Highschool drama of a relationship coupled with an idealistic mindset for what love is eventually set me up to an emotionally negative aftermath when the relationship ended. I had prayed for God to help me and that I didn't want that kind of anger to continue to grow inside me. He answered. Not just a feeling like an emotion. But a sensation none the less in my head. The best I can explain it is that after the prayer, and the following day, I held all the memories I had before regarding the relationship I was in, and I could think about why I should be angry about it. But instead there wasn't an emotion there. It was like God had given me a blank slate regarding the relationship. I didn't try to regain the anger.

There are a few times that I know God answered a prayer request. Many of those are probably mundane. I'd like to share two of those anyways. One was after a wedding celebration driving home, I was tired and scared of falling asleep at the wheel or drive dangerously I said a quick prayer, and like a shot of coffee I was awake and alert for the rest of the drive as well as an hour or so afterwards. The other is a prayer for my mom when she started her own house cleaning business and worked for my grandma. Mom's relationship with my grandma was becoming strained. One day I asked her how it was going and she said it was doing fine. Nothing had changed, but she felt ok with my grandma anyways. These two prayers I share because they show

1). Praying can create physical changes not just feelings
And 2). That prayers for other people also work, so it's not an observation of believing and deceiving ourself to think it really happened.

AJ Philips. If you read the above experiences, then hear me out once more. You had said that if there's any other explaination to explain the prayers being answered then we should take that explaination. No matter how strange. There is a problem with this outlook that makes people discard their experiences and others. The danger is that our philosophy and our understanding should not be the highest authority when discerning the truth. If we do not let experience (our own or others) have a higher authority, then our experiences can not correct or support our current views or past views.

Therefore take my experiences and judge them on the merrit you would judge me on. If I am rationel, sensible, and show no signs that warrant a mistrust; then hold my experiences in that same light. This judgement call would be easier with someone you know face to face. But as a general rule, for me or anyone else consider that whoever tells you about their life, they have just as good discernment as you do, better then you do in fact when it comes to their own experiences. Unless there are tell tell signs that say otherwise, or there is motivation to lie such as when money is involved or a favor being asked, take the experiences told at face value with little or no reason to doubt them.

This is my advise that I hope you take and consider. Thankyou for reading.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Not_Now.Soon. Our suspicions were right, I don’t find them very compelling, sorry. Again, the problem is that they all have other, more rational explanations.

<<You had said that if there's any other explaination to explain the prayers being answered then we should take that explaination.>>

Only if the other explanation is more rational, and a naturalistic explanation is always going to be more rational. Then there’s Occam’s Razor, too.

<<There is a problem with this outlook that makes people discard their experiences and others.>>

Then God needs to provide better evidence for his existence. He would know what it would take to convince each individual of his existence, yet he chooses not to do that in many circumstances.

<<Therefore take my experiences and judge them on the merrit you would judge me on. If I am rationel, sensible, and show no signs that warrant a mistrust; then hold my experiences in that same light.>>

No can do, sorry. Rational and intelligent people can still believe irrational things.

Do you believe in an omniscient god and, if so, how do you reconcile this with a god that answers prayer?

AJ Philips, I think we would come to odds when measuring what is more rational. But that's not a good point to follow. (Too much philosophizing with little to no foundation to back up the reasons outside of their own arguments). I will say this though. The problem I get from my life is that in order to believe that God doesn't exist, I need to first discard the evidance of Him being in my life. It's not rational in my opinion to discard what's set in front of you, in order to satisfy one conclusion or another. For you it might not be rational to believe a conclusion without evidence, but I hope you agree that discarding evidance is not rational either.

No worries about whether my experiences were convincing to you or not. But I did want to give you a variety of experiences, so that you could know it wasn't one explaination to justify the experiences to be in error or somehow delusional. In my life God justified my faith. Gave me a variety of experiences to hold up against caution and doubt. And I do have both caution and doubt. Too many philosophies and theologies inside Christianity and outside Christianity to not have been burdened with doubt. My Occam's Razor for this is not to look for the simplist answer, but to cut through it with a solid foundation of experience and bible knowledge. (I know that's not Occam's razor, but I don't have a name for that kind of method to cut through the muck.)

AJ Phillips you said earlier:

<<Then God needs to provide better evidence for his existence. He would know what it would take to convince each individual of his existence, yet he chooses not to do that in many circumstances.>>

It seems like you want to be wowed more then come to the truth. God being powerful can do this and should do this for you, is the kind of logic I get out of your perspective. But the problem is that He had done it for Isreal in it's exodus from Egypt yet they still turned away. Through Isreal's history God set a standard that is used at least a few times. Seek God and He will come. Turn from God and He will (eventually) leave you. Perhaps there's merrit for this in today's world as well?

<<Do you believe in an omniscient god and, if so, how do you reconcile this with a god that answers prayer?>>

I believe in God, the God. As for prayer it doesn't need reconciliation because it has been observed. Since you've asked though I'll give you my conclusions. God is like a father with his children. Watching his kids the dad probably knows when they need help with something and is ready to help at any time with it, but for this father he still waits for the children to ask. This answers for prayers that request something. For other prayers I think God likes to have us talk to Him. Like a father is over-joyed when his kids want to talk to him. God knows what we need and what we will ask, even when we will ask it. But he still waits for us to pray because it's how He wants to have a relationship with Him.

This is my rational. It stems from Jesus's calling God father and telling us to do the same, and from observations looking back from my own dad. I would still say though that conclusions are second to the reality set forth from experience. Even if there's no conclusions why something occurs, experience trumps philosophy.

Not_Now.Soon,

Yes, but you’re assuming that it is indeed evidence of a god.

<<… in order to believe that God doesn't exist, I need to first discard the evidance of Him being in my life.>>

Without a means of verifying if your experiences are indeed evidence for a god, then all you can do is take it on faith - which is what most theists seem happy enough to do.

You don’t need to discard your experiences, but it is a considerable leap to conclude that they are indeed evidence for a god.

<<It's not rational in my opinion to discard what's set in front of you …>>

No, but it is irrational to assume that it is evidence of a god when there are simpler, more rational explanations.

<<It seems like you want to be wowed more then come to the truth.>>

No, I’m definitely more interested in the truth than being wowed. In this instance, however, being wowed should naturally accompany any evidence that I would find convincing, since extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

<<God being powerful can do this and should do this for you, is the kind of logic I get out of your perspective.>>

Yes, anything that could qualify as a god should know what it takes to convince me; and a god that has an important message for us all and wants to share it, should do it.

<<But the problem is that He had done it for Isreal in it's exodus from Egypt yet they still turned away.>>

This is not a reason to accept or expect less-extraordinary evidence, even if we could know that this really did happen.

<<Seek God and He will come.>>

Of course. This is a given. If one wants to believe strongly enough, then naturally one is going be convinced that they found evidence or witnessed a sign, eventually - whether or not a god exists. And it always seems to be the god(s) most predominant in one’s culture, too.

Continued…