For those who don't believe that God answers prayers?

Question

I have a question for you. I don't mean to be disrespectful. But I do want to understand where your logic is on this issue.

I've heard many times that people don't believe that God answers prayers because he did not answer prayer for you.

My question is this: would you give someone something when they only come to you when they want something. Don't you get tired of getting asked for things and not having that person want to be around you? When you didn't get an answer to prayer, how was your relationship with God at that point? Could it be that he was treated as nothing more than a granter of your wishes instead of treating him with the respect that was due him?

Yes, God is a very loving God, but you have to know him to hear his voice.

Answer 1

I'll will tell you this, but I will not go into the horrible details and I will never repeat it again. As a child I wanted to be a preacher. I prayed all the time,especially every night before bed. Then at 12 years old I witnessed my father beat my mother over and over on her head with the butt of a shotgun until she was dead. The whole time praying over and over not to let her die. So, eventually I stopped believing. If there was a god that would let something like this happen to a child I would hate him with great vengeance. I had to stop believing for my own health and well being. It's terrible to be full of hate.

Answer 2

Thank you for using your brain while trying to argue for religion.
The thing is that the Bible mentions God answering the prayers of the people living when the Bible was written. Also, churches put a large emphasis on having to come and pray every week. What's the point of praying if it doesn't work? If the clergy are wrong about praying, could they be wrong about other stuff? Could they be lying about God's existance? There is a thought process that leads to this logic.

Here is an experiment that I heard about on the news. A group of people had heart surgery and needed to recover from it. Scientists divided these people into smaller groups. One of the subgroups was prayed for, one wasn't, and there were other groups with more subtle variations in the differences. The results showed that between 55 and 60 percent of people in each group had complication. This showed that prayer had no effect. (It also showed that a lot of people end up with heart complications.) This is an example of why people don't think that God answers prayer.


My biggest problem is how people view prayer. Please look at my example to see what I'm trying to say: Let's say that I want to flip a coin and have it land on heads 50 times in a row. I start by praying to Zeus, asking him to make the coin do what I described before. Then, I flip the coin. Nothing happens and the explanation both of us would accept is that I wasn't praying to any real, powerful being, so the coin only landed on heads half of the time. Now, I pray to God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. (I'm not Christian, so I don't know who you'd adress the prayer to. Pretend I prayed to the right one.) Next, I flip the coin and I get the same result. What is your explanation? It's going to be that it wasn't the will of God, or God isn't a servant, or the prayer was done wrong.
Notice the difference in the explanations for the 2 similar occurences. This is the kind of reaction I see when people discuss religion, especially prayer. People want to believe so much that they cannot accept the simplest explanation.


Sorry for the long response and again, thank you for writing one of the few respectfully written questions that I've seen all day on this site.

Answer 3

I want to add that there is a country song about "Thank God for Unanswered Prayers", where the guy realized later in life how unhappy he would have been if God had given him what he wanted years before.

Also many people get the answers, but don't like them. My view is 'don't ask the question if you are not prepared for the answer" because it may not be the one you want.

I asked God to help me years ago because of my terrible marriage ( I was on the verge of suicide). The next morning five police cars pulled up and arrested my husband and put him in prison - it was NOT the answer I expected or wanted from God, but it saved my life, and I successfully raised my children on my own after that.

Answer 4

Bottom line: praying for things or to have circumstances changed seems to be a problem. When a person prays for something to happen and it does, God is credited. When it doesn't happen, people say that they must accept God's plan because he knows what's best. So ... it seems like intercessory prayer should be disregarded and the only prayer should be 'Thy Will Be Done. Amen."

Answer 5

I prayed about 5 times (estimate) when I believed in it. About twice it was to save my hamsters (one after that developed all kinds of nasty diseases and looked like a small demon), once for my grandma who was in the hospital (she died within the next week), and the rest for some kind of sign besides stupid religious propaganda that he existed, none were answered. However, that had little to nothing to do with my becoming an atheist. I can see your point though, not getting what you want isn't a good reason to abandon anything.

