Betty Bowers on prayer

[12 Monkeys]

hehehehe

[jetson]

ha ha ha...awesome!  Thanks for sharing.

[kin hell]

hehehe

[12 Monkeys]

check her out on youTube she has lots more like this one

[Emily]

She's hilarious! I really enjoy this vid by her

[natlegend]

^^^ yeah, that's the best Betty vid.

[SERPENT KILLA]

hehehehe

"When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."(James 4:3)
hehehe

[Add Homonym]

You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it."  Matt 21:22
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  Matt 7:7
Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
Isaiah 30:19 O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.
Matthew 18:19 "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.
Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Luke 11:9 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
John 14:13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.
John 15:7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.
John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
John 16:23 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.
1 John 3:22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.
1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

[SERPENT KILLA]

You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it."  Matt 21:22

Did you have faith?

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  Matt 7:7

did you ask, seek, knock on the door?

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

Were you delight in the Lord?

Isaiah 30:19 O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.

Did you cry for help to get PRADA purse?
SNIP
.
.
.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us

was PRADA purse according to his will?


Most of all, Jesus was talking to His children, when he said 'you'. it's his children.
How do I know? I know because I am one of his many children.

I told my 13 year old daughter the same thing, "ask anything for Christmas"

2 scenarios here
1)If my daughter asks for a shot gun for self protection, I am going to say no.
2)If my daughter's friend asks for Play station 3, I am going to say no. I will probably say "you are not my kid"

[Add Homonym]

I notice that you evaded most of those quotes, some of which are not conditional on faith. Perhaps you know in your heart that the Bible contains significant quantities of error, that you cannot resolve.

What is the point of all those promises, if they can be rationalized away by circular reasoning?

If what you say is true, then why not state them the other way: If you have total faith in me, I shall deliver what you ask. If I do not deliver, then it's proof that you have no faith.

Christianity wouldn't want to keep people of no faith stringing along, would it? What if you thought you had faith, and Jesus didn't deliver? Do you then need counseling, or maybe the Bible contains significant errors that need people of faith to defend them.

Is that what faith is? Ability to defend errors?

1)If my daughter asks for a shot gun for self protection, I am going to say no.
2)If my daughter's friend asks for Play station 3, I am going to say no. I will probably say "you are not my kid"

OK, so ask for world peace. Obviously God wants that, and will deliver.

Too hard? Make a list of things that God will definitely deliver on, because you seem to know what he will and wont.

[natlegend]

Serpent, when you pray, what do you pray for?

[velkyn]

or=red]When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures[/color]."(James 4:3)
hehehe

That's lovely, SK.   Now, this would indicate that in last several thousand years no one has "prayed" in the right way since no prayers have been answered.  None at all.   Now, as a former Christian, I can guarantee I did do all that the verses you spewed said to do.   I prayed for the starving to be fed by God, that terrorist hostages be freed, that there be no hate and misery in the world, and as you can see, your god has failed on all counts to fulfill those very sincere and earnest prayers by one of his followers.   I even prayed to for help to keep my faith.  And again, nothing happened.   So, we are left with one more Christian, you, making things up and not being supported by their god at all.   I am sure you will try to add additional conditions for prayers being answered in an attempt to get us to believe that your version of this nonsense is true.  But you've failed.   You are a believer who has claimed that they are only here to spread the gospel, but now you make claims that can be and have been tested and found to be lies.     

[SERPENT KILLA]

Serpent, when you pray, what do you pray for?

I pray for a lot of things, personal matters, financial matters, for my family, for people around me, including you.

[JeffPT]

You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it."  Matt 21:22

Did you have faith?

You see, this is what drives me nuts.  This is pure idiocy.  What you are doing is first assuming God exists and is capable of answering every prayer (without evidence) and then using the answer of the prayer to determine whether or not enough faith was present in the person who prayed.  If God says no, then you didn't have enough faith.  If God says yes, then you had enough faith.  But this is something you can do with any object or postulated being.  Only a fool would fall for this trick.   Just watch the milk jug video. 

