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"People pray for things and they do not get them. Did you not read the stuff on my friend's death? Many people I know personally did not get their prayers answered in that case." Sometimes the answer is not one we want to hear. Kind of like the truth.
posted by
Gheeghee
on February 19, 2005 at 11:59 PM
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Gheeghee
Unless she was lying, she said she prayed to God that her child would live and then her child died. That was all there in the show. Right after she gave birth she explained how important it was for her child to survive and how she and her whole family was praying for it to make it. Then we got a narrator telling us it did not survive.
it is not an unknown, it happens all the time, if not daily. People pray for things and they do not get them. Did you not read the stuff on my friend's death? Many people I know personally did not get their prayers answered in that case.
posted by
kooka_lives
on February 19, 2005 at 3:50 PM
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"The point was that she prayed for something and it was not granted." HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? Were you there in her mind to know what she prayed for, and were you there to know whether or not it was granted? What gave you such power of insight that you can know the mind of a person through a television program? How can you make a point out of such an unknown?
posted by
Gheeghee
on February 18, 2005 at 10:03 PM
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Gheeghee
The point was that she prayed for something and it was not granted. I know of many, many other times such things have happened.
You are not even trying to look at the point of the post here.
I'll take this one closer to home if you like. A year and a half ago my real good friends of mine died. His family was Catholic. He was in a coma for a about a week before he died. He was younger than I am and his heart just gave out. His family prayed that he would survive. His church prayed that he would survive. Go figure, he died. All of the prays for him to survive went unanswered by this idea.
So did God really not answers the prays? You claim God answers all prayers, yet how does God let people die then when others are praying for him/her to not die?
This kind of thing does test people's faith and I can not say if it changed anyone in his family, I have not seen any of them since the service. I can not say if the woman who's new born baby died after she and many others prayed that it would make it. I am not saying I know what is going through their heads. I was talking about how it seems that such an event should change a person's faith, but normally doesn't.
You read a lot more into all that was said than what was there. Focus on the basic questions. Be direct as you were with my newer post. Stop looking for things that I did not claim. Stop dancing around the issue at hand.
If a person is dying and people pray to God to allow that person to live, then explain just what happens when that person dies if God answers all prayers.
You know, I think you get confused when a person uses a story to try and explain an idea. It seems that you did best with my post where I just ask the questions instead of using a story to give an example of where the idea comes from. My guess is that you do not like story tellers and fables and such bug you. It seems like part of the reason you end up dancing around my questions is that you get lost in the stories and examples and just want to add to them in ways that are very clearly not present. That might be why typos were more important to you than ideas.
posted by
kooka_lives
on February 18, 2005 at 12:31 PM
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"The mother said..."
While your conditional argument based on one specific set of circumstances has validity in YOUR presented context, it is only YOUR context. All you have is what she said in one statement. You've not spoken directly with her, you've not given her time to get over the pain of her loss, you've not observed how this event affected her life; you've not given her a chance to take in everything she's endured and make her own decision as to what it all means within herself. You've taken one sentence elegedly uttered and applied your own context to it.
You've dismissed the woman entirely. How can you stand behind conclusions with this as it's foundation?
posted by
Gheeghee
on February 18, 2005 at 11:10 AM
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Gheeghee
The mother said she was prayer for her child to survive. The minster said she was praying for the child to survive, even making sure she got to bless the child hoping that would help. It was very clearly stated by the mother that her whole family and church were all praying of the child to survive. It was about birth and focused on that, but it did leave in what they were saying.
What else do you think they would be praying for? That the child died quickly? That their medical bills did not get too high because of all this? That some sports team won their game that day? That they look good on camera? Sorry, but if you ar e believer and you are in a situation where your new born child's life is on the line there really is only one thing you and all around you are going to be praying for. They very openly said what they were praying for as it was, but even without that it would have been fairly obvious in such a situation.
I never said I knew what those events did to their faith. I just stated the possibilities of what might come from it all. I never once said that they did or did not loose faith. Just saying that they had reason to.
It was very clear what they were praying for and what outcome they were hoping for. It is very clear that they did not get what they were praying for. You really can not take a comment like 'I just pray to God that he will keep my baby alive' in the wrong way.
What other possibility is there than their prayers went unanswered? God very clearly did not do what they were praying for him to do.
Still dancing I see. Should be interesting to see how much dancing you do with the post I just put up that is nothing but the hard questions that you dance around continually.
posted by
kooka_lives
on February 18, 2005 at 8:33 AM
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"If prayers are answered, then why did God not answer such a simple one?" Is this the only perspective you have on this concept, that a prayer went unanswered? The show was about births, not prayer, they didn't discuss prayer or faith. How do you know what they were praying for? Did they even know what they were praying for? How do you know what they believe about the events they endured, and how it affected their faith? How do you know their prayers went unanswered when WHAT they were praying for, what they believe and what they took spiritually from the events are all still unknown?
posted by
Gheeghee
on February 18, 2005 at 8:16 AM
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Gheeghee
I look at things from many, many more perspectives than you do. I have very often in this blog looked at things from views that I do not agree with, but put them out there as possibilities. I look at all possible ideas and question every single one. Otherwise I would not have the faith in my beliefs that I do.
