RE: Faith healing couple acquitted of manslaughter charges! How can this happen?
July 30, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Because challenging anything but the very most extreme (Koresh, Jeffs, Alamo) flavour of Christianity ires the wee beastie called 'doubt' inside each and every one of the rest of them, and most would rather repress lest they find something they don't want to face. There is an inherant risk in searching and examining, and when a lifetime's belief is at stake, the very foundation of your family and community, most would not dare. To them, it is not worth the risk. Ignorance is bliss.
A small child died due to the criminal negligence of the parents, and that is a truly terrible thing. That these parents will walk away from this, scott free, praising God for proving that they were in the right, as evidenced by the knuckle-wrapping from the Courts only emboldens them more.
Pippy,
I have to disagree with several of your statements and interpretations, though no more than many others. Prayer as you define it is nothing more than talking to yourself. No, I don't think that it makes you crazy, and I don't believe that there is anything at all wrong with it, so long as you realise that you are, in fact, talking to yourself. If you don't believe that there is a deity out there, but feel better when you pray, by all means, have fun. If it makes you feel better, marvelous. You can credit your cerebral cortex.
Personally, I have no use for any god. I've seen no good that could be attributed only to a god, nor have I seen any bad. I talk to myself more often than I talk to other people, and it has nothing to do with any mental illness. I am rather a private person, and I have very little need for other people. I also find the vast majority to be dull, arrogant, hypocritical, self-assured, and in more cases than not, just plain wrong on the vast majority of subjects. I am a loner, and I've spent my life buried in books and in learning. One of my majors at University was in Humanities, which was of interest to me because I didn't know 'people' in general, and they were simply another subject for study and contemplation. In other words, I talk to myself because I find I'm my only decent conversational companion - talking to myself, simply put, is what keeps me sane.
Now, basically, all of this is written simply to reassure you that there is nothing at all wrong with talking to yourself, especially if it makes you feel better. It's often called 'working things out on your own.' Calling it prayer is rather a challenging descriptor, though. ;-)
A small child died due to the criminal negligence of the parents, and that is a truly terrible thing. That these parents will walk away from this, scott free, praising God for proving that they were in the right, as evidenced by the knuckle-wrapping from the Courts only emboldens them more.
Pippy,
I have to disagree with several of your statements and interpretations, though no more than many others. Prayer as you define it is nothing more than talking to yourself. No, I don't think that it makes you crazy, and I don't believe that there is anything at all wrong with it, so long as you realise that you are, in fact, talking to yourself. If you don't believe that there is a deity out there, but feel better when you pray, by all means, have fun. If it makes you feel better, marvelous. You can credit your cerebral cortex.
Personally, I have no use for any god. I've seen no good that could be attributed only to a god, nor have I seen any bad. I talk to myself more often than I talk to other people, and it has nothing to do with any mental illness. I am rather a private person, and I have very little need for other people. I also find the vast majority to be dull, arrogant, hypocritical, self-assured, and in more cases than not, just plain wrong on the vast majority of subjects. I am a loner, and I've spent my life buried in books and in learning. One of my majors at University was in Humanities, which was of interest to me because I didn't know 'people' in general, and they were simply another subject for study and contemplation. In other words, I talk to myself because I find I'm my only decent conversational companion - talking to myself, simply put, is what keeps me sane.
Now, basically, all of this is written simply to reassure you that there is nothing at all wrong with talking to yourself, especially if it makes you feel better. It's often called 'working things out on your own.' Calling it prayer is rather a challenging descriptor, though. ;-)
