Prayer and God's Will - Why Do So Many Christians Misunderstand?

[Mercury]

There's a Prayer & Christian Devotion thread in the forum. It's full of people asking others to pray for certain outcomes. For example there are recent requests to pray for :

- people's marriage problems
- people with cancer
- people caught in Hurricane Helena

and so on.

There seems to be a rather large contingent of so-called Christians across the world that are in some kind of denial about what it really means to be a Christian.

Here's the deal.

To accept the Bible as God's word is to accept (among many other things) the following foundational concepts:

- God's is in charge of everything that happens
- Nothing happens on Earth without God either making it happen or consciously permitting it to happen
- God's Will is absolute, unchanging, and can not be opposed.

There are 100s of verses that could be quoted to support the above. Here are just a few:

James 4:15
Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

Psalm 143:10
Teach me to do Your will,
For You are my God;
Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

1 Thessalonians 5:18
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Matthew 6:10
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Ephesians 5:17
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.


So here's the glaring issue and problem with millions of "Christians" around the world.

THEY ARE NOT ACCEPTING GOD'S WILL OR THAT HE CAUSES OR PERMITS EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS

Because of this they are praying for THINGS to happen or be manifest which go against God's will.

A real epiphany is needed for a great many Christians.

Here's the harsh reality.

If you or a loved one has cancer and is dying, as a Christian YOU HAVE TO accept that:

1. This happened because it was God's will for it to happen
2. God either caused it to happen or specifically permitted it to happen

If you don't accept the above then you're not taking Christianity seriously, you're not taking the Bible seriously, you're not taking God seriously

You either believe everything happens by God's will or you don't.

Which is it?

If you truly believe it then you can not pray to be cured of cancer or for your friend to be cured. That would be to pray against God's will.

It would be utterly perverse to think that a so-called all-loving God would deliberately give someone cancer just to see if Christians would pray to him for their healing. It would be utterly sadistic and disgusting for such a God to give a 3yr old terminal Leukemia just to provide the circumstances for others to pray for that child.
If you believe that's who or what God is then imo you have left the path of wisdom.

Where then does this leave everyone?

It means you're choosing to believe in an entity that consciously allows/permits or wills:

- innocent children to suffer horrible diseases
- Innocent children to be sexually abused by wicked predators
- persecution, torture, killing of all manner of human beings
- mass genocide/harm of people via pandemics

and many many other awful attrocities

All this being the case there really is only ONE prayer that a Christian can really make and that is to ask for God to help you understand his will and why certain things are happening and for him to show you how to play your part in that will/plan.

You have to accept what is happening because it IS God's will. He caused it to happen or allowed it to happen.

Therefore no point asking for someone to be healed. They are ill by God's will.

I know this is very hard to take on-board but this is the reality of the Christian doctrine imo.

It's just one of the reasons why I can't accept the ideology as it is presented by the Church and why I believe a literal reading of the Bible is not appropriate in many cases.

 

[tango]

If this is true there's little point praying for anything because God will do what God will do regardless.

 

[Mercury]

If this is true there's little point praying for anything because God will do what God will do regardless.

Yep that's the logical and correct conclusion but with ONE exception

Clearly it's utterly pointless praying for any specific outcome or any material thing no matter how heartfelt it is. God's will is God's will and can not be changed or opposed. Everything that happens is as per his Will, his plans, he permits it. That situation should give us pause for thought because if we're willing to worship an entity that permits all kinds of atrocities then where does that stop? Where is our own moral compass in this. Even if we don't understand, as humans aren't we to hold ourselves and those around us to some kind of basic moral standard?

Do we really deep down in our hearts believe that there is some kind of good or benefit to be had from a man like Jimmy Savile sexually abusing lots of innocent and helpless young children?

Can we accept that situation for example as some kind of life training exercise for Savile himself that God needed to put him through?
Can we contemplate that a poor 5yr old being pinned down and sexually abused is having some kind of benefit in God's long term plan?

I personally think it's all abhorrent.

I say to myself that were I to worship such an entity and make excuses for his wilful allowing of such atrocities to go ahead, that I might just as well worship Hitler or any of a multitude of wicked dictators that have stained the history of humanity.

Can you imagine making the same excuses for Hitler? Suggesting that his exterminating of so many during the Holocaust was actually acceptable and part of some larger benevolent plan?!! No, I can't contemplate that.

We will know people by their actions. By their fruit.

Therefore we should hold all would-be dictators or entities of any kind to those same moral standards imo. We are after all human and it is our very human nature to abhor the appalling treatment of other humans.

How then can Christians explain what is occurring in the world on a daily basis and at the same time choose to believe in an Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent god who clearly sits there inactive watching it all happen?

