Yes!! Chance for another meme!

(October 11, 2016 at 6:54 am)mcolafson Wrote: What can you pray for to your God?

You can pray for health of yourself and your family and other people you care about. You can pray for peace. You can pray for 1 billion dollars to come to your bank account.

But just a short while ago I read an article. Christians are admonished to pray for fear of God.
it is based on this bible quote.

Jer. 40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.

It's very logical I think. As long as they will fear, they will tithe well.

---
ok. I go back to work.

The fear component is more of a deterrent stick.  the deterrent doesn't work if you never use it.

The literalness blow it completely out of proportion, but to say a deterrent is not needed in any group is short sighted.

You can only pray for things that can happen anyway. Then when they happen, the prayer was "answered".

How often do you hear people praying for things that couldn't happen anyway? It's like they know God only works through mundane coincidences.

I guess people do pray for peace. That never works, of course. Even when it's the pope.

(October 26, 2016 at 7:24 am)robvalue Wrote: You can only pray for things that can happen anyway. Then when they happen, the prayer was "answered".

the fact is, prayer and meditation do work. yeah, no magic. But to settle ones self down, think, and unlock the mind it works to a degree.

The next level. Can a group of people thinking alike effect one another? The question is how many and how close? But there is only a few logical answers. Flat out "lack belief in anything" is not valid here. We can talk about how it works with each other. But the fundamentals and militants will shout us rational (apologetic) types down.

to the next level we go. there is no separation, or isolated region,s in space that we know of yet. Does one region of space effect another region of of space? The answer is there is no region of space that is not defined by the space around it. Whats that mean? again, the only rational position is "apologetic'

"lack of belief in anything" is nothing more a solution to make one feel safe. It reminds me of another group of people.

(October 11, 2016 at 6:54 am)mcolafson Wrote: But just a short while ago I read an article. Christians are admonished to pray for fear of God.
it is based on this bible quote.

Jer. 40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.

The thing is I never understood this fear of God thing.  I mean, why should I love a being I should be afraid of the entire time?  It sounds like being in an abusive relationship.  If you don't do X, Y, and Z exactly how he says to do it, he will punish you.  If you do A, B, and C even though he prohibits it, he will punish you.  It doesn't matter that doing Y might conflict with the prohibition against A, though.

Why pray? God is all seeing and all knowing, so he must know what you want to pray about before you do it, why waste his time telling him thinks he already knows?

(October 28, 2016 at 10:35 am)zebo-the-fat Wrote: Why pray? God is all seeing and all knowing, so he must know what you want to pray about before you do it, why waste his time telling him thinks he already knows?

That's what I've often said.  Why do you need to telepathically tell an omniscient being anything?  If you need something and this omnibenevolent deity is going to get it for you, then why would you ever need to pray for it?  And if you want something and it's not in this deity's plans, no amount of praying will ever make it happen, so prayer is totally useless in that regard.

(October 28, 2016 at 1:41 pm)Doubting Thomas Wrote:

(October 28, 2016 at 10:35 am)zebo-the-fat Wrote: Why pray? God is all seeing and all knowing, so he must know what you want to pray about before you do it, why waste his time telling him thinks he already knows?

That's what I've often said.  Why do you need to telepathically tell an omniscient being anything?  If you need something and this omnibenevolent deity is going to get it for you, then why would you ever need to pray for it?  And if you want something and it's not in this deity's plans, no amount of praying will ever make it happen, so prayer is totally useless in that regard.

All good points, also allegedly said by Jesus …7 And when you pray, do not babble on like pagans, for they think that by their many words they will be heard. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

Jesus also allegedly said "What ever you ask in my name, I will do..." Couple that with the fact no one called him Jesus until 500 years ago, that was not his birth name. It's like have a bank called House Bank that says "Any loan you ask for in our name shall be granted" and people are asking for car loans, boat loans, loan loans....etc. Nope, only for houses.

dblpst