RE: Should we ever foster delusion?
July 29, 2017 at 9:14 pm
(This post was last modified: July 29, 2017 at 9:36 pm by shadow.)
(July 29, 2017 at 8:41 pm)wallym Wrote: Person wanted a job, a drivers license, and a girlfriend. I'm guessing they weren't ultimately looking for prayers, but some sort of connection with other people as they were alone and having a rough go of it. That they said 'pray for me' rather than 'wish me luck' doesn't seem too important.
That's how some people are. It's not so different from coming onto an internet forum, and posting your feelings, and hoping for interaction or reassurances from strangers.
The world's a lonely place, and people try cope with that the best they can.
I couldn't agree more with the sentiment, wally. But I'm a bit more pragmatic than that: human connection is one thing. False hope is another. Religion prays (aren't I punny) on people who need that sort of connection and fulfillment. It takes people's problems and pretends there's a solution (that Jesus loves you and you're entitled to an eternity in heaven). The value is fake. I'd post on an internet forum because I want to discuss something, evaluate my own views, and hopefully make better decisions from that consideration. Once you put fake factors like prayer into your decision making process, what you are achieving is the exact opposite. If you are down on your luck and you think Jesus is going to save you, you're much worse off than if you felt like you were alone (because you were) and fixed your own situation. That is the distinction, and in my mind it is perhaps the most important distinction in the world. It is the difference between lies and truth, between deteriorating and improving.
(July 29, 2017 at 4:58 am)Dropship Wrote: Guy: Can you pray for me? Can you pray for me to get a job and get a driver's license and find a girlfriend?
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Somebody should tell him that's not the way it works!
15 years ago I was just out of jail (3 month vigilante rap), homeless, jobless, womanless and near-penniless, living rough in a tent in a remote wood shivering with thyroid problems, but not for an instant did I feel the need to pray for myself or ask others to pray for me because I was too busy laughing at myself.
"Great" I thought, "I've ended up as Bigfoot!
The moral? Our fate is in our own hands, I've always had christian values which make us regard the world as a cabaret, not to be taken seriously..
Firstly, I'm glad to hear you got through that tough time!
Is it really such a stretch, though, to extend the belief in god to thinking god is the answer to all of your problems? If I believed in god, I'd probably be prayer farming as well. If there's value to one person's prayer, it stands to reason that the prayers of many are worth a proportionate amount more. Under a bounded reasoning that assumes prayers actually mean something, it's not an irrational thing to do. It's religion that's the problem.
