to describe that as "hate" or some other term.

We try to control the choices of others through threats of punishment. We try to physically limit some choices of others. Why is that not an exercise of free will?

We take away the will of others so they don't have free will.

My point is that our doing so is an exercise of free will. You said that we do this because it's foolish to grant people free will, but this is an example of exercising our free will. I would rather make the good choice on my own, though. That's a better option.

I'm making perfect sense. It's just plain dumb to think that what you cannot do or cannot get is something or somebody telling you: "No." When a prayer fails all that failure is is a failure. When something fails there is no answer except what you might imagine.

That's just begging the question. Logically, it could be either that there is no one to hear the prayer, that the hearer is impotent to do anything about it, that they don't care to do anything about it, or that the one who hears the prayer is answering no for a good reason (and perhaps other possibilities, if I give it more thought). If you want to make a case for your conclusion, go ahead.

Do you want to be allowed to murder? Yes or no?

I've already answered that at various times.

I want to be disallowed to do evil. That way I can never harm anybody. You, on the other hand, want to keep the option alive. I see no reason for that unless you think you may wish to do evil to others and want to carry it out.

Another reason to keep the option alive is to keep alive what comes along with that option: freedom, option to love.

Oh--just little things like The Ten Commandments and The Sermon on the Mount. I've read both. They're in the Bible. Jesus preached the latter and told people to obey the former. Based on what I've read and what Christians have told me, there are indeed rules God wants us to obey. If we disobey, then he gets very upset and punishes us.

I'm not making this up.

No you aren't making that up, but you (and plenty of Christians) are misunderstanding the Biblical message, in my opinion (and in the opinion of many Christians throughout all of Christian history). Now, what the Bible actually says would be a long investigation because each side could raise various passages to look at. I've looked at them. I think that I can make sense of all of them in light of my overall view. I don't think your view can do that as well. I'll have that reasonable converstaion with you if you want.

A part of the short, summary version would be that a purpose of the Law is to show humans how they can't be morally perfect on their own strength. The Sermon on the Mount is about what people who know God will be like, but it comes from knowing God. Choosing to go our own way leads to the natural consequences of doing so, not God throwing in some extra punishment because He's mad at us and wants to act like a 5 year old getting revenge for being hurt. There is more than the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Those aren't the focus of the Biblical story.

So you disregard The Ten Commandments and The Sermon on the Mount.

My view doesn't disregard them at all. I understand them differently than you because they aren't the center of the story.

I understand that God cannot take rejection.

What do you mean? That God gets revenge? If so, then why do you think that? If not, then what do you mean?

..it's be in God's presence and you can start doing good things.

You can't do good things unless God is there. I don't have that problem.

That's out of context. You must take all of what I say together. Right before that I said the following:

"I think people can do a lot of good, but I think we do evils that we don't even realize because of how self-centered we can become in our thinking. I do think we need a relationship with God to be morally perfect."

God will start setting things right in us, so that we can be a part of setting things right in the world.

Then there is no free will!

God sets things right in us with our cooperation, our choosing to listen to Him and letting Him guide us.

[brunumb]

If you are faced with ten doors to go through but somehow only the thought to select door one never enters your mind due to some agency, how does that prevent you from choosing to go through any of the other nine?

It doesn't. But we are talking about God doing away with evil, not just some evils, right?

We are talking about preventing evil like abuse, rape and murder by having some limits to free will. You have not shown that preventing us from acting on evil thoughts is a complete violation of our free will. As part of that, I guess you really need to establish that we do actually have free will given to us by God. If we have free will, and it is given by God, then it comes down to what you prefer. Evil acts like the above being freely committed by those people inclined to act on their evil thoughts, or those thoughts being suppressed by God to protect innocent victims. As I said in another post, many believers are more than willing to give up an incredible amount of freedom for their beliefs. I am willing to give up the ability to act on evil thoughts for the sake of my fellow human beings. Isn't that what love requires?

[unknown soldier]

If the passage was only the one line, without any context, your interpretation would have more merit, but it's not. So, unless, you have a case instead of saying some form of "that's just what it says," that is what you are doing.

Tan, here's the promise and its relevant context from Matthew 21 (NRSV):

Jesus Curses the Fig Tree
18 In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, "May no fruit ever come from you again!" And the fig tree withered at once. 20 When the disciples saw it, they were amazed, saying, "How did the fig tree wither at once?" 21 Jesus answered them, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea, it will be done. 22 Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive."