Once more you are not about to even try to address the question. You reply has nothing at all to do with what was brought up in the post. You are not being honest, nor direct. You are dancing around like mad woman.
Are you scared of the possible answers you might have to face if you asked those questions? Is your faith really that weak that you need to try to put those questions out of your mind?
posted by
kooka_lives
on February 18, 2005 at 7:55 AM
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Experience
Thank you for your honestly there. That is the kind of thing I am looking for here. I am not trying to change anyone's faith. You obviously went through what this post was about and it did not change your faith for whatever reasons, part of that being the idea that some seem to be fighting about how you really can not choose your beliefs. Part of that goes into once you start down a path of faith you do end up getting to a point where no matter what you can not simply stop believing as you do just because something doesn't go as you desire it to.
As I said in the post, for me such an event would seem to make one rethink their beliefs and loose faith in God. Obviously that is not the case with you. I know there were those who thought that once I had children of my own I would see that there was a God, but that was not the case. We are much more a part of our beliefs than we know and more than some are willing to admit.
In the end it seems that it is no so much challenge to one's faith as it is a challenge to one finding more strength in their faith through such experiences. When a person goes through such events they look for reasoning inside of their beliefs as to why it happened. This is one reason as to why I am so against the idea of converting people to other beliefs. Their beliefs have most likely pulled them through the hard times and helped them to make sense of the universe. In the end that seems to be the most important gain from faith.
So thank you again for your honesty and open comment. I wish more Christians here were able to not dance around the questions as they do and be as straight forward as you were here.
posted by
kooka_lives
on February 18, 2005 at 7:50 AM
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Kooka, I can only answer your questions with another question: Why do you only look at things from one perspective?
posted by
Gheeghee
on February 18, 2005 at 7:46 AM
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Job
God tested Abraham and Job as well. And many other in history including the bible. I myself was put threw that. I could not conceive. I always wanted a baby but I could not ever bear any. I was 2 months premature when I was born and the doctors said my muscles and my twins muscles were not completely formed. My sister also lost 3 babies at 4 and half months. My sister always wanted babies as well but she could not have them either. We do not know why God does this to some and not others. It kinda angers me because God allows 45 million abortions to people who never wanted a baby. But to some who did want a baby he lets them die. I don't have the answer either.
posted by
Experience
on February 17, 2005 at 7:46 PM
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Gheeghee
I can not remember the show's name. It was not 'Life's Little Miricles' which is what had been airing at that time slot the last two days. Discovery Health plays around with that time block daily, with a different show about babies eveyrday. I had to watch the show twice, but the name did not stick in my head. If you have a TV guide just look at the show that palyed at noon and then agian at 3pm eastern time on Discovery Health yesterday.
After she gave birth and the outlook was not so good, all we got from that family was the narrator telling us the child died. The show itslef was about births and so did not deal at all with the faith issues, just that the woman and her family and religious leader all were praying for her baby. The baby sitll died, so all the praying went unanswered by God. That was the point I was making. Of course the question is, why did God not respond to those prayers if he responds to so many other less improtant ones?
I am puzzled by your comment. First off, as always you never address any of the questions I brought up. It was an observation I made and the idea that hit me about it. I never once said she did this or should do that. I just talked about how I saw it all. So I was the one to see her faith as failing her, since she never addressed the issue. That was far from being the point of this post however and really is just you trying to dodge the question.
In the end, yes it is going to be a perosnal thing as to if she sees the light and comes to the conclusion that if there is a God, that God clearly cares nothing about her and her children. She may not see this truth, but one can only hope these people gain some level of sense from such an experiance.
You really seem to dislike people making observations about God. You tell me that it is fine to ask the questions, yet you can not give a single answer to any of them, but instead try to make me look bad for asking. You could just try to answer my questions for once, instead of dancing around the issue.
My next post will be all the unanswered questions that have been building up that you have very often claimed can be answered and should be asked.
posted by
kooka_lives
on February 17, 2005 at 4:46 PM
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What's the name of the show? Providing it would be useful.
What did the woman say herself about what this did to her faith? Does she see her faith as failing her, or do YOU see her faith as failing her? As it's her faith, isn't that her call to make, not yours? Wouldn't she be a better source regarding how these events affected her faith than you are?
posted by
Gheeghee
on February 17, 2005 at 1:57 PM
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questions naturally arise
here was a great opportunity for god to show his power and reward the faith of the faithful.
and god didn't.
so what then happened to the faith of the faithful?
posted by
Xeno-x
on February 17, 2005 at 10:53 AM
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good post
the Universe out there is neutral after all
posted by
Xeno-x
on February 16, 2005 at 3:14 PM
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