Does God answer all prayers? Shooting at Joel Osteen's Church as example.

[AgnosticBoy]

Yesterday, a woman walks into Joel Osteen's church with a rifle and her 5 year-old child and opens fire. She was killed by two off-duty police officers that were already at the Church. This was reported on most of the major news networks, like CNN.

I think this would lead a lot of people to question that if the power of God is limitless, then why couldn't he stop this women from harming anyone or even prevent collateral damage (the child and a bystander were shot). I'm not even using this point to bring up the problem of evil but rather I'm more focused on those Christians that think having faith will shield them from harm or those that always expect a yes answer to their prayers. Apparently, this incident shows that the answer is not always yes, nor is it yes in some way that the believer didn't expect (like the believer expecting a miracle or some grand event but getting a natural or ordinary response instead). I think in this case, God didn't answer at all.

For Debate:
1. Does God answer all prayers or does he sometimes ignore prayers? What would you say his response was in the shooting at Joel Osteen's church?

2. Does God ignoring prayers prove that he doesn't exist?

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

why couldn't he stop this women from harming anyone or even prevent collateral damage (the child and a bystander were shot).

Yes, a sad and disturbing situation in my city of Houston.

And yes, a person has to figure there were plenty of prayers being said to God “to hold and protect us,” and similar.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

In a book about President Reagan, after the 1981 assassination attempt [by a young man with schizophrenia]

while he was recovering from surgery . . .

President Ronnie Reagan said a prayer for his wife Nancy, that God would help quiet her worries and bring her peace of mind. He prayed for the other people who had been shot and for their families. And then, because it didn’t seem right not to, President Reagan prayed for the young man who had shot him. He prayed that God would help him with whatever issues and problems he was struggling with.

And maybe that’s prayer at its best.

Prayer helps you.

————————

* his wife and Hollywood co-workers called him Ronnie, and I kind of feel that’s the friendly name

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

Just guessing . . .

The woman who opened fire at Lakewood Church has schizophrenia — which has a main symptom of auditory hallucinations.

She was hearing voices.

And maybe being religious or overly-religious, she attributed these to demons, angels, God, etc. The combo of religion and mental illness can be a wicked combination.

And even for the specific subtype of “paranoid schizophrenia,” only a small fraction of people are dangerous.

More commonly, it’s the person with mental illness who’s more vulnerable than average to crime and abuse.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Just guessing . . .

The woman who opened fire at Lakewood Church has schizophrenia — which has a main symptom of auditory hallucinations.

She was hearing voices.

And maybe being religious or overly-religious, she attributed these to demons, angels, God, etc. The combo of religion and mental illness can be a wicked combination.

And even for the specific subtype of “paranoid schizophrenia,” only a small fraction of people are dangerous.

More commonly, it’s the person with mental illness who’s more vulnerable than average to crime and abuse.

That fits the behavior for sure. There's obviously some mental illness going on for her to bring her child and to be brazen enough to open fire at a place of worship. I just question where the hek she got her gun from. Clearly the system is failing when we can't keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. And this lady had multiple prior arrests.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

Also today’s tragedy at the parade for the Kansas City Chiefs. One person killed and at least 21 injured.

as a remedy, maybe change this . . .

Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is a law from 2005 that gave gun manufacturers protections from lawsuits that other manufacturers don’t have.

Maybe smart guns joined to the owners fingerprint? ? ?

and/or something else

And if they faced the threat of lawsuits, gun manufacturers might do some of this on their own.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Also today’s tragedy at the parade for the Kansas City Chiefs. One person killed and at least 21 injured.

as a remedy, maybe change this . . .

Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is a law from 2005 that gave gun manufacturers protections from lawsuits that other manufacturers don’t have.

Maybe smart guns joined to the owners fingerprint? ? ?

and/or something else

And if they faced the threat of lawsuits, gun manufacturers might do some of this on their own.

I started another topic to pick up on this point about guns...

Access to guns is a big problem in the United States

During the Kansas City Chiefs super bowl parade there was a shooting. 1 dead and over 20 injured. Turns out that the shooter or shooters were juveniles. Just a day or so before, a woman walks into a Church and opens fire. The woman in that shooting was said to suffer from schizophrenia...

theagnosticforum.com

 

[Scooter]

Personally, I believe God answers all prayers. Sometimes the answer is “No”, and sometimes the answer is “Not now”.

As far as Joel Osteen’s church is concerned, I don’t believe any church members were killed when the dude started shooting. So it would seem as if God did protect them. Just my opinion

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Personally, I believe God answers all prayers. Sometimes the answer is “No”, and sometimes the answer is “Not now”.

As far as Joel Osteen’s church is concerned, I don’t believe any church members were killed when the dude started shooting. So it would seem as if God did protect them. Just my opinion

No one was killed, but two were injured. One person injured was the shooter's 7 year-old son, and the other was an innocent bystander. The shooter was a woman, btw.

I suppose we can say that God's answer was "no" when it came to protecting the son and an innocent bystander. I guess my issue is that His saying "no" to a prayer appears to be no different than if He didn't answer at all. If so, how can we know that God answers prayer at all?! Why would God ever say "no" to protecting faithful Christians? I was thinking that at least not answering at all would be better than saying "no". I could be wrong on that.

 

[Scooter]

I don’t believe Christians are immune from tragedies. If we were, we’d live forever. We would never have deadly diseases, or be involved in deadly accidents. It comes down to God’s will. God has a time determined for everyone to die. I believe God protects everyone (saved and lost) until that appointed time.