I would suggest that we have in some catastrophic way, misunderstood who or what god actually is and that the Church and it's crafted system of religion has steered us down the wrong path.

I said at the top of this post that there is only one exception to your statement that there is "little point praying for anything" and that exception is simply this:

You can realistically only pray that God helps you to understand why he is doing what he is doing, why he is allowing all the atrocities and suffering to happen when he allegedly has the power to stop it and the benevolence to want to stop it. You can pray for him to reveal to you what part you can play in the overall plan.

And that's it.

This is why millions of Christians worldwide trot out the Lord's Prayer every day or every Sunday saying:

Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed by thy name
Thy kingdom come.
Thy WILL be done
on earth as it is in heaven.


But the majority of those spouting this every week really don't understand what the words are saying and what therefore they are affirming to. THY WILL BE DONE means that you're accepting all the atrocities and suffering and believing that this is happening as part of some master plan. You're accepting for example that you or your friend has terminal cancer because of this grand plan. That millions have been killed during a so-called pandemic and suffered so very badly along the way because of some great plan. That all those people who were effectively murdered in hospitals and were denied access to their own family members and died there alone in agonising sadness and loneliness, was somehow all part of a great loving master plan. It saddens me to the very core that there exist people who are prepared to believe that such terrible situations could ever be part of any loving master plan. We have been deceived.

We have imo been badly mislead. Simple rational thinking should inform us that something is VERY badly off with all of this.
Humanity deserves better than to be mislead down such a ridiculous path. We owe it to all our lost relatives and close friends to step back and reappraise this completely abhorrent and nonsensical situation that mainstream religion presents to us. We owe it to ourselves to grow up, set aside our fears and face these harsh realities head on and realise that we MUST have misunderstand who or what god actually is.

It doesn't mean that a god or gods don't exist
It doesn't mean that there is no good in the world

It just means that the proposition as presented to us by the Church is preposterously ridiculous and is instead little more than a manipulative psychological trap designed to hook weak-minded humans into its fold in order to subjugate and control people. We deserve better.

We are free beings that have been enslaved by other humans using classic pschological techniques.

Only we can free ourselves from that prison.

But it takes real honesty with ourselves. Real courage to contemplate that we have been mislead. Real humility to step back, understand how it happened and start anew to "seek and find" true answers to life.

No bolts of lightning will shoot from the skies to strike you down just for thinking this through, for being honest with yourself, for questioning what other humans have told you. Courage is needed.

 

[JustTheFacts]

You make a valid point about the futility of praying if everything is predetermined by God. But you left something off of your logic--free will. Free will causes all the pain and suffering that you described--not God. Does God let it happen--yes because he gave us free will. Is God involved? God through the Holy Spirit can motive people to do good through pain and misfortune and on the flip side through peace and comfort. Take Israel as an example who was continually punished or rewarded for following God. Their free will determined their path and God was involved in that path. However, people either reject God's prompting or accept it.

Does God give up on people? Yes, just like he gave up on Israel. Does God reward those who have been the subject of pain and misery through the free will of others? If they are a child, they are rewarded with eternal life with God. If they are an adult, It depends on their choices. We know for a fact that those inflicting the damage will be punished because they do not have a relationship with God. But those who follow the word of God obtain the gift of eternal life. A few years of misery, or even a lifetime of misery on earth is trivial compared to an eternity in peace with God or eternal punishment and separation from God.

The common denominator in every person I've met that rejects God is that they are arrogant and think they have the answers. I was once like this too. We know from the word of God that God can heal in this world and God can punish. Does praying help? Praying is having a relationship with God and that helps. Regardless of the focus of our prayers and whether God chooses to answer them, prayer is powerful because it gets us closer to God.

 

[Mercury]

Ah the old "free will" excuse. It crops up all the time.

What does "free WILL" actually mean?

It actually means that if you WILL something to happen, then it happens, it manifests as a result of that will.

No human has such free will. ALL humans are in fact subjugated and locked on a planetary prison from which they can not escape.

Let's test your free will

Can you of your own free will:

1. Cease breathing and keep living?
2. Stop eating and drinking food and keep living?
3. Will yourself to be on the moon or on Jupiter or epxloring the wider galaxies?
4. Will yourself to be immortal in human form?
5. Will your partner to be immortal in human form?
6. Will your human body to be immune to all disease and infirmity?

I could go on

No, you patently DO NOT have any free will at all. You have been created as a slave, placed in an environment (a planet with gravity surrounded by deadly radiation) from which you can never escape, been given a physical body which is weak, vulnerable and subject to decripitude and entropy and been given a developmental life plan that ensures that before you're able to properly think for yourself you can be conditioned and programmed by any of a number of nefarious religions or cults or secret societies in order that they can cntrol your behaviours.

