Have you ever had a prayer almost instantly answered?

originally posted by: av8r007
a reply to: 3danimator2014

This world isn't supposed to be Heaven, don't you see? God did create a world where all those things don't happen, it's called the Kingdom of Heaven. That's the just reward for going through the trials, tribulations, toils, and troubles of this planet. This is a lower plain of existence. A short test typically lasting no more than 100 years, so that you have forever in peace, harmony and love.

You say you were in the military. I know very well how the military works. When you're at the bottom, you don't get much privilege because everything is a test. Once you get through those first weeks, months, and years, they give you more do they not? You could relate it to the same thing here. Once you prove you're not going to break trust and EARN it, you're given a just reward for your sacrifice and efforts.

What you don't see is you've already been there, you came here as part of the deal, it's to test who you are on the inside. Can you love God when you cannot so easily feel his presence? Are you able to maintain faith through adversity, challenges and against the odds. Can you avoid the trappings of the flesh and overcome it to reach a higher place? That's why we are here. It was never meant to be a place without suffering, in fact just the opposite, a place to test your mettle and see who you really are.

Believe, know in your heart that He loves you, wants to provide for you, even if that means finding your lost iPod. We all must go somehow, if that's getting cancer at the age of two, God forbid then that was the way it was supposed to be. It's going to be hard, there are things that are going to make you sad, things that are going to hurt, and most importantly things that aren't going to go our way, but our reward for suffering through this life, is one where it is in perfection thereafter. It is real, the answer is so simple, let me part with one more statement.

Next time you're out there appreciating nature, I want you to look at it all and REALLY take it in. Notice the birds, the trees, the way the wind blows across them, the lakes, the streams, and the flowers. I want you to ask yourself this: "If all of this can exist in all it's beauty, why on Earth would God and Heaven not?"

I think you see how simple it really is and how grand. God Bless you, whether you like it or not.

OK.

- what kind of sick being makes a defenseless toddler suffer horribly as a trial to get into heaven. piss off with that rubbish.

- I never said I was in the military

- don't presume I don't REALLY look at nature. I do. If I worship anything, its the wonder of the universe. Nature, stars, quantum mechanics, flowers (I love flowers)

As the late comedian said, who's name eludes me now...if a god exists, he either doesn't give a sh*t or is incompetent. Either way, he deserves nothing from me. But that's fine since he doesnt exist.

originally posted by: underwerks

originally posted by: tigertatzen

originally posted by: underwerks

originally posted by: rickymouse
If you ask the authors, and you need something, they will arrange it so you can get what you need when you need it. If you have no faith in a higher being that is creating this, then they will not help you.

The authors are not the creators of this reality, they just oversee it and can actually control how things play out. I should not be here, I have experienced things that went against science's information about innertia. There were other forces at play counteracting what happened on a few occasions in my life. You may call them angels, I call them authors because they can change the script and our history by altering things in the past. Time means nothing to them. It is not a glitch in the matrix.

That's a cool way to look at it. The "Authors". I should be dead as well. I've escaped from car accidents and other things where I should have been instantly killed, but somehow I came out without a scratch.

Ditto. I should have been dead at least twenty times by now. Other versions of me likely are in the multiverse.

That's funny you would say that. I always had a thought that maybe we don't die. Maybe at the moment of death we just shift into another timeline where we didn't die at the moment.

That is exactly what I think happens.

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: underwerks

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: underwerks
a reply to: 3danimator2014

In this very thread there's people who believe God answered their prayers about their children.

Maybe you'd like to actually read the thread before responding.

And what about the millions of kids who died from horrible diseases or malnutrition because god didn't answer their parents prayers?

You missed my point entirely. Bravo

How do you know God didn't help these people when they needed it? Because they died?

All of us die. Me, you, everyone reading this. That's a given. Its about what happens before then. All of our time is different.

When I say God I'm not talking about any particular deity, or religion. God to me is an energy and force that's all around us, inside of us, and in everything around us. It is us.

That's what I believe. You may believe different, and that's completely fine. I understand your issue with the bad things that happen to good people, and I don't have an answer why they do. I don't think anyone does.

You seem to think that if God were real this would be a perfect world where nothing bad happened to anyone. Why do you think that?

Not perfect but then maybe, just maybe a god would create a world where infants don't get cancer. Or maybe he could create a world without worms that burrow into kids eyeballs.

I kbow we all due. But a toddler shouldn't really.

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. I really have no way of knowing. And no one else does either.

All I can form my opinions on are my own experiences. And there's been times where there is clear evidence to me of "something" else out there.

As I said before, I'm not religious, and truth be told I believe a lot of religions have been perverted over the years by men in a quest for power. So I don't trust any religions.

