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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Power of Prayer?
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Of course, when we don't pray, remarkable things also happen. For example, people recover from cancer spontaneously. I don't know if anyone has ever done a statistical study of such things.
Prove it. All I'm asking from people who believe that prayer is some kind of external power, like The Force, is that you be honest.
K.
Misreading q. aside K., nobody here actually, practically, quantifiably, really believes that. Or in anything supernatural in their experience. Even though I've got my dog that did and then didn't bark in the night.
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Love wins
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
On the subject of cancer apparently curing itself, I have never seen or heard of such a genuine case. It usually turns out that there wasn't cancer after all, or that various other circumstances and conditions were present. It is a rare case indeed whichends up with a don't know at the end of it.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dormouse:
[Regarding] intercessory prayers at church - really, what use is the vague "we pray for those in war torn ares/ the homeless/ the whatever" unless it is a recognition that these people are in trouble and maybe we are the answer to prayer?
Are you suggesting that we shouldn't pray for someone unless we can - and do - provide them with practical, physical help? I wondered about this myself in an earlier post.
Also, I've read books (by American evangelicals) which say that our petitionary prayers ought to be very specific. You come across a similar thing in self-help books; that if we want progress when we express our desires for the future they need to be very focused, rather than vague and formless.
OTOH, there's an unspoken sense in the moderate, mainstream churches that to be too specific is to invite failure. Congregational prayers especially can appear almost empty: 'We pray for....' You don't know what exactly you're praying for, what you want the outcome to be. IME our clergy never really explain why we do it this way.
What's even stranger is this habit of addressing God in the third person: 'We ask God to...' I'm afraid I really hate that. To me, it serves only to distance us from God. Why would I be sitting in church doing that? I find it truly painful.
[ 16. January 2018, 13:20: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Therefore our prayers should be declarations of OUR intent, what we're going to do about it, individually and collectively. Or they're utterly vacuous.
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Love wins
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
On the subject of cancer apparently curing itself, I have never seen or heard of such a genuine case. It usually turns out that there wasn't cancer after all, or that various other circumstances and conditions were present. It is a rare case indeed whichends up with a don't know at the end of it.
I have. And I believe it was, in fact, divine healing-- a small foretaste of the Kingdom to come.
Bit it's impossible to prove that it wasn't a spontaneous remission or the result of a misdiagnosis.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Therefore our prayers should be declarations of OUR intent, what we're going to do about it, individually and collectively. Or they're utterly vacuous.
That seems sensible, but am I wrong in suggesting that a large number of Christians (Evos in particular?) wield prayer like The Force? Their are dozens and dozens of Christian self-help books on why God decided not to answer your prayer after all.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
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Jude
Shipmate
# 3033
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Posted
I don't know whether your healing was due to prayer or not. Just be thankful that you are getting well.
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"...But I always want to know the things one shouldn’t do.”
“So as to do them?” asked her aunt.
“So as to choose,” said Isabel.
Henry James - The Portrait of A Lady
Posts: 233 | From: A town with four parishes | Registered: Jul 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I do. It wasn't.
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Therefore our prayers should be declarations of OUR intent, what we're going to do about it, individually and collectively. Or they're utterly vacuous.
That seems sensible, but am I wrong in suggesting that a large number of Christians (Evos in particular?) wield prayer like The Force? Their are dozens and dozens of Christian self-help books on why God decided not to answer your prayer after all.
K.
Aye, how do we square God's deism in all of our lives with His theism in the man Jesus?
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
On the subject of cancer apparently curing itself, I have never seen or heard of such a genuine case. It usually turns out that there wasn't cancer after all, or that various other circumstances and conditions were present. It is a rare case indeed whichends up with a don't know at the end of it.
I have. And I believe it was, in fact, divine healing-- a small foretaste of the Kingdom to come.
Bit it's impossible to prove that it wasn't a spontaneous remission or the result of a misdiagnosis.
Sorry (and for the 3rd in a row), but that's too many circles out, steps, an indefinite, vague, personal, subjective wish maybe three times removed. Nothing to build a theology upon, a practical, hopeful, evangelistic belief system on.
Nothing real at all.
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Love wins
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Aye, how do we square God's deism in all ofour lives with His theism in the man Jesus?
Who is this “we” you’re talking about? I’m not trying to square God’s deism in anyone’s life. You’re the only one I’ve seen around here making this deist God/theist Jesus distinction—a distinction I, at least, don’t buy at all.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We Nick; those of us confronted by the reality that God has ONLY intervened, for supernatural values of intervention, in Christ. Which is all of us.
