" Does God change his divine plan as a result of the prayer ?" This one is easy, Fran ! The plan includes the prayer and its result.
On Sep 10, 10:25 pm, frantheman <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm taking the liberty of starting a new thread on this one, taking up > a theme which cropped up in the "Homage to Neil" thread as a result of > a half throw-away comment I made about my extreme skepticism about the > efficacy of prayer. > > First, definitions:http://freedictionary.org/?Query=prayer&button=Search > > For an initial working model I'll take the following Webster [1913] > definition, "The act of addressing supplication to a divinity, > especially to the true God; the offering of adoration, confession, > supplication, and thanksgiving to the Supreme Being." > > There are a number of aspects here which are - for believers - > relatively unproblematic; adoration, confession and thanksgiving. Even > from the point of view of a non-believer, I can accept the idea of > positive psychological feedback from such action, a kind of inner > positive loop which need not be dependent on the actual existence of > the deity being prayed to. The issue I want to address here is that of > prayer as supplication; asking God for something, requesting God to > influence specific outcomes of specific processes. > > The major Abrahamic monotheistic systems all posit a God who is > omnipotent and omniscient and who is involved in an individual > personal relationship with all human beings (or, at least, those who > profess belief and commitment to him/her). To me, the idea that this > God would concretely intervene to change the course of events as a > result of a particular request by a believer seems to be riddled with > contradictions. Does God change his divine plan as a result of the > prayer? If, following the conventional religious models, God loves the > believer and directs things for his/her ultimate good, will he/she not > do this regardless of whether the believer prays or not? > > And, while you're thinlking about this, a little musical > contribution :-) > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He4NFXIKQkk > > Francis --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