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  Matt 7:7

did you ask, seek, knock on the door?

So now we aren't knocking hard enough or looking hard enough?  See the above response. 

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

Were you delight in the Lord?

So now I have to have faith, knock correctly, and delight in the lord... whatever the hell that means. 

Isaiah 30:19 O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.

Did you cry for help to get PRADA purse?

Dear Lord.  Please eradicate cancer.  Thanks. 

Selfish enough for you?  Are you going to say no one in the history of the planet has had enough faith in God to get a positive response to that one? 

How would you explain it, however, if I were to pray to wake up tomorrow morning and it actually happened?  I have no faith, and I don't know how to knock on the door properly, so you say.  Yet God answered me with a yes?  How do you explain that?  Think it through. 

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us

was PRADA purse according to his will?

Why do you make it sound like all we ever want is superficial things?  God doesn't grant prayers to eradicate cancer any more frequently than he answers prayers for Prada purses.  This is a fact. 

Most of all, Jesus was talking to His children, when he said 'you'. it's his children.
How do I know? I know because I am one of his many children.

Pure unadulterated narcissism.  "Look at me.  I'm special.  God loves me."  Totally nuts.  Your ego is disgusting.

I told my 13 year old daughter the same thing, "ask anything for Christmas"
2 scenarios here
1)If my daughter asks for a shot gun for self protection, I am going to say no.
2)If my daughter's friend asks for Play station 3, I am going to say no. I will probably say "you are not my kid"

What if your daughter asks you to cure every case of cancer in the world for Christmas?  Are you going to say no?  If He exists, that's what God does.  And he has the power to stop it with a simple thought.  If she asked for that, and you had the power to do it with a single thought, what would you do?  And if you chose to do what God does (answer her request with a NO), should I think of you as a good person or a complete ass? 

Equally important...  So by birth I am not one of God's children, but I can become one of God's children if I simply believe I am one of God's children?  What real world evidence can you show, other than you simply stating it, that this is true?  Do you honestly think you are favored in some way?  Are you saying that Christians have some sort of statistical benefit over atheists in terms of... well... anything at all? 

You definitely seem to think you are one of God's children.  If this is the case, then do you have enough faith?  Do you knock correctly?  Do you 'delight' in the Lord?  If so, can you ask anything of God and get it?  Because that is what you seem to be saying.  That if we do all those things right, then we CAN get anything we want.  Is that something you have the ability to do?  Why don't we try this... You pray for an end to cancer as we know it.  If cancer disappears, I will believe that you are using a valid method of prayer, and that your version of God may be correct.  If cancer does NOT disappear, however, you must admit that the entire thing could be all in your head.  Deal? 

I sincerely hope your 13 year old daughter is able to overcome the poison you've likely been feeding her about religion. 

I pray for a lot of things, personal matters, financial matters, for my family, for people around me, including you.

Somehow, I seem to get through my life without praying to God for anything and I lead a pretty good life.  Go figure.  Personal matters and family matters work out because I work hard to make sure they do... without asking for help from an invisible man in the sky. 

[12 Monkeys]

Serpent, when you pray, what do you pray for?

I pray for a lot of things, personal matters, financial matters, for my family, for people around me, including you.

If these issues were resolved through prayer,you would not have to keep praying now would you?Why do you keep getting a NO from God when it comes to us "seeing the light" surley God would grant you that prayer. 

 He has not given you financial security?,keep your family safe? you just dont have enough faith for him to say yes now do you? Especialy when it comes to us heathens.

[Add Homonym]

]I pray for a lot of things, personal matters, financial matters,

Got the Prada purse yet?

for people around me, including you.

Fanks. We'll bleed you dry and leave you in the gutter. Keep praying.

I think Serpent Killa should be made God; she'd be just as effective. Maybe twice as effective, because she has ethics. I'd vote for her. When is the election?