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Love wins
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We Nick; those of us confronted by the reality that God has ONLY intervened, for supernatural values of intervention, in Christ. Which is all of us.
No, it is not. You do not speak for me, and I would appreciate it if you’d stop presuming otherwise. And I suspect I’m not alone in that feeling.
It’s just another form of “You agree with me or you’re delusional.”
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Speak for yourself Nick. Put up. If you or anyone else has miracles on tap, with no degrees of separation, no doubt about it, please show us. Everything else is second hand delusion.
[ 17. January 2018, 13:52: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
This is a not entirely serious interjection, but on Monday there were a number of fire engines in action on the High Street, near the church. I am afraid my immediate thought was "Please let it be [the shop that has become a late night bar]". It was. My second thought was to wonder how much that had been prayed for, as too many late night services (Maundy Thursday vigil, Midnight Mass) have been accompanied by amateur bands at full volume. It also has a reputation for underage drinking and young girls being encouraged in and not always having a good experience.
Sadly, the shop has survived and is continuing to trade, according to the notice on the boarded up door.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
May be God wants it street pastored?
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Love wins
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Jack o' the Green
Shipmate
# 11091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
That seems sensible, but am I wrong in suggesting that a large number of Christians (Evos in particular?) wield prayer like The Force? Their are dozens and dozens of Christian self-help books on why God decided not to answer your prayer after all.
K.
"Hmmmmm, self-serving those books are. Much bull-shit in them there is, hmmmmmm?"
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Speak for yourself Nick. Put up. If you or anyone else has miracles on tap, with no degrees of separation, no doubt about it, please show us. Everything else is second hand delusion.
I am speaking for myself, Martin. That's precisely why I said you don't need to. You can count me out of your "we" and "us" when you state what you consider to be obvious.
At this stage, I don't know why I should provide you with examples. Others have done just that, and you have dismissed what they've said, as you do preemptively here, as "delusions."
Here's the deal Martin: I share many of your beliefs, but not all of them. Nevertheless, even when I am unconvinced by your arguments, I respect that your beliefs are sincerely held, and that you did not arrive at them carelessly or without thought or even struggle. I would ask that you show me and others the same respect.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
It's not a matter of belief Nick. Or respect. It's a matter of fact. It's a matter of fact that God does not suspend the laws of physics in any demonstrable, transferable way for anyone. Not since He walked the Earth. Not in healing, or prophecy, or tongues.
We can't do grown-up Christianity until we do that fact.
If you want to declare your belief that you have experienced a suspension of the laws of physics and that that has at least equality here with the fact that you have not, fine.
I respect that.
And I refute it.
Utterly.
Without compromise.
As there is no warrant whatsoever for doing otherwise.
I don't regard your insistence as disrespectful.
Please don't regard mine as such.
Even if it were, that's not the issue.
We're God's magic now. Nothing else is.
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Love wins
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
Looking back over posts, perhaps I misread your statements about how we—meaning everyone—can face what you consider to be an obvious reality as suggesting that we all share that view of reality. If I did misread, apologies.
But the fact is that I don't share your view of reality, and I simply don’t buy into the assumptions present in your question about how "we" can square "God's deism in all of our lives with His theism in the man Jesus."
Meanwhile, I have to wonder again what the point of accepting your invitation to share experiences or thoughts might be when you’ve already "refuted" them in advance without even knowing what they are. God can’t possibly know the future, but you can refute experiences before you’ve heard them?
So there we are.
[ 17. January 2018, 18:28: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
That, Sir, is more than decent of you. Your first para does all the work I should have done. So the apology is mine.
Please share your experience and you have my word I'll do whatever is necessary to make you feel respected by me.
Which ain't going to be easy! Not because I don't, you know I do, as on the Kerygmania Unto Us thread. But because I'm an ill bred thug. So I need to address your final paragraph.
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Love wins
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
Thanks Martin. I think we’ve got the respect thing sorted out. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
A response will likely take a little longer and more thought than I can muster right now, or likely tonight. (It's 6:30 p.m. here as I write this.). I'll do my best tomorrow.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
My late mother used to say that she could feel it when people were praying for her. (She liked the idea of the Ship's prayer thread, upon which the sun never sets.)
