Something I’ve always considered funny, even when I was a Christian myself are those people that pray for some financial outcome to their lives. there are people that go through hard timess. Many reading this may have at one time or another had a financial disaster occur to us and the question is, whst did we do?
I know what I did when seversl years ago, I was out of work and the prospects for getting a position inmy profession seemed bleak. I went out and applied everywhere. Well, I have to say thsat I never looked at fast-food restaurants but beyond thst, I looked at working in a warehouse, loading and unloading trucks, just to make enough to pay bills. I had a friend, a truck driver, thst got me a temporary position, for about 2 months, loading trucks going out for delivery. Hard work.
After a few months of working one job after another, i finally got a full time position in my field. I never gave up, and I knew I needed to keep working, not feel sorry for myself. I knew there was no “God” out there to take care of my needs. What it always comes down to is the individual picking themselves up and making their own future.
There were, at that time a couple of Christians friends that tolsd me thst they would pray for me, my situation. Well, guess who received the credit when aafter a few months I had a new position? Not me. It was “To the Glory of God” that I received my new position and the time between was nothing more thasn a “test”. Really? Why would some loving god want to put any of his/her creation through such emotional turmoil to discover wheter or not he/she is faithful? Isn’t God supposedly omnicisent? Doesn;t God already know the outcone?Well, if you were ever a Christian, that’s exactly what you had always been taught
If I had laid around, praying to God for relief from my situation, well, I’d still be out of work and probably homeless. Maybe praying gives the one a moment of silence, to calm down, relieve their panic of a situation and allow them to come to a decision – self made, on how to relieve that peoblem. I think it’s sort of like meditation that people tell me about. It’s a calming moment where someone can then clearly consider their life.
I see nothing wriong with stopping, taking a few deep breaths to calm down, and then consider some life situation, whatever it is. But expecting some God to solve it for you, seems ridiculous to me. If thst were true, we’d hsve no homelss in this country., ‘we’d also have no one addicted to drugs,etc.
We can help one another, and we should. But no one can help another that doesn’t;t want to be helped.
Conservative Skeptic 
Letting God solve problems is always a win-win scenario for Christians and that makes it a hard nut to crack. God’s Will is supreme and if he choses to allow you to “grow in your faith” through hard times or cancer, then a devout Christians correctly place themselves in his hands and praise him for whatever outcome there is.
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What is with all of the spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors in this article?
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I see no value or use in praying for people or things. One can’t pray for others anymore than one can think for others. It only makes sense to pray for others if they believe that god hears & answers prayers, which makes no sense at all.
If a child was dying, and prayer heals the child, that would suggest that god would’ve let the child die if no one prayed, otherwise prayer is useless because god was going to heal the child anyway.
So if prayer works, that means there are good things that need to be done and we would do ourselves without hesitation and without being asked,but,… only god will do IF we ask. Which insinuates that god is not good natured.
Or maybe god is good natured and hears & acts on prayers, which is what many people actually believe, but we would have to reconcile god’s good nature with the idea that prayer causes god to act.
If prayer doesn’t cause god to act, then its nothing more than a form of meditation or therapy for those doing the praying. In effect it’s like seeing someone in need and tending to yourself, which would make prayer incredibly selfish.
Two things to consider if prayer causes god to act:
1. if god acts on all our prayers, it would not only be impossible since some prayers conflict, but it would also put us in charge, and it could mean god sometimes acts on immoral prayers. So how does that alter our view of gods good nature?
2. If god doesn’t act on all of our prayers, then how does he choose?
If god chooses randomly, then there is no moral value to gods actions. And again, it suggests god isn’t good-natured.
If god uses judgment to choose, deciding which prayers are good and deserve to be acted upon, then why doesn’t he apply that judgment directly? Determining which events deserve to be acted upon? Which insinuates that god is not voluntarily good.
Another possibility, is that maybe god doesn’t know about these things until we pray. If thats true, then he isn’t all-knowing. We wouldn’t have to pray if thats the case. We would just have to give god a heads up. Instead of saying” pray for this person” we would say” go tell god about this person” .
Or maybe its some kind of democracy and god only acts if we decide it’s worth acting on. We would “vote” by praying. But we often pray for things we don’t get, so if it’s a democracy, its a really bad one.
Or maybe, we might choose to believe that god is good-natured and listens to our prayers, acting on those that have merit, and that to us, it only seems as if god is being inconsistent. And that what we cannot see is that some of the bad things that happen to us are ultimately for our own good.
BUT THAT would require us to believe an incredibly long list of horrible, inhuman, terrible, horrendous, nightmarish, unforgivable, bad things are actually good, and that whatever happens is part of gods plan, and we can sometimes change that plan through prayer.
But that raises 2 questions:
1. If our prayers were worth listening to in the first place, why weren’t they part of the original plan?
Did god fail to think of something, or is he adopting a less perfect plan in order to succumb to our wishes?
2. If even the most unconscionable things that seem bad to us are actually part of gods plan, and therefore good, why did he equip us with a conscience to see these things as bad, and why is our eternal salvation resting on our ability to identify these things as bad?
That is no different than giving someone a broken pair of eyeglasses, telling them to put them on and complete an eye exam. Then, killing them for failing the exam!
I agree that prayer is a gesture with the best intentions, but its an exercise in futility for the purpose of appealing to the supernatural. Its superstition, with a halo.
Perhaps prayer should be a form of meditation. To help one clear the mind & reflect. Which can be very therapeutic as an effective way of dealing with pain.
I’ve always appealed to the quote from Madalyn Murray O’hair who said:
” “Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.”
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