Do you believe God intervenes & answers prayers?

[_asbestosman]

As to why God would not intervene to prevent the Holocaust, I don't think anyone has a satifactory answer. I just know that the wrong answer would be that God doesn't care (or doesn't exist).

And you know that how . . . ?

I'm sure you alredy know the answer (but it doesn't involve the word feel(ings) ).

I daresay in a sense I don't know in the same sense as I know mathematics. There's a reason it's called faith.

[_guy sajer]

As to why God would not intervene to prevent the Holocaust, I don't think anyone has a satifactory answer. I just know that the wrong answer would be that God doesn't care (or doesn't exist).

And you know that how . . . ?

I'm sure you alredy know the answer (but it doesn't involve the word feel(ings) ).

I daresay in a sense I don't know in the same sense as I know mathematics. There's a reason it's called faith.

Then may I suggest you refrain from using an absolutist term as "know" and substitute in a less absolutist terms such as "believe?"

[_asbestosman]

As to why God would not intervene to prevent the Holocaust, I don't think anyone has a satifactory answer. I just know that the wrong answer would be that God doesn't care (or doesn't exist).

And you know that how . . . ?

I'm sure you alredy know the answer (but it doesn't involve the word feel(ings) ).

I daresay in a sense I don't know in the same sense as I know mathematics. There's a reason it's called faith.

Then may I suggest you refrain from using an absolutist term as "know" and substitute in a less absolutist terms such as "believe?"

You may, but I am unlikely to heed it. It seems rather in line with traditional language to say things like, "I know my child would never do such a thing" when in fact people technically mean they have no sufficient reason to suspect the child would do such a thing. I am unlikely to change my figure of speech any more than I will tip over backwards to say mankind or people instead of men. Perhaps all you intended was--as Dawkins put it--consciousness raising? That's fine by me. Just don't expect me to capitulate to such whims. I think you (and others) understood what I meant perfectly well.

[_guy sajer]

As to why God would not intervene to prevent the Holocaust, I don't think anyone has a satifactory answer. I just know that the wrong answer would be that God doesn't care (or doesn't exist).

And you know that how . . . ?

I'm sure you alredy know the answer (but it doesn't involve the word feel(ings) ).

I daresay in a sense I don't know in the same sense as I know mathematics. There's a reason it's called faith.

Then may I suggest you refrain from using an absolutist term as "know" and substitute in a less absolutist terms such as "believe?"

You may, but I am unlikely to heed it. It seems rather in line with traditional language to say things like, "I know my child would never do such a thing" when in fact people technically mean they have no sufficient reason to suspect the child would do such a thing. I am unlikely to change my figure of speech any more than I will tip over backwards to say mankind or people instead of men. Perhaps all you intended was--as Dawkins put it--consciousness raising? That's fine by me. Just don't expect me to capitulate to such whims. I think you (and others) understood what I meant perfectly well.

The difference between saying "I know my children would never do such a thing," and "I know God exists," or "I know the Mormon Church is true," or "I know Allah is God," etc., is that the former rarely is used a pretext for people to impose a set of narrow, dogmatic beliefs on others (it can, however, lead to its own set of dysfunctions, such as parents unwilling to open their eyes to the fact that their children are something other than what they imagined).

Plus, in a culture such as Mormonism, it leads to real confusion in which lots of people actually do confuse belief with knowledge, with predictable dysfunctional outcomes.

Saying "I know" enough times can often times lead people to think they actually do know, to the detriment of many others.

As a general rule, the term "I know" ought to be used sparingly in most contexts.

I know this to be true.

[_guy sajer]

I don't know if God intervenes or answers prayers, but someone or something does. Nothing empirical here. Just personal experience.

The question, "Why won't God heal amputees?" probes into a fundamental aspect of prayer and exposes it for observation. This aspect of prayer has to do with ambiguity and coincidence.