Since my first cancer diagnosis, a little more than seven years ago, I can say the same. I really do believe it helps, and I don't think it's "magic."
Even if someone doesn't believe in God, perhaps there's some collective power in the prayers of people. (Or perhaps not, since not all prayers get the hoped-for answers.) I do think prayers are one reason of several that I'm still here to annoy people.
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I'm not dead yet.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
You're a game changer Rossweisse. I know prayer helps. It helps me as I've said above. People are helped knowing or believing that others are praying for them, that's a fact, axiomatic, a point I was trying to make with Komensky. And that is magical, spiritual. Of the human spirit, the synergy of it it feeding back in to the individual. I'm rationally convinced that God's spirit, essence mirrors, embraces, enfolds, cups, interpenetrates, resonates, yearns, feels immanently with ours. That knowledge helps. Me. That true story I make up helps me. Yours is a similarly uniquely personal, real spiritual experience.
My story of how prayer works – and it obviously does and is doing for you – and yours may be differentiated by my deist premiss that you will never share along with most here, but I want you to know that I totally endorse what works for you and that it is completely spiritually valid to me. We meet at the top regardless of differentiation.
For me you are the magic. You are miraculous. Your courage, your sense of humour, your shared vulnerability is awesome. For me God is so smart He doesn't touch creation once He's set the apparently arbitrary parameters in the quantum perturbation that becomes the universe in motion. You are in those parameters. Your courage. Your constantly vindicated take.
So please take whatever I say not as a challenge or a refutation DESPITE the language of challenge and refutation. There is no warrant in anything I say for you to not continue for all the years you have being a living testimony to the spirit, to the love, the hope of God.
Feel my prayer.
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Nick: 'Meanwhile, I have to wonder again what the point of accepting your invitation to share experiences or thoughts might be when you’ve already "refuted" them in advance without even knowing what they are. God can’t possibly know the future, but you can refute experiences before you’ve heard them?'
Me: In the light of Rossweisse's presence, and therefore the presence of many others of a like minded spirituality and sensitivity, of whom I should have been cognizant, I ask the open question, in my ignorance upon ignorance, of how we are to proceed, given that I am a thug loose in Purgatory?
It is a core, viscerally felt premiss, predicate, utter conviction with me that God does not intervene transpersonally in our states of mind, our feelings, our thinking let alone our bodies and circumstances. I do not relate to the categorically supernatural workings of God the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. I accept them completely as good as historic fact. More so. I will never see the like. No one has. Not since the Rock landed in the pond. I DO accept the orthodox characteristics of the Holy Spirit. The psychologically fruitfully miraculous (transpersonally intervening?!*) paraclete, helper, advocate, leader, teacher. *No, not in any violent, coercive, dramatic, Damascene way, but transformatively. I MUST be normatively orthodox. Which creates a tension to say the least. Orthodoxy has to be invoked, what the Bible says about God's response to us, God the Holy Spirit, has to be a given. But how that is realised in our experience, how that wind blows in and around us, is never with demonstrable breaking of the laws of physics (it wasn't even for Saul, no one else heard Jesus) – which glossolalia for one tiny example isn't, ever. Never. Not for us. Not for millennia. If EVER. The glossolalia that is. The miracles of Jesus are more, better than historic reality for me. And the wind does blow.
Even though there is no evidence in me of the psychologically fruitfully miraculous. I lack faith, hope and charity and all I see of others' isn't what I want and need. I see no incarnational examples*. I know how found wanting I am, here and in my own front room. As someone said in Hell, my sig clashes with my expression, in every way. Is that because I don't declare, submit to orthodoxy enough? I don't 'read my Bible enough'? Probably, in part. That I'm not 'religious', pious enough. Would that make my fears and resentments less? Possibly.
Would it be real? Charity is as charity does. And thinks and feels. Which affects the doing. That has been rawly exposed in me since I took over as primary carer for my 87 year old demented, immobilized mother for the past 18 months of rapid decline. Hers too! She goes in to care in 10 days.
Funny where these thoughts go. There's an Izzardesque loop going on here. The power of prayer impinges on the work of God the Holy Spirit. To say the least. This broken response here, on this thread, among you my peers, the body of Christ, is happening in a crucible of the Holy Spirit. A storm in a tea cup. I stand to be corrected by Him through you. And inadequate in the spirit of charity that I am, disqualified, I still have the... audacity, the invincible ignorance to declare Him by denying Him.
