weareunique -

"The reason 'being' that any person who opens up their heart and soul to God and has faith in God will receive the love and answers that God and only God is able to give. "

I will restate my previous comment; at any given time night or day world wide there is probably 30 million "faithful", God fearing, believers praying for a miracle or intervention on behalf of their brothers, sisters, mothers, best friends etc who are dying from cancer, malnutrition or would just like to win the lottery.

None of them will get a response (from God) so how can you possibly say "most people who believe in God, will receive the assistance they have requested in God's own time and using God's best judgement for all concerned." with any sense of sincerity or credibility.

Just the usual cop-out...oh well God didn't respond but rest assured He will "in his own time and of course, his best judgement".

It is sad if you truly believe your own words.

At the end of the day, each person to their own beliefs, as I hold my faith and love in God Peter.

Kindest wishes.

Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens appear to create a punch bag of what they perceive as a deity, and take great pleasure in knocking it about. Similarly, Brian Baker appears to wrestle with his own interpretation of what a prayer is. In his own belief, he is winning.

Many words, such as "freedom", "health", "society", "deity", and "prayer" needs redefining by each generation.

Let us concentrate, briefly, on the word "prayer".

Prayer is akin to contemplating, or concentrating one's mind of how things are, and what one can do about it. It is certainly not asking whoever to do something. It is not asking to win the lottery.

Brian Baker is making the usual mistake of equating his own perception with that of everyone else. That may be true to a very limited extent. It does not tally with the fundamental, enduring view of things.

Hi Pelican, to be pedantic it would only be the word "atheism" that would not exist; it would be as unnecessary as the word 'Shlompok".The state of not believing in the Flying Spaghetti exists for most, I would think, whether they have heard of the Ineffable Being or not -in which case they would be in a state of "Shlompik".
Belief in the Flying Spaghetti monster would of course be described as being in a state of Shlomploop.
Shlomploop - the sound of an Angel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster hitting a wall at moderate speed, and sliding to the floor.
As has been pointed out by several well known atheists, somewhere in the region of 4,000 gods have been proposed over the aeons; christians are atheistic to all but one (or three?) of them.

Those with no belief in prayer should perhaps be looking at this.

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ60801/IDQ60801.94299.shtml

Willis Island finished transmitting 30 miniutes ago with 100 knt gusts (115mph), and they now appear to be directly in the eye of the cyclone.

Give your prayers to the people on Willis Island and those on the mainland.

Istvan, you said, “Prayer is akin to contemplating, or concentrating one's mind of how things are, and what one can do about it. It is certainly not asking whoever to do something. It is not asking to win the lottery.”

I can assure you from twelve years of intensive religious education in a religious school and an embarrassingly large number of years of faithful attendance at church before I saw the light that asking someone to do something is a perfect definition of prayer. Watch any high stakes soccer match. Most of the replacements cross themselves as they run onto the ground, asking their god to grant them a good performance. Many, maybe most winners of large sporting events thank god for responding to their request to grant them the gift of playing well. Even the “miracles” claimed by the Catholic Church for its saints typically see the church ruling that prayers to the candidate asking for something (a cure) were granted.

How can you even begin to think that prayer is not asking someone to do something?