Why does prayer fail ?

[modeller]

sandy and truthabounds or any other theist. Please answer a simple question .
When Madeline Macain disappeared ten of milliions of people from all denominations all over the world prayed that she would be found, even the Pope got involved calling upon Catholics everywhere to pray for her,and as you know her devout parents mounted a world wide appeal for prayers.
Result ? Nothing ! Now 4 years later there is still not a single clue.
Why , why , why ? If millions of prayers are not answered in any form, what chance does your single prayer stand. ?

sandy // I pray a decade of the Rosary each evening for all on AB, but especially the agnostics. //
I expect sandy you also prayed for Madeline and it failed. Why ?

[ummmm]

Stop pointing out the obvious....lol

[sandyRoe]

All my answers in the religious section here are very much tongue in cheek.
I, like many others, did want that young girl to be returned safe and well to her parents. But I didn't pray that it would happen.

[VHG]

Prayer is just blind faith and has no basis on fact.

The whole "church" thing is a con by organizations to get money out of you, look how rich the catholic church is.

[boxtops]

My mother (who was religious at the time) told me that prayers weren't answered if it wasn't in God's master plan that that thing should happen.

[Frank97]

Prayers fail because there is nothing to listen/answer them, simple as that really!

[poortony]

The words at the end of a Novena goes 'If it be the Will of God'.
Yes it it hard to understand how a loving God can allow these atrocities,
sadly I don't have the answer, BUT I shall pray for answers.
Bless you all.

[MarkRae]

This is the self-fulfilling "get-out clause" that Christians (and adherents of other faiths) spout when confronted in this way.

If you pray for something and it happens, then that proves that God is good and listens to your prayers.

But if it doesn't happen, then it's because it was God's will that it shouldn't happen and the reason why it didn't happen is beyond our comprehension...

[sandyRoe]

If prayer was thought of as a sort of meditation then it might be said to work. It could, and does, help people become reconciled to the inevitable.

[vallaw]

because there's nobody there . .

[keyplus90]

There you go, a well known atheist stance once more.

Once I went to a bingo to see a friend and it was very quiet there as everyone was trying to concentrate. So much so that when a single person spoke it sounded that he was creating too much noise. And that single person could be pinpointed very easily. Then I compared that experience with a music party I went to. It was so noisy there that it was difficult to “appreciate “if someone was “quiet”. Just as it is easy to see a tiny bit of light in pitch black darkness but very difficult to see tiny bit darkness when Sun is out.

That made me think about the scenario when people post these sort of question. Millions of people would not accept that their prayers were answered once they had been answered and no one would complain about that. They themselves would forget about that and the best they might do is associate that to “their good luck”. But if only one person’s prayer or prayers of many for only one person are not answered then few people will put a thread like this asking others that why did it not happen. And they will do it again and again.

[jomifl]

So..blinded by the light, most of us cannot see the little piece of darkness that is religion?

[JonnyBoy12]

People should not have been praying for Madeline Macain; they should have been praying for Madeleine McCann. God can be very precise in these matters and can spell perfectly. This is why the prayer did not work.

Signed

The (newly founded) Prayer Police

[birdie1971]

Prayers fail because there's no God – so there's no one to grant the wishes and desires of those praying. It's quite straightforward when you think about it.

Take Lourdes for example. One of the most holy places in the Christian faith. Multitudes of people flock to Lourdes every year because they are told by the Catholic Church that this is the place where miracles can happen. This is place where the sick can be cured and the afflicted healed. How many devout people have appealed to God in this place to cure them of their ailments? Millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? Who knows? According to Wikipedia, Lourdes expects up to 5 million pilgrims and tourists every year. That's a lot of people and by inference, a lot of prayers.

How many permanently wheelchair-bound people have left this beautiful town in the the Pyrenees walking, unaided, by themselves? How many amputees have left with their limbs miraculously re-grown? How many terminally ill people have left cured of their illness?

Not surprisingly, there has never been a single verifiable incident that has seen a person with any scientifically incurable illness or condition go to Lourdes, pray to God and leave the place cured.

Not a single one. Not one, not ever.

[mibn2cweus]

. . . and yet they keep coming. Go figure!

"One born every minute." - A rather conservative estimate, as it turns out.

[Arksided]

OP, maybe your prayers were answered and she is better off where she is. You don't know that she isn't!

You prayed for her to be found... maybe by better parents... again you don't know.

A tough subject indeed when it comes to the loss of a child (Madeline as you quoted) did it ever occur to you that you and the minions are praying to the wrong Being? I don't follow a set religion but surely God cannot devout him/herself to this small rock of the Universe.

[Khandro]

The idea that prayer could help find Madelaine Macain is, of course, a nonsense, but this does not dismiss entirely the purpose of prayer. Sometimes people pray an an attempt to give support to those suffering the loss, - a human kindness, to give support and show solidarity.

[beso]

Prayer doesn't give support to the person in need at all. It is nothing but a self-indulgent delusion.

[emmie]

no one's listening.

[andy-hughes]

This is one of many many areas where i as an aetheist have no problem finding an answer - but Christians add it to their endless list of struggles that beset them trying to follow their faith.

So for me, it is obvious why prayer does not work - but for a committed Christian, the answer must be harder to find, and even harder to accept.