by WTWizard 34 Replies latest watchtower bible
Now, he's not a religious man so during all that time, I never once mentioned that either I or the prayer team in my church were praying for him, we just prayed.When he finally came home, he asked me "Were the folks at your church praying for me?" I have still no idea how he knew that.
You mean to tell me your brother doesn't know you are religous and has never heard you talk about praying for other people?
You posed it as a question your brother asked and then say "I have still no idea how he knew that." so which is it? did he ask a question or did he make a statement that he had advanced knowledge of the church praying for him?
Actually it is a no brainer if you ask me,, your his brother(clue#1) he has a 20% chance of survival(clue#2), and you religiously go to church(clue#3) seems like a perfectly plausible question he might ask of you with absolutely no hint of divine knowledge given him as to the goings on in your church prayer request which is relatively common in many churches.
frankie - on the first point it was probably bad wording and lack of info on my part and a bit of reading too much into it on your part
He did ask me the question, but (as I know my brother much better than you) it was in such a manner that he knew that he had been prayed for - he was asking for confirmation that what he believed had happened and when I told him that they had been praying he told me he knew they had - which is why I wrote I don't know how he knew. Maybe making a statement of knowledge by posing a question is a British thing that you aren't as familiar with, we're weird like that you know!
On the second point, no it wasn't a plausible question for him to ask - at the most, he might expect me to pray for him, but not other people at church who he has never even met - again, its not a typically 'British' thing to do, or expect someone else to do. we don't tend to do 'in your face' religion over here lol! It tends to be a more private thing.
Yes, WTWizard, prayers are for real.
Since leaving the WT, I pray mostly that my fears, phobias, panic attacks, and impatience will subside.
I try so very hard, but I know I can't do it alone. It's such a relief to know that the promised Holy Spirit is guiding me.
I also pray that others will turn to the Christ and receive relief from their burdens.
As for the suffering in the world, this could easily be alleviated by wealthier countries if only they would do it. After all, they are aware of the situation; they have the means to do something about it; so what's the problem?
We all know the answer, don't we? They choose to look the other way.
Sylvia
I don't know Caedes. Why me? I think there is a reason for everything, even suffering and death, even if I can't understand it. As to why God helped me and not someone else, I do not know. God knows. I am grateful that He did help me. As for others, I pray for them also.
The point is not whether it was worth helping you but why does prayer not work in third world countries? According to some theists, prayer actually works, according to the bible there is nothing you cannot achieve with prayer. I am sure most on this site have sat and listened to examples from witnesses of people praying for all sorts of things. I was hungry and found a mars bar? Anyone?
My brother had a friend of his (another witness) commit suicide, sometime after he was listening to a witness talk about praying for a wife and his prayers being answered. He realised that his friend would have prayed for help many times quite sincerely and got nothing whilst brother ego got the blonde wife he had been after. It was this experience that convinced him that prayer didn't work.
So if god has time for trivial requests for blonde wives and mars bars, why do the honest and sincere prayers of whole swathes of people in truly horrific situations get nothing but stony silence. Why is it that the only prayers that are answered are ones that could be put down to coincidence, why doesn't god put in some time answering the really tough requests like an end to earthquakes or famine or plague?
How about the phrase "one pair of hands working is worth a thousand clasped in prayer" I'm not sure I would say a thousand but I'm sure you get the picture. Saving even one life is worthwhile, perhaps god just needs a really good PA to prioritise his work for him.
I believe in prayer, but not in the conventional sense. It is nonreligious and nondenominational.
Quantum science suggests the existence of many possible futures for each moment of our lives, and until
it is awakened by choices made in our present, each future lies dormant, in a state of rest.
There is a science to prayer. For our thought to become empowered, we have to give it energy. We also have
to have the right intention. Most people pray for more money, a better job, better health, better relationship, etc.
indicating the thought that they don't have enough or need more of something they lack. So, they fuel their prayers
with this emotion of "fear" of not having enough and therefore, this is what they get in return.
Intention is important when putting your energy into something. I remember hearing an example of Mother Teresa declining
to participate in a protest against war. But, she said, had it been a rally for peace, she would have considered it.
I believe there is a technology to proper prayer, and if done correctly, we are actually able to generate complex
patterns and create specific chemistries within the substance and laboratory of our consciousness and our bodies. We already
know that emotions fuel chemical changes within our bodies, so, perhaps faith is a special emotion that when combined with proper
prayer can "move mountains".
Prayers are real...I just spoke to Santa about praying for a new car this Christmas...he says I would ask God but I always get the busy signal..........."Hi this is Jehovah, I'm not able to answer your prayer right now, but leave a brief message and I'll get back to you shortly."
{Note: If to Jehovah 1,000 years is like 1 day I may not live to have my prayer answered}
Prayers are real for those who have faith. If prayer brings a person some level of support (imagined or real), it may help. Some who have prayed though, have not had their prayers answered. Was it due to lack of faith, or was it their deity just telling them no? Or is possible there was nobody on the receiving end of the prayer? Regardless, the prayer remains real to the person who has faith.
For those of us who don't have faith, we believe in the power of human love and positive attitude. I think those two things bring the greatest benefits to everyone, even to believers in prayer.
There was a scientific study reported in 2006 that show that prayers may actually make people worse.