Let's look at an example. Let's imagine that you visit your doctor one day, and he tells you that you have cancer. Your doctor is optimistic, and he schedules surgery and chemotherapy to treat your disease. Meanwhile, you are terrified. You don't want to die, so you pray to God day and night for a cure. The surgery is successful, and when your doctor examines you again six months later the cancer is gone. You praise God for answering your prayers. You totally believe with all your heart that God has worked a miracle in your life.

The obvious question to ask is: What cured you? Was it the surgery/chemotherapy, or was it God? Is there any way to know whether God is playing a role or not when we pray?

When your tumor disappeared, in other words, it might simply have been a complete coincidence that you happened to pray. Your prayer may have had zero effect.

How can we determine whether it is God or coincidence that worked the cure? One way is to eliminate the ambiguity. In a non-ambiguous situation, there is no potential for coincidence. Because there is no ambiguity, we can actually know whether God is answering the prayer or not.

That is what we are doing when we look at amputees.

That doesn't seem like a comparable analogy to me. In the case of the amputee, you are asking God to replace a part that was removed and the site of the amputation is already healed. The leg isn't sick or diseased. It is partially or fully missing.

In the case of the cancerous tumor, you are asking God to dissolve or reabsorb something. You are asking God to make something "go away".

The more accurate analogy to the cancerous tumor would be if you asked God to remove your leg.

The more accurate analogy to the amputated leg would be if you asked God to put the cancer back.

Sorry, the analogy being used is totally flawed. It's simply an appeal to emotion and not the basis for a rational argument.




Jersey Girl

If God is all-powerful and all-loving and can heal cancer patients, why couldn't he restore someone's leg?

It's not a flawed analogy at all. It removes that ambiguity. I have a big scar on my arm that I've had since I was a kid. Why can't god remove the scar tissue and replace it with normal tissue?

Why is it that there is NO empirical evidence for God or the effectiveness of prayer? All "answered prayers" can be explained by statistics. If you have 10 people that have a certain form of cancer with a 90% mortality rate. Odds are that one person will survive. If that person prayed to God and then survives, then he/she proclaims that God answered the prayer. But you don't hear about the 9 others that died because God didn't answer their prayers.

The belief in prayer is a superstition. If there was a God and if he really did answer prayers, there would be empirical evidence for it.

I disagree with you. The analogy is flawed in that it attempts to make a comparison between healing a diseased body and replacing part of a healthy body that has healed from amputation. As I stated previously, it appeals to emotion more than reason. If that isn't the case, then why aren't we asking why God can't replace the foreskin of the circumcized penis?

Jersey Girl

You're stating the obvious but completely missing the point. If God is all powerful, as proclaimed by believers, and if he does hear and answer prayers, as promised in Holy Scriptures, why can he not regenerate missing limbs, or while he’s at it, heal cleft palates, heal spines, cure cerebral palsy, etc.? These present unambiguous tests of God’s power and of his ability to answer prayers. While other miracle cures might conceivably be the result of fortuitous coincidence (e.g., tumor disappearing), there is absolutely no way regenerating limbs could be attributed to fortuitous coincidence.

So, if you really in your heart of hearts knows that God hears and answers prayers and performs miraculous healings, why not pray to God that he heal the poor child born without an arm, or with a clubbed foot, or with a cleft palate, or with spina bifida? If the prayed for healing occurred, no one, not even the most hard-core skeptic among us, could doubt that it was a genuine miracle.

[_Jersey Girl]

I don't know if God intervenes or answers prayers, but someone or something does. Nothing empirical here. Just personal experience.

The question, "Why won't God heal amputees?" probes into a fundamental aspect of prayer and exposes it for observation. This aspect of prayer has to do with ambiguity and coincidence.

Let's look at an example. Let's imagine that you visit your doctor one day, and he tells you that you have cancer. Your doctor is optimistic, and he schedules surgery and chemotherapy to treat your disease. Meanwhile, you are terrified. You don't want to die, so you pray to God day and night for a cure. The surgery is successful, and when your doctor examines you again six months later the cancer is gone. You praise God for answering your prayers. You totally believe with all your heart that God has worked a miracle in your life.

