Dear God, please soften their hearts...

[zwanzig]

It never occurred to me what I was actually saying when I used to pray for god to influence other people in some way. Whether it was to change someone at work's attitude towards me, make others more able to listen, soften their hearts, etc. No matter how you phrase it...you're asking a supernatural entity to exert their power over the hearts and minds of other people. To enter them. To change them. To make them do something or act a certain way, according to your wish.

Setting aside the very clear connections of prayer to witches summoning demonic familiars and asking them for a boon or service in exchange for a gift or a price paid. But how does praying for god to influence someone else not equal to an expectation of some level of possession by this entity? Otherwise what exactly are you asking the entity to do? How does that figure into the "we're all here to suffer for free will" thing?

[no one]

Free will is not absolute. Free will is conditional.

When the going is good, god is credited.
When the terribles take place, the all powerful is rendered powerless due to free will.

[h4ym4n]

Then there’s this from jesus.


So…… jesus is the reason I’m a nonbeliever?



Matthew 13:10-13
New King James Version
The Purpose of Parables

10 And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”

11 He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the [a]mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13 Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...rsion=NKJV

[arewethereyet]

It never occurred to me what I was actually saying when I used to pray for god to influence other people in some way. Whether it was to change someone at work's attitude towards me, make others more able to listen, soften their hearts, etc. No matter how you phrase it...you're asking a supernatural entity to exert their power over the hearts and minds of other people. To enter them. To change them. To make them do something or act a certain way, according to your wish.

Setting aside the very clear connections of prayer to witches summoning demonic familiars and asking them for a boon or service in exchange for a gift or a price paid. But how does praying for god to influence someone else not equal to an expectation of some level of possession by this entity? Otherwise what exactly are you asking the entity to do? How does that figure into the "we're all here to suffer for free will" thing?

I prayed a lot when I was a kid asking god and Mary to change the abuse I was dealing with.  My parents were very violent toward one another and toward me.  It was scary and I didn't know who to turn to for help.  In one way I was asking for god to change my parents and in another I was asking for protection.  Of course, my intentions didn't matter as nothing changed for the better...in fact it only got worse.

That was a realization that helped me leave religion behind...prayer didn't work.  I was basically wishing.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

God hardened Pharaoh's heart every time he tried to get rid of the people who were never in Egypt.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That was a realization that helped me leave religion behind...prayer didn't work.  I was basically wishing.

I hid a lot. Luckily he was working second shift so he didn't have to be around us. I put a sheet of plywood on the rafters in the garage and slept there most of the time. Nobody ever commented on me not being in bed at night. They knew.

[zwanzig]

God hardened Pharaoh's heart every time he tried to get rid of the people who were never in Egypt.

Right?

The thing this makes me think of is in Mormonism, this was said to be a "mistranslation". No, the Mormons have no evidence for that except that Joseph Smith rewrote that part to say, "Actually, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. That's what the original author meant to say." Lol

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Smith was just a con man.

[no one]

Mistranslation sort of nullifies that whole infallible thing, just a little bit.

[Foxaèr]

It's probably more about multiple subjective interpretations than any semblance of mistranslation.

Kind of like one person interpreting an author's inclusion of a blue curtain as meaning the woman who put it in her window is depressed, while a second person might interpret it differently. All the while, the author most likely just thought of it as a curtain with no specific meaning behind it.