Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire So you don't think God answers prayers?

Faith as a belief held without the support of evidence can prove true or false depending on whether actual evidence comes along. Then there is the matter of probability. How probably is it that Islam is correct, or Hinduisms Brahman, or Zeus living atop Mt Olympus.


"Faith is like a piece of blank paper whereon you may write as well one miracle as another." ~ Charles Blount (1654-1693)

What about your faith-? Its on display every time you post, yet you exempt it from your own critique.

Faith is all you have in the end.....

The sober reality of this world can get rather
depressing for some, another world of make
believe can help sooth and distract, offering
some temporary relief.

In war soldiers can tell themselves "the war will
Be over soon and we will be home for christmas"

That can help some better deal with the constantly
piling up bodies, stench, fatigue, fear, misery, hunger,
etc.
Now if one can imagine something way superior
like a heaven, it may even better assist in convincing people that all the terrible suffering is worthwhile.

Equivocation. If I point out what the essential definition of faith is, it is not my definition but the given definition as used in the English language. I am not making anything up., Blount used the recognized definition of faith back in the 1600's, as quoted. I can and do support what I say.

Man can prove the internet/WiFi/fibre optic cables work... Prayers ending up in Gods ethereal inbox
not so much.

You are not correct. Faith is not as you say ….”a belief held without the support of evidence…..” That may be your thinking but it most certainly not biblical nor in line with basic Christian tenets.

In brief, here are the basics:

First, faith is “being sure of what hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Now, your natural mind will object and say that I am describing belief without any evidence for that belief. (see Hebrews 11:1)

Your dictionary may describe faith as simply as “belief in and devotion to God.” There is more to it than that.

So, second, faith is a gift….. a gift….. from God. He gives that faith to us. Yep, that simple. God gives us the faith to believe in Him and to be “certain” of what we do not see.

This is the “proof” that God provides to us and for us. (see Ephesians 2:8-9)

As had been referred to previously…. “…He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (see Hebrews 11:6)

As far as what Aquinas says he can kiss my butt. I look at the quality of his arguments, can I better them or not. I really don't care if he can fly up his own apex or not.

You either buy the Aquinas claim of levitation
or you dont.

Man can disprove travel beyond the speed of light, communications over the internet, are not possible without a modem, and network interconnect by sticking optical cable in your ear. Prayers not ending up in God's ethereal inbox
not so much.

Perhaps some things are not subject to proof, or disproof?

I'm agnostic.

or following on to my previous post, prove he didn't.

What I don't understand about these threads is why every time one comes up, the same people line up to try to discredit others' faith. Why do they care what others believe? Believe what you want, but why the need to discredit someone else's beliefs? Why do they care, and why the need to try and "prove" something that can't be proven?

It makes no sense.

So you believe things till disproven?

IF you were on a jury where a christian defendant claimed God told him to kill his child,

The burden is for the court to prove a God didnt
do such?

You would tell other jury members that you believe
the defendant without any proof?

Hebrews, if you understand the verse, supports what I said. It says exactly what I said, only more poetically. Faith is a sense of surety based on the things hoped for, faith is its own 'evidence' - which is not actually evidence in terms of verifiable information that anyone can access, ie, your reasons for believing in god is not based on objective evidence....hence the reason why your belief is classified as a matter of faith...faith is believing in things unseen and non detectable, the Hindu faith, Islamic faith, etc, etc...

You are a critic of the idea of obtaining knowledge through faith. That fact has been demonstrated on this site beyond any doubt (in numerous posts by you and conversations in which you've participated) . Yet you exempt yourself from the strictures of your own criticism because materialism (which you adhere to with near religious devotion) holds that the metaphysical freedom of the mind (the idea that the mind is actually free to apprehend truth) is an impossibility. In which case, truth is an impossibility and in which further case, it is nonsense to even employ language for any purpose. (This is the quintessence of nihilism). The only way to escape this conundrum is to deny the truth of materialism (which you refuse to do) while incessantly talking as if truth is a genuine possibility and while simultaneously while slavishly following a philosophy that denies that there is any such thing as truth. You are therefore very much like that Cretin who said that all Cretins are liars.

