Unanswered Prayer and Diversity of Doctrine (podcasts)
I was going over some of the other broadcasts of the Christian apologetics show “Unbelieveable” when I saw at least two topics that I’ve addressed on my own blog before.
A couple of problems I’ve been having with the Christian faith, among several, are unanswered prayer and the fact that Christians cannot agree on what the Bible says, how to implement what it says.
I wonder what the point is in having a book that is supposedly written by God, if those who say they believe in that book (and who say that they believe in that same God) never- the- less do not agree on what the book teaches, and that some of them use that book to justify abusing people (financially, sexually, emotionally, physically).
You would think if God wrote a book (through men or otherwise) that he would make all of that book’s points abundantly clear so that his followers would not mess things up and get into prolonged disagreements about what the book means or how to carry out that book’s teachings.
I also note that Christians who defend prayer try to “explain away” what the biblical text says about prayer.
Jesus does in fact say in one or more of the Gospels that what ever you ask for in his name he will do – but as quasi-Christians like myself point out to the true believers, many times, your prayers will go unanswered, to which they reply, well, Jesus did not REALLY mean to say that whatever you ask for in his name will come to pass.
Here are the links to the podcasts:
(Link): Does prayer make sense? David Wilkinson vs Ed Atkinson – PODCAST
(Link): Can Christianity be true if Christians can’t agree on doctrine? Andrew Whyte vs Nabeel Qureshi – PODCAST
The ex-Christian guy who is on that show who argues that the conflicting interpretations of the faith and the Bible are problematic for Christianity, or may imply that Christianity is false, has a You Tube channel where he makes videos on this topic. Here it is:
After listening to both those podcasts a couple of days ago, I was not completely satisfied with the responses given to the skeptics by the Christians.
It seems to me that some Christians really under-estimate how damaging some of these particular doubts or criticisms of the faith really are.
Despite that, both shows were still interesting to listen to, and I related to what the ex-Christians or the skeptics were saying.
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Here are previous posts I’ve blogged about these subjects before:
Diversity of Interpretation:
(Link): Christians Who Can’t Agree on Who The Old Testament Is For and When or If It Applies
(Link): More Musings about Applicability of the Old Testament, Via One Man’s Testimony About Jeremiah 29:11
(Link): Christians Once Again Trying to Explain Who The Bible’s Promises Are For – TGC Article
(Link): Pat Robertson Contradicts Himself On Healing and God’s Will
Unanswered Prayer and Related:
(Link): Critique of Pastor Groeschel’s “I Want to Believe But…” Sermon Series
(Link): How to Deal with Unanswered Prayers via Pastor Bil Cornelius
(Link): Christian Viewer Expresses Disappointment in God, Wants To Know Why, In Spite of Years of Service, God is Not Helping Him
(Link): Joanne The Widow Lady Wants to Know Why God Didn’t Answer Her Prayer to Keep her Husband With Her
(Link): Are You Stuck in the “I’ll Feel Better When” Cycle? by Diana Hill, phD
(Link): When All We Hear from God is Silence by Diane Markins
(Link): Gordon Robertson’s Quasi Insensitive or Lacking Advice to Cancer Patient / Unanswered Prayer / Christians should just sometimes admit They Do Not Know
(Link): Blaming the Christian for His or Her Own Problem or Unanswered Prayer / Christian Codependency
(Link): On Prayer and Christ’s Comment to Grant You Anything You Ask in His Name
(Link): Gary Habermas joins Janet to discuss dealing with doubt in the Christian life (Re: Unanswered Prayer)
(Link): When you show God you don’t want it, that’s when God will give it to you – according to Joel Osteen – I disagree
Additional:
(Link): Gallup: Record Low 24% Believe Bible Is Literal Word of God (May 2017)
Christian Pundit 