So I thought about this in the shower amd it makes sense to me, like praying and stuff never worked for most people I know, so a direkt link to god gotta be unlikely. That made me conclude that religion is probably fake, no matter if there’s a god or not. Also people speaking to the same god being given a different set of rules sounds stupid, so at least most religions must be fake.
Can an atheist pray to god to ask for the enlightenment of his/her/its believers?
An atheist can 100% pray to God! I’m slightly confused by the second part. Are you asking if an atheist can ask God to make his believers not believers anymore?
That’s right.
I mean yes, an atheist can definitely ask God for that. However, I believe in predestination, which means that God already knows who will trust in Christ for their salvation. So, God will not allow one of his children to slip away from him. Short answer, I don’t believe God would say yes to that prayer when it comes to his people.
So god never answers the prayers of atheists… sounds pointless.
Predestination - sounds like you’re talking about god’s plan… why pray then? If it’s already in a plan, it’ll happen. If it’s not in the plan, it won’t.
If god doesn’t allow his children to slip away, how do you explain the actual verifiable existence of atheists and people that formerly had religion?
Well of course God won’t answer a prayer that would negatively affect one of his true followers.
I believe in God’s plan for the world as well as free will. I agree it’s paradoxical, but I’m not God, so I have made peace with the fact I will never understand that. I trust the Lord and know he’s beyond my understanding as a finite, mortal human. God wants us to pray because he knows it is good for us. Think of a relationship, you have to stay in constant communication to stay close. I feel farthest from God when my prayer life has been slacking.
God’s children are his chosen people, aka his true believers. I believe that people who have fallen away from their faith and never come back never had a real relationship with him to begin with. But, I believe anyone who has fallen away can always come back to him before they pass away.
These are really good and valid questions, and I’m happy to answer them. Praying for your heart, friend
Why would you worship a God that casts aside so many people and condemns them to hell? Sounds more like a Devil.
What a bunch of horseshit. Your God is a monster.
Could you share what makes you so confident in the first quote, despite what you say in the second quote? How can you know God would not or has not answered any prayers that negatively affected a true follower, and how can one define whether God has negatively affected a true follower when one cannot intimately know God’s true intentions?
No true Scotsman fallacy. Any time anyone can show someone praying for a negative thing against a follower you’ll simply say that they weren’t a “true follower”.
Well you can, but that doesn’t mean God will do it. You’re asking a father, who loves his children, to remove their choice in the matter and force them away, despite him knowing it’s better for them to stay.
If God never answers the prayers of non-followers; he’s really not convincing anyone new that he exists.
When did I say that? I just said that specific prayer will never be answered
Maybe it would; I don’t think you get to decide.