I've been reading a neo-orthodox A Theology of The Holy Spirit article whilst composing this and just read The prayers of the people 2018 in All Saints. Heartbreaking.
I want to pray more based on orthodoxy. But I'm confronted by reality. And this response is NOTHING like I intended, which was going to be utterly uncompromising, but for some reason I can't do that, though it's there.
*Which isn't true. My boss in the church 'outreach' is excellent. I wish I could be her. But I'd have to be a charismatic evangelical. We have a Saturday session for the volunteers in a couple of weeks: 'This is not optional if you are alive that day and in any way believe in a God who answers prayers!', as I believe by the broadest possible definition, I can go.
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Uh oh.
Minor... maybe major epiphany time.
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Love wins
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
My mother had an account of having been aware of being prayed for. She, and a number of other older ladies of the church were in London as witnesses in a family court session to determine the future of the child of an ended marriage. On the other side there was obvious evil concerned, and a history of skillful manipulation. The ladies were afraid. But, at home, there was a prayer group in action throughout the time of the trial, and they were all aware of being surrounded with God's love and support as they faced the other side's legal representatives. The right conclusion resulted.
[ 20. January 2018, 13:43: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
That's a rational awareness still isn't it?
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Love wins
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
...So please take whatever I say not as a challenge or a refutation DESPITE the language of challenge and refutation. There is no warrant in anything I say for you to not continue for all the years you have being a living testimony to the spirit, to the love, the hope of God.
Feel my prayer.
I’m speechless. (That doesn’t happen often.) Thank you, Martin.
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
There was a discussion on BBC R4's Sunday Programme this morning following a report or research on prayer by Tearfund published on 14 January.
quote:
Research by Tearfund says half of adults in the UK pray. But if you are not praying to God can it really be called a prayer? Graham Nicholls, Director of Affinity and Mark Vernon a psychotherapist debate the meaning of prayer.
The psychotherapist was saying that prayer is a human need, no divine authority required.
If anyone wants to listen on catch up, this clip is at towards the end of the programme.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The psychotherapist was saying that prayer is a human need, no divine authority required.
That hits the heart of it I think.
There does seem to be a place of calling residing in every human heart. Giving that space, or part of us, to a perceived external Force appears to be what separates the believer from the non-believer.
I don’t consider it to be a matter of one being right and the other being wrong, even though it does make for great debate.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
My mother had an account of having been aware of being prayed for. She, and a number of other older ladies of the church were in London as witnesses in a family court session to determine the future of the child of an ended marriage. On the other side there was obvious evil concerned, and a history of skillful manipulation. The ladies were afraid. But, at home, there was a prayer group in action throughout the time of the trial, and they were all aware of being surrounded with God's love and support as they faced the other side's legal representatives. The right conclusion resulted.
Stepping on spiders makes it rain. I can prove it. Just this morning I stepped on a spider and within minutes it rained. Not just that, I knew someone, I think he was a doctor and he was working for free in the heart of the Amazon (or was it Uganda?) and he saw for himself that when he stepped on a spider it rained within seconds. With evidence like that, you can't tell me that stepping on spiders doesn't make it rain.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
This is the argument that if one thing is wrong then everything is wrong. It's an interesting argument, but it doesn't exactly prove anything. It doesn't even let atheism off the hook, since atheists aren't always wedded to the most rational or objective of medical treatments.
Moreover, very few Christians - and not even Jesus himself - have argued against the use of medical intervention.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
Stepping on spiders makes it rain. I can prove it. Just this morning I stepped on a spider and within minutes it rained. Not just that, I knew someone, I think he was a doctor and he was working for free in the heart of the Amazon (or was it Uganda?) and he saw for himself that when he stepped on a spider it rained within seconds. With evidence like that, you can't tell me that stepping on spiders doesn't make it rain.
K.
There must be no spiders left in the North West of England! ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
@SvitlanaV2
What one category thing wrong makes what larger category wrong?
[ 26. January 2018, 11:39: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Good question.
Komensky seems to have brought up the spider-stepping theory in order to imply that one silly religious theory disproves all silly religious theories. I was critical of that idea.
Still, I agree we can't prove the 'wrongness' (or effectiveness) of one religious system or another. That's a subjective stance - as is the stance that no religious system can possibly be 'right'.
