Do you believe in divine intervention?
 

I hate to admit this but when push comes to shove, I'm willing to bow my head for a moment and pray that something different may happen than what is about to happen. I assume that it means that I believe in some divine intervention, and it happens from time to time. I know it is irrational in my own belief system, praying to St. Jude Thaddeus to help me out of a bind. But I do.

Do you?

An Episcopalian priest once said "Everyone is religious. Your brakes fail? You say, "Oh, God!"-that's being religious".
My core belief is there is no God, but a little prayer in desperation doesn't hurt. I consider it bargaining with fate.

No, I do not believe in divine intervention.

I do believe in the vagaries of life. Sometimes things can't be predicted with any certainty, even by doctors. To surmise that doctors being proven wrong is an intervention by god is too big a leap for me. But then, I was not brought up with any religion so things happening have always just been, well, things happening.

Given my spiritual life, I would say no, God will not intervene. Could God intervene? In my mind, yes, however I find it unlikely, and if God did, it could be explained away without a stretch of the imagination - in other words through logical and most likely possible, medical, means.

I am not really a religious person. I am spiritual, very much so, but not religious. I had a "dying loved one" and I prayed on my knees with my head to the concrete, begged, bargained etc. It was at that moment that I almost could hear a voice in my head telling me that my prayers, while appreciated, will not change the forthcoming events. No one could figure out what made my loved one sick, but regardless, the timeline that I knew was coming was going to be played out, period.

So I will say that I feel that God listens, but listening and comforting vs changing events are two different things entirely.

Some people might interpret fortunate coincidences as divine intervention. I think of them as fortunate coincidences.

"God could save a patient" the same way Superman could leap tall buildings. Things happen, Good people die, Bad people live, Why save 1 person that says a prayer and not another that prayed 10 times harder. I've pretty much lost all my faith that I had when my grandfather died. He prayed 2-3 times a day, hours at a time. He'd be driving to work at 4am and he'd pull to the side of the road and say a prayer. He'd get down on 1 knee and say a pray before starting his chainsaw every day. It didn't bother him a bit to kneel down in 6 inches of mud. When he said you were in his thoughts and prayers, by God, you were in his prayers. I don't know how many times I walked in his house to see him knelt down in some random location in his house asking for God to help someone I'd never met. He was a pastor at a church for my whole life, He'd be the first one to kneel to pray and the last one to raise his head. I never questioned it until his last few years and I realized all the praying he'd done for others and all the praying others were doing for him hadn't helped him a bit, not physically at least. I still stand by that psychologically, knowing someone prayed for you, or praying for yourself or someone else can be somewhat helpful. I just can't imagine how hard it was for him the last few years. At least my grandma was senile and not quite aware what was going on. He suffered through her death, a botched hernia operation just a week after and was pretty much in bed chugging hydrocodone like candy 23 hours a day for the next year. Prayer might have helped a few people cope and that's cool, I'd rather just say fuck it, shit happens, No use dwelling on it. I'm sure both work equally well.

Prayer to me is like "if all else fails" pray for a miracle. I kinda think this is how prayer got so popular to begin with.. Pray and something happens and it's a miracle and promotes more prayer.. Pray and nothing happens and it was meant to be and the result doesn't exactly discourage future praying. I'm not saying you'll never see me praying because I believe in trying everything in your power just like everyone else, if that means abandoning some of my prior beliefs for one last shot at a miracle then so be it. :)

I do not believe in God, so to be simple, no, I do not believe in divine intervention.

However, I think prayer can be a powerful tool for some people to get through difficult times or situations. The basic need to be heard and to believe you are in fact being heard can lend more strength than the belief that someone or something out there can and will help you and change things for the better.

Sure do.

This is my position as well, for the most part. If not for prayer and being part of a faith community throughout my teenager years (when my parents were splitting up), I am fairly sure that I would have gotten myself into some self-destructive behavior and ended up screwing myself over pretty badly. Prayer and the church got me through that time--it was my life raft, and I believed in it all to the core.

These days, I wish I could pray and believe in it--but there's nothing left there, except the psychological knowledge of how it might help relieve my mind of some pressure. Without faith, there isn't a whole lot of use left for prayer.

Do I pray for unlikely better outcomes to inevitably unfortunate situations? Yes. Do I expect that this will change the outcome of those situations. Not really.

Although I suppose I would say I am a fairly spiritual person (since I am studying to be a rabbi, it would be pretty unfortunate if I weren't), and I certainly would say that God has the power to directly intervene in any situation, I don't think he generally works like that.

