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Hi tow,
The most amazing miracle is that the mere men that God used as prophets spoke the words of God.It shows the power of the Spirit of God in the puny vessel of man.
Quote (Towshab @ Jan. 17 2008,12:03) Mere men wrote the bible.
Tow Who are you to tell us what to believe. A mere man or what? No the Bible is the inspired word of God.Mrs.
Quote (seek and you will find @ Jan. 16 2008,19:08) Quote (Towshab @ Jan. 17 2008,12:03) Mere men wrote the bible.
Tow Who are you to tell us what to believe. A mere man or what? No the Bible is the inspired word of God.Mrs.
How do you know? Did G-d sign it? What if i wrote something and said G-d inspired it? How could you prove otherwise?Quote (Towshab @ Jan. 17 2008,12:36) Quote (seek and you will find @ Jan. 16 2008,19:08) Quote (Towshab @ Jan. 17 2008,12:03) Mere men wrote the bible.
Tow Who are you to tell us what to believe. A mere man or what? No the Bible is the inspired word of God.Mrs.
How do you know? Did G-d sign it? What if i wrote something and said G-d inspired it? How could you prove otherwise?
Is this the kind of stuff that will happen in the believers place?This is about the prayer forum. Where is the respect?
Quote (kenrch @ Jan. 16 2008,19:39) Quote (Towshab @ Jan. 17 2008,12:36) Quote (seek and you will find @ Jan. 16 2008,19:08) Quote (Towshab @ Jan. 17 2008,12:03) Mere men wrote the bible.
Tow Who are you to tell us what to believe. A mere man or what? No the Bible is the inspired word of God.Mrs.
How do you know? Did G-d sign it? What if i wrote something and said G-d inspired it? How could you prove otherwise?
Is this the kind of stuff that will happen in the believers place?This is about the prayer forum. Where is the respect?
Do YOU respect other people Ken? It seems the only person Ken respects is…..DRUMROLL
…..Ken.
See what I mean?
This is not about me or if the WORD of God is true. You can't even let us have peace to make a decision. What will happen in a prayer forum when someone says IN JESUS' NAME?
Quote (Towshab @ Jan. 17 2008,12:55) Oh, and the voting is at 50% so you don't have the majority Ken.
You don't know TOW. I've already won years ago!
I believe the prayer forum should foster faith not question it.
If an unbeliever desires prayer they can ask for it in any thread they have access to and believers will respond.
My opinion – Wm
Please can the moderator (I assume) who has sent me a pm regarding a warning I seem to have earned, please identify him/herself as a moderator, tell me exactly which post is the offending one (the link does not lead to any of my posts) , and what rule it breaks.
Stuart
If any of you were being honest with yourselfs you are all breaking at least one rule.
The Golden Rule.
And you don't have to be a believer to see the value in that one.
Quote (Son of Light @ Jan. 17 2008,16:16) If any of you were being honest with yourselfs you are all breaking at least one rule. The Golden Rule.
And you don't have to be a believer to see the value in that one.
I expect what I post to be treated with rigour, as that is often the nature of my posts (hopefully). Isn't that how the Golden Rule works in practice?Stuart
Quote (Stu @ Jan. 17 2008,16:19) Quote (Son of Light @ Jan. 17 2008,16:16) If any of you were being honest with yourselfs you are all breaking at least one rule. The Golden Rule.
And you don't have to be a believer to see the value in that one.
I expect what I post to be treated with rigour, as that is often the nature of my posts (hopefully). Isn't that how the Golden Rule works in practice?Stuart
I am meant everyone who continues these arguements not just you stu.What is the value of prayer? I am particularly interested in the views of those asking t8 to consider moving the prayer threads into the Boy Scouts’ section.
If we compare methods of treating cancer, lets be simplistic and say the options are chemotherapy, radiation treatment and prayer. No doubt most sensible people seeking a cure would go for the medical treatments, maybe or maybe not requesting or ‘receiving’ the prayers of others.
As treatments, chemotherapy and radiation enjoy a reasonable rate of success. Prayer on its own has been shown to make no statistical difference to medical outcomes. What is our attitude to how these treatments are delivered? Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are very punishing to the human body, indeed some suffer illness because of those treatments. Medical treatments are subjected to the most rigorous investigation to see that the good they do outweighs the damage they cause. Prayer is not subjected to any rigorous investigation by those who recommend it. We do not know that it does more good than harm (one study shows that it does more harm than good!).
