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MarkBsnr, you asked earlier in this thread a question regarding prayer...Dr. Eckleberg gave an answer...I am too tired, or maybe just plain too lazy, to try to sort through all these posts again, and find the exact question and answers...I found the question intriguing, tho I found the answer leaving me with some question, primarily about Calvinism, which I know very little about, but am seeking to understand...so here goes, anyone can answer, but I would like a Calvinist POV here...

Regarding prayer...here and there on this thread, and on many other religious threads throughout the years, I have read one poster after another, posting a testimony about how they or others prayed to God for a healing for someone, or prayed for some problem that someone was having, and then the healing came about, or the problem was resolved...

Now, if Calvinism, says, that all things are pre-determined, just what is the use of prayer?...if MR. X, gets cancer, and a specific person or a group of people pray for him, and he gets cured, wasn’t that already pre-determined beforehand, according to Calvinism, that he would get cured?....if it was predetermined that he would be cured, what good was the prayer?...or was it predetermned that he would get cured because it was predetermined that those people would pray?...and how did he get cancer in the first place...say he had lung cancer, was it predetermined that he would smoke, predetermined that he would get lung cancer, predetermined that he would get prayed for, and then predetermined that he would be cured?...in other words, is everything in our lives, down to the smallest detail, pre-determined by God to occur exactly how and when and where it did?.....perhaps I am reading Calvinism wrong, but it all seems like a long string of pre-determined acts carried out in a pre-determined scenario...I hope someone can answer me, or at least set me straight here..

I remember long ago, someone who was a Calvinist, and I dont remember who, just remember it being years ago, and remember what this Calvinist said...they said, that someone ate for breakfast, what they did, because it was predetermined that for that one day, they would make that choice...the same poster also said, that babies sin, by soiling their diapers...I just found these two statements very odd, and wondered if other Calvinists would go along with what this Calvinist once said, or if there was something just odd about this one Calvinist posters remarks..

I dont know if I have made my questions clearly known, I sure hope so, because I would like some clarification...

Thanks in advance to anyone choosing to take this on, I appreciate it, I suppose, because I dont understand this idea of pre-determination, and I would like to at least begin to figure it out...