Perhaps you naively thought that free will was just about the ability to choose for yourself whether to turn left or right? It isn't. Why can't you turn up or down ? Why are there limits and constraints placed all around you?

Nobody here has any free will whatsoever. All choices laid before you are massively limited, already ,massively influenced by factors you can't control and come with consequences that may be beneficial or tragically appalling. That is not free will.

If we are to believe the character described in the Bible, then only God has free will. Only God enjoys the absolute freedom to do whatever he pleases, which includes wilfully killing men, women, children and babies as recounted in the OT. Only God enjoys the "top dog" position and sees all others subjugated beneath him. A position he doesn't want changing. Remember in Genesis we are told that Adam "must not become like us and enjoy immortality". God doesn't want humans enjoying the benefits he has. You can have perks if you're a good little slave but you're always a slave, always subjugated, never ever free.

Let's put a final nail in the coffin of the ridiculous notion of free will.

I hold a gun to your wife's head and say to you "get on your knees and worship me otherwise I will shoot her"

Is that a free choice? Really? Can you really say with all integrity and humility that you still really do have a "free choice" to either kneel and worship me or refuse to do so?

I submit you have to be an imbecile to think so.

A choice made at the end of a gun is not a free choice, not free will at all. It's perverse and tyrannical.

Hence, if you are given a choice to worship a god or else face an eternity of suffering and torture in lakes of fire with wailing and gnashing of teeth then that likewise is NOT remotely free choice or free will. That is a gun to the head.

If god truly wanted to give us free will then that by definition MUST allow humans to be totally free to not choose god without any retirbution or gun to the head on his part. Sure we might have entirely natural consequences to face, being free, making our own choices and way in life, but that's a universe away from a god threatening to punish people for making a given choice and creating lakes of fire and such ready to punish them with.

Hence any level of critical thinking can quickly inform us that the situation as presented to us by mainstream religion and the Church is an utter fabricated nonsense, nothing more than a very divisive manipulative system of human behavioural control to maintain it's own wealth and power structure.

That which is truly God, truly love, truly life, is a world away from what Christianity and other religions are peddling.

 

[JustTheFacts]

Ah the old "free will" excuse. It crops up all the time.

What does "free WILL" actually mean?

It actually means that if you WILL something to happen, then it happens, it manifests as a result of that will.

No human has such free will. ALL humans are in fact subjugated and locked on a planetary prison from which they can not escape.

Let's test your free will

Can you of your own free will:

1. Cease breathing and keep living?
2. Stop eating and drinking food and keep living?
3. Will yourself to be on the moon or on Jupiter or epxloring the wider galaxies?
4. Will yourself to be immortal in human form?
5. Will your partner to be immortal in human form?
6. Will your human body to be immune to all disease and infirmity?

I could go on

No, you patently DO NOT have any free will at all. You have been created as a slave, placed in an environment (a planet with gravity surrounded by deadly radiation) from which you can never escape, been given a physical body which is weak, vulnerable and subject to decripitude and entropy and been given a developmental life plan that ensures that before you're able to properly think for yourself you can be conditioned and programmed by any of a number of nefarious religions or cults or secret societies in order that they can cntrol your behaviours.

Perhaps you naively thought that free will was just about the ability to choose for yourself whether to turn left or right? It isn't. Why can't you turn up or down ? Why are there limits and constraints placed all around you?

Nobody here has any free will whatsoever. All choices laid before you are massively limited, already ,massively influenced by factors you can't control and come with consequences that may be beneficial or tragically appalling. That is not free will.

If we are to believe the character described in the Bible, then only God has free will. Only God enjoys the absolute freedom to do whatever he pleases, which includes wilfully killing men, women, children and babies as recounted in the OT. Only God enjoys the "top dog" position and sees all others subjugated beneath him. A position he doesn't want changing. Remember in Genesis we are told that Adam "must not become like us and enjoy immortality". God doesn't want humans enjoying the benefits he has. You can have perks if you're a good little slave but you're always a slave, always subjugated, never ever free.

Let's put a final nail in the coffin of the ridiculous notion of free will.

I hold a gun to your wife's head and say to you "get on your knees and worship me otherwise I will shoot her"

Is that a free choice? Really? Can you really say with all integrity and humility that you still really do have a "free choice" to either kneel and worship me or refuse to do so?

I submit you have to be an imbecile to think so.

A choice made at the end of a gun is not a free choice, not free will at all. It's perverse and tyrannical.

