Does Intercessory Prayer Work?

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JoeMama
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Does Intercessory Prayer Work?

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Post by JoeMama »

The Bible says, "Ask and you shall receive."

A Harvard University study of about 2000 hospitalized coronary artery bypass graph surgeries showed that prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the patients' recoveries. God may have heard the prayers, but they seem to have been ignored.

(Google: intercessory prayer Dr. Herbert Benson)

Is this evidence that a prayer-answering god doesn't exist?

TRANSPONDER
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Re: Does Intercessory Prayer Work?

Post #71

Post by TRANSPONDER »

1213 wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 4:53 am
TRANSPONDER wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 1:13 pm
1213 wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 8:49 am
TRANSPONDER wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 7:15 pm Youre evading the point. It isn't someone claiming to be God but a voice in your head telling you or even (supposing you belonged to any organised church) telling you to go out and kill or at least harm, harass or attack them because you were Divinely instructed to, would you do it or would you let human moral override Theistic command? You know this happened in the past and happens now.
If I would have such a voice in my head, why would I think it is the God's voice, especially if it speaks the opposite of what is in the Bible?
But orders to kill are in the Bible (OT) and some pretty unpleasant stuff in the NT as well. ...
Death penalty is not the same as murder. I can't judge anyone, because I am not a judge and I don't have that right. And even if I would be, I think I should go by these rules for judges:

Thus has Yahweh of Hosts spoken, saying, ‘Execute true judgment, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother.
Zec. 7:9
I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the foreigner who is living with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike; you shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s: and the cause that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.
Deu. 1:16-17
At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he who is to die be put to death; at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.
Deu. 17:6
That's a terrible evasion. It is nothing to do with 'Judges', it is about a voice in your head telling you to do some deed. If you are going to judge it God or not on the basis of whether it sits well with you, you are using the same morality an atheist uses, except we don't cherry -pick the Bible to credit it to religion.

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