The Redundancy of Prayer

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by SnakeLord, May 6, 2009.

  1. SnakeLord snakeystew.com Valued Senior Member

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    The Redundancy of Prayer​

    1. Two men are lying in the hospital, both with the same disease and both with the same amount of time left to live. Being twins, these two men are prayed for by the same loved ones with the same amount of feeling and sincerity. One of the men survives and makes a full recovery. The other man dies in abject pain and misery.

    Straight away a question comes to mind: Why did God answer the prayer with regards to one of the men but ignore the prayer for the other man?
    While the answer tends to always be the same, we could briefly explore other possible options. For instance, we could possibly argue that the family doing the praying didn’t genuinely care as much for the man that died; God knew this and therefore didn’t take the prayer seriously. This suggestion would certainly seem to work well alongside various biblical statements that I shall address in #2 but doesn’t sound very reasonable when given serious thought.

    The standard answer is this: “It was not God’s will”

    What this means is that it was God’s will that this man leave this mortal existence and go off to heaven, (or wherever else he might end up residing) and it was not God’s will that this man continue living a mortal existence. Make note of this.

    2. When it comes to prayer and its effectiveness, the bible has several things to say:

    “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Matthew 21:22)

    “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24)

    "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20)

    As you can see, Jesus was quite adamant in stating that you would receive whatever you ask for in prayer as long as you really believe that it will happen. At this stage we would be inclined to think that all of these unanswered prayers are due to the fact that the person praying doesn’t really believe. This however is not the standard Christian response.

    The standard answer is this: “It must be God’s will”

    You see, if the above biblical statements are true then you could pray for the annihilation of all Christians and, as long as you really believe it will happen, the prayer will be answered. Obviously this God will not answer any prayer that goes against his will.

    “You prayed for a nuclear bomb so that you could destroy Utah. Sorry, it is not my will that Utah be destroyed, hence no nuke for you”. Sounds reasonable.

    But here is the problem with the standard answer: It makes prayer completely redundant.

    You pray to God to save your mother from her debilitating illness. You could pray all day, every day for the next million years but if it isn’t God’s will then it’ll never happen – regardless to your efforts. If on the other hand it is God’s will, then it would happen regardless to ever praying for it to happen. If it’s God’s will that your mother survives, that her time to go to heaven has not yet come, then she’ll survive.

    All you have left is God’s will and not God’s will. This has the unfortunate side effect of not just reducing prayer to meaninglessness but everything else as well. You really want that job. You could pray for it but then it becomes a matter of God’s will. If it is God’s will that you get that job, you’ll get it whether you pray or not. If it is God’s will that you don’t get that job, sending them your C.V is a pointless endeavour – you’ll never get it regardless to how good your C.V is.

    Of course, there will be a time when Christians find the typical excuse is unusable. If for instance I genuinely sat down and prayed: “I pray to you God that if you are there you let me know, give me a sign that I can understand as being from you, that I can come to realise that you truly do exist and want me to become a loyal believer” and nothing came from it, a Christian would be somewhat put off telling me it “wasn’t God’s will”.

    The excuse now would have typically changed to the example I used earlier: That I wasn’t being serious enough. While I could go into great depth on the apparent inability of Christians to remain consistent with their excuses, I find myself instead more concerned with how one goes about measuring sincerity, (or ‘honesty’ as William Lane Craig puts it in Hard Questions, Real Answers).

    To quote: “Tell Him honestly that, say, you doubt His existence, or His being Christ, or whatever doubt you may have. He cares for you and will help you.”

    I actually attempted this. I said: “God, I don’t have a belief in your existence, I seriously doubt you’re there to even receive this message. If you are and truly care for me, kindly let me know that you are there in a way that I can comprehend”

    It doesn’t get any more “honest” than that. What more can I do? This is typically where the Christian completely reverts back to his ‘will’ excuse.

    “I don’t know why God didn’t respond but obviously it isn’t his will to do so right now. You must be patient”.

    Apparently I must be patient until such time when God wills that I become a believer. You can hopefully see the problem with such statement. Again, everything has been reduced to meaninglessness, it’s simply God’s will and not God’s will.

    We seem to be left now with two suggestions:

    1. God’s will/not God’s will
    2. Sincere/insincere

    Both excuses are used by Christians, causing me once again to beg and plead for some consistency, although the former is used far more often but, without them even realising it, makes prayer utterly redundant. It would seem more appropriate to always adopt the latter view but then whenever the earlier biblical statements are mentioned, it is those very same Christians that deny it’s truthfulness.

    I ask for some clarification. Is it the former or latter? If the former you must accept the inevitable consequences, if the latter then the reason your prayer failed was because you weren’t being sincere enough. I would like to finally get some confirmation on this issue and perhaps ask if anyone has access to a sincere-o-meter so that I know whether it’s worth praying or not.
     
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  3. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Actually a question that comes before that is what is the value in praying for something that ultimately will not persist and even whether the above scenario is the means to determine the functional capacity of prayer.