Answer 6

Prayer and worship has a history as old as a history of human beings.
Frightened by the nature's anger, human being always thought that
there was some super power that controls nature and human beings,
being part of the nature. Religions have taken advantage of this
human faith about existence of super power, and about natural tendency of
human being to pray to the super power for well being. Most of the
people in the world irrespective of religions pray God or form of God
according to their faith
in three different moods; i.e. if they are frightened, they have
desires or they have a thought of respect in mind.

Prayers yield the results is the general understanding in all the religions
and in most of the cases it turns out to be true. This experience of healing
by prayers made the belief stronger. Some people pray to the imaginary
God in the sky, some pray to he statues of Gods or Guru and some are
praying to the fire, water, trees, stones or any other natural things since
ages. Surprizingly, any prayer to any of these things (from God in the sky
to stones) has created the
similar results. This itself is a proof that the claims of religions about
their own recommended forms of God are baseless and God could be in
any form if He at all exists. This could be put in the words that "all forms are the
forms of God" The people pray to a wooden cross, stone idol, sky, tree
trunk, water source (well) or fire or any thing and they beget children,
their health is mproved, tensions are released, they get money and so many
desires are fulfilled.

Lord Krishna in Geeta has told that any prayer and worship made by
anybody to any crude/man-made form or imagination reaches Him and
he fulfills the desires. Lord Krishna says to Arjuna that " I am a soul (of everybody and everything)". (Ahmatma Gudakesha). So this is evident that all the prayers
ultimately reach to the soul. The soul is the real listener of prayers and not a God in the Churches, Mosques or Temples. The soul is the real receiver of the worships.
Everybody has soul within hm/herself. So, really we make prayers to ourselves
and no body else. The lack of knowledge about God (ignorance) is the cause of
prayer and worship. But common people in the world can't live without prayers
and worships, because they have "faith" in their blood coming from ages.
Even the Jnanis and Gurus make prayers to God, but they do it to teach the
people the politeness, surrender and humanity. Their prayers are only a
kind of demonstration to people.

Upanishadas deny the existence of any other thing than "self". " When all things become one to a Jnani, who tells whom ? who listens to whom? who looks at whom?" is the Shruti.(doctrine of Upanisada). This clearly proves the absense of
listner of a prayer or a receiver of worship.

One more thing proves the absence of listner of prayer. The people when they pray
according to their faith, their eyes close automatically if their sentiments are high.
This happens with Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhas or any belief. If the God was outside their own body, their eyes would not have closed naturally and people
would have kept their eyes wide open to see God. When the eyes are closed the
mind immediately start contacting/mergining in to the inner person called Antaryami or soul. This contact gives the contentment and happiness.

The question is, how then the prayers are responded ? (without listner/receiver)

It is simple. The nature responds to your thoughts and moods. If you are angry
people misbehave with you, even the pets go away from you. If you are submissive, people love you. When you make a prayer your mood becomes devine and the
nature sometimes responds to your desires. The nature is the manifestation of
soul. (rather an imagination of soul). Nobody else but your own soul helps you
fulfillment of your desires by creating impact in the nature. You feel healed and relieved.

Answer 7

If an entity had no proof of existence, even with attempts to discover it, then it would be logical to deduce that that entity did not exist

Especially if a system of worship based around it had a fundamental rule that you cannot have proof, because that would remove faith.

Answer 8

If God start answering all the prayers then the other important works will be left unattended. They are fortunate if their prayed is answered but if it remains unanswered then one should not feel hurt of it.
Our God is within ourselves too. Trust it. Nothing is hidden from the inner self and that is the God but we have to know it to hear its voice.Try once.

Answer 9

It is an established fact, based on evidence, that prayers are not answered.

Connecting unrelated events is not evidence.

Answer 10

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/top10_missinglinks-10.html