But religion and God aren't the same thing to me. Religion is just the framework man has built around that experience of God trying to understand it, and when you have humans involved it will eventually become corrupt.

originally posted by: 3danimator2014
Isn't it nice that god answered your prayer about your iPod but seems unwilling to answer the millions of desperate pleas from mothers about their drying innocent children.

What a lovely deity you worship.

Sickening.

And the arrogance people like you display. Believing you were singled out by god and not the billions who are more in need.

What arrogance? The attitude here is one of amazement and gratefulness...not arrogant in the least. No one is saying they were "singled out by god" or anything like that. I'm sure there have been plenty of times in OPs life where requests have not been answered, as is the case with everyone on this planet at one point or another.

However, despite the pure venom in your post, you open the door for deeper understanding. When "prayers" don't get the desired results from these beings, there is a rather simple explanation for that. Human beings have a very unwise habit of expecting some omnipotent creator to come along and magically fix their entire lives for them. Well...it doesn't work that way, and it shouldn't. We were given free will for a reason.

What people need to be saying when they ask for help is not, "Oh please please come and fix this for me, make it all better." They need to say, "Please show me how I can best help myself and those connected to me, so that I can fix/work through my own problems." As a race of intelligent beings, we've given up our personal power because we've been indoctrinated to believe that we need someone to rescue us, to forgive us, to absolve us.

If someone came in and did that every single time we had a crisis in our lives, we would never learn to adapt and evolve. Look at us now...on the brink of war and at each other's throats, and waiting for people in power to fix everything. As long as we continue to allow ourselves to be victimized, things will not change in any lasting or meaningful way.

Hey OP.

Great thread, btw. Sorry for the derailment. Unfortunately the thread goes from really good stories that we enjoyed reading to defending ourselves and our beliefs. Seems to be just how it goes these days and it's inescapable.

Hopefully we'll get more good stories out of this thread before it turns to dead stagnant waters.

Also, don't let anyone deter you. I understand well that the idea wasn't about the ipod but what the ipod represented. Some people see what they want to see... Many like us see or at least get a glimps of how things really are and that is a wonder all unto itself.

originally posted by: StallionDuck
Hey OP.

Great thread, btw. Sorry for the derailment. Unfortunately the thread goes from really good stories that we enjoyed reading to defending ourselves and our beliefs. Seems to be just how it goes these days and it's inescapable.

Hopefully we'll get more good stories out of this thread before it turns to dead stagnant waters.

Also, don't let anyone deter you. I understand well that the idea wasn't about the ipod but what the ipod represented. Some people see what they want to see... Many like us see or at least get a gimps of how things really are and that is a wonder all unto itself.

What did the iPod represented. Enlighten us

^^^someone^^^ didn't read the OP and just came here to poke chests, spout rhetoric and spread discontent. Small wonder.

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: StallionDuck
Hey OP.

Great thread, btw. Sorry for the derailment. Unfortunately the thread goes from really good stories that we enjoyed reading to defending ourselves and our beliefs. Seems to be just how it goes these days and it's inescapable.

Hopefully we'll get more good stories out of this thread before it turns to dead stagnant waters.

Also, don't let anyone deter you. I understand well that the idea wasn't about the ipod but what the ipod represented. Some people see what they want to see... Many like us see or at least get a gimps of how things really are and that is a wonder all unto itself.

What did the iPod represented. Enlighten us

If you read my posts past the first two you'll see it was a symbol of the connection to my family at the time.

I was alone, thousands of miles from home, depressed, and starving. I hadn't eaten in 3 days, and it killed me to get rid of one of the only connections to my family I had at that rough time.

My family doesn't have a lot of money, and it was a big deal to give me something like that before I went to engineering school out on the west coast.

a reply to: StallionDuck

Thank you. Its all good, I don't mind having to explain myself. I just wish people would read the thread before commenting, to get a larger view of what we're talking about here.

I'm guilty of instantly replying without reading too sometimes, so I don't mind.

a reply to: av8r007

if anything at all it shows he has not read all the testimonies on answered prayer through the thread. And if he would have thought deeper on my points he would clearly understand what it has to do with everything.

Individuals who call God petty, vile or any other vernacular will have their day to show how short armed they are when it comes to boxing with God.

originally posted by: underwerks

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: StallionDuck
Hey OP.

Great thread, btw. Sorry for the derailment. Unfortunately the thread goes from really good stories that we enjoyed reading to defending ourselves and our beliefs. Seems to be just how it goes these days and it's inescapable.

Hopefully we'll get more good stories out of this thread before it turns to dead stagnant waters.