    As a further point, it tends to rest heavily on the idea that any one who prays is the vessel of sincerity, and that god is obliged to automatically respond to such requests, much like a hired labourer.
    sure
    and if you go on to verse 25, you find a reference to issues that could curtail the effectiveness of prayer ....
    Once again, the next verse indicates identical issues that can bear an effect on the result ....
    Anyone with a modicum of text critical issues (it took me about ten seconds on google)can extend the claim to wider normative prerequisites
    A desire right in line with Mark 11.25 and Mathew 18.21, eh?
    hehe

    and having a universe subservient to the will of (materially conditioned) individuals is a reasonable offer?
    hence the suggestion that a healthy portion of theism (and in fact the "hard lessons" of material life) is praying to be socialized around the will of god ... as opposed to approaching god with the same outlook one has when approaching a vending machine.
    "Let me sit down on my laurels and let god do it all for me" is not a common epistemological model in any theistic paradigm .... or infact in any discipline that is making a knowledge based claim.
    Once again, if you insist on a methodology that is found outside of any other discipline, I think it pays to be a bit more introspective.
    Generally we experience that practice comes after theory and that conclusion comes after practice

    may I humbly suggest reading the entire chapter of the verses that you highlighted?
    In short your prayer comes across as being sincere in admitting how insincere you are (I mean suppose you were asked to be sincere to your wife and you wrote her a letter that began "I seriously doubt whether you even exist ...." ... IOW its not clear how one can sincerely engage in dialogue with an entity that one cannot even accommodate as actually existing).

    Aside from that, I think you have to examine the valid means in which prayer is contextualized, the epistemological framework in which god is seen as "knowable", and not as some sort of vending machine of hope and desire. In short, if one thinks whimsy is a valid means to enter into the mechanics of any knowledge based claim, they will most certainly meet with frustration.

    I think that at the heart at your issue are elements about how you think the universe should operate (eg - we shouldn't have disease) and how that bears an imperative on god .... as opposed to how god exists and how that bears an imperative on the universe. (IOW you place teleological - or purpose-based - constraints on god based on your assumptions about the purpose of the universe .... when theistic models generally operate the exact opposite way)
     
    Last edited: May 6, 2009
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  5. SnakeLord snakeystew.com Valued Senior Member

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    The question once again: Is it a matter of 'the will of god' or 'sincerity'? You have jumped back and forth between the two without actually answering the question.

    No need for a long-winded but highly irrelevant response. Just say one of the two or some other suggestion, (it's not gods will or sincerity.. it works on lucky dip basis - or whatever).

    To rephrase the question: On what basis are prayers answered?
     
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  7. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    I thought it was clear.

    If god is anything better than a vending machine, of course it depends on his will.

    The problem is that the examples you call upon to strengthen your arguments have inherent problems .... and that in turn affects your argument.

    To which one would first need an answer to "On what basis are all prayers equal?"

    If one only has a vending machine notion of god, perhaps this question may not be so pertinent.
     
  8. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Prayer is like a lottery, if you don't play, you don't win.
     
  9. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    More like affirmation. And its free.
     
  10. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    I agree it does make prayer redundant.

    What's the point in praying if having prayers granted is completely random, done only if God happens to feel like it?
     
  11. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Hence the suggestion that knowledge capable of illuminating how god "feels" grants a dynamic perspective on prayer.

    kinda like if I know how you "feel" about dairy products, I am no longer relying on "completely random" means as to why you accept/reject them.
     
  12. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    This seems to me the crucial assertion in your OP. Given what is around this statement we are dealing only with Christian prayer. Given this quote we are dealing with a subset of Christians. I do not think there is a standard answer and while I have encountered it I have encountered others also. I say all this in response to the thread title which (understandably) is short but because of this makes the assertion universal.

    Further prayer does not have to be seen as a parallel to a secular request - in fact secular requests are not limited in the way I will now point out. Prayer can be seen as a process in which the supplicant - if that is the appropriate metaphor for the given believer - can change via and during the process of prayer. If this change takes place then God's will is no longer the same, given the changes in the situation.

    Requests in mundane social relationships can have this character also. Think of the kinds of discussions, including begging, acknowledgments, promises, resolutions and confessions that can happen after an adulterous affair is discovered. As one example.

    There is also another, overlapping possibility. Some things are flexible and God could go either way or one of a number of ways. Some things are not negotiatable. To further graduate this perhaps the door is even open in these situations, but the change one would have to go through is one that very few are capable of making in the time left.
     
  13. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    So is a pat on the back.
     
  14. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Whatever works for you
     
  15. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Pats on the back, though, do not lead to explosive belts, angels in the air and demons in fires. :bravo:
     
  16. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    Fallacy of division.
     
  17. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    So, are you saying prayer cannot lead to an explosive belt?
     
  18. original sine Registered Senior Member

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    Why pray?

     
  19. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    Prayer alone? without some specific religion and specific leaders, etc.? I would need to see some sort of research to back up your assertion. That religious belief can lead to a wide range of violence, sure. Ideologies in general do that rather well on occasion. But prayer alone? Well, link me to some studies.
     
  20. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    You're probably right. I also wouldn't be able to produce any studies showing prayer to end world hunger or bring global peace, either.

    Go figure.
     
  21. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    So you're taking on the Oliver Stone role of countering myths with counter myths. OK. As long as I have the context.
     
  22. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    More of a Stanley Kubrick role of framing hypocrisy in PanaVision and TechniColor.
     
  23. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    Ah, I love Kubrick. Of course he primarily tore new assholes in secular institutions. But I can take it as a metaphor.
     

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