so the 5% who survived your illness all did so because of prayer to some specific deity?
Have you ever had a prayer answered?
by nicolaou 148 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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xchange
Nope. Never. However, now that I meditate and practice yoga, I do get answers. Go figure.
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simon17
I have to be honest, I don't believe in the power of prayer
I think its important to note a major distinction here. I belive what was intended was "I dont belive god answers prayers", but that is distinctly different than disavowing the POWER of prayers. It is calming. It is reassuring. It is hopeful and strengthening. It is often mind-clarifying. Prayer can be a very powerful and helpful last resort for people under trial or people who need support.
You might think these people weak, but thats not the point. Billions of people across the globe are not doing this for fun. There is obviously some perceived benefit for all these religious folks, and we shouldn't say that we don't believe they feel that. A large portion of the world could not handle being an athiest (and maybe most athiest can't handle it when the going gets extremely tough, i.e, "there's no athiest in a foxhole")
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nicolaou
"It is calming. It is reassuring. It is hopeful and strengthening. It is often mind-clarifying. Prayer can be a very powerful and helpful last resort for people under trial or people who need support."
Simon, the point I made in a recent topic was that praying might indeed make YOU, the prayergiver, feel better but it does no practical good at all for the ones being prayed for. I do not claim that prayer is without benefit, time spent in introspective reflection can often throw up new perspectives - even answers!
But these are solutions we have found for ourselves, they don't have a divine source. As for the posters who lamely answer this topics question with a "yes" without providing ANY detail . . . . . well, why should anyone believe you?
I don't.
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whereami
But these are solutions we have found for ourselves, they don't have a divine source.
And there it is. That is the reality of this subject. But for some it's just to painful to except otherwise. When we believe there's a daddy up in the sky watching our every move, thought, ect, we "feel" safe, protected.
When we think that he's listening to us, guiding our every move through prayer we feel special. And who doesn't want to feel special. God is the teddy bear we went to sleep with as a child to feel safe. Except now we think that teddy bear speaks back to us when he sees fit. I ask you, who's more delusional, the child or the adult?
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!Nothing really changes, does it?
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Nobleheart
Yes many times.
One really obvious one is the following: I had been looking for a job for around 5 months and I couldn't find anything that I liked doing. I prayed to God to please help me in this area. The very next day a neighbor of mine had heard of an opening for a school teacher. I had never heard of this school, never submitted a CV there. I met the principal in an informal setting and was granted the position without even an official job interview :-)
Also after I started having doubts and doing my research about the Watchtower, I was quite confused for some time. I even questioned whether God cared about me or humans in general. I prayed for him to help me understand whether this organization was indeed a fraud and also to lead me to truth. I've now come to the realization that the WT isn't God's organization. Also Jesus is the way to approach God and the real truth.
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nicolaou
Where do you live Nobleheart? It must be some kind of paradise if God is able to answer your prayers for a job! Clearly He's taken care of crime, disease, and abuse problems in your neighborhood yes?
How self-involved must a person be to believe that god has answered her prayers for a job but chosen to ignore the prayerful pleas of neighbours who are being beaten, molested or murdered?
Nobleheart, after 5 months of looking for work your thoughtful neighbour gave you a good tip. Thank your neighbour, he was more considerate of you than god was.
After you began doubting the Watchtower you started doing your own research. Good for you, give yourself some credit. It was your own hard work that informed you.
God had nothing to do with it.
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Nobleheart
Nicolaou, I certainly don't live in paradise. It's not easy finding a job, especially for someone just out of uni. I simply answered your question, and that is how I view matters. My neighbor told me of this job opening the day after I prayed about it. Someone can call it coincidence, I choose to believe differently.
Many people (my family included) have seen facts, read and done research on the WT and yet they refuse to accept reality. I give credit to God for helping me understand matters.
I understand the way you see things and I respect that. I hope to receive the same in return.
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Nobleheart
And yes, I have thanked my neighbor and expressed my appreciation toward her in many practical ways.
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whereami
I really mean this in the most sincere way Nobleheart. I'm sure you're a wonderful person. Especially from the name you choose to describe yourself here and your avatar picture.
But one has to question your experience sincerely. Listen to what you're saying that your god did. You're really not helping him look good in your example.
You're saying that god listened to your wishes of finding a job, a job. Really? My neighbor, a very devote christian has been unemployed for that past 2 years!!!! Do you think she hasn't been praying? Maybe not hard enough? She and her three children have been living off of food stamps for the last year 1/2. Her house is in foreclosure proceedings as we speak. Is this gods will? Is he/she testing her failth? Please, please, lets be honest here.
Let's be honest a claim to having your prayers answered is a miracle. It's very difficult for me at least, to listen to some of these so called "miracles" here, because to be convinced that while some petty prayers get answered much more serious life saving ones don't.
So god finds you a job, helps another get over a cold and so on, but decides it's better to not listen to about a billion people's prayers that don't have acsess to clean water and food to feed their dying children. Please take some time to really ponder on that. How about these small facts:
How many children are abused and neglected in the United States?
Although the incidence of child abuse and neglect has been decreasing in recent years, more than 1.25 million, or 1 in every 58 children in the United States, were abused in 2006.
More than half (61 percent) of the children (771,700 children) were victims of neglect, meaning a parent or guardian failed to provide for the child's basic needs. Forms of neglect include educational neglect (360,500 children), physical neglect (295,300 children), and emotional neglect (193,400).
Another 44 percent were victims of abuse (553,300 children), including physical abuse (325,000 children), sexual abuse (135,000 children), and emotional abuse (148,500 children).
An average of nearly four children die every day as a result of child abuse or neglect (1,760 in 2007).
And this:http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm
In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty"
Every year 15 million children die of hunger
For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years
Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!
The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you've entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation. Over 4 million will die this year.
One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. United Nations Food and Agriculture
The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. Hunger in Global Economy
Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people. UNICEF
3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.
In 1994 the Urban Institute in Washington DC estimated that one out of 6 elderly people in the U.S. has an inadequate diet.
In the U.S. hunger and race are related. In 1991 46% of African-American children were chronically hungry, and 40% of Latino children were chronically hungry compared to 16% of white children.
The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality. African-American infants die at nearly twice the rate of white infants.
One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.
Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.
In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programmes in developing countries.
Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death
About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age
To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.
The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.
Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger
It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year
You need to ask yourself was it more important for you to get a "job" then these real problems I just listed? Are you really saying that children being molested, dying of hunger ect. are not being sincere enough in prayer? Come on people, where are your hearts? Can you possibly even fathom what it must be like being a parent in Africa holding your withering child in your arms after praying and praying and praying until you can't pray no more for just one grain of rice to feed your dying child only for your cries to fall on deaf ears? But you miraculously get a job or any other silly request? Do you feel that your more important, more deserving than these poor souls?
All I ask is that you step back for a moment and think about these things.
Sometimes seeing the realities of life help us put into perspective how thing REALLY are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9w52wy9Ebk&feature=player_embedded
End of rant.