The obvious question to ask is: What cured you? Was it the surgery/chemotherapy, or was it God? Is there any way to know whether God is playing a role or not when we pray?

When your tumor disappeared, in other words, it might simply have been a complete coincidence that you happened to pray. Your prayer may have had zero effect.

How can we determine whether it is God or coincidence that worked the cure? One way is to eliminate the ambiguity. In a non-ambiguous situation, there is no potential for coincidence. Because there is no ambiguity, we can actually know whether God is answering the prayer or not.

That is what we are doing when we look at amputees.

That doesn't seem like a comparable analogy to me. In the case of the amputee, you are asking God to replace a part that was removed and the site of the amputation is already healed. The leg isn't sick or diseased. It is partially or fully missing.

In the case of the cancerous tumor, you are asking God to dissolve or reabsorb something. You are asking God to make something "go away".

The more accurate analogy to the cancerous tumor would be if you asked God to remove your leg.

The more accurate analogy to the amputated leg would be if you asked God to put the cancer back.

Sorry, the analogy being used is totally flawed. It's simply an appeal to emotion and not the basis for a rational argument.




Jersey Girl

If God is all-powerful and all-loving and can heal cancer patients, why couldn't he restore someone's leg?

It's not a flawed analogy at all. It removes that ambiguity. I have a big scar on my arm that I've had since I was a kid. Why can't god remove the scar tissue and replace it with normal tissue?

Why is it that there is NO empirical evidence for God or the effectiveness of prayer? All "answered prayers" can be explained by statistics. If you have 10 people that have a certain form of cancer with a 90% mortality rate. Odds are that one person will survive. If that person prayed to God and then survives, then he/she proclaims that God answered the prayer. But you don't hear about the 9 others that died because God didn't answer their prayers.

The belief in prayer is a superstition. If there was a God and if he really did answer prayers, there would be empirical evidence for it.

I disagree with you. The analogy is flawed in that it attempts to make a comparison between healing a diseased body and replacing part of a healthy body that has healed from amputation. As I stated previously, it appeals to emotion more than reason. If that isn't the case, then why aren't we asking why God can't replace the foreskin of the circumcized penis?

Jersey Girl

You're stating the obvious but completely missing the point. If God is all powerful, as proclaimed by believers, and if he does hear and answer prayers, as promised in Holy Scriptures, why can he not regenerate missing limbs, or while he’s at it, heal cleft palates, heal spines, cure cerebral palsy, etc.? These present unambiguous tests of God’s power and of his ability to answer prayers. While other miracle cures might conceivably be the result of fortuitous coincidence (e.g., tumor disappearing), there is absolutely no way regenerating limbs could be attributed to fortuitous coincidence.

So, if you really in your heart of hearts knows that God hears and answers prayers and performs miraculous healings, why not pray to God that he heal the poor child born without an arm, or with a clubbed foot, or with a cleft palate, or with spina bifida? If the prayed for healing occurred, no one, not even the most hard-core skeptic among us, could doubt that it was a genuine miracle.

Your above statements presuppose that all believers believe that God is "all powerful" and yet you fail to define just what that means. You assume that all believers believe the same things about God and presume to put God to a "test".

Even if God were to present a "genuine" miracle to "hardcore skeptics", genuinely hardcore skeptics, in my view, would question that as well. Genuine miracles occur everyday.

You are making the same mistakes in the above. You ask about "healing" birth defects. Is cancer, which was used in the previous examples, a birth defect?

You persist in using children as in "poor child" with birth defects as an appeal to emotion. I ask once more, why not pray for the regeneration of the foreskin for the circumcized penis?

What about the severed finger that grew back? Will that do? And if God is "all powerful" why do you think God needs you to test Him?

And what makes you think that a child born without an arm, clubbed foot, spina bifida or a cleft palate is a "poor child"?

Jersey Girl

[_guy sajer]

I don't know if God intervenes or answers prayers, but someone or something does. Nothing empirical here. Just personal experience.

