Yeah, especially so on this public forum. Even if we don't convince the person we're talking to, someone out there might read it and stop and think for a minute. If I help just one person break free from faulty logic keeping them tied to irrational belief systems, I'll consider it a victory. We probably don't hear from most of the people who end up being helped by this forum, or the internet in general. Not that I'm complaining about that They have no duty to say so.

I cannot speak to the Islamic perception of prayer, I don't know enough about it.  So I enjoy reading this thread.  

I can only discuss the Protestant/Catholic version.  I have heard many, many preachers say that prayer is not about asking for anything for ourselves, other than to be open to the voice of god, in order to follow his will for our lives.  Many preachers also insist that a lot of prayer should consist of giving thanks for what we have, and praising god for being so wonderful.  

Well, there is (supposedly) a prayer given to us by god himself (for those who believe that Jesus was god):  (Comments in parenthesis mine.)

Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. 
       (Essentially, you are All-Holy and we look forward to your Reign on Earth.)
Thy will be done in earth, As it is in heaven.
       (Since it is impossible for "god's will" to NOT happen, this is probably just submission and an assertion of support.)
Give us this day our daily bread.     (<- Wait, that's asking for something.  "Don't let us starve!")
And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us.    
       ("Forgive Us" is also asking, tho' apparently we're supposed to be forgiving to deserve forgiveness.)
And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.    
       (Don't let us be tempted, and deliver us from . . . ???  -- Probably means help us follow the rules.)
For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen.
       (Eternal, All-Powerful, Glorious . . . start with praise, end with praise.)

So, as Jesus is praying to himself, he DOES ask to have enough food, and for forgiveness for infractions (as long as we're willing to forgive) and to keep our feet on the straight-and-narrow path of obedience . . . and possibly, some protection from temptation to stray from that path - or something.
    So he's not asking for material things, or for wealth, or for power of any kind, and he's doing a lot of praising.  -- Not a lot of thanking, but I can't see how that would be a bad thing.  (Thankfulness makes for a good meditation exercise, without any attempt to telepathically connect with a deity.)    

I just don't get it though, and I spent over 40 years doing a LOT of praying.  If there is a Deity there, I just can't fathom why it needs to be praised.

(January 19, 2016 at 12:05 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(January 19, 2016 at 9:55 am)AtlasS33 Wrote: I can understand you, being offended, if that was a human-council that you weren't invited to attend.
God is not human. 

Winning in the ridiculous tale Satan wrote and accused the God with; fooling people to believe that there is actually a war between him & God; while in reality : God already created life, earth, saw what would happen, made Satan, knew his sin; the tale is about Satan's misery and psychological tantrums, but he is a hell of a whisperer, just like he did to our ancestors, he tries to blindfold the truth through fairy tales.

So you claim, and so what.

Let me clue you in on reality. Allah is not real, Islam is simply a splinter sect of Christianity. Christianity is simply a splinter sect of Hebrew. And Hebrew is simply a splinter sect of Canaanite polytheism.

The polytheists set the stage for the monotheism of Abraham. Yahweh was a lesser god in a divine family who had the he god El who was the lead god in the family "council".

There is no monotheistic cosmic council anymore than the Canaanites had an entire family of gods running things. I get that you really like what you believe and we get that you really want Allah to be real. But that isn't because Allah is real. You believe it because you lack the evolutionary scientific understanding that our species perceptions of reality are notoriously flawed. 

We don't doubt your sincerity of what you want to be true. We do doubt your perception of reality. It was understandable in antiquity that humans would invent both polytheistic gods, and monotheistic gods because they didn't have our modern scientific knowledge of the world.

I can also say, that the context leads to the possibility of scenario B : the concept & idea of religion go back to a common point; it is true that the idea was always present in humanity's consciousness.

You're also lowering the positions of the ancients. The Mayans, Hindus, Chinese, pharaohs, all these civilizations had advanced knowledge in astronomy & architecture; they had what we don't have today : blending in with the environment.

(January 19, 2016 at 4:18 pm)AtlasS33 Wrote:

(January 19, 2016 at 12:05 pm)Brian37 Wrote: So you claim, and so what.

Let me clue you in on reality. Allah is not real, Islam is simply a splinter sect of Christianity. Christianity is simply a splinter sect of Hebrew. And Hebrew is simply a splinter sect of Canaanite polytheism.

The polytheists set the stage for the monotheism of Abraham. Yahweh was a lesser god in a divine family who had the he god El who was the lead god in the family "council".

There is no monotheistic cosmic council anymore than the Canaanites had an entire family of gods running things. I get that you really like what you believe and we get that you really want Allah to be real. But that isn't because Allah is real. You believe it because you lack the evolutionary scientific understanding that our species perceptions of reality are notoriously flawed. 

We don't doubt your sincerity of what you want to be true. We do doubt your perception of reality. It was understandable in antiquity that humans would invent both polytheistic gods, and monotheistic gods because they didn't have our modern scientific knowledge of the world.

I can also say, that the context leads to the possibility of scenario B : the concept & idea of religion go back to a common point; it is true that the idea was always present in humanity's consciousness.

You're also lowering the positions of the ancients. The Mayans, Hindus, Chinese, pharaohs, all these civilizations had advanced knowledge in astronomy & architecture; they had what we don't have today : blending in with the environment.

NO, it did not exist in our consciousness, at least not in the divine comic book way religious people want to believe.

Religion and god claims are a result of gap filling, flawed perceptions. What you talk about existing in our consciousness is our evolved language and evolved awareness. The problem is humans did not have our modern scientific understanding of reality. What evolved was our ability to seek patterns, but at the same time we had no clue how to test and confirm those things we perceived. As a result of our ignorance, we made up answers when we had none. When something scary like a storm or a a volcano affected humans back then, they falsely assumed it was being controled by something human like, but with super powers. Humans were merely anthropomorphic in projecting their own qualities on non existent and non human things.

