If God is infallible, and all-knowing, then why would he do anything in response to your prayers?

I asked that very same serious question when I was in 4th grade.

Nuns were allowed to use corporal punishment back then...

It was a nun that drove me to atheism, and I never wrote to thank her!

But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things, you know, your sister needs an operation on her crotch, your brother was arrested for defecating in a mall. But most of all, you'd really like to f*ck that hot little redhead down at the convenience store. You know, the one with the eyepatch and the clubfoot? Can you pray for that? I think you'd have to. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan?

Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan. What's the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and f*ck up Your Plan?

And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy Will Be Done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and He's going to do what He wants to anyway, why the f*ck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It's all very confusing.

Excerpted from George Carlin on prayer.

Prayer is the devotion a person has in the form of thought, the real thing that you want and need is in your thoughts. Normally we would go through the process of thinking something through, and then work for it. If by way of the process, the idea does NOT formulate, then it's good to pray, to give the question/need a voice, a status for your life and lifestyle. You can pray for anything you want...because it's a given that anything is possible. But pray with efficiency. God will allow great things to happen...to any or all of us. But He only has the POTENTIAL to know everything.

Prayer and the answering of prayers is for us, to teach us, to demonstrate His love. He already knows and has already made His decision but He waits for us to ask for our benefit and to have a relationship with us.

As a parent why would you make everything perfect for your child, they need to learn from their mistakes, they need to fall and get back up, they need to know that you love them. If a parent does everything for their child without them asking they are thankless and take everything for granted.

He knows from the beginning what your prayers would be and when you would pray. From the beginning he set things in motion so that the answer to your prayer would come at the proper time for your benefit. This doesn't make prayer obsolete.

All I can say is I reiterate what, rob said.

BUT he left out the most important part.

Matt 6:9-13 IN this manner, therefore pray:

Our Father in heaven

Honoured be Your Name.

Your Kingdom come.

Your Will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

AND lead us not into temptation,

BUT deliver us from the evil one.

FOR YOURS IS THE KINGDOM AND THE

POWER AND THE GLORY FOREVER. AMEIN.

Your point is well taken, but if people feel better by praying, then why not?

BTW, some prayers, particularly in the Jewish liturgy, are prayers of acknowledgment and praise, and not requests.

He knows you're going to pray for it because God is omniscient

Exactly.

God would not alter his infallible master plan due to the narrow minded hopes and prayers of fallible humans. But we already knew people who pray were not good at logic.

Yes the Lord is infallible and all-knowing. Read the bible before you make stupid of yourself.

Matthew 6:5-8

Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. 8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

Your child asks you for a particular thing for Christmas. Does the fact that he asked mean that you will automatically get that for him, change the fact that you already knew what he wanted, or that you have already decided that you are or are not going to get it for him?

Love!

All prayers presented to the Eternal God in the proper format are answered.