Intercessory Prayer

When people pray for you what exactly are they hoping to accomplish vis-à-vis God? Are they trying to get God to provide some sort of assistance, or relief from suffering that He wouldn’t have bestowed on you otherwise? Are they informing Him of some issue of which He was unaware in the hope that He will now do something about it?

I think it’s nice when people say they’ll pray for me. It’s a kind gesture of concern. But do they actually think it’s any more than that?

 

So another thing. (I know, when you're the only one responding to your own post it's a loser) What about these people after the recent tornadoes in the South and Midwest who you saw on TV saying that they prayed and God spared their house or gave them time to escape or something along those lines? Do they actually think there's a connection? What about the people who prayed just as hard, maybe harder and God didn't spare their house and maybe took a family member or two just for good measure? Does God actually operate this way?

 

I'd say most people pray to give themselves peace, not that they are being selfish though. By praying for someone, or something good to happen, they find a peace within themselves.

 

This makes sense to me, but that doesn't seem to be how most people view it, at least in my experience. They talk about the power of prayer as if they actually believe that God will act in response to their supplications. And should things happen to turn out the way they had hoped they credit that as proof that prayer "works" and God listens.

 

I see that in others also, but that wouldn't be my view. IMO, it's rather delusional, and somewhat irrational, but I understand that, to them, it's absolute truth.

As an example: Say two equally devout people are driving off a cliff. Both begin to pray for their safety. One dies. To the surviver it's a miracle, to the dead one (if that one was able to explain their belief, despite being dead) it's what was meant to be.

Ultimately, it's a matter of faith... which sounds like I'm trying to be funny, but I'm not.

Someone believing in something, that I can't also agree with, is fine with me ...until that belief causes me harm. As an example: Sharia law is not my belief, and I wouldn't live long if I was forced to abide by it. In America, many, many laws have been based on religious beliefs. I'm fine with those laws as long as they don't cause me too much harm. I mention this since America has always attempted to keep religion in churches, and away from it's laws (for the most part successful)... but I see a growing movement towards a more religious-based government, and I'd hate to see that happen. I break enough laws already LOL

 

I wouldn't last 20 minutes under Sharia law. I agree with you about religious based government aka theocracy. As an atheist, for lack of a better term, I don't hate religion I just resent it when people think that they have the right to use the state to impose their particular religion on the rest of us. And I do try to understand it, for my own protection if nothing else. My question about intercessory prayer is genuine. I'd like someone who believes in it to explain it to me. You might be right about it boiling down to faith.

 

...and there is no way to prove or disprove faith... I mean, I could be wrong, but I have faith I'm right lol

 

I wonder about this too. There does seem to be a mindset that God can be swayed if enough people pray. That doesn't seem very fair to a person who only has maybe one person praying while another person has a hundred person praying.

I sometimes think maybe some things are going to happen no matter what, and in other situations maybe we can ask God how we particularly would like something to go and the prayer is granted because it doesn't change the big picture. If that's true, I have a hard time imagining it matters if a whole bunch of people are praying about the situation or just one.

 

If you are a traditional theist I think that you have to decide whether God has a hand in everything and is kind of micro-managing based on input from his beings or if he just set the whole thing in motion and has left the building. If there is one big picture then nothing can be granted that might change that because whatever prayers are offered up and whatever requests are granted is already pre-determined. In other words we have no free will. Of course if God has created an infinite number of big pictures and given us an infinite number of individual choices that will determine which big picture the universe is in at any given moment, then that changes things a little bit. But there is still no free will because no matter what we do we will be choosing an option that God has already foreseen. But that still begs the question of whether God steps in or whether he just watches. Or doesn't watch because he doesn't particularly care. It's all too confusing for me.