Now we can all check the context to see if I'm taking verse 22 out of context. I am not taking verse 22 out of context. If anything the context underscores that my interpretation is correct. Jesus is clearly telling his disciples that what they pray for they will get.

Here's where you're going wrong: You read a Bible passage that's a false promise. By faith you cannot accept that Jesus' promises are false. So you go off to find a passage that you hope smooths over the problematical passage and substitute what you think that other passage means for the otherwise obvious meaning of the problematical passage! Sure, you might find other similar passages that say something different, but in so doing you find contradictions rather than clarifications.

Why, then, is Matthew 21:22 a false promise? If you dispense with your faith, then the scales will fall from your eyes. Matthew put those words into the mouth of Jesus to attract converts. Promise people the moon, and they will come.

Believing that God gives you the right to kill anyone who disagrees with your religion is not the same thing as God using nations to judge each other, including judgment of the "chosen" nation. The Israelites didn't think they were to go all over the world killing "infidels".

Of course the details may differ, but the results are much the same. Just like the Bible God is said to have sent in armies to kill men, women, and children who were getting in his way, Muslims believed that Allah sent in men to kill men, women, and children who were getting in Allah's way.

And why use the word "judge"? Just say that God kills people.

Why do you think the point of having them spy was to get intel for God?

Spies gather intel. A real God doesn't need to.

Why couldn't it have been to work something within the Israelites?

I don't know what you're asking.

Where is God unable to tell if His victims would repent? What's the passages or evidence for that?

God's ignorance is evident in the very first chapters of Genesis. He didn't know that the snake would be more convincing than he was, for example.

So, take away free will. You were supposed to offer an alternative other than that.

Nothing would make me happier than to know that people's will to do evil has been taken from them.

You have just made a very strong, positive claim here. What is your support for the claim that God doesn't exist?

I'd say that the failure of prayer tops my list of reasons to doubt that the Christian God exists.

Why do you think having free will means having every single desire one could have?

Because it is human nature to want to be free to fulfill one's will. If you want something, and you can get it, then you take it.

...I want to freely choose good over evil.

What's the point if you don't want evil to begin with?

I'm making perfect sense. It's just plain dumb to think that what you cannot do or cannot get is something or somebody telling you: "No." When a prayer fails all that failure is is a failure. When something fails there is no answer except what you might imagine.

That's just begging the question. Logically, it could be either that there is no one to hear the prayer, that the hearer is impotent to do anything about it, that they don't care to do anything about it, or that the one who hears the prayer is answering no for a good reason (and perhaps other possibilities, if I give it more thought). If you want to make a case for your conclusion, go ahead.

I'm not begging the question because I know that when I don't get what I want or don't accomplish what I try, then there is normally no answer unless a person is involved. Even then, I can hear or read that person's "no." God never answers no; all that happens is that a prayer fails.

Another reason to keep the option alive is to keep alive what comes along with that option: freedom, option to love.

You mean you want the freedom to do evil. That's very strange unless you have plans to do evil.

No you aren't making that up, but you (and plenty of Christians) are misunderstanding the Biblical message, in my opinion (and in the opinion of many Christians throughout all of Christian history).

You apologists are so much smarter than we skeptics understanding what we cannot understand!

A part of the short, summary version would be that a purpose of the Law is to show humans how they can't be morally perfect on their own strength. The Sermon on the Mount is about what people who know God will be like, but it comes from knowing God. Choosing to go our own way leads to the natural consequences of doing so, not God throwing in some extra punishment because He's mad at us and wants to act like a 5 year old getting revenge for being hurt. There is more than the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Those aren't the focus of the Biblical story.

When I read The Ten Commandments and The Sermon on the Mount, I think that we are meant to do what we are being told to do. I see no options to disobey.

Of course, I'm too dumb to understand what I'm reading and need you smart apologists to explain it to me.

I understand that God cannot take rejection.

What do you mean? That God gets revenge? If so, then why do you think that? If not, then what do you mean?

From what Christians have told me and what I've read in the Bible, God does indeed demand love and allegiance. To reject God's demands has very dire consequences.

[nobspeople]

[Replying to unknown soldier in post #1]


Everything 'Christian' is personal. Rather or not a prayer is answered by God can't be verified. However one wants to justify it is up to the individual. Someone telling someone else 'how' to get prayers answered seems an exercise in self esteem boosting to me.