quite good
then you already
have a tendency to do the Good Thing.
The Good Thing
that a Prayer to God
thus bring
maybe nothing
more than your unconscious coming
to fore.
I might stress as before
doesn't quite require
that you actually acquire
a message from God.
God
may not intervene at all like an Architect
but the defects
in God's
'perfect'
Architecture
does bring some doubts of God's
intentions for sure.
Why would God
perform so many Biblical Miracles
then stop making Miracles
that are in a strict sense Miraculous?
strawman wrote:A holy man was once asked if he believed in miracles. He answered that it depended where you're from. "In your country, a miracle is when God does what you ask. Here, it is when we do what He asks."
The studies you site remind me of the show Mythbusters, where the host shows how psychics bend spoons.
Prayers of "Petition", "asking God to do things" may be the concept of prayer that skeptics have. But prayer that is centering, meditation, Thanksgiving, Praise, the Serenity prayer seeking acceptance, courage and wisdom, are the bulk of what I do, and make a big difference to outcomes. As you know, the primary prayer asks that Father's will, and not ours be done.
A miracle is a phenomenon not explained by known laws of nature, or an act by some supernatural entity or unknown, outside force
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiracleThe claim that God has worked a miracle implies that God has singled out certain persons for some benefit which many others do not receive implies that God is unfair”.[9] An example would be "If God intervenes to save your life in a car crash, then what was he doing in Auschwitz?". Thus an all-powerful, all-knowing and just God, predicated in Christianity, would not perform miracles.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20363650research has found that long-term mindfulness meditation practice promotes executive functioning and the ability to sustain attention, the effects of brief mindfulness meditation training have not been fully explored. We examined whether brief meditation training affects cognition and mood when compared to an active control group. After four sessions of either meditation training or listening to a recorded book, participants with no prior meditation experience were assessed with measures of mood, verbal fluency, visual coding, and working memory. Both interventions were effective at improving mood but only brief meditation training reduced fatigue, anxiety, and increased mindfulness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Arch ... e_UniverseG.A.O.T.U., meaning the Great Architect of the Universe, continues a long tradition of using an allegorical name for the Deity." They trace how the name and the abbreviation entered Masonic tradition from the Book of Constitutions written in 1723 by the Reverend James Anderson. They also note that Anderson, a Calvinist minister, probably took the term from Calvin's usage.
Christopher Haffner's own explanation of how the Masonic concept of a Great Architect of the Universe, as a placeholder for the Supreme Being of one's choice, is given in Workman Unashamed:
“ Now imagine me standing in lodge with my head bowed in prayer between Brother Mohammed Bokhary and Brother Arjun Melwani. To neither of them is the Great Architect of the Universe perceived as the Holy Trinity. To Brother Bokhary He has been revealed as Allah; to Brother Melwani He is probably perceived as Vishnu. Since I believe that there is only one God, I am confronted with three possibilities:
They are praying to the devil whilst I am praying to God;
They are praying to nothing, as their Gods do not exist;
They are praying to the same God as I, yet their understanding of His nature is partly incomplete (as indeed is mine — 1 Cor 13:12)
It is without hesitation that I accept the third possibility..