[Mr. Blackwell]

@SERPENT KILLA

I have prayed for death.
I've held a shotgun in my mouth.
Like Lucy, I was in the sky
I would often wake up at home,
not knowing how or why.

Life is a burden and I prayed for a release from this fate. Why didn't God grant me my most heartfelt sincere prayer?

Is it because he is not real, or is it because he is sadistic?

[SERPENT KILLA]

I will pray for you Jay.
I believe God will heal you and open your spiritual eyes to see Him, to touch Him, and to understand Him.
He will give you joy, you have never knew, He will give you comfort, you have never felt.
I have a feeling I won't last long here, on this website.
But remember Jay, there is someone who loves you more than you can possibly imagine.
And he wants you to be his own child. today

[kin hell]

I will pray for you Jay.
I believe God will heal you and open your spiritual eyes to see Him, to touch Him, and to understand Him.
He will give you joy, you have never knew, He will give you comfort, you have never felt.
I have a feeling I won't last long here, on this website.
But remember Jay, there is someone who loves you more than you can possibly imagine.
And he wants you to be his own child. today

Excellent accuracy, unlike those who are happy to believe even the most ridiculous ideas without any evidence to back them, here, this site requires substantiation of claims.

Unfortunately as you cannot give the slightest skerrik of evidence to support the existence of your god, but still want to make speeches claiming its ludicrous benevolent existence (ie preaching) ........at the risk of sounding unwelcoming, I reckon you are a very short term visitor.

[Add Homonym]

And he wants you to be his own child. today

...or else!

[gonegolfing]

SK:

"When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."(James 4:3)
hehehe

I'm glad you got a kick out of that.    But the, not so funny, fact is SK, that you're simply a deluded theist who sees a video and gets her theistic knickers in a knot. You then run to your excuse treasure chest pick out the ones you think apply in defense of the god delusion. You then grab your babble and cherry pick and misinterpret a verse to throw at the enemy for insulting and giving a body blow to the precious pernicious little idea you live by. For being an adult, it's quite infantile of you to try and spoil someones fun isn't it ? I mean, it was a wonderful and humorous presentation of satire on a faulty idea, wouldn't you think ? 

Now, first of all, there's no question that if we were in a room chatting right at this very moment, there wouldn't be a chance in hell that you would be able to explain what was going on in the passage that you cherry picked the verse from. You've misinterpreted and therefore misrepresented the nature of that verse and so like it or not, you've insulted the word of your god. Oh boy !

Secondly, are you not casting your pearl of great prize to the swine, in being here ? Me thinks so. You're not dealing with the lost that are willing to be found, but the confident in themselves who know what their existence means and therefore shun and ridicule those that say otherwise. Given that then, you're now also guilty of lost labour in the eyes of your god and according to its word. If time is of the essence and you've been commanded to be elsewhere, why do you stay ?

But wait.....

Perhaps you stay because you need the comfort of rational thinkers. ? Perhaps, deep inside, you know that your faith is not enough to satisfy you and you have lingering doubts ? And although you've placed your wager on a supposed god, there's a strange feeling of satisfaction when you see rational thinking in action and the god idea refuted ?

SK, hang around, because there's a greater calling on your life than the god idea. It's the call from reality and your faculty of reason. If there's anyone who's lost and needs to be found, it's you.

Cheers

[Mr. Blackwell]

I will pray for you Jay.
I believe God will heal you and open your spiritual eyes to see Him, to touch Him, and to understand Him.
He will give you joy, you have never knew, He will give you comfort, you have never felt.
I have a feeling I won't last long here, on this website.
But remember Jay, there is someone who loves you more than you can possibly imagine.
And he wants you to be his own child. today

I appreciate your concern but don't put yourself out. I walked the isle and confessed my sins and gave my heart to Jesus. I was baptized and born again. It was several years *after* accepting Jesus as my personal lord and savior that I found my self in the living room with my step dads shot gun in my mouth. It wasn't God's grace that saved me Ms. Killa, it was the thought of my mother coming home from work and finding my brains all over the walls and carpet. It wasn't a longer walk with Christ that turned my life around and gave me a clearer understanding of Gods plan and the power of faith. It was LSD that helped me realize life was wonderful and that mine was worth living. And my wife and three girls give me more love than I could ever have hoped for or thought possible, more than I deserve. So save your PM's about some mystical entity who loves me, cause I'm not depressed and lonely or suicidal anymore, haven't been for over 20 years now...not since I was God's own little child.