Science cannot explain consciousness, my body could do all it does without me being self-aware inside it. Proof enough for me that what we see ain’t all there is.

Likewise I cannot recollect ever creating myself.

Mostly I’m very grateful for the life I have been given.

Well, here again we have non-Christians telling Christians what the Bible teaches. Not uncommon.

Oh well, go your own way, it seems right to you.

Android phones do a stack of things that the owners dont know the device is doing even when not actively using it... Most people still dont know
precisely how that is possible.. And many still
wouldnt really uderstand even if you explained
the intracacies Of the tecnology to them.

I told you, I'm agnostic.

Logic requires that you entertain any possibility, yea or nay, no matter how improbable, until proven (to your satisfaction) otherwise.

Dad used to tell a joke.

A roofer was near the ridgeline of a large barn hammering in shingle nails when he slipped and started sliding inevitably toward the eve.

"Oh Lord Jesus save me please!"
Just then his pants snagged upon a protruding nail and he abruptly stopped sliding.
"Never mind Lord, the nail caught me."

I was carted along to Sabbath School every week during my formative years. I took Bible studies from several religious organizations and studied the Bible in College. Along the way I learned how many organized religions change their positions on doctrine with the times in order to keep the pews filled and the coffers full. I learned how various sects cling to one verse or chapter or even book of the Bible and use that segment to ignore other sections.

I remember a revelation when I was 12 years old. I was playing out in a 18 inch tall alfalfa field when I realized I had lost my one and only first ever pocket knife recently received as a birthday present. I was kneeling in the dirt and had not moved since I had the knife in my hand.

And I remember praying. "Show me my knife. Help me find it and I will believe forever" No, at that time, as a twelve year old child, I did not believe. I wondered, but did not know.

And eventually after bending over each bunch of alfalfa and straining the dirt through my fingers in a circle as large as I could have possibly dropped the knife. I did find it. I breathed a sigh of relief. And then I sat and thought about what had just happened.

Being a rational, rather than an emotional child, I concluded that it was my dedication to the search. A thorough and methodical sifting of the possible terrain in which it had been lost. There was no devine intervention.

This lead to a life of questions and doubt. Eventually, before I graduated High School, I concluded there was no evidence of any form of deity. Oh, yes, until my mid-twenties, I sat through Sabbath School. I read the lessons and could regurgitate all the proper answers. But it was no more than a mental exercise, and an opportunity to socialize with the young pretty single ladies.

From the time I was six years old, I had read mythology from many cultures, and I learned to recognize Judeo Christian stories to be equatable to Roman, Greek, Norse, and Arab mythology.

There is much wisdom in the Bible. To live by the laws of the Bible is to live cooperatively as a society. There is much real History recorded in the Bible, but it is mixed with the mythology of the oral traditions. And there is much in the Bible which is only there to perpetuate The Priesthood and keep the Priests fat, happy, and sometimes even well bedded.

None of the previous paragraph proves the existence of any god, or the deity of the man known as Jesus of Nazerath. It does prove the old Jewish priests were wise and calculating and had thousands of years to hone their stories for greatest effect.

So, to the OP. No, I do not believe prayer changes the odds in the outcome of any situation. I do not deny that their are beings in the Universe with higher abilities than I or with more knowledge than I. I do deny that such a being has any influence upon my life, nor knowledge of my existence. And that being must conform to the laws of physics, just as you and I must.

As I am experiencing Heaven right here on Earth in the present time. I have no need to believe in an afterlife. When the electrons quite flowing in the brain, consciousness fades, and that which makes us human rather than inanimate matter ceases to exist. We are done and gone, never to exist again.

What is the proof of this? What a ridiculous question. Of course no one has ever actually died, actual brain dead, total cessation of neural activity, and then told us what is on the other side.

So there is no proof. But I do have FAITH.