Prayer is like a coinflip. You are asking someone to flip a coin and have it come up tails, but are told it will be flipped when God is ready and will be whatever God wants it to be. If it's tails its proof prayer works. If not, God didn't want it to be tails. Kind of like the Mandate of Heaven in the Zhou dynasty of China for any history people.

That's not it, sorry. I'm praying that you'll get it wrong, and God loves me more.

ⅽüpcakelickër Wrote:
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> That's not it, sorry. I'm praying that you'll get
> it wrong, and God loves me more.


Yeah but I got 3 heads in a row. God must love me more.

> Yeah but I got 3 heads in a row. God must love me
> more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kH8yX2UWKU

That's what God thinks of you.

If you don't flip the coin, something, or nothing, always happens!

What if the coin lands on its edge like in that old Twighlight Zone episode?

Yep it is. And notice it's never used for anything practical. "Pretty please, whoever's up there: fix this hole in my sock right now, make the flat tire unflat, lift that log off that guy "right now!!," stop the riot, cure the cancer, stop the pain, stop the war.

Nothing tangible happens at the time. It takes a long time and as said above, something eventually happens that would have happened or not whether there was a prayer or not.

God's absent again. What a crock!

No, it's not.
Any individual coin flip has a 50-50 chance of coming up with one outcome or the other. No other outcomes, other than "heads" or "tails," are possible.

"Answered prayer" does not have a 50-50 probability. It has a zero probability.

A somewhat larger, but still very very small, probability is that some random, coincidental event could be *interpreted* by someone as "answered prayer." That's NOT an "answered prayer," though. It's confirmation bias. So the probability of an "answered prayer" is still zero, and is never 50-50.
:)

I have to disagree. While it has a 0 chance of being answered by God, the only thing that really matters is that it was "answered." People will attribute anything to God even when the answer is no. So in reality, prayer has a 100% chance of being answered, but it is as you said just confirmation bias.

athens415 Wrote:
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> I have to disagree. While it has a 0 chance of
> being answered by God, the only thing that really
> matters is that it was "answered." People will
> attribute anything to God even when the answer is
> no. So in reality, prayer has a 100% chance of
> being answered, but it is as you said just
> confirmation bias.

But since it's confirmation bias (and it is), the prayer *wasn't* answered. It was simply *claimed* to be, but it wasn't. So the probability is still zero.

On the other hand, the probability that a "believer" will CLAIM the prayer was answered probably approaches 100% asymptotically :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2015 11:36AM by ificouldhietokolob.

One thing I like to remember about prayer didnt come from the mormon church, but the movie, "Evan Almighty".

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikes4yPulmI

Pray for the opportunity.

It's all a crap shoot. Prayer is a joke. A joke on the people

who believe in prayer.

Heads God wins. Tails you lose.

prayer is like a coin flip.....without a coin

To use the old addages of the Corp; "The True Order of Prayer..."

"Ye must ask in faith, upbraideth not". "God always answers, it's just the answer may be 'No' ". "Well there are STIPULATIONS, are you paying tithing, not masturbating, attending all your meetings, etc???"

STIPULATONS is a new game out by Black Light Games.
http://www.blacklightgames.net/

A coin flip is a flawed metaphor, because the 50/50 odds are too equal. It's more like roulette, craps or a slot machine.

Coins have two sides.

Maybe praying is like throwing dice.

Multiple combinations of possibilities.

Yet still the outcome doesn't matter at all.

Why roll the dice?

Life is a gamble.

Certain, and uncertain, things are going to happen no matter how much we wish they wouldn't.