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/529308
Others go further:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/medical.htm
Now some here are asking that the prayer threads be protected from challenge by wrapping them in cotton wool, and especially protect them from questioning by the very people they have been seen to criticise (the ‘unsaved’).
Here, our great friend Joseph Ratzinger leads the way on this subject:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123040
The ‘nation’s leading distributor of religious press releases’ joins in:
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/44143894.html
If prayer is used to patronise others, wouldn’t a ‘just god’ take a dim view of that?
I hadn’t realised that ‘prayer’ is used for school bullying:
http://atheistself.blogspot.com/2007/06/prayer-as-weapon.html
If it needs so much protection, and is shown to make no difference, what is the use of it?
Stuart
The medscape link leads to a login page. Here is the abstract for the study:
From American Heart Journal
Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of Uncertainty and Certainty of Receiving Intercessory Prayer
Posted 04/19/2006Herbert Benson, MD; Jeffery A. Dusek, PhD; Jane B. Sherwood, RN; Peter Lam, PhD; Charles F. Bethea, MD; William Carpenter, MDiv; Sidney Levitsky, MD; Peter C. Hill, MD; Donald W. Clem, Jr, MA; Manoj K. Jain, MD, MPH; David Drumel, MDiv; Stephen L. Kopecky, MD; Paul S. Mueller, MD; Dean Marek; Sue Rollins, RN, MPH; Patricia L. Hibberd, MD, PhD
Abstract and Introduction
Abstract
Background: Intercessory prayer is widely believed to influence recovery from illness, but claims of benefits are not supported by well-controlled clinical trials. Prior studies have not addressed whether prayer itself or knowledge/certainty that prayer is being provided may influence outcome. We evaluated whether (1) receiving intercessory prayer or (2) being certain of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with uncomplicated recovery after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.
Methods: Patients at 6 US hospitals were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: 604 received intercessory prayer after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; 597 did not receive intercessory prayer also after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; and 601 received intercessory prayer after being informed they would receive prayer. Intercessory prayer was provided for 14 days, starting the night before CABG. The primary outcome was presence of any complication within 30 days of CABG. Secondary outcomes were any major event and mortality.
Results: In the 2 groups uncertain about receiving intercessory prayer, complications occurred in 52% (315/604) of patients who received intercessory prayer versus 51% (304/597) of those who did not (relative risk 1.02, 95% CI 0.92-1.15). Complications occurred in 59% (352/601) of patients certain of receiving intercessory prayer compared with the 52% (315/604) of those uncertain of receiving intercessory prayer (relative risk 1.14, 95% CI 1.02-1.28). Major events and 30-day mortality were similar across the 3 groups.
Conclusions: Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on complication-free recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of complications.Introduction
More than 350000 Americans and 800000 people worldwide have coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery every year.[1] Despite advances in surgical techniques, anesthesia, and postoperative care in recent years, major and minor complications occur within 30 days of CABG (1997 Society of Thoraic Surgeons Adult Cardiac Surgery Database).[2] Patients undergoing CABG often report that they are depressed,[3] and depression is associated with cardiac events[4] and mortality[5] after CABG. Many patients report using private or family prayer to cope with this stressful experience.[6]Although the effects of private prayer on outcome after CABG are unknown, 4 trials investigated the effects of intercessory prayer in heterogeneous groups of cardiac patients. Results have been mixed—intercessory prayer was beneficial in 2 studies[7,8] and had no effect in 2 studies.[9,10] Others have criticized the studies showing benefit for using suboptimal methods of data analysis, nonstandard methods of randomization and allocation concealment, and untested outcome measures,[11-14] and those showing no effect had insufficient statistical power to reach this conclusion.[9,10] Despite these concerns, the Cochrane Collaboration[15] and others[16,17] have concluded that further scientific investigation of the possible effects of intercessory prayer is warranted.
We conducted a prospective trial to evaluate whether providing intercessory prayer or knowing that intercessory prayer would be provided influenced outcome after CABG. Patients undergoing CABG were randomized to 1 of 3 groups. Two groups did not know (ie, were uncertain) whether they would receive intercessory prayer—group 1 received intercessory prayer and group 2 did not. The third group (group 3) was informed (ie, was certain) that they would receive intercessory prayer. All patients were followed to determine whether any complication,[18] any major event,[19] or death occurred within 30 days of CABG.
Stuart
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