Our flawed perceptions lead us to gap fill. It is no different than an antelope on the African plane who has no time to assess if the swaying grass is mere wind, or a lion stalking it. It is the same reason that if a kid wants to believe that covered bowl of olives at the Halloween party in a dark kitchen are eyeballs, since thy don't have an adult brain if young enough, they lack the reasoning skills to make any credible determination about what is really going on. 

Humans basically had no understanding of nature, so they invented answers as a way to cope. Unfortunately even to this day, allows power structures to form with people who use those ideas as a way to control them. It isnt that all religious people are bad, it is that most humans don't have a grasp on how good logic works. "Faith" is simply easier for humans than actually testing and falsifying to confirm what they are perceiving.

It's at times like this that I'm reminded of Quran 64:11 "No kind of calamity can occur, except by the leave of Allah: and if any one believes in Allah, (Allah) guides his heart (aright): for Allah knows all things."

So is there free will or not? Cancer is pretty calamitous I would say. Is Allah controlling our very DNA so that some people have cancer and others don't? We are perfectly designed after all.

(January 20, 2016 at 4:01 am)MrNoMorePropaganda Wrote: It's at times like this that I'm reminded of Quran 64:11 "No kind of calamity can occur, except by the leave of Allah: and if any one believes in Allah, (Allah) guides his heart (aright): for Allah knows all things."

So is there free will or not? Cancer is pretty calamitous I would say. Is Allah controlling our very DNA so that some people have cancer and others don't? We are perfectly designed after all.

Sounds like Isiah 45:7 "I create good, I create evil, I the lord do all these things". Different versions say "calamity". But the intent in both the Koran and Bible basically say, I am your boss, if you don't do what I say, I will kick your fucking ass.

Which really pisses me off when I think about the Tsunami in Japan, having had an x wife from there, not that area but Japan. Currently that is a very peaceful nation and virtually crime free by comparison. You'd have  me believe that 20,000 Japanese people who did nothing wrong deserved to die for what?

Some say that the Japanese deserved it because they aren't of a particular religion so their deity was punishing them. But they have terrible weather in the Bible Belt (hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.). And let's not forget all of the Earthquakes in Indonesia and Pakistan. Seems awfully random to me - likes it's not a deity. After all, those places are really religious.

(January 19, 2016 at 4:38 pm)Brian37 Wrote: NO, it did not exist in our consciousness, at least not in the divine comic book way religious people want to believe.

Religion and god claims are a result of gap filling, flawed perceptions. What you talk about existing in our consciousness is our evolved language and evolved awareness. The problem is humans did not have our modern scientific understanding of reality. What evolved was our ability to seek patterns, but at the same time we had no clue how to test and confirm those things we perceived. As a result of our ignorance, we made up answers when we had none. When something scary like a storm or a a volcano affected humans back then, they falsely assumed it was being controled by something human like, but with super powers. Humans were merely anthropomorphic in projecting their own qualities on non existent and non human things.

Our flawed perceptions lead us to gap fill. It is no different than an antelope on the African plane who has no time to assess if the swaying grass is mere wind, or a lion stalking it. It is the same reason that if a kid wants to believe that covered bowl of olives at the Halloween party in a dark kitchen are eyeballs, since thy don't have an adult brain if young enough, they lack the reasoning skills to make any credible determination about what is really going on. 

Humans basically had no understanding of nature, so they invented answers as a way to cope. Unfortunately even to this day, allows power structures to form with people who use those ideas as a way to control them. It isnt that all religious people are bad, it is that most humans don't have a grasp on how good logic works. "Faith" is simply easier for humans than actually testing and falsifying to confirm what they are perceiving.

I counter that with something I always thought about : the design of the universe is unified, and so similar to a degree making the idea of a higher deity logical; that's my personal view of it, though.
I understand you; fear did influence religion through all times -even now-, after all the heathen ideologies which Islam is opposing, are a product of what you mentioned in their essence : a mere "way to cope".

Modern Muslims too, have begun to change their religion as a way to cope. We've seen Muslims changing their faith to "cope" with rough battlefield conditions like in Syria, the extremist wings inside Judaism, Christianity & Islam are also a product of that : coping with the environment. 

But on an ideological level, I believe that most answers were answered at wrong times when knowledge was scarce, but many other answers were a product of an inevitable chain of odds that cannot be ignored. The ancients saw their share, we on the other hand saw a bigger share, and similarities in design began to pop up. The ancients did detect design similarities too.

(January 20, 2016 at 7:08 am)MrNoMorePropaganda Wrote: Some say that the Japanese deserved it because they aren't of a particular religion so their deity was punishing them. But they have terrible weather in the Bible Belt (hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.). And let's not forget all of the Earthquakes in Indonesia and Pakistan. Seems awfully random to me - likes it's not a deity. After all, those places are really religious.

"All powerful" well either he isn't and his aim sucks, or he is simply a fucking dick. No sane parent in their right mind would allow harm to their children, or cause harm to their children. The logic of claiming this being to care, it is simply not there. 

Now again, this isn't bigoted to point this out. This would be the same if you went to see a Superman movie, and in the plot, Clark Kent walked past an ally, saw a women getting raped, watched her get her throat slit and bleed out, then only after that caught the perp. It is simply a blunt way of pointing out the error in logic.

I am blaspheming the logic of the character and how humans like to view this character. It simply makes no sense.

Prayer is a means to keep ones one morals and reasoning right by the will of GOD.

Praying for personal reasons adverse to the will of God isn't what prayer is for.

Peace

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.