Hence, if you are given a choice to worship a god or else face an eternity of suffering and torture in lakes of fire with wailing and gnashing of teeth then that likewise is NOT remotely free choice or free will. That is a gun to the head.

If god truly wanted to give us free will then that by definition MUST allow humans to be totally free to not choose god without any retirbution or gun to the head on his part. Sure we might have entirely natural consequences to face, being free, making our own choices and way in life, but that's a universe away from a god threatening to punish people for making a given choice and creating lakes of fire and such ready to punish them with.

Hence any level of critical thinking can quickly inform us that the situation as presented to us by mainstream religion and the Church is an utter fabricated nonsense, nothing more than a very divisive manipulative system of human behavioural control to maintain it's own wealth and power structure.

That which is truly God, truly love, truly life, is a world away from what Christianity and other religions are peddling.

Duh, free will mean# we are all in charge of our actions and the consequences. You trying to blame God?

 

[Frankj]

I see nothing wrong with asking God for our needs and desires, for help for ourselves or others, or blessings to be given to others who are having a difficult time.

That said, I do see a big difference between a prayer that basically is saying "God, please help me with this ....." and one that is basically saying "God do this for me .....".

One is asking God, the other is commanding him (no need to discuss which is more effective).

Consider the Lords Prayer as the guide for effective prayer, that is how Jesus taught us to pray, both in substance and in essence.

This is how I see it.

 

[Mercury]

Duh, free will mean# we are all in charge of our actions and the consequences. You trying to blame God?

The deal with the Christian religious proposition does not fit your definition because you are not in charge of the consequences. The ideology dictates that God is in charge of the consequences not you and hence you are not free. As I said, if you are being offered a choice and that choice comes with a gun to the head, then it is not a choice at all. It is a coercion, a fraud. You are not free. You do not have free will.
Accordingly tryng to be an apologetic for God's wilful inaction and passive observation of the heinous atrocities occurring to humans is an untennable position to hold.

You don't have free will, you've never had free will and you never will have free will whilever there exist powerful people or entities that are holding a gun to your head. Because of that, the notion of an Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent god existing is patently ridiculous and a false creation of the Church. This is not who or what god actually is. It's basic critical thinking.

 

[JustTheFacts]

The deal with the Christian religious proposition does not fit your definition because you are not in charge of the consequences. The ideology dictates that God is in charge of the consequences not you and hence you are not free. As I said, if you are being offered a choice and that choice comes with a gun to the head, then it is not a choice at all. It is a coercion, a fraud. You are not free. You do not have free will.
Accordingly tryng to be an apologetic for God's wilful inaction and passive observation of the heinous atrocities occurring to humans is an untennable position to hold.

You don't have free will, you've never had free will and you never will have free will whilever there exist powerful people or entities that are holding a gun to your head. Because of that, the notion of an Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent god existing is patently ridiculous and a false creation of the Church. This is not who or what god actually is. It's basic critical thinking.

And what is the choice that we all have to make? God made it simple; follow good or follow evil. If someone visits you at your house, they have a choice to follow your house rules or reject them. If they reject them, you throw them out and ban them from your house. We are in God‘s house. So tell me again why God is so unreasonable? I’m betting that you just don’t like God’s rules.

 

[Mercury]

I see nothing wrong with asking God for our needs and desires, for help for ourselves or others, or blessings to be given to others who are having a difficult time.

I've explained in this thread why doing so is not only futile and pointless but why it is also tantamount to blasphemy. If you are going to seriously take the Bible literally and take your deology seriously then you have no choice but to accept that everything that happens is happening because God wants it to happen and/or has allowed it to happen. Thus if you have "needs and desires" it's because God wants you to have those needs and desires. Thus asking for those needs and desires to be fulflled is going against God's plan for you, against his Will. If other people you know are having a difficult time it's because God wants them to have a difficult time and/or has permitted those difficulties for those people so again any prayer that asks for those difficulties to be lifted, erased or changed in any way is a prayer against God's WIll. This is fundamental. You can not run and hide from it. If you submit yourself and your own innate intelligence and psyche to this ideology then you're left with this horrible dichotomy. God is allowing all the atrocities to happen or indeed making them happen.
You HAVE to accept it all because that is God's Will. No other option.

So the only thing you can pray for is for God to help YOU understand why your friends are being put in difficult times or why your friend is stricken with cancer or pneumonia or whatever. You can't stop those horrible things for they are God's Will. If God didn't want them to happen he would have prevented it, not permitted it.

Stand before a mirror and see the truth of what you have chosen to believe and realise that something is very badly off.

That said, I do see a big difference between a prayer that basically is saying "God, please help me with this ....." and one that is basically saying "God do this for me .....".

