Do you believe that prayers work?

Question

Do you believe that prayers work?

Answer 1

No, they do not. If they do why can't we live just by praying that god will keep us alive? Why can't we eliminate cancer? Why can't we feed all the hungry people in the world?

There have been many studies done too to prove that it's fake..they've done things where one group of people that were dieing were prayed for by christians, and the other group wasn't..both groups ended up dieing anyways.

Theres also many tests you can easily do..like pray to god that a coin will land on heads all 50 times. Then flip it 50 times..It's guaranteed that it will land on tails atleast once.

My opinion..go ahead and thumbs down. :]

Answer 2

To a non-existent 'god', no. To the Buddha within , yes.

Answer 3

Definitely!

Answer 4

yes..absolutley.

Answer 5

They work as in they make people feel better, you can talk to God, it shows you care for ppl.

But not in 'God gives me stuff when i ask him'

Answer 6

yes.

Answer 7

I believe prayer works in the sense of building ones faith.  I believe that prayer is responsive to the condition of the heart and that is what God sees.  I do believe that prayers work good.

Answer 8

Without any doubt.

Answer 9

Controlled experiments have established unequivocally that they do NOT work.

Answer 10

No

Answer 11

No.  The studies that have been performed to scientific standards show no significant difference between people who are being prayed for and those who aren't.  That suggests several possibilities:

1. God isn't there, so prayer doesn't work.

2. God is there, but he doesn't answer prayers.

3. God is there, he does answer prayers, but he doesn't want studies to show that he does, so he chooses to make it look like he doesn't.

Personally, I don't find #3 convincing, and I wouldn't want to believe in a god that acted that way in the first place.  In any case, it seems to me that if prayer actually worked, it would work in all cases (or darn near), OR when it doesn't work it would be easily attributed (e.g., the person being prayed for was a murderer).  But instead, good people with no serious bad deeds under their belt die horrible deaths from cancer or whatever sometimes, regardless whether they're prayed for or not.  I can only conclude that prayer does not work.

I'm reminded of a great aunt who went on and on about the power of prayer.  My great uncle suffered a stroke and went through a long rehabilitation process which was unsuccessful; he died a year or two later.  He was a wonderful man and I'm sure she prayed for him regularly, yet he deteriorated slowly and died anyway.

Similar stories occur with people in every religion.  It seems very clear to me that prayer does NOT work.  If it did, members of one religious group would have a substantially higher success rate than members of any other religion (or sect).

Answer 12

they always work...but not the way we always want them to...prayer can move God's hand but more often it moves us.....it puts us in line with what his will is....

Answer 13

Yes.  There are many miracles attributed to praying the Rosary of the Great Mother of God. Some are explained on the middle of this webpage:

http://overcomeproblems.com/about_the_ro...

God bless!

Dave

Answer 14

You've got to be kidding me...you actually believe in this? That prayer works? How about the 24,000 people who die everyday from hunger or hunger related diseases, 3/4 of which being children under 5, can you pray for them? Or does your GOD not care for those people, and for some reason prayer doesnt work on them...

Answer 15

I am 100% sure that they do and that He hears and acts upon those who Pray His will ..

James 5:16 - The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.  

Answer 16

The point of prayer is to bond with God. It always works if you are really trying.  

Answer 17

Of course, if you are praying to the Real God, He will listen.

Answer 18

Yes, my friend, I believe that prayer absolutely works.............

God Bless................

Answer 19

no absolutely not it is a ridiculous notion.

Answer 20

Prayers work as long as the asker is in tune with God's will and not asking against his will.  Prayers have worked so many times in my life with small matters then not for the big decisions.  I believe that God helps us anytime we need his help but it is according to our faith and his will.

Answer 21

Prayers and concentrated attention towards achieving a goal can have powerful results.

Answer 22

Gazoo is correct... and because of those experiments (there have been many)... I do not think prayer has any supernatural effect.

Answer 23

When you control out the placebo effect, it has been experimentally shown that they don't.

Answer 24

No I don't believe that prayers work, I know that they do.

Answer 25

Yes, I believe prayer works. Many times I have prayed for something and it would be answered in some way.  Like one time I couldn't find the title to our boat. And my husband was raving and very angry blaming me for losing it.  I prayed and it was impressed on me to go look somewhere that I had already looked for it.  It was there! And I KNOW that it hadn't been there before, I had looked more than once already.  

Another time, my daughter had spinal meningitis and she had to go into the hospital with a very high temperature.  She quit breathing and my mother prayed for her and she started breathing again.  She had no ill effects of that horrible disease after I took her home.

There have been too many times to count ,but I will never discount that God answers my prayers. He may not always answer them in the way I think He should, because I don't always know the best answer for me like He does.  And our timing is not the same as God's sometimes, this is why we question God when He doesn't seem to answer our prayers right when we want them answered.

Answer 26

Yes, i really do believe that if you ask in sincerity God will answer, but don't always expect the answer that you want, when you want it.