[velkyn]

I will pray for you Jay.
I believe God will heal you and open your spiritual eyes to see Him, to touch Him, and to understand Him.
He will give you joy, you have never knew, He will give you comfort, you have never felt.
I have a feeling I won't last long here, on this website.
But remember Jay, there is someone who loves you more than you can possibly imagine.
And he wants you to be his own child. today

And your prayers has been demosntrated to be utterly ineffective.  I have had hundreds of Christians claim that they will pray for me to accept their god.  Really, literally hundreds.  and I'm still an atheist.  Now, why is this?  Does God like me as I am? Does God not answer prayers of this nature?  Does God ignore those prayers?  Or is it that God doesnt' exist and you fantasize that God answers your prayers, self-editing when they dont' come true by saying "well, God knew it was better that, for example,  I didn't get that life-saving transplant", etc ?   

As I have said, I have prayed for myself to not lose my faith and no god answered.  Why should anyone beleive your prating about how this god "loves" us?  It does nothing, and you only seek to get external validation that your bedtime stories are real. 

[12 Monkeys]

I will pray for you Jay.
I believe God will heal you and open your spiritual eyes to see Him, to touch Him, and to understand Him.
He will give you joy, you have never knew, He will give you comfort, you have never felt.
I have a feeling I won't last long here, on this website.
But remember Jay, there is someone who loves you more than you can possibly imagine.
And he wants you to be his own child. today

He loves me more than I could ever know but because I live on the other side of the world or have never heard of him he will put me in hell for eternity


 Ya you Fucktard,that sounds like love to me

[Aaron123]

I will pray for you Jay.
I believe God will heal you and open your spiritual eyes to see Him, to touch Him, and to understand Him.
He will give you joy, you have never knew, He will give you comfort, you have never felt.
I have a feeling I won't last long here, on this website.
But remember Jay, there is someone who loves you more than you can possibly imagine.
And he wants you to be his own child. today

Supposing you do pray for him; how long is a reasonable timetable for jaybwell32 to find god?  How much time is required before you give up and say "god has failed to answer my prayer"?

[natlegend]

Serpent, when you pray, what do you pray for?

I pray for a lot of things, personal matters, financial matters, for my family, for people around me, including you.

You realise your god already knows everything you will ever do? Your god knows how and when you will die, your god knows how much money you will ever earn, your god already knows what you are going to ask for... By praying, you are saying to your god "I'm not really happy with the life you've given me, I want something more..."

So your god's plan is obviously just not good enough for you Serpent, that you selfishly have to ask for more.

[RaymondKHessel]

You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it."  Matt 21:22

Did you have faith?

You see, this is what drives me nuts.  This is pure idiocy.  What you are doing is first assuming God exists and is capable of answering every prayer (without evidence) and then using the answer of the prayer to determine whether or not enough faith was present in the person who prayed.  If God says no, then you didn't have enough faith.  If God says yes, then you had enough faith.  But this is something you can do with any object or postulated being.  Only a fool would fall for this trick.   Just watch the milk jug video. 

And to add to this, think about it: There must be SOME people out there who's faith is absolutely 100% unshakeable... The most faith-filled faithy faithertons to ever have faith in in the whole history of faithdom. Assuming among the BILLIONS of people on Earth, at least a handful at any given time would really and truly HAVE that all-illusive surplus of required faith...

How come we don't hear about those people? Because really, they'd walk the Earth as titans, wouldn't they? Their every wish would become a reality because their Faith was really and truly faithtastic. You'd hear about some guy moving mountains in Brazil or some old lady in Batswanna re-directing rivers with her prayers 'n shit... But strangely enough, there's no evidence of this happening anywhere. Ever.

