If God knows everything then what is the point of praying?

[rin and john 71]

... you will also reflect on your actions and thoughts. When we do reflect and think of our actions we also can see how we can have done better and this in turn helps us in our future actions and thus helping us to better ourselves. It never hurts to try and become better each day of our lives...

But this can be done without God...

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

But this can be done without God...

Of course. Think of prayer as a form of meditation. Saying the Rosary is just as mindless as any Buddhist chant.

Edited December 30, 2010 by Some Old Guy

[luckytxn 2,265]

But this can be done without God...

And also with God.

[Utha 10]

QUESTION 1: If God knows what you are going to say and knows you better than you do then what is the point in praying? Isn't it a pointless act?

You are struggling to pay the bills and you pray to God for "a way".....Did you think God did not know this until you had "thoughts inside your head" trying to communicate with Him? Does He not know everything about your life and situation?

If He wanted to help you He would (maybe He can't?)....

YOU DoN"T NEED TO SAY A SINGLE WORD OR PRAYER because God knows your life (and heart and mind) inside and out.

If you think He doesn't then continue to pray and remind Him of your woes and requests. You are probably annoying Him as He is watching over 7 billion humans simultaneously plus deciding the fate of 146,000 dead people a day (to see if they get into Heaven or are lit on perma-fire and sent away)....

HE IS BUSY FOLKS....No need to pray because He already KNOWS

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUESTION 2: Man was punished because the first humans ever (Adam and Eve from 6000 years ago) sinned....We all know the story. God talked to them one time when they were in their early 20s (they couldn't have been just instantly born as newborn babies so let's just say they were given full grown adult bodies at the time of their birth).....God hates apples. He told Adam and Eve never to eat apples....Eve saw the delicious red apples and couldn't resist. To top it off a cute garden snake was talking to her. He said it would be ok so she ate the apple. So God throws a hissy fit and punishes EVERY SINGLE HUMAN EVER TO BE BORN AGAIN because this newborn adult 20-something year old chick ate an apple.

Ok. That is fine. But why can't the animals live in paradise. Why do they die the most gruesome deaths (usually eaten alive). I don't need to post pictures of the human abuse done to animals but we all know it is very disturbing. I was in Mexico last week and they have a dog problem. All their dogs are pregnant (they don't neuter them as many here in the states do). They are all starving and their bones show. A lot of their horses look skinny but I am not an expert on the healthy physical appearance of a horse.

Seems like animals got the short end of the stick from human sin...WHY LORD, WHY??????????

All people here just human being like you. If you don't understand about God, ask Him directly. Learn about HIM by yourself. Collect many informations about HIM. Study about HIM.

I had same question like yours before. No body could make me understand except dived to my own soul.

Edited December 31, 2010 by Utha

[웃 910]

All people here just human being like you. If you don't understand about God, ask Him directly. Learn about HIM by yourself. Collect many informations about HIM. Study about HIM.

I had same question like yours before. No body could make me understand except dived to my own soul.

:rofl: I just asked Him and waited 5 minutes for a response. It got so quiet you could hear a pin drop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :rofl:

[ValerieA 350]

Take this for what you will, because I believe in God, just not religion.

I always thought prayer more was for the person, to focus your mind on what you needed. When you focus on what you need, you get much closer to solving it. I occasionally have a quiet moment to myself, to focus on what I am really stressed about. It focuses my mind, and knocks out all the extraneous ####### that confuses you. It's not about talking to God as much as it is having time to reflect on what is going on.

[rlogan 2,036]

QUESTION 1: If God knows what you are going to say and knows you better than you do then what is the point in praying? Isn't it a pointless act?

Because it makes people feel better. It doesn't have to work.

But why can't the animals live in paradise.

Well why ask such a question out of a religion that believes God sent himself to kill himself in order to save the people who he created himself from himself?

