more than praying it is power of the mind. mantras seem to work so might as well have a positive one!

I find this hard to say for sure, not being totally convinced of a faith etc.However, in times of need (and other times) I have prayed and I think I do feel more calm and sometimes feel I get an answer I haven't expected.Some people think that the very act of praying,out loud or to yourself releases the problem to a higher power and helps you.

For exams, you cant sit and pray all day long that you will pass exams. Remember God helps those who helps themselves. As for illness, anything is possible if you have faith in your prayers.

I dont mean this to sound as flip as it does, but it cant do any harm.

i hope this doesnt offend anyone, but you would spend you time better studying for exams, and going to doctors for illness. praying, for me, is a waste of time.

Yes it can if you trust and have faith. The answer can also be no, so don't be disappointed. You will be heard. Also, the answer comes in God's time, not yours.

Prayer works. All prayers may not be answered in the way we want or right when we want them..some may not be answered at all (that we can see). The prayer must come from the heart and with faith. Too many times I have known people who ignored God completely and even denied His existence only to turn around and ask things of Him and then curse Him if they didn't get what they asked for. God will never ignore you if you have Him in your heart but He works in the ways He sees as best.

i prayed to get into my selective high school in year 6 and go in, i was happy =D, i pray now and get good grades with little study

Yes but you had better be for sure who you are praying to. For there is a evil out there that I myself would not pray to for anything. And some take this route and later wish they had never seen or heard of it. For none of it is good. Then there is a Loving HOLY GOD who has nothing but his best for you, only he leaves the chose up to you. If you believe in him as the one and only HOLY God & ask him to forgive you for all your sins & believe in his HOLY word that he sent his only SON JESUS to die for all your sins. And to ask Jesus Christ to come into your life & make you a new person in CHRIST. Then as you live this life in Jesus he will guide you & help you in more ways than you could dream of. They may not be the way you planed but will be the correct way for your needs to be fulfilled. If you need him for anything all you need to do is ask by true faith in him & he will be there to help you through hard times. It is left up to you though to chose to live this life. He Loves you & is always there to help you, only if you ask him to come into your life. You have to make the first step. Just like planting a garden. It did not grow all these different things alone. You had to first prepare the ground & plant the seed & stay with it to get were you received its fruits within.....Good Luck my FRIEND......M.C.S.

Only on a psychological level - it can relieve tension, raise confidence, clear the mind, etc It can't, however, give you the answers, unless you've studied them first - but in that case, it's a far better conclusion to say that your mind gave you the answers and the prayer perhaps helped your mind access them, than to say that "God gave me the answers", or "God made me remember the answers I studied", etc. I'm actually a believer in prayer as a form of effective meditation - I myself experienced it earlier in my life, for one thing - but there is plenty of (experimental) evidence that supports hypotheses like the 'placebo' effect, or 'meditation' as a mental aid, etc, and no (experimental) evidence that it works in a supernatural way (allowing, for example, one person to pray on behalf of another in order that the other person will get better exam marks)

I believe its faith that one must possess that can bring positive change to all things. To pray means one must have faith that the outcome/change they need will come.

yup offcourse