What's the Point of Prayer?

[POI]

In regards to the following verses -- Matthew 7:7, Matthew 21:22, Mark 11:24, John 14:13-14, John 16:23....

What do they really mean? I've debated many theists, and get a whole mess of conflicting answers. It will likely be no surprise if that continues here. After some thought, here are some findings...

1. All prayer is pointless, as any "answered prayer" would merely mean, <at best>, that it already aligned with God's will. Why? Because you cannot make God change His will. But this seems to go against all the verses listed above.

2. Ignore the above! God answers all prayer with a (yes, no, or later). His answer, of course, would be "no" if you are asking God to commit a 'sin.' But if this option is the case, I guess he will always say no to the requests of restoring lost limbs, reversing cerebral palsy, and downs syndrome. Why? Because they will die with these conditions, which means they remained unfulfilled until natural death. But this seems to go against all the verses listed above, as there really exists no such caveats....?

3. Ignore choices 1. and 2.! Prayer is only meant for giving thanks, other. God is not a slot machine! But this seems to go against all the verses listed above.

I'm sure there exists a plethora of other explanations........ You get the gist....

For Debate:

What is the point of prayer? I guess we can start here, and see where this goes....

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #40]

I have to reiterate that what you believe counts for nothing. Dismissing prayers answered for other gods, or prayers answered to your god, even in different denominations, all count and you have no logical case to dismiss them just because they don't fit your beliefs.

This makes me believe that you did not afford me the courtesy of reading my response that you indeed quoted. Here it is again.

It sounds like this question assumes God only answers Christians. If any prayer is actually answered by God then all glory goes to God, so the answer is other.

I also explain in the post that God can answer prayers of anyone of any religion or non-religion for he answered Paul who persecuted Christians. We cannot earn the Grace of God. It is free to all who seek, however they seek, even in ignorance.

[POI]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #38]

One can make up all sorts of excuses 'til the cows come home, but the simplest and most obvious answer is that no prayers are actually answered because there is no deity there to answer them.

Right. But as "AquinasForGod" has exclaimed, it's not necessary. Meaning, even though Occam's Razor expresses that "the answer which carries with it the least amount of assumptions is to be preferred", it's still not necessary. Hence, he can wiggle his way out, because it's not absolutely "necessary"

So, even though you or I would simply state that either-- ("god is imaginary" OR "god does not exist"), he can instead freely choose mental gymnastics -- on a technically.

[POI]

[Replying to POI in post #35]

What IS the point of prayer?

The point of prayer is similar to the point of worship. It is for our benefit. God knows if we worship that it will benefit our souls on earth. We do not pray that we may change God's mind, but we pray that we may receive what God has appointed. If we never pray/ask then we never receive.

1) A Muslim and a Jew pray for their friend in the hospital to recover. The friend recovers. Who takes the credit, the Muslim, the Jew, the hospital, or other?

It sounds like this question assumes God only answers Christians. If any prayer is actually answered by God then all glory goes to God, so the answer is other.

2) If God answers prayer, why perpetually skip requests to undo amputees, cerebral palsy, and downs syndrome?

Only God sees into the infinite sea of history. Only goes knows what actions/interventions in this world lead to maximal goodness. God would thus only answer prayers thusly, for God would not go against what he knows is necessary for maximal goodness. BTW, there are stories of such people being healed by God, but as to their truth, I cannot speak.

Think of the butterfly effect. Maybe God answering a simple prayer like your headache going away doesn't have much effect on the whole history of things, whereas growing some dude's legs back does.

3) If god only answers prayers that he knows you need, than what is the point of prayer? Prayer is then only demonstrated effective if it already agrees with god's predetermined plan for you.

The point of prayer is to receive God's appointed grace. If you do ask then you do not receive.

4) You are diagnoses with a curable disease. You are presented with only two options for treatment, but you cannot choose both. These options are a) medical treatment, or b) prayer. Which one do you choose and why <a) or b)>?

