I think prayers are rather strange. It's like saying to yourself you want it to be good weather tomorrow and when it turns out to be a wonderful sunny day people will say 'see it worked', however if it rains that day people will say 'darn I haven't prayed good enough' or 'we didn't please the gods well enough we need a bigger sacrifice'.
That just doesn't make any sense, people attribute certain events to God without ever realizing (or admitting) that there's no way you can tell if it was God... in fact, when it comes to the weather, it simply means the conditions were right for the type of weather it will be. That's what we can see, however whether or not 'God' made these conditions like they were is impossible to say or check. When it comes to complex systems there's a lot that matters for the overall outcome and result. I think that the more we figure out about these systems the further back 'God's influence' will be, in fact it will always be placed at the point that we 'simply do not know' what happened or how it happened.
It's back-paddling at best, but probably God simply represents the unknown or not yet known and nothing supernatural and not even a being. Plenty of discoveries in the past have shown that a lot of things were not caused by Gods or God.
I also wonder why really good people die of cancer eventhough their family prayed hard for the person to heal. The 'God thought it was time for him or her to go' simply sounds awfully similar to the 'we haven't prayed good enough' or 'didn't please god well enough', but in the end it simply did not work. How come if praying more or less is supposed to "work"? If it's all up to God anyways, why bother praying for things to happen?
I can understand the common comment that God isn't 'Santa Claus' and simply won't give everyone what they want, but that's really a very weak argument when the real link between an invisible God and events that happen is non-existing or invisible,
Quote:
truth is, the majority of people praying were taught the wrong way
Yes, but then again this doesn't matter because there's no way of distinguishing between luck or chance from either God willing to give what you want or God saying no 'sorry not this time'. If people pray in the wrong way, but they still 'get what they want', then how do you know they did something wrong? The opposite is also true, if people pray but don't get what they want, how can you tell whether it was God saying no or a wrong prayer? Or perhaps prayers simply don't work because there is no God?
It's quite ironic that this has to do with free will, because of course people want to believe and want to pray when loved ones are dying. I'd say that's enough prove that it doesn't 'work' if it is supposed to work.
Besides, often in case of a surgery after an accident it'll be the doctors saving lives, not God. It's quite easy to proof, just prevent the doctors from doing anything ...
Cheers
