Do you believe that praying can change bad things from happening?...obviously, for christians only?

Question

like a hurricane?

this is for all those politically correct people,,, i'm asking for christians opinions only, i'm not saying only christians pray...gee, some people are sensitive.

Answer 1

Yes. There is power in prayer. The bible says to pray without ceasing. We must put on the whole armor of God. We may not understand why things happen, but we must trust the Lord, not question Him.We should always pray. God will answer our prayer in His time. Our problem is, when we want something, we want it right then but, we must realize, God works everything out for the best. We must continue in prayer and put our faith, and trust in Him.

Answer 2

The ice man and I don't mean Chuck Lidell I mean Clokinsky or whatever his name is put that theory to the test in a HBO documentary special. By the way, the iceman was a proffesional serial killer for the mafia or at least that is what he claimed. Pretty much he had to do a hit on a person. He went into the house and the guy begged for mercy. He then ask sometime to pray and see if he could be saved. The icemen gave him an our to pray. Needless to say nobody came and help. Now the question is was it his time or simply there is no answer. I mean if you think about and this has been argue in other places God answers in the form of yes, no, and you have to wait. Well, all questions can be answer in the form of yes no and you have to wait. So, is definetly not a good way to run an experiment. There is simply no way to prove that God intervined (answered yes) or had other plans (answer no) or maybe even said you have to wait because, when you think about it if you wait a lot of problem may have a solution later. So, is really hard to test for such things. People do say that there have been experiments where people pray at a distance for a sick person. After a statistical study it was found that no signifficant results where found on patience where people where prayed for vs the ones that weren't. Again, how do you prove that there was no change. If God said, well, I already made up my mind that patients 1 7 and 10 have to die by next tuesday then no praying in the world is going to help. There have been many reported anecdotes that people claim that after praying or asking for the lords help they have receive an answer. Problem is that annecdotes and eye witness accounts are not reliable sources. So, we are back at square 1. In conclusion the answer at least to me is till up in the air. That is inconclusive in favor of both sides of the argument.

What paryer can do however is help you focus and give you hope. As long as you have hope there is always a chance that a problem can be solve and it gives you energy to continue the fight sort of speak. Plus you may get the placebo effect which to this day we still don't understand. So, I guess that the answer to your question is that yes praying can help you change bad things because at its minimum is giving you focus and hope for you to make changes and or to influence things for the better. Now, is that change due to your doing, the Lords doing or a combination is still up for grabs. but if it helps then why not.

Answer 3

Oh yes, if god wills it. If he/she doesn't will it, then no.

Actually, I don't think god (assuming there is one) gets involved in petty details of the universe. Hurricanes, for example, are weather phenomenae that are perfectly understandable from interactions in the physical world and they go where they do based on those conditions. I suspect there was a lot of praying in Jamaica, but the hurricane continued on its path. Same will happen with the poor folks in the path in Mexico.

Did you ever wonder, what if god did divert the path of the hurricane? Then it would hit some other poor schmuck who was also probably praying and would have been out of danger had the first prayer not been answered.

That is not a system I would attribute to god.

Answer 4

I'm not a christian, but you've overlooked another factor. Mind power. It could be argued that a great many people "praying" for the same thing are concentrating a great force of mind power on that objective. It's a very fascinating line of research that could well lead to the discovery that ANY form of strong "mind focus" (which, again, you can certainly argue "prayer" is) might affect the outcome of certain things, regardless of whether or not the people engaged in it believe in the involvement of some kind of mysterious invisible superbeing.

For now, though, from what I've been able to determine, there is definitely no evidence to suggest that there is any greater rate of recovery, for example, among people suffering from a particular kind of illness and were unknowingly being prayed for, and those who (again without their knowledge) were not prayed for. Interestingly there IS evidence showing that when a certain number of people in a study group were told they were being prayed for, their rate of recovery from that particular illness was slightly better than the control group - who were not prayed for, but didn't know that (so they could not be mentally affected in any way by this "negative" information.

Because of the way this study was conducted, it was possible to conclude that KNOWLEDGE of being prayed for had to have played a positive role in their rate of recovery, which means that it was not so much the praying by others, as the positive effect on the mind of the patients themselves that external forces were being applied, if you will, towards influencing their recovery. The mind body connection is so powerful, that this knowledge appeared in some way to work on that person's immune system/self-healing system.

There's an awful long ways to go with this line of research of course, but some day we may well discover that this Mind Power really can be harnessed for the purposes of influencing all kinds of outcomes. Hopefully, because I believe the overwhelming majority of people are directed towards good rather than evil, if we can harness this force, it is likely to be far more successfully used for good than it will for any evil purpose.

Answer 5

I know he could but Hurricanes are brought about about things God set in motion when he designed the Earth. I don't think he interferes with nature in motion....Since Christians are killed as well as unbelievers in natural disasters,,,I would hesitate to say with certainty if he would turn a Hurricane.

It never hurts to pray, but get out, while your are doing it..Maybe God expects us to use common sense too..He will help you pick up the pieces though...I know this from Katrina...doesn't get much worse than losing your home....other than losing a loved one...We have come all the way back and maybe better prepared for the next one.

Answer 6

Why woukld you only want a "Christian" response? Don't you like an objective, honest point of view? Only you can control bad things from happening and even after your best efforts, some bad things do happen anyway. Arm yourself with confidence and a will to succeed. Be honest and trustworthy and appreciate those aound you. Be a good neighbor and friend. Quit worrying about all that garbage and move on!

Answer 7

Praying and no its not for Christians only. The collective mind of people together for good i believe and some studies have shown will influence the out come of things.One prayer good of one person of two- more so ,three have more effect and so on and so on .Peace ,pray for it people of the world and mean it..(Thanks be to God and the Holy spirit .)

Answer 8

Why is this for Christians only? Christianity is not the only religion that has praying/talking to the Powers that Be.

Answer 9

I believe that there is nothing impossible for God. But this is how I pray; I ask Him for this or that or please help (fill in the blank) with (fill in the blank)...and then I leave the outcome to His will. Always, all the time.

I have seen the outcome of my prayers. Truly mountains can move. I have prayed about other things that happened even though I prayed for it not to happen. That is why I always say to God, your will, whatever it is, will always, always, trump my requests.

I leave it in God's hands after I pray. And, however it turns out, He is perfect and I love Him.

Answer 10

I heard of a tornado coming right toward a summer camp for teens one year. A preacher walked outside and prayed for God to move it, and it turned and completely missed them.
Coincidence? Maybe, but I would like to think God had a part to play in hearing someones prayer and making the impossible, possible. :)