[ 26. January 2018, 12:07: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
My mother had an account of having been aware of being prayed for. She, and a number of other older ladies of the church were in London as witnesses in a family court session to determine the future of the child of an ended marriage. On the other side there was obvious evil concerned, and a history of skillful manipulation. The ladies were afraid. But, at home, there was a prayer group in action throughout the time of the trial, and they were all aware of being surrounded with God's love and support as they faced the other side's legal representatives. The right conclusion resulted.
Stepping on spiders makes it rain. I can prove it. Just this morning I stepped on a spider and within minutes it rained. Not just that, I knew someone, I think he was a doctor and he was working for free in the heart of the Amazon (or was it Uganda?) and he saw for himself that when he stepped on a spider it rained within seconds. With evidence like that, you can't tell me that stepping on spiders doesn't make it rain.
K.
I was being extremely careful in my post. It was essential to avoid identification of any one or any case. But if those ladies had not been aware of the support directed to them, they would have found it very difficult, if not impossible, to give the evidence that would ensure that a child was not left in the grasp of a very evil person, to go down a very dark road. (I don't like to accuse people of being evil - I think this is the only person I have felt it appropriate for.)
Examples of versions of the elephant powder story are trivialising something they felt to be important, and which I agree to have been important. If it were fantasy, it was a vital fantasy, and did good. The spider belief wouldn't be, and wouldn't.
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Penny S. Chill. Works for me: No spider rain claim is being made.
SvitlanaV2. Robust as ever. He might be wrong, but he's not wrong. Magical thinking just don't cut it. Says he who has rediscovered that the wind blows where it will.
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Love wins
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Curiosity killed ...
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Going back to the OP after a real life discussion this week, I believe in the power of prayer to change me, the person praying, and a group of people praying together.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Rationally it can't not. Incidentally the wind may blow accordingly or one may more likely adjust one's trim to Him.
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Love wins
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Komensky
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# 8675
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Posted
The spider yarn is introduced because (yet again) someone has said 'someone prayed for someone for X to happen and X happened, therefore God did it.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
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Posted
From epidemiology and public health: Bradford Hill causation criteria. Prayer passes perhaps #6, plausibility. Not sure about the others. In posting this, I'm not saying necessarily that science criteria for assessing causation is fair with prayer, but maybe it helps to think systematically about what we're doing when we pray. We are not required are we to suspend our critical judgement and reason when we go into a church or get down on to our knees are we? (does anyone else bother getting on to their knees any more outside of a church?).
I wonder if some of our praying is egotistical, that it makes us feel if we are sharing God's power? The televangelists and evangelicals often seem to have adopted this without questioning it when they "slay in the spirit" and otherwise channel the power of Jesus to cure people of whatever ailment or suffering.
I think we also run the risk of shutting ourselves off from the sinful nature of humanity and the people who don't pray.
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
The spider yarn is introduced because (yet again) someone has said 'someone prayed for someone for X to happen and X happened, therefore God did it.
K.
Steady K. I don't see any such claim?
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Love wins
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MaryLouise
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# 18697
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Posted
When I was thinking about converting in my early 20s, I went off to do a weekend retreat at a Catholic convent with a small chapel. I was a doubting cynic from a largely agnostic background who wanted to believe in something, anything, to give me some meaning in life. I had almost no understanding of what I was supposed to do in prayer.
One afternoon I was sitting upstairs in a deep gallery overlooking the nave and altar when an elderly woman came in and set out flowers around the church. Then I heard her talking and assumed at first that she was talking to someone else whom I hadn’t noticed. After a while I realized she was praying aloud. I didn’t want to embarrass her by getting up and just shrunk back into my corner and hoped she wouldn’t see me. The idea of inadvertent eavesdropping horrified me, but I was too flustered and shy to know what to do.
She didn’t say anything especially personal or revealing. She thanked God for helping her find the answers to something that had worried her for some weeks. She talked about how lonely she felt now that an old friend was dead and how she missed him. Then she asked what she should do about a difficulty at work. She asked that her sister find peace of mind about moving house. Again she went quiet and listened for a little, then she told God about something beautiful – a flowering climber -- she had seen earlier. She went silent for another few minutes and then got up and went out.
It wasn’t a monologue, it was a conversation. The Presence she was talking to was ‘real’, a tenderhearted beloved Friend that was quite different from the thin judgmental abstraction I had been trying to pray at for months. Someone had told me faith was contagious and I suddenly realised that I wanted to find her God and it might be possible. A door opened on an entirely subjective, shared, mysterious kind of ‘getting to know You’ process called prayer that led to intimate relationship, being heard and known and loved by God rather than just making attempts to convince myself that some version of deity existed. That glimpse into a stranger’s inner life with God was a gift, a beginning. Her prayer changed me.
