You see, everyone has a "spiritual meter", kind of like the experience points bar in RPG's. Every time you pray, talk to God, meditate, go to the Church/Mosque/whatever, your spiritual meter goes up. It's like in Pokemon, if you get more experience points, your life gets better: you get stronger, learn new moves to fight atheists and gays. And eventually you evolve and turn divine, or reach nirvana, or something like that.

That`s funny! xD

No seriously: If they are people out there who really think that there is no god they should just say it straight out loud.
That they don`t wanna have anything to do with god, that they don`t believe in him or even his existence, that everything
that involves him doesn`t even exist for them anymore. That god is dead. Like Nietzsche did ...
And then we can speak again.

LOL Nicely said XD

I don't believe in reigion. I used to think that god controled my every move, every step that I take, every word I say, and every breath I breathe. But I've never asked myself this question. I find that extreamly true, and I find myself falling into the catigory or being an athist. But in some prayres they pray that they could be a better person I guess.

God knows everything, indeed. People pray for being loved by God and in order to go to Nirvana.
There's a destiny which is absolute and a destiny which still can be changed by human's hand.
Example.............
Absolute : Human will dead, Sun rise from east, Earth's rotation, etc
Changeable : Your grades would be different if you had studied before test.

the answer is.. it's only because people are praying for the things they want ... people just pray if they want something in the future or at the present.. example.. i hope i can passed our biggest exam next week.. then you tend to pray for that everyday.. after your exam.. you don't pray.. and if you need again ..you pray again.. it's like that..

but sometimes even God knows what we want.. he would be happier if we pray for him.. praying is not merely for ourselves,,.but for others as well..

nice topic...=0

Prayers is one way of praising God and talking to Him. It is like going to church everyday. Praying and going to church are part of our obligations to Him as His sons/daughters.

It is like a parent and child situation. Parents know that their child is sad or having some problems (they know that most of the time), but still they wait for their son to confess and ask for help.

That is how God to us. He knows everything including what we need, but He still waits for us to come into Him.

Like all other religion topics, I don't believe most people have seen the whole picture.

In the quoted James 5:16, one keyword that was overlooked by the OP was "righteous person". I didn't know this before until recently but I remember my dad told me about a story in the bible where it mentioned that God won't listen to some people's prayers directly because of their own nature but will listen to said prophet in the story and all the prayers the said prophet is praying for other people. This explains why Catholics converse/pray with the saints so to make sure that the saints will send their prayers to God.

Another misconception with the OP is the fact that God works outside of time and space, or at least the fact that God doesn't work on the same linear time and space as his creations do. An example of this was when Jesus gave his body and blood (the Eucharist) at the Last Supper. According to Catholics, the Mass of the Eucharist wasn't instituted until after Jesus died on the cross. So in the perspective of the linear time, it doesn't make sense. (In fact this brief example probably doesn't make sense to a lot of people but I didn't feel like getting too in depth, just pm me if you really care to hear the details).

So in conclusion, it doesn't matter how your prayer gets to God so long as a righteous person is involved (Jesus doesn't count because he's God), and (for the most part) the time you made your prayer doesn't matter either.

If "god" already knew what will you pray about and it's up to him if he'll grant it or not, then why pray? Can't we just not pray and let anything he wants to happen since he already knew what we'll wish for? This "god" is really bitchy since he is made by man.

^ omg! ur from the philipines and ur not religious! dats rare!

I've encountered many from The Philippines and mostly they've been forced by parents to believe in Catholics.
And deep inside they don't believe it.

Yeah, I'm not from Philippines

^ dats wot i call fucked up parenting!

Because they want something usually.