One is asking God, the other is commanding him (no need to discuss which is more effective).

Yes, this is more in alignment. The proviso is that you first accept what is happening and that it is God's Will and then simply ask God either to help you understand it or to show you how you may play a part in his plan.

Consider the Lords Prayer as the guide for effective prayer, that is how Jesus taught us to pray, both in substance and in essence.

This is how I see it.

Yes, which is why I quoted it. "Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven".
That's the prayer. You MUST accept God's WIll if you buy into this Christian ideology, you may not oppose it or seek to change it.

So we come full circle.

Christians are worshipping a supposedly Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent entity who permits people like Jimmy Savile to sexually abuse lots of innocent helpless children. He permits young girls to be kidnapped and forcibly hooked to a dependency on drugs and sold to the sex trade where their human lives are an endless hell of torture and misery from which they will likely never escape. He permits people who have been with their loving partners for 50+ years to end up in hospital on a ventilator and to die their in utter anguish and despondency and lonliness as their partners have been prevented from visiting the hospital.

This is the true reality of the ideology. It is inhuman and insane.

We deserve better for ourselves. We deserve better than to allow Churches to spoon feed us this utter nonsense and to step back, reappraise everything and realise that we've been hoodwinked and psychologically manipulated for nefarious ends. We deserve to know the real truth, to start seeking afresh in humility and with earnest intent to discover the true "god" or source of all universal life in the world.

 

[Mercury]

And what is the choice that we all have to make? God made it simple; follow good or follow evil. If someone visits you at your house, they have a choice to follow your house rules or reject them. If they reject them, you throw them out and ban them from your house. We are in God‘s house. So tell me again why God is so unreasonable? I’m betting that you just don’t like God’s rules.

You're arguing from within the confines of your psychological doctrine, not from a position of freedom.

If someone knocks on my door and doesn't respect my household then yes I will ask them to leave. But they remain totally free to go elsewhere and do as they please without any further intervention or influence from myself. See the crucial difference there?!!!

Your Christian ideology says, play by Gods rules, worship him regardless of what he does or what he allows to happen otherwise you'll be tossed into a lake of fire for eternity with lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth. You can't hide from this. This is your untennable ideology. This is tyranny. Dictatorship. It's everything people in todays world abhor.

The Assad regime has just been toppled in Syria according to news reports. People clearly don't like or want tyranny, dictatorship, brutal treatment, being forced at gun point (or sword point) to do things. People want to be free. We are designed to be free. We should be free.

 

[Frankj]

I've explained in this thread why doing so is not only futile and pointless but why it is also tantamount to blasphemy. If you are going to seriously take the Bible literally and take your deology seriously then you have no choice but to accept that everything that happens is happening because God wants it to happen and/or has allowed it to happen. Thus if you have "needs and desires" it's because God wants you to have those needs and desires. Thus asking for those needs and desires to be fulflled is going against God's plan for you, against his Will. If other people you know are having a difficult time it's because God wants them to have a difficult time and/or has permitted those difficulties for those people so again any prayer that asks for those difficulties to be lifted, erased or changed in any way is a prayer against God's WIll. This is fundamental. You can not run and hide from it. If you submit yourself and your own innate intelligence and psyche to this ideology then you're left with this horrible dichotomy. God is allowing all the atrocities to happen or indeed making them happen.
You HAVE to accept it all because that is God's Will. No other option.

So the only thing you can pray for is for God to help YOU understand why your friends are being put in difficult times or why your friend is stricken with cancer or pneumonia or whatever. You can't stop those horrible things for they are God's Will. If God didn't want them to happen he would have prevented it, not permitted it.

Stand before a mirror and see the truth of what you have chosen to believe and realise that something is very badly off.




Yes, this is more in alignment. The proviso is that you first accept what is happening and that it is God's Will and then simply ask God either to help you understand it or to show you how you may play a part in his plan.



Yes, which is why I quoted it. "Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven".
That's the prayer. You MUST accept God's WIll if you buy into this Christian ideology, you may not oppose it or seek to change it.

So we come full circle.

Christians are worshipping a supposedly Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent entity who permits people like Jimmy Savile to sexually abuse lots of innocent helpless children. He permits young girls to be kidnapped and forcibly hooked to a dependency on drugs and sold to the sex trade where their human lives are an endless hell of torture and misery from which they will likely never escape. He permits people who have been with their loving partners for 50+ years to end up in hospital on a ventilator and to die their in utter anguish and despondency and lonliness as their partners have been prevented from visiting the hospital.

This is the true reality of the ideology. It is inhuman and insane.