Perhaps, if they know they're being prayed for -- they get extra fearful because their situation must really be serious. Whereas if people aren't praying, then the patient relaxes because the situation must be okay -- or at least not life-threatening. (I think that's a reasonable conclusion.)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060403133554.htm
Science News
Prayers Don't Help Heart Surgery Patients; Some Fare Worse When Prayed For
ScienceDaily (Apr. 3, 2006) — Many - if not most people - believe that prayer will help you through a medical crisis such as heart bypass surgery. If a large group of people outside yourself, your family, and your friends joined in intercessory prayer, that should be even more helpful, so such reasoning goes.
Researchers have been trying to prove this and even to measure the effect. So far, two studies found that third-party prayers bestow benefits, but two others concluded that there are no benefits. Now, the largest study to date, covering 1,800 people who underwent coronary bypass surgery at six different hospitals, supported the latter research.
Not only that, but patients who knew that others were praying for them fared worse than those who did not receive such spiritual support, or who did but were not aware of it.
Those who conducted the study are quick to say that its results do not challenge the existence of God. Also, it did not try to address such religious questions as the efficacy of one form of prayer over others, whether God answers intercessory prayers, or whether prayers from one religious group work better than prayers from another, according to the Rev. Dean Marek, a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Other researchers in the study, who include investigators from Harvard Medical School, Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Mind/Body Medical Institute, agree. Also involved were teams from medical institutions in Oklahoma City, Washington, D.C., Memphis, and Rochester, Minn.
"The primary goal of the study was limited to evaluating whether intercessory prayer or the knowledge of receiving it would influence recovery after bypass surgery," notes Jeffery Dusek, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. The evaluation found that third-party prayer has no effect at all on recovery from surgery without complications, and that patients who knew they were receiving prayer fared worse that those who were not prayed for.
STEP up to pray
Known as STEP (Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer), it investigated patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery, who include 350,000 people in the United States and 800,000 people worldwide each year. Patients of any or no religious faith were eligible to participate. Among those chosen were Catholics, Jews, Protestants, and people of no faith.
The 1,802 participants were divided into three groups of about 600 each, with a mean age of about 64 years. One group received no prayers. A second group received prayers after being told that they may or may not be prayed for. The third group was informed that others would pray for them for 14 days starting on the night before their surgery.
The prayers came from three Christian groups, two Catholic, and one Protestant. The investigators report that, "We were unable to locate other Christian, Jewish, or non-Christian [groups] that could receive the daily prayer list required for the study." Such lists provided the first name and last initial of the patients.
The intercessors said a standard prayer "for successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications." This system provides a practical way to conduct the experiment, but limits the results to one type of prayer.
There were all kinds of complications from the surgeries, including 197 cardiac complications for the group who knew they were receiving prayers versus 187 and 158 in the other two groups. These and other complications occurred in 59 percent of those who were prayed for, compared to 51 percent of those who received no prayers, and 52 percent in the group who received prayers but didn't know it.
Deaths during the 30 days after surgery were similar across groups, 13 and 16 in the prayed-for, 14 in the no-pray group.
The big unanswered question is why there was an excess of complications in patients who knew all those people were praying for them. The researchers admit they have "no clear explanation." To find out, they say, "will require additional study."
The STEP study was paid for by the John Templeton Foundation, an organization that supports research on the boundary between science and religion. Medical centers that participated, in addition to Harvard Medical School and its two affiliates, were Baptist Memorial Health Care in Memphis, which supported the research done at its site, Intergris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, the Mayo Clinic, and the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. A detailed report appears in the April 4 issue of the American Heart Journal. The lead author is Herbert Benson of the Mind/Body Medical Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
Adapted from materials provided by Harvard University
Since leaving the WT, I pray mostly that my fears, phobias, panic attacks, and impatience will subside.
I try so very hard, but I know I can't do it alone. It's such a relief to know that the promised Holy Spirit is guiding me.
I also pray that others will turn to the Christ and receive relief from their burdens.
As for the suffering in the world, this could easily be alleviated by wealthier countries if only they would do it. After all, they are aware of the situation; they have the means to do something about it; so what's the problem?
We all know the answer, don't we? They choose to look the other way.
Snowbird,
Do you not recognise the evasion of duty, if your god has the time to help you with 'impatience' (woo, crime of the century) then how come it is up to 'wealthy nations' to ameliorate the effects of natural disasters? Can't your god do anything about earthquakes or floods? Or does he just not want to answer prayers for the big stuff?
To paraphrase ' As for the suffering in the world, this could easily be alleviated by god if only he would do it. After all, he is aware of the situation; he has the means to do something about it; so what's the problem?'
Perhaps I should pray that the voices don't tell you to kill me for my lack of faith.
Journey-on
I doubt that there is much scientific evidence for brain chemistry or emotion physically moving mountains. Care to prove me wrong?
Do you not recognise the evasion of duty, if your god has the time to help you with 'impatience' (woo, crime of the century) then how come it is up to 'wealthy nations' to ameliorate the effects of natural disasters? Can't your god do anything about earthquakes or floods? Or does he just not want to answer prayers for the big stuff?
We are the ones that live on the fault lines, and the flood zones. Then we wonder why when there is an earthquake or a flood that we lose so much. We build cities in the deserts and get angry as to why there is not enough water and blame God.
Me? I do not know all the answers as to why God does what he does or otherwise. It's like what Job said:
Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
As for why questioning why God appears to help some and not others, I am reminded:
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Burn
