RE: Faith healing couple acquitted of manslaughter charges! How can this happen?
July 28, 2009 at 8:32 am
You are both clearly misunderstanding prayer. Or more likley you are understanding what you have seen, which is a misrepresentation of prayer.
To KaratePig, no I (and I assume others) believe that god doesn't answer prayers, because prayers are not requests or questions (exept for rhetoric, i guess).
And to Padraic, the lack of a god to pray to doesn't make prayer useless or irredeemable. Although, most people that pray pray to something, so in there personal realities god does exist. The conversation they (think they) are having with her makes her independently real, if only to the pray-er.
And there is a power of prayer. You just are not seeing it. If I am deeply troubled, and I pray for help, strength, guidance... I am not asking god to bestow upon me those traits, or expecting god to add something to the equation. I am using the mental tool of a percieved higher being and perceived connection with it to frame the situation. I am trying to get myself to have more strength, to use my own guidance. It is not asking god for things, it is a simple tool to help control your reality, state-of-mind and decision making process...
I may be wrong, but that is what I mean when prayer can have redeemable qualities, that it surely can have power. It is a simple disagreeal to the statement about how can anyone believe in the power of prayer in this modern world... the answer is that you have to carefully define 'prayer'.
Thanks,
-Pip
To KaratePig, no I (and I assume others) believe that god doesn't answer prayers, because prayers are not requests or questions (exept for rhetoric, i guess).
And to Padraic, the lack of a god to pray to doesn't make prayer useless or irredeemable. Although, most people that pray pray to something, so in there personal realities god does exist. The conversation they (think they) are having with her makes her independently real, if only to the pray-er.
And there is a power of prayer. You just are not seeing it. If I am deeply troubled, and I pray for help, strength, guidance... I am not asking god to bestow upon me those traits, or expecting god to add something to the equation. I am using the mental tool of a percieved higher being and perceived connection with it to frame the situation. I am trying to get myself to have more strength, to use my own guidance. It is not asking god for things, it is a simple tool to help control your reality, state-of-mind and decision making process...
I may be wrong, but that is what I mean when prayer can have redeemable qualities, that it surely can have power. It is a simple disagreeal to the statement about how can anyone believe in the power of prayer in this modern world... the answer is that you have to carefully define 'prayer'.
Thanks,
-Pip