That is easy. Medical treatment. Medical treatment is a kind of answer to our prayers. We have been praying for a long time for many diseases and God opens our minds to find the answers.

5) Does prayer, before surgery, ever change the outcome? If yes, how might one know?

I do not think we can know this. But I will pray so I can receive the grace of God.

6) Two patients are diagnosed with cancer and both receive treatment. The one that was prayed for dies, and the one who was not prayed for lives. What rationale is presented by the Christian family, who's loved one died? I would assume that the patient whom died, was not prayed for to perish.

I wouldn't learn anything new by this outcome.

7) In the old testament, individuals would pray for victory in war and claim god helped them win. If the opponent had also prayed to the same god, would the outcome have changed? Either way, doesn't this demonstrate that god plays favorites?

Only God knows this. Suppose God does play favorites, would that be an issue? He knows our whole history after all. God doesn't know you by what has happened. God knows the whole you from beginning to end.

8) By what mechanism was used to determine god actually answers your prayers? Remember, people pray to differing god(s). They also claim to receive answers in prayer. What truth assignment function was used to determine your prayer is successful, but the differing prayed to god(s) are all false or unanswered?

I do not believe in multiple gods. Either God answers your pray or he doesn't, regardless of how you view God. If you think God is Allah, God can still answer prayers and move you to where you need to be. There is no way to know for sure God answered your prayer or not. You pray, you get an answer. Maybe it was a coincodense. You have to decide what you believe.

As far as testing a metaphysical thing, it cannot be done with science cannot affirm or deny the metaphysical.

9) A Christian enters a Mosque, sees many Muslims praying, in accordance with Islamic principles. What's more likely, that every single person there is delusional, and is merely talking to themselves? Or, some or all are actually receiving answers to their prayers, and/or are communicating with their claimed deity? How were you able to determine this conclusion?

You are not giving enough options. What is more likely to me is that Muslims are praying based on their level of knowledge. God either answers or doesn't. God's grace cannot be earned. God is not going to force his grace upon you, so ask. There is but one God in classical theism. In fact, it is not even possible for there to be more than one. If you are not familiar with why, look into the argument from change, which leads to God being purely actual.

Then you can look into, for example Aquinas's metaphysics of why there cannot in principle be more than one purely actual being.

10) When and if you feel you receive a response in prayer, how do you know it is from the deity you are actually praying to, and not from a competing spirit because you have channeled an alternate dimension? Or maybe, you are just talking to yourself? Since you only have your brain, how do you know if you are talking to yourself, self-diluting yourself, talking to some other supernatural entity, or actually talking to the god your are praying to? Is it by faith alone? If so, what value does faith actually represent?

The first question follows my same answer. My metaphysics only allows for one God because God is purely actual. Actus purus. Pure act, his essence is existence. God is existence itself, which is why our existence is God.

There cannot be more than one in principle, because if there were two purely actual beings, then by the law of identity, the two would actually be the same thing. They have no properties that differ, not even spacial properties because God doesn't occupy space. It would be like if I claimed two electrons existed but they were identical in every way, including spacially, then I would not be talking about two but one in the same thing.

Sure, maybe I am deceiving myself. That obviously doesn't seem likely or I would be agnostic.

There is really no need into going into my experiences that convince me because you would not believe them anyway.

I was going to address this response, line-by-line, But have chosen a differing path instead, for sake in brevity. See posts 39 and 42, for starters....

[POI]

The point of prayer is similar to the point of worship. It is for our benefit. God knows if we worship that it will benefit our souls on earth. We do not pray that we may change God's mind, but we pray that we may receive what God has appointed. If we never pray/ask then we never receive.

Interesting....

1. (Kind of off topic, but I have to ask...) --- Worship benefits our soul? Why is that? And how do you know we have a "soul"? What is a 'soul" exactly?

2. Seems you agree with what I stated in the OP. Meaning, your prayer will not change god's mind, or will for you. If god will not change his path for you, then it is going to happen to you, or be appointed to you, whether or not pray for it, right?

