Something entertaining I found for you to fight over:

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Whatever we pray for, we pray for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: "Great God, grant that twice two be not four." A miracle is an event described by those to whom it was told by men who did not see it. As Emerson said, "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect."

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Makes perfect sense to me, from a practical viewpoint. However, one of the purposes of honest prayer is devotion and union with a spiritual force.

I don't pray and don't believe in such things, but I do think that some people may pray for reasons other than requesting miracles.

the difficulty here lies in history. unfortunately the history of the church and prayer have been plagued by wars, brainwash, murder, torture and deceit all in the name of God. The same bible that so many hold dear, is a book compiled by a "religious" order that purposely excluded certain books of the bible (see apocrypha for more info)to keep certain "truths" away from the common man, so that the power will stay in the church. See, prayer is not a complicated thing for those who believe in a higher power. its the religious sects that try to teach the power of prayer that makes things complicated. truth is, the majority of people praying were taught the wrong way, and their prayers will not be answered anyway (Matthew 6:1-8). The ironic thing is the message is very clear, it's all about free will, the choice to believe and not to believe, the option to pray or not to pray. Even the immortal, powerful angels of the bible were jealous of man because of our ability to choose, and some were thrown out of heaven because they were equally jealous of God because of his love for man and man's worship and devotion to God. I personally have my beliefs, and I normallydo not discuss them because i do not wish to scare anyone away,lol. I am not a satan worshiper, but because of my own personal studies in theology, and history, i believe in a different ways that seem more logical and factual to me. Free will is the one thing we have that is real.

I think prayers are rather strange. It's like saying to yourself you want it to be good weather tomorrow and when it turns out to be a wonderful sunny day people will say 'see it worked', however if it rains that day people will say 'darn I haven't prayed good enough' or 'we didn't please the gods well enough we need a bigger sacrifice'.

That just doesn't make any sense, people attribute certain events to God without ever realizing (or admitting) that there's no way you can tell if it was God... in fact, when it comes to the weather, it simply means the conditions were right for the type of weather it will be. That's what we can see, however whether or not 'God' made these conditions like they were is impossible to say or check. When it comes to complex systems there's a lot that matters for the overall outcome and result. I think that the more we figure out about these systems the further back 'God's influence' will be, in fact it will always be placed at the point that we 'simply do not know' what happened or how it happened.

It's back-paddling at best, but probably God simply represents the unknown or not yet known and nothing supernatural and not even a being. Plenty of discoveries in the past have shown that a lot of things were not caused by Gods or God.

I also wonder why really good people die of cancer eventhough their family prayed hard for the person to heal. The 'God thought it was time for him or her to go' simply sounds awfully similar to the 'we haven't prayed good enough' or 'didn't please god well enough', but in the end it simply did not work. How come if praying more or less is supposed to "work"? If it's all up to God anyways, why bother praying for things to happen?

I can understand the common comment that God isn't 'Santa Claus' and simply won't give everyone what they want, but that's really a very weak argument when the real link between an invisible God and events that happen is non-existing or invisible,

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truth is, the majority of people praying were taught the wrong way

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Yes, but then again this doesn't matter because there's no way of distinguishing between luck or chance from either God willing to give what you want or God saying no 'sorry not this time'. If people pray in the wrong way, but they still 'get what they want', then how do you know they did something wrong? The opposite is also true, if people pray but don't get what they want, how can you tell whether it was God saying no or a wrong prayer? Or perhaps prayers simply don't work because there is no God?

It's quite ironic that this has to do with free will, because of course people want to believe and want to pray when loved ones are dying. I'd say that's enough prove that it doesn't 'work' if it is supposed to work.

Besides, often in case of a surgery after an accident it'll be the doctors saving lives, not God. It's quite easy to proof, just prevent the doctors from doing anything ...

Cheers

SEE, I agree with your point. the point i was trying to make earlier was, you dont have to allow religion and a diety control your faith and beliefs. free will allows free thinking to occur, gives you an opportunity to get some clarity in your life. let the brainwash fade and the truth to become evident. my example is, ancient Sumer, the first civilization. the first writing, cuniform tablets recording the events re-told and redesigning the old testament, making sure to adjust the power to the church, giving glory to their one God, and ignoring the others. now taking the stories of the bible re-written some 3500 years later by men who taught others to fear what they didnt understand. i ask you, look at the old testament and the events in it, you will see proof of extraterrestrial events, then look at the artifacts and celestial calenders of ancient cultures, and look at their dieties, then ask yourself, " can it be possible that maybe the gods and angels that we think were here and spoken about in the bible, possibly came down from a mothership?" ufo's, abductions, etc were spoken about in the bible during the old testament, and there are many more events in their own book to support these claims. and look really closely to the church and all that it has done in the name of religion, and look at the clergy for lack of answers themselves, brainwash people into believing they should live in fear and not answer any questions. ask yourself what if the ancient civizations were right all along? if we were given this free will br God to have options and ask questions, why does the church tell us not to ask questions. religion has proven to be nothing more than a contradiction.

look, i dont want anyone to think that i worship aliens or anything, but i always thought if you can see it, touch it and its real, then its real. thats all that i am saying. there is no proof that king solomons temple exsisted, or any actual writings of Jesus Christ anywhere, but there is loads of examples of alien exsistence, and i am not talking about Roswell, NM.