Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

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unknown soldier
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Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #1

Post by 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?

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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #521

Post by JoeyKnothead »

The Tanager wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:18 pm
JoeyKnothead wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 8:35 pm
“Most reasonably true” is the best we’ve got outside of pure math and definitions.
That doesn't bode well for your argument.
So, it’s on par with things like science, historical conclusions, etc. That works for me. If it doesn’t for you, so be it.
If that's the best you can do, we'll bless your heart.

It's your argument getting wiped out, not mine.
JoeyKnothead wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 8:35 pmSo you obviously have no qualms with looking at a pretty thing, you just tote the yoke of Christian guilt.
No, it’s a belief, not an emotion.
I'm happy to leave that decision to the observer.

So, in conclusion, the best we can say about your argument is it can't be shown to be truth, and if it ain't borne of emotion, it's just borne of your belief.

This debating Christians is easy.
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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #522

Post by Diagoras »

The Tanager wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:10 pm I don’t see any grounding problem. I believe God is eternal, so God didn’t come from anywhere. I believe God is eternal because of philosophical arguments such as the extended Kalam argument, not because God is defined that way or special pleading or something else, but as a conclusion in what I believe is a sound argument.
Well, ‘appealing to eternity’ is one way to sidestep any question of “where did that come from?”, I admit, but I haven’t studied the extended Kalam enough to give a semblance of a rebuttal. Plus, there’s that whole ‘tangential to the OP’ issue.

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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #523

Post by The Tanager »

Diogenes wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 7:37 pmHmmm... two weeks later. I believe I've entirely lost my train of thought.

I know. I’m sorry for that. It’s just the nature of my life at the moment. I will always try to respond to every post that responds to mine, but sometimes it takes a while. I do appreciate you collecting your thoughts back and sharing them.
Diogenes wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 7:37 pmI agree "Whether one should worship the creator" is secondary to whether such a creator exists. I don't believe he does exist. But for the sake of argument, let us suppose such a creator exists. That he exists does not mean he is worthy of worship or that his morality is objective.

I agree that it doesn’t mean he is worthy of worship, but I do think certain theisms would mean God’s morality is objective. My claim is that our actions would be good or bad based on how they fulfill a designed purpose for how we are to act. Atheistic evolution doesn’t lead to this (although theistic evolution would) because there is no designed purpose, no goal. God gives design from the outside, putting it objectively on humans.

Using the Saul example, if God’s command fulfilled that designed purpose, then it would be what Saul objectively should have done in that situation. Whether God actually commanded that, that such a command could fulfill that designed purpose, and that such a God should be worshiped are valid but different questions.

Your designation of the Saul example as tribal morality is also a different issue. It seems to be about moral absolutism versus moral situationism and whether tribal affiliation is a factor that changes the situation or if there were other factors that situationalize this.

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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #524

Post by The Tanager »

Diagoras wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 9:05 pmWell, ‘appealing to eternity’ is one way to sidestep any question of “where did that come from?”, I admit, but I haven’t studied the extended Kalam enough to give a semblance of a rebuttal. Plus, there’s that whole ‘tangential to the OP’ issue.

Our options for answering why there is something rather than nothing (i.e., getting to the bottom of “where did that come from?”) are that there is something eternal, that something came from nothing without a cause, and self-causation. Of the three, self-causation is completely irrational and something being eternal is much more rational than something coming from nothing. This isn’t sidestepping the question, but answering it directly and, I think, the most rationally.

As to being tangential to the OP, I originally thought the same, but Transponder said it made sense to do it on this thread since it was supporting my thoughts on the OP and, so, here we are.

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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #525

Post by JoeyKnothead »

The Tanager wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:38 pm Our options for answering why there is something rather than nothing (i.e., getting to the bottom of “where did that come from?”) are that there is something eternal, that something came from nothing without a cause, and self-causation. Of the three, self-causation is completely irrational and something being eternal is much more rational than something coming from nothing. This isn’t sidestepping the question, but answering it directly and, I think, the most rationally.
You're missing "I don't know" and / or "we can never know".

Beyond that, theists like to discount the universe being eternal, while declaring their god/s to be just that. This is immediately problematic cause we can observe the universe, gods not so much. I can more rationally and logically conclude the universe is eternal than anyone can ever rationally and logically conclude a non-observed god is eternal.
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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #526

Post by Diogenes »

The Tanager wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:37 pm I agree that it doesn’t mean he is worthy of worship, but I do think certain theisms would mean God’s morality is objective. My claim is that our actions would be good or bad based on how they fulfill a designed purpose for how we are to act. Atheistic evolution doesn’t lead to this (although theistic evolution would) because there is no designed purpose, no goal. God gives design from the outside, putting it objectively on humans.

Using the Saul example, if God’s command fulfilled that designed purpose, then it would be what Saul objectively should have done in that situation. Whether God actually commanded that, that such a command could fulfill that designed purpose, and that such a God should be worshiped are valid but different questions.