[AquinasForGod]

The point of prayer is similar to the point of worship. It is for our benefit. God knows if we worship that it will benefit our souls on earth. We do not pray that we may change God's mind, but we pray that we may receive what God has appointed. If we never pray/ask then we never receive.

Interesting....

1. (Kind of off topic, but I have to ask...) --- Worship benefits our soul? Why is that? And how do you know we have a "soul"? What is a 'soul" exactly?

2. Seems you agree with what I stated in the OP. Meaning, your prayer will not change god's mind, or will for you. If god will not change his path for you, then it is going to happen to you, or be appointed to you, whether or not pray for it, right?

To your second question, no. If you never ask, then you never receive the grace of God. God is not going to force his grace upon us.

Yes, I believe worship benefits our souls. So for one, it is a humbling experience, to bow before God and recognizes him as your authority and your existence. To know and understand each breath we take is because God drives us to exist from moment to moment. In this humbleness, we rely on God more and more so that we can receive his graces.

Knowing you are a soul comes with awareness. It cannot be demonstrated to another. As to what is a soul, I don't know exactly, but it is a metaphysical thing that doesn't experience time like we do here. While meditating or praying the rosary (a type of meditation) when you become absent of the body, you lose the sense of time. 20 minutes or an hour can feel like no time at all, similar to when you hit the snooze button, fall back to sleep, just to be woken back up in what feels like a minute, but in this case you never fell asleep. You were fully conscious.

You can read many testimonies of this phenomenon among different faiths. They lost sense of time during prayer. This is not evidence of course, but maybe it would be motivation to try it and see for yourself.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #38]

One can make up all sorts of excuses 'til the cows come home, but the simplest and most obvious answer is that no prayers are actually answered because there is no deity there to answer them.

Right. But as "AquinasForGod" has exclaimed, it's not necessary. Meaning, even though Occam's Razor expresses that "the answer which carries with it the least amount of assumptions is to be preferred", it's still not necessary. Hence, he can wiggle his way out, because it's not absolutely "necessary"

So, even though you or I would simply state that either-- ("god is imaginary" OR "god does not exist"), he can instead freely choose mental gymnastics -- on a technically.

Correct. This is of course the limitations of philosophy (which as the primer I read on the subject as a teen, says) is arranging thought logically to come to logically sound conclusions. The small print about Occam's razor is that the preferred explanation might not be the correct one. The flaw in the Holmes' dictum 'when one has eliminated the impossible, what remains must be the truth' relies on us having all the evidence. A fresh clue turns up and what the conclusion was may be out of the window. Theist apologists know this very well, which is why they appeal to unknowns (1) and 'evidence that might turn up'. But the point about the principle of parsimony is that is is something of a human preference, but at base it is founded on the way the world works. If our car won't start, we assume a mechanical fault, not that the engine gnomes have put a spell on it. This is why what is 'possible' or at least not disprovable is Not always the default theory, but the one that multiplies the least logical entities, is the theory to be preferred, not that it proves it true - it might not be - but it stops us making logical errors of thinking, which is what philosophy is supposed to do.

I'm obliged to point out however that the branch of Theist apologetics that they call 'philosophy' misuses it to produce the result they want, just as they do with science, history and in fact the Bible, which they 'Interpret' at need to agree with whatever they prefer.

(1) they also appeal to the Holmes' dictum, but in the context of claiming that Life the Universe and everything is 'impossible' without a god, and therefore a god must be the truth.

[TRANSPONDER]

The point of prayer is similar to the point of worship. It is for our benefit. God knows if we worship that it will benefit our souls on earth. We do not pray that we may change God's mind, but we pray that we may receive what God has appointed. If we never pray/ask then we never receive.

Interesting....

1. (Kind of off topic, but I have to ask...) --- Worship benefits our soul? Why is that? And how do you know we have a "soul"? What is a 'soul" exactly?

