Why give "God" the credit...

[Davin]

Bah, and here I thought some of god's greatest gifts were unanswered prayers.  

You must read the fine print:
The answer is a general summarization, Indiviudual answers may vary.

I have heard that before, that by answering the prayer with a "no", one learns some trait (like patience) and develops a better character and teaches them (or people around them that suffer), a lesson. Therefore it is better to get an answer of no (even if you asked to cure a very painful cancer on a child or at least asked to remove the suffering while the kid died), because people are more blessed that way.

Of course I've heard many different explanations and remember almost all of them.

[iSok]

This is the sequel, it's called "The Passion of the Muhammad", and covers only the few days before Muhammad rides a horse into the sky.

Surprisingly, the story seems to copy the Rainbow Brite live action movie:
[youtube:17tjmxvr]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofRF5vpFpl0[/youtube:17tjmxvr]

)

I wonder, though, if you believe god did intervene for this man, why so many prayers go unanswered?

haha, yeah the question is indeed why do so many prayers get unanswered..?
Could be for different reasons.

But I think God is not some personal Guardian, who is going to stick up for you.
We're more in a world where the human will is important.
God is more a Being which we have to grow towards, every religion is doing this.
If you sincerely ask for guidance, I think He will guide you.
Some may worship 360.000.000 gods like Hinduism, but they also want to grow towards One God, get near Him.

Nonetheless, I do think prayers get answered.
But also, an answering should have a certain extend.
I can wish for your death, but should God answer that? I guess no.
So it has a certain limit.......

The question here is: To what extend should the answering of a prayer be allowed?

You for example are not happy with the limit, you want too extend it.
The girl for example wants her father to recover from terminal cancer, but on what purpose?

He might live longer and be more happy, well eventually he's going to die.
The cancer itself is a law, which makes our developping more easy.
If we constantly had these miraculous recoveries, then medecine in it's essence built on the intellect of man
would crumble. It would have no idea what to do next, because they are constantly intervened.

I think in some cases answering, destroys the Laws here for man. Like the laws of gravity or thermodynamics.
Made to study, to understand the world around us and trying to make sense of it.

We pray for avoiding the punishments of those laws.
If that would constantly happen, then mankind would do nothing and except pray all day long.
Naturally the answering must have a certain extend.
Man always wants more and more, nothing is enough.
Eventually it would end in ridiculous situations like science trying to observe how God does something miraculously.
Insteaf of what science should do, is to study the laws created by God.

Qur'an [17:67] - "When a calamity befalls you on the sea, all those whom you invoke forsake you except Him. But when He delivers you safely to the shore you turn away from Him, for man is indeed most thankless."
The Qur'an was written in the desert, but talks about the sea.
Nowadays, we do exactly when a plane comes crashing down.
We scream for God, but when it's over, we consider it as luck, many of us do this.
Also notice in the verse that man will always call for One God, and will not think about calling for which God. (a proof of monotheism).

Just take the example of this guy.
Who believed that God saved his daughter's life, by promising to find a religion
suited for him. So what is he doing?

He spends 7 years, searching for a religion in Christianity.
He litteraly visits every church, every stream of Christianity.
But he is not impressed. After these 7 years, his family might think that he has lost it.
Till he comes across Islam, he continues to study it. And eventually he converts.

What does his family do? His wife hires an attorney, wants a divorce, because he has turned into a terrorist.
His parents no longer want to talk with him, his kids don't like him anymore. His colleagues despise him.
His whole world has crumbled down. Why? Because somehow he believes that God saved his daughter 10 years ago.

But after this, he somehow marries again and gets children once again and resettles.

Qur'an [94:6] - "Most certainly, there is ease with hardship."

Maybe that God thought, that this guy was worth it.
I have to confess, if I was this guy, I would give up after barely a few month's.
And see my daughter's sudden recovery as just coincidence, many of you would do the same.

[Davin]

@iSok: How you know that the god answers any prayers?

[iSok]

@iSok: How you know that the god answers any prayers?

We muslims believe in fate and free-will.

Free will comes from our intention, not the consequention.
We have the will to do something, but the result is in the hands of God.

I think, in certain aspects of my life, I just have to trust that it was God who has answered my prayer.

The reason that I pray is to go more near God, it's a way of stepping 5 times a day out of this world.
To leave everything behind. I'll give you an example.

A few weeks ago at uni, I was praying at the mosque (arranged for students), and asked sincerely for strength to talk with a friend about a difficult topic.
I had difficulties with this topic for already a few weeks.
So after prayer, I went back to the library to fetch a few books. While I was there, the same friend comes to me, who was already sitting there.
And starts talking with me about the difficult topic. So we talked for nearly 3 hours, discussed a lot of things. I felt relieved.

Then went back to the mosque for the 3rd prayer of the day. And when I was finished, I instinctively asked once again for strength to talk with my friend.
But when I did that, I shivered. I realised that I already did that and in the middle of two prayers.

The amazing thing was actually that I somehow came up with the plan to get a few books from the library before continuing my project.


Can I say that it was just coincidence? I could.
Can I say it was an answering? I could.


(On a side note: you don't have to politely write 'iSok' each time, 'isok' is fine enough. The name means: "in Search of knowledge". Somehow I gave it a capital S, looked cool to me.)