Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to Prayer works.

Dear Eri and Reb,
ER — (archived)

I'm not bringing this up to be a smart ass, but I'm really curious about it. I want to know how religious people understand this. I know a lot of people believe it, and many of them are much smarter than I am. I must be missing something. As someone who doesn't believe there is anyone to pray to, I've often wondered how prayer could work even if there was someone to pray to.

Do religious people really think they can bargain with God? That they can change his mind, negotiate? Why should God listen to prayer, shouldn't he already know what needs to be done, what the right thing to do is, why should our request make any difference to him? He is omniscient, he has known for all eternity what is going to happen, why should a prayer now change his mind? As Jim Morrison once put it, "You cannot petition the Lord with prayer".

And what about prayer on behalf of another? Why should my prayer for say, someone else to recover from a severe illness, be listened to by God? Isn't it between God and the sick guy? Why should my prayer help him? What business is it of mine? And praying for the dead? Haven't the dead already been judged, either saved or condemned in the Christian tradition, what could we possibly be able to do to change that outcome after the fact.

If a person hears that a plane has just crashed at the airport and everyone aboard was killed, and that person knows that a loved one is due to fly at that airport on that day, does he pray for the safety of the passenger? After all, the friend of the praying person was either on the death plane, or he wasn't. If he was, nothing, not God or prayer or anything can save him. He is already dead. If he wasn't aboard that plane, the passenger was never in danger and prayer is unnecessary. Either way, prayer doesn't make any sense, even if there IS a god.

And if you pray for the safety of your friend, isn't that selfish? What about all the other passengers on that plane you are not praying for? Isn't it unfair to them?

I know these are the sort of questions a child might ask, and as I child I asked them. But I never got a satisfactory answer.

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