Does Intercessory Prayer Work?

[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?

[Clownboat]

...Right understanding a wisdom doesn't necessarily mean doing ti right. It can just lead to more effectively doing the wrong. You need a desire to do the right and that is not the same as being smart. But what is doing the right? It is doing what God wants and what god wants is not always the right, as per the OT. We are in the dilemma of loyal servant of a dictator and doing what's right anyway. Doing what st right anyway cannot be linked to Godfaith. Unless you claim that non Christians can't be moral. We are back at loyalty to God even to killing your family if ordered (Abraham and Isaac) or being moral and never mind God.

I think with right understanding comes also the will to do what is right. But, I can agree that the desire to do right is also important.

And about Abraham, he trusted to God's promise that his offspring will live as God had told him, therefore he knew that Isaac would and could not die. In that I think he showed he trusted God.

I don't know anything that God wants that is not right.

Question for you... Would you murder someone if your god told you to?

[brunumb]

Question for you... Would you murder someone if your god told you to?

Cue escape clause from "The Giant Omnibus Of Christian Loopholes": My God would never ask me to do that.

[TRANSPONDER]

Yes. That's Just what I was thinking. But then there has been such a lot of killing permitted, even helped never mind instigated, by this God. "Deo vult".But Nooo... that was not God's ordering. Nor that in the Bible? Well...they had it coming...

So the victims of the Crusades had it coming? "No, that was a mistake."

So how the heck do we decide what is God's will and just men using that to justify their own personal wishes? It is decided by what the Victor writes. Not that it is ended there. There are not a few in the South who still think God was on their side.

Can we goddless be blamed if we say: 'This is all mans' doings and mans' instincts and reasoning and wishes, and it would look just as it does if there was no god at all'? Bottom line being that the believer may adopt human morals as God's directives and offload the blame onto men with Free will as a get out for why God doesn't sort this out, but it is not a Case to make God credible, just an excuse to avoid admitting that it isn't.

[1213]

...
Question for you... Would you murder someone if your god told you to?

My God says "don't murder". So, if someone would claim to be God and would ask me to murder, I would not believe he is the God and I would not do it.

[TRANSPONDER]

...
Question for you... Would you murder someone if your god told you to?

My God says "don't murder". So, if someone would claim to be God and would ask me to murder, I would not believe he is the God and I would not do it.

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.

[1213]

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?

[Clownboat]

My God says "don't murder".

Genesis 22:2 2 Then God said, Take your son to the land of Moriah and kill your son there as a sacrifice for me.

A righteous person would not lie IMO. Should a person spend eternity in hell for being unrighteous?

So, if someone would claim to be God and would ask me to murder,

What part of "if your god told you to" allows you to read it as "if someone claimed to be God". Why do you think that your god concept doesn't provide you with basic understanding here?

I would not believe he is the God and I would not do it.

However, since this was your God giving you this order, do you then deserve to spend eternity in hell for your disobedience? 'You of little faith' comes to mind.

[TRANSPONDER]

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. The point is that you cannot guarantee to the God in your head wouldn't push you to do immoral things.

But if if it did and you rejected it on the grounds of morality (not "What is in the Bible" - you are cherry picking) you are just applying the human morals we all use and pretending the credit is die to the Bible.

[1213]

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

[1213]

My God says "don't murder".

Genesis 22:2 2 Then God said, Take your son to the land of Moriah and kill your son there as a sacrifice for me.

A righteous person would not lie IMO. Should a person spend eternity in hell for being unrighteous?

I agree that righteous person doesn't lie. And by what the Bible tells, eternal life is promised only for righteous. I think it is good, because unrighteous people would make eternal life eternal suffering.

And Bible tells hell is a place where soul and body are destroyed. God has given life, so I think He has also right to decide how long it lasts.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matt. 10:28

However, since this was your God giving you this order,....

Sorry, I don't think my God would give contradictory orders for me.