On occasion, I think God does intervene, but either indirectly, or in extremely subtle ways. But often, as much as I believe he might like to, I think God does not directly intervene, because we call to him out of our suffering, and our suffering is inevitably either the result of things other people are doing to us (which result from human free will, something I don't believe God will choose to contravene) or from the entropy and chaos inherent in the structure of the universe-- which I don't believe God will generally choose to contravene, because the universe is designed to function according to those rules. If God wanted to get past them, he would've designed a universe that functioned differently. And whatever his reasons, this was the universe that we got; meaning, ultimately, that I think breaking or flashy bending of the rules is not likely to occur more than a handful of times in human history.

This is all aside from the standard prayers for health, protection, prosperity, and so forth for all the Jewish people that are a regular part of the fixed liturgy. I say those not because I expect they will bring miracles, but because Jews have a responsibility to pray the fixed liturgy, and to some degree, it never hurts to remind God to keep up his end of the bargain from time to time. Of course, I also pray a lot that we can manage to keep up our end of the bargain, and I'm not sure that really happens much, either....

Very eloquently stated. Thank you for sharing.
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Interesting insight. L'chaim!

If there is a God and what haver you then what deems other people deserving of divine intervention over others.
What great acts have they done in their lives that should put them ahead of another lost soul.

While its a nice idea and all and I am sure if someone close to me was sick, dying etc I would be seeking it too.
Makes me a tad hypocritical really.

Divine Intervention? Not so much, in that I think the term carries a lot of baggage, pig is an atheist, etc. However, I would say that I probably practice an analogue of praying on a regular basis. Faced with a difficult situation, will I think through outcomes I would rather occur and attempt to focus on them? Yes. Do I think it's possible, even if not probable, that simply focusing my thoughts in this way may makes those outcomes more probable? Yes. Do I realize that's somewhat irrational? Yes. Do I think it helps to relieve psychological pressure? Yes.

I think the difference between this and "prayer" is that I try to remove the deity at the end of my mental projections, so to speak. I occasionally find myself thinking back to things like the Doxology and Lord's Prayer, because I said them so often when I was younger. Perhaps the above process is simply the last vestiges of my previously held faith and the associated routines, but it's quite well aligned with my current "spiritual" beliefs.

p.s. I've been wondering about the term "spiritual." Can you be "spiritual" and not believe in "spirits"?

If God exists in that manner, of course he can trump doctors.

That is a big IF however.
Besides, if you believe in divine intervention to help turn things around, don't you need to consider that some other group might be praying for the exact opposite outcome?

Demonic interference or whatever you would like to call it?

And even so, does praying one way or the other influence the outcome?


I don't pray. Which isn't to say that I don't hope for things to happen.
So far, my hopes and other people's prayers have been happening at roughly the same rate of "success" however.

Well said.

The same works in reverse "being at the wrong place at the wrong time".

I believe it can happen, but the circumstances would have to be very outstanding. I don't think prayer or fath will have much to do with it. I believe prayer is more or less a meditation with religious trappings. Which sounds kind of dismissive. I'm actually all for it, but praying for something you want will likely not get you anywhere.

Throughout a person's development, if they believe in God, a person will likely ask for things in prayer. There are truly dire circumstances when they are answered and truly selfish examples where the attendee is ignored or punished. But mostly, the world as outlined in the bible will function more or less on it's own. Which it pretty much does.

It's the old, "I complained I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet."

I don't believe in things. I accept the theory that the body is one big non-deterministic chaotic system, and consider that a good enough explanation for why apparent miracles happen from time to time.

Didn't work for Jesus in the olive's mountain, I don' see why it should work for everyone else. Wouldn't that be free will trespassing in the end?

If there had been intervention at Mount Olivet, then there would have been no betrayal, and no eventual crucifixion, and quite likely no Christian religion.

For all the times when someone defies the odds, there are thousands of people who don't. That's why they're called odds.

In that way, I believe anyone who thinks they've been touched by god in this way to be delusional.

Geez, its hard not to be hostile toward religious folk.

I hear Hitler used to mutter that before went full on psycho.

There, I did it. The godwin rule. But hey, when we use GODWIN, God Wins!

It's hard not to be hostile to people who believe their religion is the one true religion and they spout off about it to strangers.

It's also hard to be hostile to the culture that religions have added to society. Whether they be jewish, wiccan, hindu, or worship a coke bottle that fell out of the sky.

Eh, I'm sure it would have found its way into human social practices in one way or another. Religions have a way of doing that... and the Christian one has far too universal of an appeal (in a mythic way) to have not survived in one form or another, intervention or not.

I'd have to be extremely arrogant to think that out of 6,684,000,000 people, I'm the *one* person who God has chosen to save or otherwise affect.