Also, don't let anyone deter you. I understand well that the idea wasn't about the ipod but what the ipod represented. Some people see what they want to see... Many like us see or at least get a gimps of how things really are and that is a wonder all unto itself.

What did the iPod represented. Enlighten us

If you read my posts past the first two you'll see it was a symbol of the connection to my family at the time.

I was alone, thousands of miles from home, depressed, and starving. I hadn't eaten in 3 days, and it killed me to get rid of one of the only connections to my family I had at that rough time.

My family doesn't have a lot of money, and it was a big deal to give me something like that before I went to engineering school out on the west coast.

And yet...you weren't dying from cancer, not destitute, were not watching your baby die painfully...which millions of people are.

Hadnt eaten in 3 days? Sure you hadn't. And yet you prayed for your ipod, not food.
So all you guys missing my very clear point. Well done.

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: underwerks

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: StallionDuck
Hey OP.

Great thread, btw. Sorry for the derailment. Unfortunately the thread goes from really good stories that we enjoyed reading to defending ourselves and our beliefs. Seems to be just how it goes these days and it's inescapable.

Hopefully we'll get more good stories out of this thread before it turns to dead stagnant waters.

Also, don't let anyone deter you. I understand well that the idea wasn't about the ipod but what the ipod represented. Some people see what they want to see... Many like us see or at least get a gimps of how things really are and that is a wonder all unto itself.

What did the iPod represented. Enlighten us

If you read my posts past the first two you'll see it was a symbol of the connection to my family at the time.

I was alone, thousands of miles from home, depressed, and starving. I hadn't eaten in 3 days, and it killed me to get rid of one of the only connections to my family I had at that rough time.

My family doesn't have a lot of money, and it was a big deal to give me something like that before I went to engineering school out on the west coast.

And yet...you weren't dying from cancer, not destitute, were not watching your baby die painfully...which millions of people are.

Hadnt eaten in 3 days? Sure you hadn't. And yet you prayed for your ipod, not food.
So all you guys missing my very clear point. Well done.

I'm curious if you even read the OP. You've got the facts completely backward.

Please read the OP and we can continue to have a discussion.

So, you found $73 in an alley in a bad neighborhood and you bought back your iPod? Your iPod? Really? Maybe some homeless and hungry that could use that money? Maybe someone in need lost it there in the first place, and you took in and bought back your iPod? God may work in mysterious ways, but let me ask you, since this happened, have you paid it forward?

a reply to: underwerks

I doubt God, spirits, karma or anything else left the money there for you to find. It doesn't make any logical sense. Did one of these forces take the $73 from someone's pocket for you? Did they apport it from a cash till or conjure the notes into fresh existence? Did the notes introduce new matter into this universe or were they created from particles from across space?

When you were walking to reclaim the iPod, there were probably a hundred families walking out of repossessed homes. At least some of them will have been praying hard for a miracle. Kickstarter campaigns falling short of the funds for life-changing operations etc. You'd have to wonder what force would identify you as a priority and move matter to get the iPod back?

Setting aside the natural scepticism, I've also had experiences which have defied my capacity to make sense of them. I sometimes think these accounts are like folkloric lifeblood for us all. We need to hear them. It's why most people prefer happy endings in their fiction and why most of us want the bad guys beaten. On a higher level, many people need to have the hope and belief in something greater. Most of them imagine a fair and generous force to make sense of the unfairness we see every day.

Who knows if there's something more to it? Is there a something outside of our skulls?

originally posted by: underwerks

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: underwerks

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: StallionDuck
Hey OP.

Great thread, btw. Sorry for the derailment. Unfortunately the thread goes from really good stories that we enjoyed reading to defending ourselves and our beliefs. Seems to be just how it goes these days and it's inescapable.

Hopefully we'll get more good stories out of this thread before it turns to dead stagnant waters.

Also, don't let anyone deter you. I understand well that the idea wasn't about the ipod but what the ipod represented. Some people see what they want to see... Many like us see or at least get a gimps of how things really are and that is a wonder all unto itself.

What did the iPod represented. Enlighten us

If you read my posts past the first two you'll see it was a symbol of the connection to my family at the time.

I was alone, thousands of miles from home, depressed, and starving. I hadn't eaten in 3 days, and it killed me to get rid of one of the only connections to my family I had at that rough time.

My family doesn't have a lot of money, and it was a big deal to give me something like that before I went to engineering school out on the west coast.

And yet...you weren't dying from cancer, not destitute, were not watching your baby die painfully...which millions of people are.

Hadnt eaten in 3 days? Sure you hadn't. And yet you prayed for your ipod, not food.
So all you guys missing my very clear point. Well done.

