Posted on 06/03/2005 11:05:55 PM PDT by TBP
BARCELONA, Spain — At the inauguration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, one of the largest and oldest prayer ministries announced the opening of the Office of Prayer Research, a think tank dedicated to broadening our knowledge of the scientific effects of prayer.
Members of the spiritual thought movement, Unity, stressed the importance and ambition of their new prayer center, located outside Kansas City, Mo.
“Throughout history, when science and religion have come together, there has typically been more clash than collaboration,” Unity President Tom Zender said, adding that at the Office of Prayer Research, “men and women of science and spirit will work toward a common goal: learning more about the power of prayer.”
The office will be directed by the Rev. Bob Barth, a minister with a degree in physics, who will oversee the exchange of information being conducted by a growing number of prayer studies conducted by scientists each year in the United States and worldwide.
Author Deepak Chopra, whom Time magazine called “the poet-prophet of alternative medicine,” attended the ceremony, lending his support to Unity’s venture.
“Science is at a loss over why prayer works, and it will remain at a loss until we revise our most basic theories of what we call reality,” he said. Convinced that the human species is “on the threshold of the next great leap in creativity,” Chopra quoted poets like William Blake, Mevlana Jalaleddin Rumi, Walt Whitman and Robert Frost, referring to health as a “spiritual experience, a return of the memory of wholeness.”
Besides using science to better understand the practice of religion, participants in the parliament also flipped the issue upside down.
Finding the connection of prayer and healing via research is a fascinating concept to me.
Deepak Chopra is the man who may be destined to get this job done--for it's more curious when prayers DON'T APPEAR TO BE ANSWERED???
There are obviously laws involved with healing and praying just like there are giving and receiving the 100x return. For example last week gave $90 to Joel Osteen's ministry--totally unexpectedly got back $7500 of the $9000 onehundred-fold that same afternoon with someone calling my daughter with a new job making $7500 more a year. YES!!!!
Doors are finally opening spiritually and it is refreshing!
I'm glad you phrased it this way, because that's exactly the right construction -- prayers don't APPEAR to be answered.
As one of the former ministers at my church often says, "I don't always get what I pray for -- but I always get what I pray from."
The laws you cite work. The Osteen story you cited is a very interesting example. There is an intersting article about Osteen at http://www.iam-spirit.com/0502_joelosteen.html
When we approach the prayer from what we don't have, we get what we are emphasizing -- what we don't have. We pray knowing that "It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom" and froma spirit of accepting the blessings now. That is how the prayer changes circumstances.
I'm glad you approve of the way that was phrased.
"The laws you cite work."
The key, besides some awareness those laws exist, is to uncover the right "soil" for the "seed" [donation] to come up within. As both Joel Osteen and Rick Warren appear to be blessed by God, they seem to be "good soil."
Moreover there is so much venom against them in the mainstream press, and this forum, that shoots up flares there might be some good ground to invest in.
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