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Petitionary prayer is more or less asking for specific events, things, or circumstances to go your way, by directly asking for God's help.
Below demonstrates the possible failure of prayer - IF petitionary prayer is claimed as a successful method of use. In accordance with the following scriptures; Matthew 7:7, Matthew 21:22, Mark 11:24, John 14:13-14, John 16:23, I used to continually pray for Jesus to reveal himself to me, to remove all shred of possible doubt for existence. I never received a response. I used to think, and as many would assert, in order for my faith to be genuine, completely knowing God existed might tamper with my free will in some way, and my faith would not be as heart felt and real. I somewhat bought into these asserted claim for years.
However, upon later discovery, I realized this was a pure 'nonsense' answer. Knowledge of existence does not hinder 'freewill'. Satan, along with a third of the angels, rebelled with apparent knowledge of existence. Roughly 50% of Americans divorce, knowing full well their spouse exists, and yet, because of 'freewill', still decide to separate because they no longer love them and choose not to remain with them 'forever.' One could again argue a false analogy. However, the point of the matter is that knowledge of existence still allows for one to decide and choose whether or not to engage, admire, love, be indifferent, or hate the known being, entity, or person. If attributes are not clearly demonstrated to the person, whom needs to make the choice, many cannot make an informed and educated personal decision.
Knowing something exists does not ruin 'freewill'. On the contrary, most actually do require knowledge of existence to even entertain the possibility in loving something or someone; especially forever. Under what circumstance would Jesus choose not to reveal existence to me? I could still choose not to love this being, couldn't I? I could still choose not to accept this being, couldn't I? What possible reason would Jesus have not to answer my genuine prayer requests for decades? And on what bases does God decide to send me to hell to burn for eternity? Lack in credulity alone appears illogical or irrational.
The possible answers are as follows; 1) Jesus is deliberately with holding his presence from me, which suggests the above scripture is false. 2) A postmortem/resurrected Jesus may not exist. 3) Jesus is choosing the right time to reveal His existence to me. But since I will no longer pray to receive this information, He would do it when I am no longer praying or have already concluded a postmortem Jesus' non-existence. Which either means Jesus waited until I finally gave up, or Jesus will present evidence when no more prayer exists and when the prayer requests are no longer faith filled. And since the prayer request must be made invoking faith, in which I now no longer possess, Jesus must have chosen not to answer my prayers effectively. 4) If Jesus answers all prayer requests, but waits for the correct time, but only does so when my heart is hardened, then I still will not accept proof of existence. Meaning, God is the deliberate guiding hand for my conclusion to reside in hell for non-belief. 5) God only answers prayers requests according to his will, which renders all prayer requests worthless. 6) God knew ahead of time my requests were not genuine, because I later became more skeptical and eventually decided to abandon belief years later, due to lack in evidence.
So far, option 2) appears the most viable, logical, and reasonable.
I have not mentioned all plausible or possible conclusions to such a topic, but wanted to throw this out there, for the believers and doubters alike.
Open discussion really.... Just one man's journey from indoctrinated belief, transitioning to severe doubt really....
Below demonstrates the possible failure of prayer - IF petitionary prayer is claimed as a successful method of use. In accordance with the following scriptures; Matthew 7:7, Matthew 21:22, Mark 11:24, John 14:13-14, John 16:23, I used to continually pray for Jesus to reveal himself to me, to remove all shred of possible doubt for existence. I never received a response. I used to think, and as many would assert, in order for my faith to be genuine, completely knowing God existed might tamper with my free will in some way, and my faith would not be as heart felt and real. I somewhat bought into these asserted claim for years.
However, upon later discovery, I realized this was a pure 'nonsense' answer. Knowledge of existence does not hinder 'freewill'. Satan, along with a third of the angels, rebelled with apparent knowledge of existence. Roughly 50% of Americans divorce, knowing full well their spouse exists, and yet, because of 'freewill', still decide to separate because they no longer love them and choose not to remain with them 'forever.' One could again argue a false analogy. However, the point of the matter is that knowledge of existence still allows for one to decide and choose whether or not to engage, admire, love, be indifferent, or hate the known being, entity, or person. If attributes are not clearly demonstrated to the person, whom needs to make the choice, many cannot make an informed and educated personal decision.
Knowing something exists does not ruin 'freewill'. On the contrary, most actually do require knowledge of existence to even entertain the possibility in loving something or someone; especially forever. Under what circumstance would Jesus choose not to reveal existence to me? I could still choose not to love this being, couldn't I? I could still choose not to accept this being, couldn't I? What possible reason would Jesus have not to answer my genuine prayer requests for decades? And on what bases does God decide to send me to hell to burn for eternity? Lack in credulity alone appears illogical or irrational.
The possible answers are as follows; 1) Jesus is deliberately with holding his presence from me, which suggests the above scripture is false. 2) A postmortem/resurrected Jesus may not exist. 3) Jesus is choosing the right time to reveal His existence to me. But since I will no longer pray to receive this information, He would do it when I am no longer praying or have already concluded a postmortem Jesus' non-existence. Which either means Jesus waited until I finally gave up, or Jesus will present evidence when no more prayer exists and when the prayer requests are no longer faith filled. And since the prayer request must be made invoking faith, in which I now no longer possess, Jesus must have chosen not to answer my prayers effectively. 4) If Jesus answers all prayer requests, but waits for the correct time, but only does so when my heart is hardened, then I still will not accept proof of existence. Meaning, God is the deliberate guiding hand for my conclusion to reside in hell for non-belief. 5) God only answers prayers requests according to his will, which renders all prayer requests worthless. 6) God knew ahead of time my requests were not genuine, because I later became more skeptical and eventually decided to abandon belief years later, due to lack in evidence.
So far, option 2) appears the most viable, logical, and reasonable.
I have not mentioned all plausible or possible conclusions to such a topic, but wanted to throw this out there, for the believers and doubters alike.
Open discussion really.... Just one man's journey from indoctrinated belief, transitioning to severe doubt really....