Posted May 30, 2010
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So - there is one problem in what you have written - it does work :D.
And if the prayers are not answered - then there are a few possibilities here - either one's faith is not strong enough (one's trust has it's bounds), or someoneis asking for something that is not as good of a solution as it may seem. God knows best what is good for everyone. Every event, and every problem I face is there for a reason. He knows what I need before I do. What I want or what I expect may have nothing to do with His plans for me.
Oh don't get me wrong, the placebo effect can be very potent if you believe it genuinely can work. That goes for prayer too. Which is why it tends to have benefits in health related matters.
As for God knowing what's best for everyone, there are several problems with that. Firstly, there's the fact that after the flood, God realised that his meddling in human affairs was more detrimental than beneficial (it only took wiping nearly everyone out to realise that too!) so he decided to abstain from meddling and left us to our own devices. Which is something that perhaps renders any argument for the 'power of prayer' null and void by itself.
Secondly there's all the perfectly reasonable requests that don't get answers and are unlikely to trigger any butterfly effects (at least not more so than most of the shit going on in the world). But yeah, no meddling. So that explains that.