We deserve better for ourselves. We deserve better than to allow Churches to spoon feed us this utter nonsense and to step back, reappraise everything and realise that we've been hoodwinked and psychologically manipulated for nefarious ends. We deserve to know the real truth, to start seeking afresh in humility and with earnest intent to discover the true "god" or source of all universal life in the world.

Well, how do you see God's will, and how do you believe it is carried out in the world?

This actually key to understanding many things that make little or no sense otherwise.

 

[Mercury]

Well, how do you see God's will, and how do you believe it is carried out in the world?

This actually key to understanding many things that make little or no sense otherwise.

The entire proposition of Christianty makes no sense I'm afraid but you can only see and realise that if you have the courage to question it and the humility to entertain the possibility that the Church has mislead you.

I don't believe for one second that "god" is who or what the Church professes. On that basis there isn't any "God's Will".

Just look at the universe around you. It has absolutely no sense of right and wrong, good or evil. Those are just human terms and concepts which humans need to socially survive and interract. Somewhere out in the cosmos there are other suns bigger than our own and other solar systems with planets and life forms. Somewhere one of those sun's (stars) is collapsing and going supernova and that situation is destroying all the planets and all the life in that solar system. The universe does not care one iota. The universe just is, there's no good or bad. You are part of that universe.

You live and exist as you do, because there exists a universal source of life. A life force. It is everywhere all around you. It pervades every living thing. It's in the air you breathe and without it you die very quickly indeed. It's not "God". It's not some human like old man with a beard who suffers human failings like wrathfulness and anger. It's just a free flowing life force that is available to everyone without prejudice rhyme or reason. You don't get enough of that life force via breathing and eating and drinking and so you are gradually dying here on Earth. That shouldn't be the case. The Bible itself relates that people used to live in excess of 900yrs !! Why then do humans today think that living to 90 yrs old is a "good innings"!! It patently isn't. We've been hoodwinked. We're kept artificially poor in health and of shortened lifespan. We're fed ridiculous stories by religions to keep us in check to prevent us from questioning, thinking, looking for the real answers elesewhere. That system has been running for countless years, enslaving and conditioning humans the world over.

There ARE answers to be found and many of them are hidden in the Bible allegorically and cryptically, but the Church won't ever explain those to you. Indeed much of the Church itself is completely clueless about them.

The world is in chaos. It always has been. It's just that for countless millenia nefarious HUMANS have seized control of the great secrets and thereby seized control of all Earth's rich resources and become wealthy and all-powerful (Earthly speaking). We are born in that controlled world and immediately subjugated and pushed through an education system designed to make us accept that slavery as a normal thing.
It really isn't. Were supposed to be free. We're supposed to live very long lives and in perfect health. That we don't is absolutely nothing to do with the farcical story of Adam and Eve and the fall of mankind and sin. That's religious nonsense. In fact the story of Adam and Eve is allegorical as is most of Genesis. We've been hoodwinked. The only great plan in existence here is that which the ancient dynasties have been running for millenia in order to preserve their powerful positions. It will only ever change once people have the courage and humility to realise they've been psychologically programmed and conditioned from childhood and right through adulthood by religious indoctrination. Until then they still control the populations like puppets on a string.

 

[tango]

Yep that's the logical and correct conclusion but with ONE exception

Clearly it's utterly pointless praying for any specific outcome or any material thing no matter how heartfelt it is. God's will is God's will and can not be changed or opposed. Everything that happens is as per his Will, his plans, he permits it. That situation should give us pause for thought because if we're willing to worship an entity that permits all kinds of atrocities then where does that stop? Where is our own moral compass in this. Even if we don't understand, as humans aren't we to hold ourselves and those around us to some kind of basic moral standard?

Do we really deep down in our hearts believe that there is some kind of good or benefit to be had from a man like Jimmy Savile sexually abusing lots of innocent and helpless young children?

Can we accept that situation for example as some kind of life training exercise for Savile himself that God needed to put him through?
Can we contemplate that a poor 5yr old being pinned down and sexually abused is having some kind of benefit in God's long term plan?

I personally think it's all abhorrent.

I say to myself that were I to worship such an entity and make excuses for his wilful allowing of such atrocities to go ahead, that I might just as well worship Hitler or any of a multitude of wicked dictators that have stained the history of humanity.

Can you imagine making the same excuses for Hitler? Suggesting that his exterminating of so many during the Holocaust was actually acceptable and part of some larger benevolent plan?!! No, I can't contemplate that.

We will know people by their actions. By their fruit.

Therefore we should hold all would-be dictators or entities of any kind to those same moral standards imo. We are after all human and it is our very human nature to abhor the appalling treatment of other humans.