The question, "Why won't God heal amputees?" probes into a fundamental aspect of prayer and exposes it for observation. This aspect of prayer has to do with ambiguity and coincidence.

Let's look at an example. Let's imagine that you visit your doctor one day, and he tells you that you have cancer. Your doctor is optimistic, and he schedules surgery and chemotherapy to treat your disease. Meanwhile, you are terrified. You don't want to die, so you pray to God day and night for a cure. The surgery is successful, and when your doctor examines you again six months later the cancer is gone. You praise God for answering your prayers. You totally believe with all your heart that God has worked a miracle in your life.

The obvious question to ask is: What cured you? Was it the surgery/chemotherapy, or was it God? Is there any way to know whether God is playing a role or not when we pray?

When your tumor disappeared, in other words, it might simply have been a complete coincidence that you happened to pray. Your prayer may have had zero effect.

How can we determine whether it is God or coincidence that worked the cure? One way is to eliminate the ambiguity. In a non-ambiguous situation, there is no potential for coincidence. Because there is no ambiguity, we can actually know whether God is answering the prayer or not.

That is what we are doing when we look at amputees.

That doesn't seem like a comparable analogy to me. In the case of the amputee, you are asking God to replace a part that was removed and the site of the amputation is already healed. The leg isn't sick or diseased. It is partially or fully missing.

In the case of the cancerous tumor, you are asking God to dissolve or reabsorb something. You are asking God to make something "go away".

The more accurate analogy to the cancerous tumor would be if you asked God to remove your leg.

The more accurate analogy to the amputated leg would be if you asked God to put the cancer back.

Sorry, the analogy being used is totally flawed. It's simply an appeal to emotion and not the basis for a rational argument.




Jersey Girl

If God is all-powerful and all-loving and can heal cancer patients, why couldn't he restore someone's leg?

It's not a flawed analogy at all. It removes that ambiguity. I have a big scar on my arm that I've had since I was a kid. Why can't god remove the scar tissue and replace it with normal tissue?

Why is it that there is NO empirical evidence for God or the effectiveness of prayer? All "answered prayers" can be explained by statistics. If you have 10 people that have a certain form of cancer with a 90% mortality rate. Odds are that one person will survive. If that person prayed to God and then survives, then he/she proclaims that God answered the prayer. But you don't hear about the 9 others that died because God didn't answer their prayers.

The belief in prayer is a superstition. If there was a God and if he really did answer prayers, there would be empirical evidence for it.

I disagree with you. The analogy is flawed in that it attempts to make a comparison between healing a diseased body and replacing part of a healthy body that has healed from amputation. As I stated previously, it appeals to emotion more than reason. If that isn't the case, then why aren't we asking why God can't replace the foreskin of the circumcized penis?

Jersey Girl

You're stating the obvious but completely missing the point. If God is all powerful, as proclaimed by believers, and if he does hear and answer prayers, as promised in Holy Scriptures, why can he not regenerate missing limbs, or while he’s at it, heal cleft palates, heal spines, cure cerebral palsy, etc.? These present unambiguous tests of God’s power and of his ability to answer prayers. While other miracle cures might conceivably be the result of fortuitous coincidence (e.g., tumor disappearing), there is absolutely no way regenerating limbs could be attributed to fortuitous coincidence.

So, if you really in your heart of hearts knows that God hears and answers prayers and performs miraculous healings, why not pray to God that he heal the poor child born without an arm, or with a clubbed foot, or with a cleft palate, or with spina bifida? If the prayed for healing occurred, no one, not even the most hard-core skeptic among us, could doubt that it was a genuine miracle.

Your above statements presuppose that all believers believe that God is "all powerful" and yet you fail to define just what that means. You assume that all believers believe the same things about God and presume to put God to a "test".

Even if God were to present a "genuine" miracle to "hardcore skeptics", genuinely hardcore skeptics, in my view, would question that as well. Genuine miracles occur everyday.