The answer from the historical developmental perspective is that the much more ancient Sumarian Epic of Gilgamesh preceded the Hebrew Bible, and is quite literally the oldest recorded story on earth. The Hebrew Bible borrowed from it heavily, including Noah's flood and the paradise garden of Eden. But they spun these stories to their own ends.

At the time of the writing of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Hebrew Bible) it appears there were two separate creation myths floating around the Northern vs. Southern Kingdoms of Judea so both of them were simply included in Genesis despite contradicting one another. There are also two completely contradictory sets of ten commandments, the second of which the bible asserts is an exact copy of the first. This is very common, and are referred to as "doublets" by Biblical Scholars.

The merging of all these traditions under one literary roof is performed by what the scholars call a "redactor". His purpose is political. It doesn't matter if the material is internally inconsistent or illogical. The important thing is that it is a political document that represents control over a population of adherents. The Northern and Southern Kingdoms were merged by conquest, and in so doing their religious traditions were merged too.

Ultimately in the Christian Bible this was done by the Emperor Constantine beginning with the Council of Nicea in 325 CE where he ordered the competing Christian faiths to come to an agreement on the nature of Christ. Since some believed Jesus was God, others a Man, and still others such as the Marcionites a holy spirit then the compromise was to make him all three - the Trinity. Throughout that century there were councils that ultimately resulted in the approved Christian Canon while other books were burned and their adherents suppressed. The Bishop Eusebius was tasked by Constantine to write a fabricated History of the Church that comprised the four gospels we know of out of a far wider selection of gospels (eg Thomas, Mary, Judas, etc.) and many more epistles so that official Roman History and Church history were the same.

That is how the political dictatorship and the religious dictatorship formed a symbiotic relationship for the purpose of controlling the population under Roman rule. The political dictatorship allowed the religious dictatorship to represent a false hope to the people subjugated, while in return the church refused to act as an organizing force against the political suppression of the people. Both got money and power out of it.

Insofar as the illogic of original sin, it is quite clearly an extremely stupid and supremely unjust principle. You cannot propose a loving God that at the same time creates innocent humans he punishes. Not logically anyway.

Logically though the religious dictatorship represented by the Judaic Temple Priests when Genesis was authored needed to put a phony obligation upon the people to put before the Temple priests their sacrificial obligation to "God" - the first fruits of the wheat, the first born animal, money - so you invent this whole phony pre-history about the people being enslaved in Egypt looooong ago and the ficticious Moses leading them to freedom, with the temple priests now representing Moses. If you do as the Priests say then God will treat the people favorably. If not the people will all be slaves to someone other than the Priests.

None of that happened. There was no enslavement in Egypt. There was no Moses. Not one ####### found in the desert from more than a million people wandering around forty years, yet we can find evidence from camps of extremely small bands of Athapaskans in the Brooks Range ten thousand years after they were there. What is far more interesting are not the ridiculous legends, but the political history of how the Bible was actually put together by men who were engaged in very real battles for political power.

It's hilarious history really. A King comes along that needs some new rules. So therefore he "finds" a new book with a whole new set of rules in it. The Marcionites (Pauline school sans an earthly Jesus) and the adherents to the Gospel accounts are competitors. Paul (Marcion) has never met any physical Jesus and there isn't one in his theology. The schools are merged through the creation of Acts, where the ficticious Paul meets the ficticious apostles Peter, Barnabus, and James in Jerusalem.

Once you begin to study the human history of the bible's formation then the greed, lust for power, and abject lack of morality in the religious leadership is abundantly apparent. That is actually the answer to your question about why the animals are not in paradise. The Bible is all about money and power: getting it from the people and to the religious leadership. It has undergone a strange evolution since the enlightenment where about the only thing left to cloud the minds of the people is fear of death and two millenia of cultural tradition.

