My thoughts on prayer

[Ben Davis]

...I'm not sure why people would continue (assuming that they do) if they did not see it as being productive and start doing for themselves .

Because the bible tells them to. Also the bible describes prayer, explicitly, as a mechanism to petition God for favours and tells believers that he'll grant their every prayer if their faith is strong enough. That's a morally bankrupt and ethically repugnant way to direct blame for the failure of prayer on the prayer rather than God. It's not enough that, for example, one of your parents is going to die of cancer, it's your fault for not having enough faith!. Any religion which actively professes the concept/power of prayer in this way is equally as bankrupt.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Having blown a shit-load of time and energy talking to the wall with no results worth boasting over, I'm pretty much in the "Prayer is a waste of time" camp. Any time anybody says prayer doesn't work, some Christian rolls out with, "Oh, that's not true, Gaud answers my prayers all the time..." (provides no examples) "Besides, you were probably just praying for wrong stuff because you've always been a stupid atheist and your salvation wasn't real. You're really just supposed to be thankful and pray for Gaud to make you a better person, and then of course he'll grant your desires, silly! The whole point is just to align yourself with Gaud's desires so that you're praying for stuff that he's pretty much already going to do."


First off, that is not even remotely in line with what the Bible says about prayer. There is no way to bend the "context" argument far enough to convincingly argue that prayer is not Biblically portrayed as a method of having one's wishes fulfilled by an all-powerful genie. There just isn't.


Second, even if that were the case, what then is the fucking point of praying? Besides the favorite mantra, "Because Gaud tells me to"? That is not morality, that is a dictator-slave relationship. If Gaud's plan is immovable and reality is predestined and the same thing will happen regardless of how much praying you do, what is the point of asking for Gaud's help with anything, ever?


Whether it's making you a better person, giving you more faith, making you more thankful...if Gaud is gonna do what Gaud is gonna do for whom Gaud is gonna do it, and he already knows how good everyone is going to be and how much help he will give them individually to make them better because it's all part of his plan, then why oh fucking why would anyone bother asking him to do anything? He obviously has a course of action from which he never deviates, so making requests of him (regardless of their nature) is completely useless.


If we're only supposed to be thanking him and nothing else, then honestly, we don't have that much to thank him for. Most of us are doomed, and the Universe he created is full of suffering and death. That's either because he planned all the suffering and death, or it's because the system he created is so beyond his control that he can't prevent suffering or death and so has to work his plan around them. He's either monstrously evil or monstrously inept...take your pick. Either way he's still horrendously short-sighted, vindictive, and selfish, which in humans is undesirable and in all-powerful, all-loving deities is unacceptable. What thanks do we owe him? Even creating us at all was kind of a dick move, if the Wholly Babble is to be believed.

[WinterHold]

Nah, "pray" and "work as hard as possible" at the same time.
We pray so our lord forgive our sins, there's an afterlife awaiting us after all.

But hey, why kill the hope of desperate people, who really have nothing they can do, in praying and getting help from God ?

[Cyberman]

Pray in one hand, shit in the other. See which fills up first.

[John V]

Woah alpha male shows up out of left field. How've you been john?

Great. Actually I have been around and posting lately, but not a ton. In this case I just find it amusing that someone with thousands of posts on an internet forum derides others for wasting their time. Pot and kettle and all.

[Angrboda]

Prayer is not meant to "wish" for things.  But to be thankful for what you have.

Sez who? It's said that with enough faith, you can move mountains. Now why would a mountain move unless somebody wanted it to do so.

Chapter and verse, dude. Where's your evidence?