So either A.)NOBODY, out of 7 BILLION humans on the planet, actually has enough faith to impress Yahweh/Jesus (which is to say, for fuck's sake! How much faith do you expect someone to HAVE!?), B.)Yahweh just straight up lied about the power of prayer, or C.)It's all a line of bullshit.

Give ya five guesses which one I'm leaning towards. 

[Emily]

Serpent, when you pray, what do you pray for?

I pray for a lot of things, personal matters, financial matters, for my family, for people around me, including you.

You say you pray for us. Well, you're not the only one to do so. Browse these forums and you will find a seemingly endless amount of posts from Christians claiming they are praying for us. And who knows, maybe they are; maybe they're not. I don't know. Personally speaking, if a poster is praying for me (like you claim) I don't want it. Simply because if your prayer is answered and god does find it in his loving heart to forgive me of my "sins", and I do end up in a church pew one Sunday morning I'm just going to be another mindless robotic slave living under the tyrannical rule of the most ferocious and hateful and power-hungry dictator ever conceived in both fact and fiction.

About your personal matters: Without me prowling into your personal life I'm curious of something. Did you take any proactive steps to improving your financial matters? Such as, oh I don't know, applying for a job which you got hired for? A job with a payrate that improved whatever financial matters you might've been facing? If your financial matters were a complete mess at one point, and now all good and you are comfortable and secure with your money situations, I'd place everything I own on a wager that you were seeking employment also, along with praying to your version of god for a better life.

God answers in 'Yes, No or Wait' This site even has a video about the topic of prayer. Maybe you should watch it if you haven't yet.
 
Whatever you prayed for you were taking more secular (and realistic) measures to get it anyways. Even if you pray for a loved one there's a chance that he or she will get into a car accident, or fall down the stairs, or whatever, making your prayers for them useless and not answered. if you pray for them and think their life is good great and attribute that greatness to the power of your prayers the reality is that even the atheists on this forum are living the sweet life, compared to many others who are struggling.

I hope one thing you do pray for are the children who are starving because their society can't grow crops to feed enough people. When I was a christian I prayed for them, and my church even had a three hour prayer meeting dedicated to people in their condition. But our prayers were never answered, because there are still people living in their situation. So do me a favor - don't pray for me. When you say your prayer leave me out of it and replace me with those who truly need some sort of a miracle. I have my father (who's a pastor in Nashville) praying for me and my baby sister to come back to the church, and he leads the congregation saying a prayer for those who have strayed from the glory of christ, so I am taken care of, and I don't need your prayers. My life is golden to compared to those who are suffering.. Ten years ago I never would've thought I'd be alive today. living a secular and unholy life, but I am, and there are millions of other people who deserve much more than I have, and perhaps through the power of your prayer your god will intervene.

But he wont. He never will. The sad reality is that even if he is real he wont do anything and according to scripture they will go to hell simply because no one even showed them the door Christ was knocking on.  It's sad, really.  It's sad to that someone can be so arrogant and think they will spend eternity in heaven when millions and billions will be in hell because god never even gave them a chance. His standards are just too high for some to live up to.

[Graybeard]

I will pray for you Jay.
I believe God will heal you and open your spiritual eyes to see Him, to touch Him, and to understand Him.
He will give you joy, you have never knew, He will give you comfort, you have never felt.
I have a feeling I won't last long here, on this website.
But remember Jay, there is someone who loves you more than you can possibly imagine.
And he wants you to be his own child. today

Tonight, as you are surrounded by the trappings of the West, in a refugee camp somewhere near the Somali/Kenyan border, several people, men, women and children, will die. Others will be in pain - there are few medicines available and fewer analgesics.

God knows they will die, and it is His Plan.

Why would you pray for God to change His Mind. Do you think He has got it wrong?

Does He love Africans less than He loves you?