[Utha 10]

:rofl: I just asked Him and waited 5 minutes for a response. It got so quiet you could hear a pin drop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :rofl:

Even to get the answer from USCIS needs many months even years about our application, just imagine how long will it take for God to answer your question since there are billions of cases on the earth. If you still not satisfy, just think like this; you buy tv and who knows best about your tv than the manufacturer?. No matter you like the shape of it or not, that is the best thing that the manufacturer's think. Now, no matter you like the situation or not, the Creator which is God, He knows best about it.

[mawilson 2,133]

I'm as big a skeptic as the next guy, but I think these questions are juvenile.

I think it's a valid question. Why do you need to "speak to God" if God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient? Unless he/she is not?

[Jenn! 918]

I think it's a valid question. Why do you need to "speak to God" if God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient? Unless he/she is not?

I don't know, but ask religious people and you will get many different answers, I'm sure. Aksing this question as though the question in itself is proof that God does not exist (which I believe is the case here, rather than genuine curiosity) is juvenile IMO. I'm not so arrogant as to think that religious people have not asked and answered these questions for themselves. Just because I have not found a satisfactory answer for myself does not mean that others have not either.

[웃 910]

I don't know, but ask religious people and you will get many different answers, I'm sure. Aksing this question as though the question in itself is proof that God does not exist (which I believe is the case here, rather than genuine curiosity) is juvenile IMO. I'm not so arrogant as to think that religious people have not asked and answered these questions for themselves. Just because I have not found a satisfactory answer for myself does not mean that others have not either.

It is a valid philosophical question (and so is the one about the animals). I never thought about these questions until the other day. I'm not trying to prove anything. I think they are great questions.

We know why humans suffer (because of Adam and Eve eating apples) but why do animals suffer just as much and sometimes even more.

We don't have the fear of walking down the street and all of a sudden a larger beast comes out of nowhere, preying on us, and chews us to death. It's like a real war zone out there for the animals. Think of how much a tragedy it is to lose a family member. In the animal kingdom it's a miracle if your older brother, your mom or dad have NOT been savagely murdered while going out to hunt for food.

It really does seem like animals have been giving the true punishment of hell on earth, in a lot of cases.

But you can continue to belittle me, end your sentences with "genius" when responding to me as you've done in the past, say my curiosity is not genuine, call my questions juvenile, and say I'm arrogant all you like (if it makes you feel better).

[Jenn! 918]

It is a valid philosophical question (and so is the one about the animals). I never thought about these questions until the other day. I'm not trying to prove anything. I think they are great questions.

We know why humans suffer (because of Adam and Eve eating apples) but why do animals suffer just as much and sometimes even more.

We don't have the fear of walking down the street and all of a sudden a larger beast comes out of nowhere, preying on us, and chews us to death. It's like a real war zone out there for the animals. Think of how much a tragedy it is to lose a family member. In the animal kingdom it's a miracle if your older brother, your mom or dad have NOT been savagely murdered while going out to hunt for food.

It really does seem like animals have been giving the true punishment of hell on earth, in a lot of cases.

But you can continue to belittle me, end your sentences with "genius" when responding to me as you've done in the past, say my curiosity is not genuine, call my questions juvenile, and say I'm arrogant all you like (if it makes you feel better).

Obviously, you hold grudges, which is fine. I question your sincerity and your schtick has gotten old. That's all I have to say about that.

[웃 910]

Obviously, you hold grudges, which is fine. I question your sincerity and your schtick has gotten old. That's all I have to say about that.

Do you know what forum you are in? There is politics and religion in this forum. If you want to play silly games go to off topic...If you don't like to read posts on religion don't click on them...

Edited January 3, 2011 by Lord Infamous

[Jenn! 918]

Do you know what forum you are in? There is politics and religion in this forum. If you want to play silly games go to off topic...If you don't like to read posts on religion don't click on them...

If you can't take a little backlash from your controversial posts, then maybe YOU are the one in the wrong place.

[Ban Hammer 14,089]

+1 for jen.

correction - make that 2 +1 for jenn.

Edited January 3, 2011 by charles!