Your designation of the Saul example as tribal morality is also a different issue. It seems to be about moral absolutism versus moral situationism and whether tribal affiliation is a factor that changes the situation or if there were other factors that situationalize this.
[When I refer to 'god' I am not necessarily referring to Abraham's gd]
Yes, so let's suppose a god. He may be good or bad. He may have created us indifferently, with no purpose. He's just a creator god. He may have no morality or be indifferent. Having a god does not necessarily mean one with purpose. In any event evolution perfectly explains morality, particularly for social animals like primates.

I've posted it here dozens of times, but Frans de Waal's Ted talk explains this.


We evolved to who we are because the groups of Homo Sapiens who were better able to survive did so in part because they learned the value of cooperation, strength in numbers. Once the group formed and the value of cooperation was discovered, norms developed by necessity. A select group realized norms could be empowered by making them morals, of infusing them with a special necessity. Eventually some wiseacre figured out religion and the power of teaching belief in an omnipotent God and claiming he would punish you if you violated norms.

In one of these scenarios, eventually a group of Hebrews, a tribe, gave theirs an odd name, "I AM THAT I AM."
He did not need to exist, the leaders just had to convince the group that he did.
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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #527

Post by Diagoras »

The Tanager wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:38 pm Our options for answering why there is something rather than nothing (i.e., getting to the bottom of “where did that come from?”) are that there is something eternal, that something came from nothing without a cause, and self-causation. Of the three, self-causation is completely irrational and something being eternal is much more rational than something coming from nothing. This isn’t sidestepping the question, but answering it directly and, I think, the most rationally.
I agree that the only answer to ‘where did this god come from’ that can be in any way satisfactory to theists will be the ‘something eternal’ one, for the same reasons you give for (I presume?) the physical universe.

That answer will never be satisfactory to scientists however, since there’s simply no evidence for it.

In contrast, there are at least glimmers of evidence to suggest that ‘something can come from nothing’, which, while seemingly an irrational concept may well prove to be real.

The time dilation effects of relativity, and wave-particle duality may appear irrational until we properly understand the complex rules that govern space time, mass and energy, so perhaps claiming ‘something coming from nothing’ to be irrational is similarly premature.

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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #528

Post by Tcg »

[Replying to Diagoras in post #527]

It also could be and trust me I am no expert on these matters, that the "nothing" really wasn't nothing, but rather something we don't or maybe even can't understand. It seems like nothing to us because we don't know what it was. Of course, and as you say, maybe it really was nothing. In any case, the fact that we don't or can't understand yet why there is something or understand where it came from (if it didn't exist eternally) doesn't add any support to the idea that this other thing existed eternally. It means one thing and one thing alone - we don't know.


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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #529

Post by William »

Talk to The Razor.
What we do know is that something cannot come from nothing and to believe it is possible that the Universe could have come from nothing is neither logical, practical or applicable to what we DO know about The Universe.

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Re: Apologist explains how to get prayer answered.

Post #530

Post by TRANSPONDER »

The Tanager wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:10 pm
Diagoras wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 9:08 pmJust one point:
The Tanager wrote: (3) Starting from “well being” is subjective.

”OK, but who decided that human well-being is what is important?”

If atheism is true, yes. If theism is true, then one can’t simply put “aside the validity or otherwise of ‘the Creator creates humans with a specific purpose’” because that is how we see that someone would have decided what human well-being objectively consists of, including acting morally towards each other and other species.

Isn’t this just the grounding problem again? Adding a god as a source is certainly one way to force an answer to ‘where do morals come from?’ but then where did God come from, and did he decide on a moral code before he created Adam, or didn’t he need one until after the ‘forbidden fruit’ incident?

I don’t see any grounding problem. I believe God is eternal, so God didn’t come from anywhere. I believe God is eternal because of philosophical arguments such as the extended Kalam argument, not because God is defined that way or special pleading or something else, but as a conclusion in what I believe is a sound argument.

As when the moral code was created, in my view, this would have been done prior to creating humans since it depends on what purpose God created humans for. As a side note, I don’t think that contradicts Genesis 3, although I do think it contradicts a popular-level understanding of Genesis 3.
I suppose it was evolution that made human well being the fundamental instinct, so nobody 'decided'. You put the cart before the horse. If you can prove Theism true, then atheism is false and the case for a god (name your own) becomes an argument. Until then, it isn't one.

I don't know what 'extended' Kalam is, but Kalam is flawed, not to say, debunked, and still doesn't tell us anything about the cause of the universe. And even if it did, it just creates the universe, starts life off and lets evolution take its' course with an unplanned morality which puts us just where we are.

Just claiming that God is eternal is an irrational claim. If a cosmos can't come from nothing (even as basic Stuff which is next to nothing) then how can a complex intelligent being come from nothing or, even worse, not to to come from anything at all? I see that claim of an intelligent creator as getting your case nowhere but an unsupported faith -claim.

Not much better to talk about a moral code being created and though is was a biological species. What it is, the evidence suggests, is a survival instinct that evolved through pack co -operation to a more complex society in which reciprocity was seen to be (as it already existed) desirable for a complex society to function. Moral codes went on from there. There is no need for a god or created morality.

You may see no problem with your faith -claims but others will and will not accept them. So in the end, you are left with your faith -claim but no case to make. Just declarations of what you have Faith in.

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