I'm curious if you even read the OP. You've got the facts completely backward.

Please read the OP and we can continue to have a discussion.

Can you explain why you keep saying I have not read the op and the op thread. I have. I understood it. My points still stand.

I don't believe for one minute that a god exists. But if I did, I would question why your (I'm sorry, but I mean relative to the millions of believers suffering horribly on a daily basis) less urgent and vital prayer was answered so quickly but the desperate please of the masses worldwide for food for their kids, medicine etc ..are not.

A child getting leukemia is not the fault of man. Its your so called designer who created living beings with cells that can mutate and kill the host. Why the F*CK would a loving god create an endless supply of parasites, bacteria, viruses etc to live side by side with us?

Do children who develop and die in their first few years on earth from horrible diseases deserve it? You think its OK for your deity to torture innocent, helpless kids because after they suffer for years and eventually die painful deaths they are going to heaven?

How is that OK? How can you worship such deity? If god cared about us he would have either not created things like smallpox, malaria etc or he would have intervened to help the millions who die from this sh*t.
I'm not even talking about man made things like wars, guns, bombs etc. I'm talking his own supposed creations that inflict agony, torment and suffering to humans.

Thanks for Ebola god! What amazing creations you have honoured the earth with.

So, with all this suffering happening daily from good people who believe in him, people who's prayers for better life, food, clothes etc are ignored, people like you genuinely believe he bothered to help you buy your iPod back.

As I said. I sincerely don't believe in a god of any kind but if I did, next prayer time would find me asking him WTF he is playing at, answering your call so quickly but not the millions who REALLY need his help.

That is why I call your god vile, because only a sick, disgusting person/deity would play games like that.

I see nothing that would ever make me worship a god who is either incredibly incompetent and/or sadistic or, sorry to say, doesn't give a sh*t about us.

I'm happy marveling at beautiful mountains, sunsets, flowers, trees, clouds, storms and being in AWE of the beauty of the universe and its complex inner workings. The double slit experiment in physics gets me excited. The pics sent back of Pluto bring tears to my eyes from wonder and awe. And not once has any of these things been in anyway diminished for me because I didn't thank an invisible man in the sky for creating it all.

If god ever bothers to show his face on earth again, I'll start believing. And finally with regards to your iPod and the 73 dollars, it's called coincidence. An amazing one, yes, but you know....sometimes amazing coincidences just happen.

a reply to: 3danimator2014

That's your opinion, and that's completely fine. We can ponder all day about why bad things happen to good people, and in the end no one really knows.

Honestly, to me, I just believe that's the nature of life. You're going to die from leukemia one day too. Or something else. Or maybe something worse. None of us are separate or exempt from those things you list that are happening to kids around the globe, something similar will happen to each of us eventually.

I guess I've made peace with death. I've died and been brought back 3-4 times in my life, and at this point it isn't some big philosophical conundrum to me, it's just a natural part of life, neither good or bad. It just is. Just as we are. Just as the force that I believe God to be.

I respect your opinion and I understand why you have that opinion, I just think we view death in different ways. Based on what I've experienced, this temporary meat suit isn't our only body, or even our real one. Not saying that life shouldn't be cherished for what it is, just that as with all temporary things, we shouldn't become attached to it. Because nothing lasts forever, especially us.

a reply to: Kandinsky

What we're taught logic is, rarely applies to matters of a spiritual nature. I have no idea how that money got there or where it came from. All I know is that it was the exact odd amount I prayed for, at the same time I was praying for it. Out of nowhere. It was the last thing I was expecting at that moment.

It may have been just some crazy coincidence. Another thought I had was that maybe certain ideas we have and share such as the concept of "God" focus those parts of our mind that can manipulate and create our reality. Almost as if believing in a God activates that part of God inside each of us.

I do believe with prayer Miracles are possible. I saw this man talk about his miracles in person. He should not be alive, but he is because of God's Miracles. Search out "Bruce Van Natta" on YouTube to see his story. It will amaze you.





Also I'd recommend watching videos on "Howard Storm" on YouTube too.

a reply to: underwerks

I think it's good for us as individuals to encounter mystery and novelty in life. It all becomes folklore and there's nothing wrong with it.

a reply to: tigertatzen


Exactly my thoughts on the situation. Friends find it very hard to believe i "find" all that I wish for... I have furnished my new apartment with items i found in the trash. I needed a loveseat, and the next day someone placed it in the dump area. The ncool thing about it is that it was the exact colour and style I envisioned on having... ON a walk I mentioned I was thirsty to a friend, 20 paces later i found a cold beer laying in the field we were crossing. I dont "pray" to any god... but the power of belief is strong....