Well let's not forget that we had relatively mainstream evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell and Pastor Ed Young of Second Baptist of Houston popping up immediately after 9/11 and saying that we had 9/11 due to lack of prayer, the ACLU and homosexuality etc..
I was agnostic until I looked back at my (at that time relatively short) life and saw how many spots I put myself in that He took me out of. Short of the hand of God, I don't know how I survived some of that ****.
I don't think God gives a damn what the Rockets do, even if my prayers were answered when we picked Yao. I find this insistence that we didn't "pray enough" and thus came 9/11 to be something that paints all Christians with an ugly, broad brush.
I agree praying does wonders, but to say this is a little out-there... No amount of praying would have stopped the cells from committing this crime and I believe they were praying to another god to execute this atrocity...
9-11 happened because OBL and his crew hated our love of freedom (and had nothing to do with those silly US military bases in Saudi Arabi, home of the holiest city of Islam and a pilgrimage site Mecca). If Tom Delay is to be believe, 9-11 happened since the US Congress was not moving fats enough of the Bush Tax Cut bill.
I dunno, I saw the 60 minutes special on Yao about 6 months before the draft and started praying right then for us to get the first pick of the draft. If I was egotistical enough, I would assume that it was my prayers that brought Yao here!
This is a Texas-based website. He's fit to be executed. Referring to Falwell: Ah, memory lane. Amen indeed.
So what's the exact purpose of prayer in Christianity? Isn't it a duty, something you do and don't expect anything extra from doing? Also, isn't it true that extra prayer is a request for something, and "help" shouldn't be expected but rather it should be something you hope for?
What ever gets you through the night Andy but why do religeous people always attribute the positive events to God and all the negative ones to the devil or free will? I blame 911 on Hitler. He started WW2, that made the western powers make and break the treaties with the Arab tribes that started the acrimony. Also, he initiated the final solution, wiping out the jewish population in Europe on such a scale that the US allowed the Zionist to occupy the biblical homelands even though their was an indegenous population in place.
First, I am not religious at all. I am very spiritual, but I have always been of the opinion that no religion has truly nailed it. Second, the situations I put myself in were of my own making, so free will was certainly to blame. The fact that I got out of those situations had to do with something I cannot explain. Once, a voice in my head told me to walk out of the apartment I had just entered and never come back. I don't know how to explain that with anything but intuition or God. Personally, I think intuition IS God so that one is easy for me. Another time, someone I knew to be a good shot decided I was worth shooting at and as I am still here, it is evident that someone was looking out for me (thought to be fair I never saw the guy again to ask him if he missed on purpose). There have been a few other much smaller incidents and lessons I have been taught (BTW, NEVER pray for patience) that have convinced me that there is something larger than me out there, I just don't see the need to try to convince others of it unless they ask me to.