We as humans like to associate something meaningful to coincidence, but it's nothing more than coincidence.

I believe in miracles, and I know of some crazy stories that happened to people. I have faith in G-d, but that being said there is a Jewish belief 'one does not rely on a miracle'. So yes I pray to G-d and may ask, but I doubt the intervention will come (while I feel it can come).

Not to put you on the spot, but do you also believe cameras to be "delusional" when they record unexplainable activity? What about when someone happens to guess pretty much everything right concerning a past person or event before it is looked up? Sure there are fraudsters out there, but surely you don't think every one of them is a fake. I guess what that leads to is do you believe there is no spiritual activity at all, or that there is no overseeing power?

I'm just curious about that. I have atheist friends, but I have never really dived into this discussion with them.

When this happens with electromechanical devices, it's call being "defective." Many of the "ghosts" and "floating" objects are defects in the camera itself.

All it would take is one person who wasn't a fraudster:

James Randi One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge

Every single one of them is delusional or a fraud. I will change this opinion only if there is scientifically valid evidence to the contrary.

Ok Jinn, some of this video could be explainable, I agree, but IF there is no one at the top of the stairs, what is this? An interactive anomaly?

3:10 first...sure it's pretty ambiguous, who knows. A true skeptic can pass that off.

How about 3:43? If it's not a person, what is it? Another interactive anomaly?

Video in question

Also, I had an experience when I was younger with something that I can't explain to this day. It created a multi-toned scream directed at me and my friend, and he was very aware of what I was hearing as well. It was in thin air, outside. Was that swamp gas? Mass hysteria? LOL

Now this is only the tip of the iceberg and I don't wish to try to make you see my view of the world. I am only trying to understand the atheist side of this.
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Also, Jinn, if I read correctly, that site is looking for paranormal powers? Nothing to do with ghost vids. Well for that matter, ghost vids have little to do with this thread...meh sorry for the hijack haha.

JULES: That was...divine intervention. You know what divine intervention is?

VINCENT: Yeah, I think so. That means God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets.

JULES: Yeah, man, that's what is means. That's exactly what it means! God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets.

VINCENT: I think we should be going now.

JULES: Don't do that! Don't you fuckin' do that! Don't blow this shit off! What just happened was a fuckin' miracle!

Levite, you bring a breath of fresh air and true revolutionary thinking. Thank you for your clarity of thought.

Seconded.

Thanks, you guys!!

Yes, God can intervene, but mostly He doesn't.

I do find it interesting that those who follow Divine Intervention only see it as a good thing, but fail to credit Divine Intervention for the bad things that happen as well. I don't accept Divine Intervention, but if I did, it would definitely be for the latter reason.

A couple of years ago a close family friend's fiance was undergoing treatment for an aggressive brain tumor. At the time his prognosis wasn't good at all. My parents contacted a monastery in Lithuania founded by a great great uncle of mine, a bishop who has been beautified and is, I think, a few steps short of being canonized as a saint. My parents had contacted the monastery to request that the nuns there pray for an intercession on our friend's fiance's behalf. Last I heard, he has been successfully treated and is recovering well, with no further complications.

That's not to say I believe the intercession worked, but it is a notable coincidence, if nothing else.

I was praying for her miraculous recovery near the end of my cousin's illness. By that time, the cancer had already spread to her other organs and she was running out of options. I didn't have any realistic expectations that she would be cured by my prayers, or anyone else's. But I still loved her and it's something I wanted to do for her, believing that whatever I was praying for on her behalf would help her somehow, even if it was in ways I couldn't understand.

I believe in miracles as unexplained (and unexplainable) phenomena. I do not believe we have the power to summon them for our own needs or purposes, whether we are suffering or not. Bottom line, I prefer these things be kept unknown as I don't think we are meant to really understand them or be able to explain them.

short answer: I'd have to believe in a divine being in order to believe in divine intervention; and I do not believe in divine beings.

shorter answer: no.

Yes.

But Good doesn't intervene,
even when tempted to do as much,
it pretends behind itself.

(I'm pretty sure any intervention happens before tHe facts.)

Do you have any examples of this? Who has said divine intervention only happens for the good?

I don't believe in any sort of intervention besides one caused by humans themselves or nature, and thus, there is nothing divine about it. I've heard of rare events that are attributed to miracles, but nature is inifinitely complex and the slightest variation can cause wildly unexpected consequences.

I'm a skeptic and can't accept what some people seem to thoughtlessly swallow as fact.

I accept totally my financials every year is decided but G-d. I believe the day I am born the day I am to pass on was decided. I believe that G-d does justice and it is hard for us to see everything in what is considered good and bad is just our own interpretation of G-d's work.