does God read our minds, or should we pray out loud?

by sowhatnow 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  sowhatnow

  I always wondered, can God read our thoughts? if he can then why cant satan?

  i was told by my mother that God can read our minds, but satan cant satan can only hear our words and see our motives and what we do,

  [as can God]

  yet the odd thing is, when Id watch a show, like I shouldnt be alive, or sone news show, the people that prayed To God said they cried it out loud and then the y were miraculously rescued. even people who never prayed before.

  so, should we be praying out loud?

  the bible actually says little about prayer, accept that I see that jesus told us to go into our room and pray in secret, he 'went away'

  to pray, and condemed those who prayed in public. no where does it say we should get on our knees, or look to the sky, or take on any form,

  or even pray for every meal with our family.

  so all public prayers as far as I m concerned are improper. especially those convention prayers that last 10 minuets.

  and on a side note, how do we now pray? to Jesus or God? clearly jehovah is not Gods real intended name,
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  Witness My Fury

  You're making a whole lot of presuppositions there.

  Here's a question that got me well on the road to waking up and finding it was all a big lie: How does prayer actually work? (that means the mechanism, not any perceived "results")

  It's a simple question, but by being totally honest about it you will find it eye opening.
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  Caedes

  If praying works what does god have against amputees? Or the victims of ebola? Or some of the victims of smallpox or tsunamis or earthquakes?
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  M*A*S*H

  Praying allows people feel like they are helping a situation whilst applying the very least amount of effort possible in rectifying it; with that in mind it would be best not to pray out loud as this may exert too much effort.
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  Caedes

  Who knew that jesus was a slacker!
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  pronomono

  You're making a whole lot of presuppositions there.

  Here's a question that got me well on the road to waking up and finding it was all a big lie: How does prayer actually work? (that means the mechanism, not any perceived "results")

  It's a simple question, but by being totally honest about it you will find it eye opening.

  I've often wondered this very thing. I've been doing a lot of thinking about this from a scientific standpoint. From a scientific standpoint, a prayer is simply a thought, one that we have directed to what we perceive to be God. If prayer is simply a thought, this can be measured somewhat by the instruments scientists have to measure such. However, scientists have yet to figure out how to intercept a thought to know its contents. We have identified certain parts of the brain that react to certain stimuli and emotions, but we can't decode thoughts. This does not mean that it is impossible though. Just like all the other discoveries in the scientific communtity that we believed were impossible only a few years ago, we are learning as human race to do incredible things. The human genome project is one of those things.

  I believe that it is possible to read human thoughts, but we just haven't learned how to yet. We don't yet have the intruments or the knowledge on how to do so. But I believe we will figure this out someday (or at least people much smarter than me will ). This leads to the conclusion that if humans can figure out how to read thoughts, then God (assuming he/she/it exists) can read thoughts since he is our maker and aware of our make-up. This also would follow that Satan (under the same assumption that he/she/it exists) has much more familiarity with our human makeup than we do since he has observed us since our creation. It would be reasonable to conclude that Satan has learned how to read human thoughts as well, since it is purely a neurological metric of electrical pulses among the neurons in our brain.

  If God doesn't exist, we can probably safely say, someone in the future will be able to hear our prayers (or thoughts), once we, as humans, figure out how to decipher this neurological process.
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  Witness My Fury

  There is no transmission of thoughts beyond the body, it requires physical contact or powerful imaging technology to register any activity let alone decode them. That would require "god" to be everywhere much like the imaginary ether.

  If that still makes you feel warm and fuzzy then keep talking to your imaginary friend.
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  sowhatnow

  so Im off the hook?
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  cofty

  Prayer - because somebody has to remind the Almighty to be nice.
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  awakenyr2004

  How can Jah hear everyone's prayers? Perhaps he really only hears some which is why only some are answered. I mean cmon that is a really huge task even for the almighty.