You are making the same mistakes in the above. You ask about "healing" birth defects. Is cancer, which was used in the previous examples, a birth defect?

You persist in using children as in "poor child" with birth defects as an appeal to emotion. I ask once more, why not pray for the regeneration of the foreskin for the circumcized penis?

What about the severed finger that grew back? Will that do? And if God is "all powerful" why do you think God needs you to test Him?

And what makes you think that a child born without an arm is a "poor child"?

Jersey Girl

OK, let’s pray to regenerate the foreskin of a circumcised penis. I’m all for that. Ok, how about a severed finger that grows back. Let’s ask God to do that.

Any guesses as to what the likely outcome will be?

I reject the accusation of appeal to emotion. The example of the child is given so that none could make any counterclaim of “non-worthiness” on the part of the sufferer. Children are innocent such that there is no reason that God would not heal the child were he to keep his word and answer the prayers of the faithful. (Unless one wants to argue that God failed to heal the child due to the faithless or sin of the invoker, another convenient “out” when God fails to answer prayers.)

Why not test God? He said he’d answer our prayers, why then is he to hold back only because we take him at his word? (Note that in other places, eg.., Malachi, God explicitly dares us to put him to the test, so he’s apparently not above being tested a bit.)

I promise, cross my heart. If I saw a limb grown back, I’d believe.

Well, let’s see. All powerful means . . . well, all powerful. God can raise the dead, God can create matter, God can create life, God can cause natural disasters, why the by golly can’t he regrow a limb?

The point is that miracles happen at a rate approximately equal to what one would expect from pure random chance. Cancer goes away at times by pure random chance. Limbs don’t grow back by pure random chance, making the latter a better test of prayer, because it completely takes chance out of the picture.

C’mon NJG, this isn’t that hard to grasp.

All of your questions are answered at the following website if you care to read it:

http://www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com/god8.htm

[_Jersey Girl]

Here is the finger story:



http://www.statesman.com/news/content/gen/ap/Regrowing_Fingers.html

[_Jersey Girl]

guy: OK, let’s pray to regenerate the foreskin of a circumcised penis. I’m all for that. Ok, how about a severed finger that grows back. Let’s ask God to do that.

Any guesses as to what the likely outcome will be?

Jersey Girl: One can only hope that the "poor men" would be "healed".

guy: I reject the accusation of appeal to emotion. The example of the child is given so that none could make any counterclaim of “non-worthiness” on the part of the sufferer. Children are innocent such that there is no reason that God would not heal the child were he to keep his word and answer the prayers of the faithful. (Unless one wants to argue that God failed to heal the child due to the faithless or sin of the invoker, another convenient “out” when God fails to answer prayers.)

Jersey Girl: You are free to reject the accusation of appeal to emotion however, it was you who used the phrase "poor child" to describe children with Spina Bifida, Cleft Palate, clubbed foot or missing arm. If that isn't an appeal to emotion I don't know what is. Now you are attempting to use LDS theology as a vehicle for your argument. What has "innocence" or "worthiness" got to do with Gods ability to answer prayer? Do you assume that God is required to answer prayer in the affirmative?

guy: Why not test God? He said he’d answer our prayers, why then is he to hold back only because we take him at his word? (Note that in other places, eg.., Malachi, God explicitly dares us to put him to the test, so he’s apparently not above being tested a bit.)

Jersey Girl: Where does god "dare" us to put him to the test? Again, you are using emotion laden language. But humor me, where does God "dare" us to put him to the test? Could you give me a reference and quote?

guy: I promise, cross my heart. If I saw a limb grown back, I’d believe.

Jersey Girl: Here you are placing conditions on God in that you have to see a limb grow back.

guy: Well, let’s see. All powerful means . . . well, all powerful. God can raise the dead, God can create matter, God can create life, God can cause natural disasters, why the by golly can’t he regrow a limb?