How then can Christians explain what is occurring in the world on a daily basis and at the same time choose to believe in an Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent god who clearly sits there inactive watching it all happen?

I would suggest that we have in some catastrophic way, misunderstood who or what god actually is and that the Church and it's crafted system of religion has steered us down the wrong path.

I said at the top of this post that there is only one exception to your statement that there is "little point praying for anything" and that exception is simply this:

You can realistically only pray that God helps you to understand why he is doing what he is doing, why he is allowing all the atrocities and suffering to happen when he allegedly has the power to stop it and the benevolence to want to stop it. You can pray for him to reveal to you what part you can play in the overall plan.

And that's it.

This is why millions of Christians worldwide trot out the Lord's Prayer every day or every Sunday saying:

Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed by thy name
Thy kingdom come.
Thy WILL be done
on earth as it is in heaven.


But the majority of those spouting this every week really don't understand what the words are saying and what therefore they are affirming to. THY WILL BE DONE means that you're accepting all the atrocities and suffering and believing that this is happening as part of some master plan. You're accepting for example that you or your friend has terminal cancer because of this grand plan. That millions have been killed during a so-called pandemic and suffered so very badly along the way because of some great plan. That all those people who were effectively murdered in hospitals and were denied access to their own family members and died there alone in agonising sadness and loneliness, was somehow all part of a great loving master plan. It saddens me to the very core that there exist people who are prepared to believe that such terrible situations could ever be part of any loving master plan. We have been deceived.

We have imo been badly mislead. Simple rational thinking should inform us that something is VERY badly off with all of this.
Humanity deserves better than to be mislead down such a ridiculous path. We owe it to all our lost relatives and close friends to step back and reappraise this completely abhorrent and nonsensical situation that mainstream religion presents to us. We owe it to ourselves to grow up, set aside our fears and face these harsh realities head on and realise that we MUST have misunderstand who or what god actually is.

It doesn't mean that a god or gods don't exist
It doesn't mean that there is no good in the world

It just means that the proposition as presented to us by the Church is preposterously ridiculous and is instead little more than a manipulative psychological trap designed to hook weak-minded humans into its fold in order to subjugate and control people. We deserve better.

We are free beings that have been enslaved by other humans using classic pschological techniques.

Only we can free ourselves from that prison.

But it takes real honesty with ourselves. Real courage to contemplate that we have been mislead. Real humility to step back, understand how it happened and start anew to "seek and find" true answers to life.

No bolts of lightning will shoot from the skies to strike you down just for thinking this through, for being honest with yourself, for questioning what other humans have told you. Courage is needed.

Hm. I wonder why Jesus bothered to ask "take this cup from me". I wonder why Abraham bothered to ask God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah.

Frankly your comments about "being honest with yourself" sound like they come from a cult leader rather than anything useful. But hey, keep blathering on about prisons and unthinking masses, I guess it really helps make whatever point you're trying to make.

 

[Lamb]

Scriptures say to pray without ceasing.

As a believer, I don't always know God's will, but I pray with hopes that my prayer is in accordance with God's will.

 

[Frankj]

The entire proposition of Christianty makes no sense I'm afraid but you can only see and realise that if you have the courage to question it and the humility to entertain the possibility that the Church has mislead you.

I don't believe for one second that "god" is who or what the Church professes. On that basis there isn't any "God's Will".

Just look at the universe around you. It has absolutely no sense of right and wrong, good or evil. Those are just human terms and concepts which humans need to socially survive and interract. Somewhere out in the cosmos there are other suns bigger than our own and other solar systems with planets and life forms. Somewhere one of those sun's (stars) is collapsing and going supernova and that situation is destroying all the planets and all the life in that solar system. The universe does not care one iota. The universe just is, there's no good or bad. You are part of that universe.

You live and exist as you do, because there exists a universal source of life. A life force. It is everywhere all around you. It pervades every living thing. It's in the air you breathe and without it you die very quickly indeed. It's not "God". It's not some human like old man with a beard who suffers human failings like wrathfulness and anger. It's just a free flowing life force that is available to everyone without prejudice rhyme or reason. You don't get enough of that life force via breathing and eating and drinking and so you are gradually dying here on Earth. That shouldn't be the case. The Bible itself relates that people used to live in excess of 900yrs !! Why then do humans today think that living to 90 yrs old is a "good innings"!! It patently isn't. We've been hoodwinked. We're kept artificially poor in health and of shortened lifespan. We're fed ridiculous stories by religions to keep us in check to prevent us from questioning, thinking, looking for the real answers elesewhere. That system has been running for countless years, enslaving and conditioning humans the world over.

