Now,
4thTimeLucky,
Looking at your list and my own thoughts, option 3 is the one that comes closest to what I believe.
I believe that petitionary prayer has two (and possibly more) purposes.
1) it empowers God to act from self imposed restrictions on what God will and will not do in this reality and
2) it has the effect of making humans seek out the divine, which (I believe) is something that He/She desires.
I think it is also helpful in understanding me and my position to know that I am NOT a Biblical literalist. What that means is that I won't try to resolve every conflicting quote.
Instead, I have tried to distill what I consider the truths concerning God and this life from what I know of the Bible and a few other religions plus my own personal experience and work from there.
__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis
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