Does God hear the prayers of disbelievers? Does he answer them?

Question

I was thinking about this a few hours ago, and I've seen that another user has pipped me to it:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Avxv1kOo5nqUiXBtNMyFb03zy6IX?qid=20060705094725AAHBIK4

So mine is a little different. If you believe in God, do you believe that God would hear the prayers of those who don't believe in God? And would he answer them?

Please don't just respond with "Why would someone who doesn't believe in God pray to God?" - it's not a very illustrative answer...

Answer 1

Since God to me isn't real and hypothetical I would think its just as good for you and me as atheists to pray as it is a theist, its a meditation asking for stregnth from an external source, and the way humans are connected spiritually I'm not sure the spirital connection wouldn't respond.

Answer 2

If there might be a God, I think God is a fair God.

I also think prayer should never be selfish, never for a car or even to heal my own disease, if i were ill. I think prayer should always be an unselfish act. Praying can be done to cure others, to help others, for world peace (utopia, i know), to help stop starvation in the poor parts of the world. Those are prayers that are unselfish, and make sense to me.

That means that if God listens you prayers, then he might for example listen to a Christian pray to end starvation in Congo. Not everybody is religious in Congo, and i don't think that God, if he answers to the prayer, would make a difference between several religious groups in Congo. So, if he listens to believers praying to help unbelievers, why wouldn't he listen to unbelievers at first hand? So, yep God would also hear the prayers of unbelievers and answer them.

But if God is allknowing, then by default prayer is useless, because he already knows what you wish for.

Answer 3

Good question. I believe that God does hear the prayers of unbelievers and He does answer them. When an unbeliever prays to God at the moment of salvation, God hears them and answers their prayer with a "yes".
Of course, in other situations the answer to a unbeliever's prayer may be "no". God still answered the prayer, but He did not give the prayer what they wanted.

Answer 4

Yes, God does answer the prayers of the sinner. How else can they be converted? Without communication with God, we cannot hope to have enough information or advice at our disposal to help us along the way. This is why prayer is as important as going to worship services. The Scripture says, "....how can they hear without a preacher?" So, yes, God does still hear and answer prayers in a mighty way, but He does tire of those who pray only when they want something, using Him as a crutch.

Answer 5

Would a person who doesn't believe in God ever pray?

I'd say probably not -- but if he/she ever did, I have no doubt that God would hear his/her prayers.

If the person started praying, I suppose that from that moment (if not earlier), the person would have ceased being a nonbeliever. The very fact that the person is now praying probably means that the person has finally come around to acknowledging God's existence.

Answer 6

I think "God" does hear the prayers of disbeleivers. I think God answers prayers for everyone. You just have to remember that everyone elses prayers are not the same as yours. If I was God, I would answer non beleivers prayers, but they probably wouldn't get the results they thought they were asking for. For instance, if someone asked to come into lots of money (becaue they were greedy) then I'd allow it, but they might die the next day and all the money would have to go to charity..

Answer 7

I'm not sure how many disbelievers are going to be praying in the first place. If you're talking about God hearing prayers regardless of who people think they're praying to (Allah for instance) then he probably does.

Answer 8

Is the Christian God nothing more then a giant begging slot machiene? Insert the tokens in the form of prayers pull the stupid arm of faith / religious conditioning and poof God is required to despence the goodies! HOW CHILDISH! But then again we are talking about Christians here and maturity is not a strong suit for them!

Answer 9

It may not be a very illustrative answer, but someone who didn't believe in Him wouldn't be praying to Him. It would be like me praying to Buddah, not gonna happen, and even if for some ridiculous reason I did pray to Buddah, I certainly wouldn't expect him or any other so-called god I didn't even believe in to answer me. So basically, if someone prays to God, then whether they want to admit it or not, they believe in Him, so He'd probably listen.

Answer 10

One who pray the God is definitely believer of God. So answer is positive.