There ARE answers to be found and many of them are hidden in the Bible allegorically and cryptically, but the Church won't ever explain those to you. Indeed much of the Church itself is completely clueless about them.

The world is in chaos. It always has been. It's just that for countless millenia nefarious HUMANS have seized control of the great secrets and thereby seized control of all Earth's rich resources and become wealthy and all-powerful (Earthly speaking). We are born in that controlled world and immediately subjugated and pushed through an education system designed to make us accept that slavery as a normal thing.
It really isn't. Were supposed to be free. We're supposed to live very long lives and in perfect health. That we don't is absolutely nothing to do with the farcical story of Adam and Eve and the fall of mankind and sin. That's religious nonsense. In fact the story of Adam and Eve is allegorical as is most of Genesis. We've been hoodwinked. The only great plan in existence here is that which the ancient dynasties have been running for millenia in order to preserve their powerful positions. It will only ever change once people have the courage and humility to realise they've been psychologically programmed and conditioned from childhood and right through adulthood by religious indoctrination. Until then they still control the populations like puppets on a string.

Is your purpose to attack Christianity or to learn from it?

Whether you call yourself Christian or not, there is a great deal to learn from Christian beliefs and teachings but if you want the actual power of Christianity, of God, in your life you will have to accept it and not try to dissect and criticize it. That power comes from open and honest prayer to God to come into your life and asking him to direct you in his will.

What is your understanding of Matthew 6:7-8 where Jesus says: "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."

FWIW, there is a great deal to be learned from these two verses that go far beyond just the words themselves.

 

[Mercury]

Hm. I wonder why Jesus bothered to ask "take this cup from me". I wonder why Abraham bothered to ask God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah.

Indeed. Did either prayer change God's Will? Nope. God intended Jesus to be killed and crucified according to the Bible text and that's what happened.

Frankly your comments about "being honest with yourself" sound like they come from a cult leader rather than anything useful. But hey, keep blathering on about prisons and unthinking masses, I guess it really helps make whatever point you're trying to make.

No not a cult leader or follower. I am a free man. Freed from the shackles of religious indctrination.

 

[Mercury]

Scriptures say to pray without ceasing.

As a believer, I don't always know God's will, but I pray with hopes that my prayer is in accordance with God's will.

Yep, you got it right. That's all you can do. Odd that you have an entire forum section dedicated to prayer and basically inviting people to make posts asking for people to pray for their suffering families, friends and so on. What's the point of that? God is going to enact his will regardless. The suffering of people's families and friends is by his will. So members here have to accept it. The presence of that forum section suggests people don't understand the situation. It's pandering really to people pretending to be Christians who haven't really thought things through and haven't accepted the reality that God is responsible for everything happening either directly or indirectly.

 

[Mercury]

Is your purpose to attack Christianity or to learn from it?

Neither. My purpose is to make people think, rationally, critically.

Whether you call yourself Christian or not, there is a great deal to learn from Christian beliefs and teachings but if you want the actual power of Christianity, of God, in your life you will have to accept it and not try to dissect and criticize it. That power comes from open and honest prayer to God to come into your life and asking him to direct you in his will.

Yeah, I'm afraid that stuff is old hat and no longer has any relevance to me. I grew up and moved on. There are bigger and more important things in the Bible hidden allegorically in the text. Christianity doesn't understand this. It just peddles a foolish fantastical and nonsensical doctrine which just psychologically traps people's minds. There are plenty of useful things in the Bible and indeed in the major religious works of other manstream religions.

What is your understanding of Matthew 6:7-8 where Jesus says: "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."

That passage confirms what I have been saying. It's pointless praying for things or for situations to change. God's will is going to happen regardless of how you feel about it. Those with cancer are going to suffer regardless of how we feel about it. Those with terminal diseases are going to die regardless of how we feel about it. God has willed it to happen, he has permitted it to happen. God knows what we need. If we don't have what we need its because he has decreed it.

FWIW, there is a great deal to be learned from these two verses that go far beyond just the words themselves.

There's a lot in much of the Bible that goes deeper than the literal interpretation.

 

[Lamb]

Yep, you got it right. That's all you can do. Odd that you have an entire forum section dedicated to prayer and basically inviting people to make posts asking for people to pray for their suffering families, friends and so on. What's the point of that? God is going to enact his will regardless. The suffering of people's families and friends is by his will. So members here have to accept it. The presence of that forum section suggests people don't understand the situation. It's pandering really to people pretending to be Christians who haven't really thought things through and haven't accepted the reality that God is responsible for everything happening either directly or indirectly.

As I said, we pray in hopes that our prayers are in accordance with God's will.