God is all powerful and all knowing.. God knows what he will do and what you have asked for, so if he does or does not do something it is all apart of his plan.. Now say someone claims a prayer is responded too, all you have to do is locate a life, a human suffering more than you, why did god not respond to his/her prayer? Can he not or is he evil?

That was assuming god exsists.

Let me leave you with a thought : "If you were god, what would you do first? What all problems would you fix?... Now realize you pray to a god that does not do those things.."

The problem with telling someone that prayer is invective lies in the fact that there is God and Satan. If their prayer is "answered," God listened. If their prayer was not "answered," Satan intervened or it was God's will. This logic allows individuals to pick and choose the effectiveness of prayer.

Prayer also works as a way for an individual to feel that they have contributed something to the problem. "Oh you have cancer? Let me pray for you."

I agree that prayer does not work, but it does create a sort of placebo for those that do pray.

I appreciate that you (mykckob4) quote the bible for your argument.

With the current devotion to the phrase "In God we Trust", when you think about it, if one did trust God then prayer would be
mooted. Why try to either persuade God to do things differently, as you see circumstances, or, on the other hand, convince
God that you honored him if you did Trust God.

Well, my wife would challenge your claim but she's convinced her prayers are heard. Whatever.

While not exactly prayers, I can tell you that native American dream catchers and rain dances certainly didn't work. All it got them was heaping helpings of genocide. When you act primitive, you invite criticism and worse. It's a dangerous life to be of a pagan belief system in the presence of a genuine, card carrying religion like christianity.

A prayer works like gift-giving. The return on investment is selfish in nature. It's a feel good thing. There's where people could technically win that side of the argument. If it makes them feel good then there's actually something good and very real that comes from it. Maybe it won't cure a family member of cancer but the act itself promotes fulfillment. People who pray often feel good about themselves often. They, in turn, promote the act and hence we have religion as the by-product of selling that kind of joy. People take joy wherever they can get it even if they're not wholly convinced of the prayer angle. In the case of religions, they embrace the pageantry because the tug of the hope of joy is strong.

Personally, I find much more fulfillment from cursing. I always have. It let's out the toxins, so to speak, where prayer is like putting a bandage on the stump of a severed limb.

The claims of offering up prayers is, to the religious, an attempt at gift giving. Don't read too much into it. They claim to pray, atheists dismiss such claims as part of theism's conditioning, and everything is normal. It is expected that the people say they pray. If they do or don't is no ones business to know. Problems start only when atheists, taking up an anti-theist stance, openly declare being in conflict with someone offering up prayers.

Tiresome. Let people have their claims on prayer-giving. It's not a problem to be atheist and, simultaneously, let others be themselves. That's what atheists do.

Anti-theists are the ones who get all full of themselves and take the religioso to test. They use their anti-theism acts no differently than a religioso uses theism. The anti-theist, therefore, makes just as much useless noise as a theist and, in doing so, sends into a tertiary orbit the art of living in harmony. They abandon the option for living peaceably to make war on a perceived enemy. Therefore, anti-theism is an exercise in stupidity despite its (perceived) claim on logic.

I have known and currently know many religiously indoctrinated people who will openly offer up prayer as another way of offering a gift. I don't have any friends (having worked diligently to keep myself free of such encumbrance) yet when a religiously-aligned person learns of my convictions it is a natural response mechanism to offer up a prayer for my salvation. He or she will "pray for me". Of course, people who now know me well will simply wish me luck rather then endure my oft-repeated provocative inquiries about their qualifications for blessing me, or praying for my almighty self, who I hold in higher esteem than their god or gods. They get my light hearted, blasphemous humor and instead wish me luck. That satisfies the intent to bless me and everyone is happy. That can be done in certain societies and I would be well advised to hold my tongue in less tolerant environments.

Christians are too confused about how they should or should not conduct themselves. You have to give them lot's of space and tolerance. Religion, especially the teaching in the christian writings they are taught from, are morally and ethically all over the place. In one passage it's okay to kill a wayward son, in another its fine to own slaves, in countless others the messages are conflicting within the Big Four Gospels themselves (Mathew, Mark, Luke and John), the Epistles and in the so called Prophecies. None of it can be proven, all of it is proven pseudepigrapha, and even the various titled positions of leadership (priests, ministers, padres, parsons, etc) will never read from the unsavory sections of that book. It's dying a slow death with each new revelation of truth. Give the christians a chance to die with as much dignity as their ignorance will allow. They have a lot to pray about these days.