I express this kind of thing badly and tend to avoid theological or rational arguments about prayer, especially when I feel the other person is just wanting to score points, dismiss or trivialise a profound and significant experience (relationship) in my life. I’m still something of a doubting cynic and there aren’t many certainties or proofs in my faith life.
And I’m often grateful and relieved that some of my most heartfelt and urgent prayers have gone ‘unanswered’ because I didn’t know myself well and didn’t have the bigger picture at the time. Over and over again, though, I have felt guided and transformed by prayer and believe deeply in intercessory prayer, that the God we 'know' and love whether as Presence or Absence is listening and cares.
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“As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots.”
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Thank you MaryLouise.
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Love wins
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MrsBeaky
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# 17663
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Posted
MaryLouise: quote:
Over and over again, though, I have felt guided and transformed by prayer and believe deeply in intercessory prayer, that the God we 'know' and love whether as Presence or Absence is listening and cares.
Yes.
Anything that happens in our lives and the lives of those prayed for is often then seen through a variety of lenses from ascribing everything to the actions of an interventionist God through to Komensky's stepping on spiders analogy.
I have come to the place where I am not happy to do that level of dissection of people's experiences and I avoid the limitations of having certainty in any direction. I just don't think it does justice to the complexity of life.
But anything and everything that happens can become a spur to further prayer and the deepening of spiritual connection of those praying and sometimes those being prayed for IMO.
I find it inexplicable in rational terms (a mystery) and therein lies its power for me.
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http://davidandlizacooke.wordpress.com
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Komensky
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# 8675
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Posted
Some of these responses answer my original question. The answer seems to be 'no'; no matter what scientific method may reveal, people will believe in the 'power' of prayer operating something like The Force, whereby external objects and people can be change. I'm a little bit saddened to hear that will continue to use intercessory prayer in the way covered in the study, knowing that they will have have no effect or make people worse.
Thanks.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
K. I'm as rationalist as the day is long and do not believe for one moment that the laws of physics are ever contravened. Ever. Except when they incontrovertibly are. They haven't been for millennia. I also believe that in Christ is 'Yes!', to the good. That we know Christ through the New Testament and through His and His Father's Spirit. The Holy Spirit has yearnings, desires, purposes for His Church. When we pray as individuals and collectively we may align with that, with 'The (unforced, unforceful) Force', where we wouldn't if we hadn't. We may become the only hands, ears, mouths, wallets that He has by prayer.
How does that make anything magical happen apart from metaphorically? A very limited analogy is Sir Fred Hoyle's 'A for Andromeda' nicked by Carl Sagan in 'Contact' a generation later, in that in them we interact with a broadcast computer program, a torrent, a wind of... encouragement - we get with the program. We don't change it. We don't bend it to our will. And it doesn't take over ours or our environment. The Holy Ghost is like a Joshua Von Neumann machine. By seeking Him we can't not be changed by Him.
[ 29. January 2018, 16:21: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
In my example, what happened as the result of the prayer was that the witnesses in court were enabled to give a good account of the situation despite opposition from the opposing side and their legal representative, which they would have not felt so able to do without the knowledge that they were being prayed for. It is possible, therefore, that the prayer indirectly influenced the outcome, by enabling the witnesses to counter a very plausible person who was none-the-less a very nasty piece of work.
I was not using this as an example of the "God sent me a parking space" sort of thing. It looks to me like the sort of thing that prayer should be expected to do.
[ 29. January 2018, 17:42: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
Some of these responses answer my original question. The answer seems to be 'no'; no matter what scientific method may reveal, people will believe in the 'power' of prayer operating something like The Force, whereby external objects and people can be change. I'm a little bit saddened to hear that will continue to use intercessory prayer in the way covered in the study, knowing that they will have have no effect or make people worse.
Thanks.
K.
Your references don't prove that all prayer makes all people worse. It doesn't prove that all prayer is useless. It was a test under very specific conditions.
The best we can say is that we probably shouldn't tell hospital patients (or, if you prefer, any sick person) we're praying for them, if we don't know their spiritual and psychological condition.
I don't know why you find this hard to understand, as I'm sure you've had to make appropriate use of statistical data as a part of your education.
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