I occasionally will exclaim "Jesus FUCKING Christ!!!"
Does that count ??
Does that count ??
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Current time: November 24, 2024, 8:47 am
| Poll: Atheists do you pray? This poll is closed. |
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| Yes I pray | 3 | 6.67% | |
| Could potentially be beneficial | 1 | 2.22% | |
| Haven't thought about it much | 1 | 2.22% | |
| Praying is a waste of time | 40 | 88.89% | |
| Total | 45 vote(s) | 100% | |
| * You voted for this item. | [Show Results] |
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Atheists do you pray?
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 (September 17, 2014 at 1:02 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: I occasionally will exclaim "Jesus FUCKING Christ!!!" Doesn't "Jesus fucking christ" just mean that Jesus is masturbating?
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson  RE: Atheists do you pray?
September 17, 2014 at 1:20 pm
(This post was last modified: September 17, 2014 at 1:21 pm by Lucanus.)
(September 17, 2014 at 1:02 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: I occasionally will exclaim "Jesus FUCKING Christ!!!" If that counts, I'm like a monk or a friar or something. In Italian we have a lot of blasphemous profanity. This guy was the pope though On a serious note, I used to pray when I was still a Catholic. I always feared that it was just me talking to myself.
"Every luxury has a deep price. Every indulgence, a cosmic cost. Each fiber of pleasure you experience causes equivalent pain somewhere else. This is the first law of emodynamics [sic]. Joy can be neither created nor destroyed. The balance of happiness is constant.
Fact: Every time you eat a bite of cake, someone gets horsewhipped. Facter: Every time two people kiss, an orphanage collapses. Factest: Every time a baby is born, an innocent animal is severely mocked for its physical appearance. Don't be a pleasure hog. Your every smile is a dagger. Happiness is murder. Vote "yes" on Proposition 1321. Think of some kids. Some kids."  (September 17, 2014 at 11:37 am)Exian Wrote: I should say, I never performed those preformed prayers that you'd hear at church. Instead, I asked questions and I stated my intentions for myself or stated things that would satisfy me to happen to others (think Get well soon).What you're describing has many names. I guess "affirmations" or "self-talk" are among them. We talk to ourselves all the time, and that talk shapes our subconscious mind. Even when we're talking to others. "I want to ask that girl out, but I know I'll mess it up" is a form of self-talk, and it reinforces how you view yourself, and how you act. Prayer can work this way, in that we may be more likely to work towards a goal or outcome if we think that god is quietly removing obstacles or giving us the necessary strength. Many successful people have learned to use that to reinforce positive opinions about themselves and even to dismiss negative ones. It doesn't matter how you come to believe that you can succeed-- as long as you are convinced, you are more likely to make every effort to do so, and more likely to brush aside failures and setbacks.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould  RE: Atheists do you pray?
September 17, 2014 at 1:42 pm
(This post was last modified: September 17, 2014 at 1:43 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Some neo-pagans actually codify that sort of "prayer" explicitly - in that they don't think that they are speaking to anyone but themselves - but that's what the operative bit is anyway (in their estimation), and that's what they're trying to leverage for effect (which seems legit). Pulling a Stuart Smiley, if you will.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
You're right Tonus. There really isn't anything particularly profound about what I said in my post, especially if you're already familiar with affirmations or meditation. However; it was a profound experience for me personally to realize I could welcome back that part of myself. I missed it without knowing I was missing it. And, although there isn't anything spiritual about it (for me, at least), I do find "prayer" to be humbling in that it gives me a chance to let go of my biases and my need to be or feel right and to reassess my life in a more honest light.
This probably doesn't resemble prayer all that much, but where today I would silently ask "What do I do?", before I would say "Dear Lord, please show me the way" or something along those lines. So, to me, it still resembles the prayers I was familiar with. And it isn't as much the same as simply assessing my life with the question "What do I do?" because in those instances I still have bias and I'm still worried about the minor details. It's different in that way for me.
I can't remember where this verse is from, I think it got removed from canon:
"I don't hang around with mostly men because I'm gay. It's because men are better than women. Better trained, better equipped...better. Just better! I'm not gay." For context, this is the previous verse: "Hi Jesus" -robvalue  RE: Atheists do you pray?
September 17, 2014 at 2:11 pm
(This post was last modified: September 17, 2014 at 2:12 pm by Mudhammam.)
Sometimes the left cerebral hemisphere talks to the right and vice versa but I don't ever catch either calling the other god. Usually it's just, "hey, self."
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience...own-image/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/p...2009-03-13 A couple articles on the matter.
I can't remember where this verse is from, I think it got removed from canon:
"I don't hang around with mostly men because I'm gay. It's because men are better than women. Better trained, better equipped...better. Just better! I'm not gay." For context, this is the previous verse: "Hi Jesus" -robvalue (September 17, 2014 at 2:08 pm)Exian Wrote: You're right Tonus. There really isn't anything particularly profound about what I said in my post, especially if you're already familiar with affirmations or meditation. However; it was a profound experience for me personally to realize I could welcome back that part of myself. I missed it without knowing I was missing it.I found it in a different way, but it had the same beneficial effect. Learning that I can improve myself without having to sit back and hope that god waves a magic wand was (and remains) very empowering. I cringe at the thought that I left so much of my fate in the hands of something that isn't there, when I had some pretty powerful tools within reach.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould |
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