Blog #6 SOC 490

           When the question is brought up if disease can be cured through prayer I think the answer is yes but I do not exactly think it is the power of the prayers that cures people. During our class discussion, topics were brought up like if we thing God knows all, if free will is real and do we truly possess free will? I think really to answer this blog question these things need to be addressed.

            For starters I am a strong believer a free will, I do think as humans we have free will but for us to possess this there are some things that cannot be true. Like God knowing the future, if God knows the future then that means we do not have free will. It means everybody is on sort of a rail and regardless of what they do or think they are doing, their life will go a certain way because things that are meant to be will be. I disagree with this; I think it is all in the power of the human mind. A popular philosophy idea that I agree with is God does in fact know all but only the past and the present. He knows everything that has happened and everything that is happening at this very second but he cannot see at all into the future. I don’t believe God picks and chooses what bad and what good things happen to people. I think things just simply happen that are out of anyone’s control. Some people get sick, some people win the lottery I think these are events happen randomly, not because it was a person’s destiny.

            What does this have to do with the power of prayer you might be asking? Well this is getting to the point of how I think the power of prayer works. If you believe God is all knowing even into the future then you think the power of prayer works. But there is a difference in the reasoning; these people might think that God chose them to survive their trials. That is was their destiny to get past these troubles and they were supposed to learn some sort of lessons. Regardless of if you think Free will is real I do think God tries to teach us that we cannot do things alone, that we need other people. I think that this strength that cures disease is not from him but the inner strength that lies with in humans. When we come together this inner strength grows improving our chances of survival.

            I believe that when people tell you that they are praying for you or even if you’re praying for yourself it gives you this inner push to fight and not give in and to survive. If someone tells me their praying for me, you get this feeling that you can’t let that person down. You don’t even want to do it for yourself, you want to do it for them, you want to be their miracle. Of course the person doesn’t know what’s going on in your head. To them it’s a miracle from God but really it was you inspired by their prayers and fighting not to let your loved ones down by not giving up. I think this is the power of prayer. A person by themselves who has given up on themselves will not survive. It’s not destiny or fait for them not to survive they just are not receiving that inner boost that you get when people are there for you pushing you to keep fighting. Now I am not saying if people are there for you will automatically survive but I just think it pushes you in a way you couldn’t be pushed otherwise. You want to be there for them to make them happy, not because of yourself, not because you were meant to survive, just for that feeling you get when you see everybody that loves you, smiling and embracing your presence because you  made it. So in that prospective yes prayers do cure diseases, you push yourself to live because you know how much you mean to the people around you.