Jersey Girl: Who says that God can cause natural disasters? Which believers are you speaking for?

guy: The point is that miracles happen at a rate approximately equal to what one would expect from pure random chance. Cancer goes away at times by pure random chance. Limbs don’t grow back by pure random chance, making the latter a better test of prayer, because it completely takes chance out of the picture.

Jersey Girl: Unless you are able to provide statistical analysis of all miracles, I can't accept your assertion about rates of miracles: random chance. Cancer appears to go away with treatment in some and some not. What is the relevance of that? I've given you a link to a story about researchers who are working at restoring severed body parts. Does that meet your so called test? The case of the missing limbs does in no way take "chance" out of the picture. It assumes that God must subject himself to the test of human beings and that his answer to prayer must be in the affirmative.

guy: C’mon NJG, this isn’t that hard to grasp.

Jersey Girl: Are you implying that I lack intelligence?

guy: All of your questions are answered at the following website if you care to read it:

http://www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com/god8.htm

Jersey Girl: I couldn't have asked for a better example of the appeal to emotion than what you've delivered in the link. God "hates" amputees. Thank you for demonstrating my point.

[_Jersey Girl]

I don't know if God intervenes or answers prayers, but someone or something does. Nothing empirical here. Just personal experience.

The question, "Why won't God heal amputees?" probes into a fundamental aspect of prayer and exposes it for observation. This aspect of prayer has to do with ambiguity and coincidence.

Let's look at an example. Let's imagine that you visit your doctor one day, and he tells you that you have cancer. Your doctor is optimistic, and he schedules surgery and chemotherapy to treat your disease. Meanwhile, you are terrified. You don't want to die, so you pray to God day and night for a cure. The surgery is successful, and when your doctor examines you again six months later the cancer is gone. You praise God for answering your prayers. You totally believe with all your heart that God has worked a miracle in your life.

The obvious question to ask is: What cured you? Was it the surgery/chemotherapy, or was it God? Is there any way to know whether God is playing a role or not when we pray?

When your tumor disappeared, in other words, it might simply have been a complete coincidence that you happened to pray. Your prayer may have had zero effect.

How can we determine whether it is God or coincidence that worked the cure? One way is to eliminate the ambiguity. In a non-ambiguous situation, there is no potential for coincidence. Because there is no ambiguity, we can actually know whether God is answering the prayer or not.

That is what we are doing when we look at amputees.

That doesn't seem like a comparable analogy to me. In the case of the amputee, you are asking God to replace a part that was removed and the site of the amputation is already healed. The leg isn't sick or diseased. It is partially or fully missing.

In the case of the cancerous tumor, you are asking God to dissolve or reabsorb something. You are asking God to make something "go away".

The more accurate analogy to the cancerous tumor would be if you asked God to remove your leg.

The more accurate analogy to the amputated leg would be if you asked God to put the cancer back.

Sorry, the analogy being used is totally flawed. It's simply an appeal to emotion and not the basis for a rational argument.

Jersey Girl

Here's some more:


* If someone severs their spinal cord in an accident, that person is paralyzed for life. No amount of prayer is going to help.

* If someone is born with a congenital defect like a cleft palate, God will not repair it through prayer. Surgery is the only option.

* A genetic disease like Down Syndrome is the same way -- no amount of prayer is going to fix the problem.

Again, if God can cure cancer, why can't he cure Cerebral palsy, Parkinsons, Atrial Septal defects, Spina bifida, or Alzheimers?

Thanks for your examples. You ask "if God can cure cancer"...why can't he cure the defects and diseases on your list. Again, those are not appropriate analogies. Are you saying that believers believe that God can cure cancer without no treatment whatsoever? Or are you saying that believers believe that in the case of cancer treatment, that God has the power to provide a successful outcome? If the latter is true, then your analogies are in no way comparable. When we have treatments (through stem cell research and so forth) then you can use your list as a basis for comparision.

Does God provide the treatment or does God provide the ability to develop treatment by human beings? Does God magically put out the forest fire or does God provide man with the ability to develop the hose and hydrant?

Jersey Girl