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In response to your prayer comment, Marco, I'd like to say that God can't (or doesn't) listen to the prayers of un-believers except for a prayer that you are praying because you want to be saved (like a saving prayer: whatever you call it). If you wanted a real test, you'd have to have real Christians praying, and make sure they're serious about what they're praying for. Praying is basically like "talking" to God. If you lie to God, he's probably not going to answer your prayer. So, if you just say "O Lord, please help ___" but you don't really mean it, there's quite a possiblity He won't help ___.

I was praying for Guardian and his family, just about every day, sincerely. And, Guardian's sister made it through. That's the power of prayer - though to just a small percent. God can do a lot more than that. Even if you say... well, Guardian's sister had good doctors operating on her: Well, who decided those doctors would be there? God!



Number one, its not up to us to determine if its good or bad for someone to be ill, or even die. That's God's domain. Its only by his mercy that we're alive in the first place, so each day is borrowed time. That's not to say its not a bad thing to be ill or die, but its not our place to try and take control over these events. We brought this on ourselves in the first place, though time and again I believe God does step in on our behalf to cause miraculous cures, etc. Anyway...

That's why Jesus said something along these lines:

God already knows the desires that are on your heart, so when you pray, pray like this (at which point he goes on to recite the lord's prayer).

In other words, its not our purpose to petition God to do 'good'. How can we, with our limited scope of understanding, truly know what's good or bad? Think about David Pelzer (the author of a Child Called It). What happened to him was horrible, no one will argue that, but if it hadn't happened, he wouldn't have been able to bring so much attention to the good of foster care, and to bring to the forefront the rather controversial topic of child abuse. Good can come from bad, and we mock God by assuming we know what's best, even if its with prayer.

That doesn't mean that healing doesn't come from God, it simply means it definately does not come from man's desires. I also don't mean to downplay the power of prayer, but our desires do not replace the ultimate will of God. Its actually a really complicated topic that I'm not going to expand on here.

However, claiming God does not listen to atheists is rather absurd. If an atheist is sincerely (not mockingly) talking to God, why should he not listen? In fact, would that not then negate the atheist status of said atheist? An atheist will not sincerely pray to God unless s/he believes that God is listening. In fact, I would go as far as to say that God pays more attention to those prayers than to those who are already saved, seeing as an atheist would be akin to a prodigal son or however you spell it. But I have no specific backing in the scripture so I don't really stand by that last statement.

But to test prayer, you're really saying we need to test God because we have no power except to petition or just plain 'talk.' If God has decided to use the bad for a good purpose, why should he listen to us if we try and intervene? In fact, these little games or tests might seem to be rather 'bad' of us for lack of a better term. Who are we to test God for our own purposes? Didn't satan try to do that in the desert with Jesus?

No offense, I just wanted to voice my opinion. I'm not really an expert either, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. I'm just trying to be fair.

"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."