 

On a personal level (since Jesus used an example comparing how God knows how many feathers each sparrow has, and so he cares even more about individual people), let's say a person is born on earth with a basic path that must accomplish certain things -- the predetermined aspect. But within that path are a lot of less consequential situations that God might grant a prayer for. God might grant a prayer that a student gets a single room in the residence hall, for instance, or aces a test. But He maybe wouldn't grant a prayer to get into a certain school that would totally disrupt the path.

 

I donno. I hope I would never get to the point where I felt that it was worth petitioning the Creator of All that Is for something on the level of a single room in a dorm. And if I did think it that important I'd hope he'd respond by telling me to get a life. That sounds to me like a waste of my time and His. Is there some reason why God should even consider such prayers not to mention grant them by making whatever arrangements needed to be made? And even if he did choose to grant it, how would we ever know that it was divine intervention that got us the single? I understand what you're saying, but....

 

Well there have been double blind scientific studies done on the efficacy of intercessory prayer (which is really fun to say over and over). They took Three groups of people getting a surgery performed split them up and started praying for them. One group received prayers and did not know if they were being prayed for.The second did not receive prayers and did not know it. The final group received prayers and did know it. The results? No statistical difference between the test group and the control group. Richard Dawkins talks about it in his book The God Delusion.

I think if anything it's just wishful thinking on part of the believer.

 

Me, either. Of course, I wouldn't be able to survive if the Fundamentalist Christians got their way either. They have this war they are waging against anyone other than heterosexual "he-man/woman-haters" and their "submissive wives." My wife and I would definitely be moving somewhere else.

 

I agree, Tak. That's why I don't believe that "Jesus is my personal Savior." It seems so arrogant, somehow, to ask God for minor things in my life. I have to admit I prayed big time in March when one of my dogs was having unexplained seizures: but I prayed for her to survive whatever it was that was causing her such issues *or* for her to go with peace. Here it is November and she is still in good health so whether intercessory prayer works or not (an I believe it does) then I could still feel that God cares enough for me and for the health of my little dog to believe it does.

A number of issues exist when studying the efficacy of prayer. How do you measure the results? That is, what indicates that prayer "works?" What measure do you use? Do you use measures of psychoticism and neuroticism (which implies that prayer is pathological? Or do you develop your own measures--and how do you validate your own measures if you do? Just because previous studies have not shown evidence that prayer "works," how do we know that there is sincerity or belief behind the prayer used in the study? Does mechanical prayer (prayer, in this case, done to fulfill the requirements of a study) have the same efficacy as sincere prayer (prayer, in this case, that is spontaneous and fulfills personal needs)? There are way too many confounding factors in studying the efficacy of prayer to state whether it is effective or not.

 

I think an accurate example of the effectiveness of prayer is Rick Perry's "Pray for Rain" events for Texas. An event which has been held for several years, with lots of people praying between the events, during which the drought in Texas has gotten much worse.

 

Fine, that's your belief. I respect that. But is that research based on the scientific method or personal opinion? Just because you don't get what you want when you pray doesn't mean its "ineffective." It just means that you didn't get the result that you wanted, for whatever reason.

 

That is just a personal observation. I just thought it was interested that in a part of the country where people are mostly deeply religious the results of a concentrated attempt to get god to intervene has had the exact opposite effect. The drought in Texas is really, really bad and it has gotten that way despite thousands of people asking god to intervene. Just a curiosity.
The answer you gave about not getting the answer you want would just lead one to believe that god wants a massive drought for Texas. Either prayer doesn't work or god just said "tough sh*t Texas."

There have been scientific studies about the effectiveness of prayer and the results were definately interesting.


Power of prayer flunks an unusual test

 

Read my comments in another thread on the research done on the efficacy of prayer.

 

It will eventually rain in Texas. Their prayers will be answered. See?

 

That's not the way it works. However, it's a shame that you can take such pleasure in mocking desperate people. Hay is up to $22/bale right now. The same bale costs $4/bale right now, where I live. Will you be so quick to mock people when the price of everything livestock-related goes through the roof? What is your stance on all of the starving horses that people are releasing onto public land? Still mock-worthy?