2. Seems you agree with what I stated in the OP. Meaning, your prayer will not change god's mind, or will for you. If god will not change his path for you, then it is going to happen to you, or be appointed to you, whether or not pray for it, right?

To your second question, no. If you never ask, then you never receive the grace of God. God is not going to force his grace upon us.

Yes, I believe worship benefits our souls. So for one, it is a humbling experience, to bow before God and recognizes him as your authority and your existence. To know and understand each breath we take is because God drives us to exist from moment to moment. In this humbleness, we rely on God more and more so that we can receive his graces.

Knowing you are a soul comes with awareness. It cannot be demonstrated to another. As to what is a soul, I don't know exactly, but it is a metaphysical thing that doesn't experience time like we do here. While meditating or praying the rosary (a type of meditation) when you become absent of the body, you lose the sense of time. 20 minutes or an hour can feel like no time at all, similar to when you hit the snooze button, fall back to sleep, just to be woken back up in what feels like a minute, but in this case you never fell asleep. You were fully conscious.

You can read many testimonies of this phenomenon among different faiths. They lost sense of time during prayer. This is not evidence of course, but maybe it would be motivation to try it and see for yourself.

..I feel compelled to observe that I am familiar with all of this through Buddhist meditation, but for all I can tell, it is a human mental bunch of effects and there is no scrap of evidence that it is connected with any outside intelligent entity, other than the Zen master who whacks you with a slapstick if you doze off.

[POI]

To your second question, no. If you never ask, then you never receive the grace of God. God is not going to force his grace upon us.

What exactly does that mean? So if I ask for grace, I'm saved? If I don't, then I'm not?

Is prayer good for anything else besides asking for grace? If so, wouldn't those requests be infringing upon God's will, if He should answer any of those non-grace requests; which do not already align with His predetermined will?

Yes, I believe worship benefits our souls. So for one, it is a humbling experience, to bow before God and recognizes him as your authority and your existence. To know and understand each breath we take is because God drives us to exist from moment to moment. In this humbleness, we rely on God more and more so that we can receive his graces.

Knowing you are a soul comes with awareness. It cannot be demonstrated to another. As to what is a soul, I don't know exactly, but it is a metaphysical thing that doesn't experience time like we do here. While meditating or praying the rosary (a type of meditation) when you become absent of the body, you lose the sense of time. 20 minutes or an hour can feel like no time at all, similar to when you hit the snooze button, fall back to sleep, just to be woken back up in what feels like a minute, but in this case you never fell asleep. You were fully conscious.

You can read many testimonies of this phenomenon among different faiths. They lost sense of time during prayer. This is not evidence of course, but maybe it would be motivation to try it and see for yourself.

Since this is off topic. I may start a new threat in your honor soon

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to POI in post #48]

To ask is to ask. You can ask for anything you want. A new car, a wife, health, etc. If God decided to grace you with it from his eternal act, then he does. If it is not within his will to answer your, then he does not. If you never ask, then you never receive anything.

Suppose, I pray for a new car. I would not, but suppose I did. If it is within the will of God then I will receive a new car. That is God's grace. However, if I never pray for the new car, then I never receive it. God is not going to force his grace upon me by giving me a car that I never asked for.

[POI]

[Replying to POI in post #48]

To ask is to ask. You can ask for anything you want. A new car, a wife, health, etc. If God decided to grace you with it from his eternal act, then he does. If it is not within his will to answer your, then he does not. If you never ask, then you never receive anything.

Suppose, I pray for a new car. I would not, but suppose I did. If it is within the will of God then I will receive a new car. That is God's grace. However, if I never pray for the new car, then I never receive it. God is not going to force his grace upon me by giving me a car that I never asked for.

Reminds me of (http://ifunny.co/meme/i-asked-god-for-a ... w-wGksSd6f)

Um, okay... This sounds like the most perfectly unfalsifiable answer you could possibly think of... Is this what the Bible says too, or did you come up with it all on your own? Or maybe some priest taught this too you?

And so we are straight, you could have just picked option 1 from the OP and saved us much exchange.