How does prayer really help Oklahoma tornado victims?

[Humanista]

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I live in Oklahoma. The recent tornado devastation is of course very distressing to me. I can't help but notice all the clamor for prayer. Our governor, Mary Fallin, went on national television and said ""we need prayers!" Twitter is covered with #pray for Oklahoma. Every single celebrity, politician, and everyone on Facebook parrots the same thing: Oklahoma is in our thoughts and prayers. I know people want to say something and do something and show they care. But is anyone really thinking this through? What are you praying for? Even if you take the position that God didn't send the tornado, He is surely aware of it and has already decided how He will respond. Just like all the survivors who declared that God saved them,what about God's apparently Mysterious Reasons for allowing 7 third graders to drown while buried under rubble?
So what happens if everyone doesn't pray? Will God withhold whatever it is everyone is praying FOR if the number of prayers fails to reach a certain level? Is there a correlation between how many people pray and a good outcome for tornado survivors?

It would seem that all the people praying think God needs to be persuaded to help them.

Or that God is so egotistical He needs to be praised and flattered and begged to do what ordinary humans do out of love: help people.

I think all this praying is just a way for people to feel good about doing something when all they've done is think their thoughts.

D you think your petitions to the Almighy influences how much help the survivors get?

[Bust Nak]

I guess the question is, how would you even know what "good" is apart from God?

Our empathy and compassion alone would do it. You may argue that these are created by God, but that's another debate.

After all, if we are all just accidents of nature, arrived at by chance, what would make one accident of nature's idea about good and evil more correct than another's?

Nothing, because morality is subjective.

If there are no objective universal laws by an objective universal lawgiver, then we are left with relativism and each individual choosing what is right and what is wrong and acting accordingly.

Correct. I would also argue that the concept of an objective lawgiver is incoherent, since said laws are by definition subjective to this lawgiver.

As atheist Jean-Paul Sartre put it, whether a person chooses to hit the little old lady crossing the street with his car or avoid her and let her get to the other side unharmed really doesn't matter because either choice could be right or wrong to somebody and who is to say which is best? Maybe the little old lady would be better off dead.

I can say which is best and so can you, and so could Jean-Paul Sartre for that matter.

I am not making light of the carnage done by the tornados, but am merely trying to point out that the atheist has a real problem when it comes to grounding right and wrong in anything outside of himself.

That's hardly a problem since we DO ground right and wrong in ourselves.

In fact, I submit that atheists borrow from Christianity to get a set of ethics by which to live because, without them, life would be total chaos and plenty ugly!

I would say it's Christianity that borrows from us. Look at the 10 commendments for example, 6 out of 10 are secular humanist values.

As for prayer, the purpose of it is to connect with God and commune with him, sharing what is going on in our lives and asking for his help and guidance. Would he give it without praying? Sure! But he gives us the privilege of interacting with him, one that I really appreciate and enjoy!

So it's for the benefit of the one praying, not for the victims of tornado.

[McCulloch]

I guess the question is, how would you even know what "good" is apart from God? After all, if we are all just accidents of nature, arrived at by chance, what would make one accident of nature's idea about good and evil more correct than another's? If there are no objective universal laws by an objective universal lawgiver, then we are left with relativism and each individual choosing what is right and what is wrong and acting accordingly.

But then how does the believer know that God is good? It is the same dilemma posed by Plato all those years ago. If you know what is good only because God says so, then good is arbitrary. If God says to hit the little old lady with your car, then it is good to hit her. Ethics ultimately is just a matter of hermeneutics. However, if you can know what is good apart from God, then ethics and morality are not dependent on the existence of God. They are simply matters of objective laws like the laws of physics, but harder to discern.

To me, the person who follows the precepts of a revealed religion is taking the lazy way out in matters of ethics. Rather than think deeply and investigate what is good and what is not, they refer to their Thus saith the Lord and be done with it. But even with that, I find that most American Christians are selective. On matters where they agree with the revealed ethics of the Biblical writers, they stand with them and quote chapter and verse. However, on matters where they disagree with the Biblical writers, they twist obscure passages, ignore fundamental teachings and otherwise adjust biblical doctrine to suite their own morals. Examples:

• Many American Christians support the use of violent armed civilian force to protect one's own self and possessions. Jesus taught to give to those who would rob you and to turn the other cheek to those who would assault you.
• Many American Christians have adopted the ethical and political principles of the Enlightenment - Democracy and Governments responsible to the governed. Yet the Biblical writers teach subjection to the King, taxation without representation.

So, I submit that it is the Christians who have borrowed from the progressive development of Humanist ethics and not the other way around as Overcomer suggests.

As for prayer, the purpose of it is to connect with God and commune with him, sharing what is going on in our lives and asking for his help and guidance. Would he give it without praying? Sure! But he gives us the privilege of interacting with him, one that I really appreciate and enjoy!

This would be really a nice thing if it were true. But what is it that the Bible teaches about prayer? How many examples are there of answered prayer in the Bible? According to the Biblical writers, prayer is not just an opportunity to connect with God, it is an opportunity to ask (the word prayer means to ask for something) God to do something. James certainly had a different view on prayer than Overcomer does.

[font=Georgia]Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.
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[czyz]

Praying for what outcome? After every tragedy politicians, preachers, and believers talk about praying for the victims. Why? What's supposed to happen or what do they want to happen? Why not a prayer like the following...

Hey God, why is it you allowed a sick and crazy gunman to enter a school building and murder 20 people with an automatic weapon? Either you are too weak to stop the carnage or you just don't care. If you are omnipotent, why didn't you get off your dead arse instead of allowing innocent children to die, you feckless thug? If you are there and did nothing to stop it, you need to beg for forgiveness from the grieving parents. Thanks for nothing.

[Humanista]

I guess the question is, how would you even know what "good" is apart from God?

The same way everyone knows what is "good." Socialization as a child, empathy which is observed and experienced, the natural desire of humans to form mutual bonds.

After all, if we are all just accidents of nature, arrived at by chance, what would make one accident of nature's idea about good and evil more correct than another's? If there are no objective universal laws by an objective universal lawgiver, then we are left with relativism and each individual choosing what is right and what is wrong and acting accordingly.

I would not describe the outcome of evolutionary forces as "accidents". We have evolved by adapting to our environment over millions of generations. And there are universally agreed-upon behaviors recognized as good or bad by all societies.
These behaviors aren't "given" by a magical superhuman "lawgiver". Societies arrive at them by observing what behaviors ensure cooperation, peace, etc.

I am not making light of the carnage done by the tornados, but am merely trying to point out that the atheist has a real problem when it comes to grounding right and wrong in anything outside of himself. In fact, I submit that atheists borrow from Christianity to get a set of ethics by which to live because, without them, life would be total chaos and plenty ugly!

I have no problem. My understanding of right and wrong was shaped by my parents, my experience, my society, literature, my own reasoning. I didn[t need Christianity. And if Christianity is the only source of ethics, how do you explain moral, ethical Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus? And was no one ethical or moral before Jesus was born?

As for prayer, the purpose of it is to connect with God and commune with him, sharing what is going on in our lives and asking for his help and guidance. Would he give it without praying? Sure! But he gives us the privilege of interacting with him, one that I really appreciate and enjoy!

I understand that those who believe in prayer get a good feeling from it. The original question was, how does said prayer help unknown people far away?