Do you pray?

Do you pray?

  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .
Yes for Mr Right...but he doesn't exist.Men are complete bastards.:mad:
 
jamescagney said:
I've never understood how certain acts get attributed to God and not others.

Like, if an infant is killed by a drive-by shooting involving drug dealers, you may hear the survivors saying it was God calling her home. On the other hand, abortions in clinics are ascribed to an act of man.

Haiti has been called "an act of God," although science would suggest earthquakes are caused by a normal shifting of tectonic plates that would occur even if God wasn't around.

God's role in the Holocaust (oops, I just lost the discussion :lbf:) has been a popular topic of discussion, though few people say that the Holocaust was caused by God or was God's work. They typically say that God did not prevent the Holocaust, through inaction. God's level of involvement in the 9/11 attacks vary, depending on whether you live in the US or a muslim country.
Click to expand...

20 years ago, I was working at a kids camp in Australia - it turned out to be a Christian camp, so I blagged my way through it for 6 months (sneaking the beer into my room after the weekly shopping trip - the shops were 30 miles away:eek:)
Anyway.....all the prayers said by the manager with the kids everyday was all praising god in hindsight:rolleyes: he could never do wrong.
Our water supply came from a local spring on site and this was the height of the Aussie summer.
So, when it was another glorious day, it was praise be the lord for the glorious sun.
Then on the odd day when it rained, it was praise be the lord, because we needed the water for us to drink.
Never once did he say ''right god, we've had glorious sunshine for the past 3 weeks, but the water tank is a bit low - any chance of a quick top up?'
Instead god was always shown in a good light, getting the credit for whatever happened - but never taking requests:thumb:

Jukebox Jury
 
I voted for 'none of the above '

As a quaker, I go to meeting for worship

which is more about listening to the still small voice of G'd' within,

I also assume that there is no need to tell G'd' because s/he'll know
I rather like/need to listen to G'd's indications, feel/sense the presence of G'd'
which is refreshing n soothing for me

Sometimes I 'hold someone in the light' who is feeling miserable/ill

non-q-informatiom on quakers
[*]http://www.religioustolerance.org/quaker.htm

"A Friend's meeting, however silent, is at the very lowest a witness that worship is something other and deeper than words, and that it is to the unseen and eternal things that we desire to give the first place in our lives. And when the meeting...is awake and looking upwards, there is much more in it than this. In the united stillness of a truly 'gathered' meeting, there is a power known only by experience, and mysterious even when most familiar." Caroline Stephen, (1908).


Btw, James Dean was raised in a quaker family.
 
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Nope, never prayed in my life (born atheist and have stayed that way).
 
Jukebox Jury said:
Our water supply came from a local spring on site and this was the height of the Aussie summer.
So, when it was another glorious day, it was praise be the lord for the glorious sun.
Then on the odd day when it rained, it was praise be the lord, because we needed the water for us to drink.
Never once did he say ''right god, we've had glorious sunshine for the past 3 weeks, but the water tank is a bit low - any chance of a quick top up?'
Instead god was always shown in a good light, getting the credit for whatever happened - but never taking requests:thumb:
Click to expand...

Excellent point. Kind of like horoscopes in the newspaper... people think they work because they remember the correct predictions and ignore the incorrect ones, or ascribe them to an off day. With that "logic," a 40% to 50% success rate is proof they work, rather than a statistical inevitability.

With prayer requests and acts of god, a positive outcome is seen as proof of God's assistance, and a negative outcome is proof of God's inaction, or of God's inscrutable mysterious ways.

Wanting to pray for favors is a natural and powerful impulse, even in me. But I personally like the camp's approach of just thanking, not asking.

The people here who think that Morrissey is too busy with important things to be bothered to care about what us little people are doing... that's the way I feel about God. If there is one, I'm not sure I should be bothering the big guy or girl (God is "big boned") with my minutia like sports games, wars, punitive / pre-emptive retribution for past or future terrorist acts, etc.

When I meet him, I'd just thank him for all the great music. (Morrissey, not God ;) )
 
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Lemon said:
Nope, never prayed in my life (born atheist and have stayed that way).
Click to expand...

Pretty much the same for me, though I can vaguely remember asking some higher power out there for things a few times when I was little, "just in case". They were probably selfish things though, like asking for a certain boy to like me or for my dad to win the lottery.
 
jamescagney said:
I've never understood how certain acts get attributed to God and not others.

Like, if an infant is killed by a drive-by shooting involving drug dealers, you may hear the survivors saying it was God calling her home. On the other hand, abortions in clinics are ascribed to an act of man.

Haiti has been called "an act of God," although science would suggest earthquakes are caused by a normal shifting of tectonic plates that would occur even if God wasn't around.

God's role in the Holocaust (oops, I just lost the discussion :lbf:) has been a popular topic of discussion, though few people say that the Holocaust was caused by God or was God's work. They typically say that God did not prevent the Holocaust, through inaction. God's level of involvement in the 9/11 attacks vary, depending on whether you live in the US or a muslim country.
Click to expand...

That's why science always wins.

Listen to this...

[youtube]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lfmqiBfoPwA&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lfmqiBfoPwA&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/youtube]
 
Mozza220559 said:
That's why science always wins.

Listen to this...
Click to expand...

Thanks! That was great! "It seems clear that if HE does exist, he's capricious and mean and willful." Too true, I didn't know anyone else felt that. The Book of Job especially shows this. If there is a God, he is one very scary mofo.
 
jamescagney said:
Thanks! That was great! "It seems clear that if HE does exist, he's capricious and mean and willful." Too true, I didn't know anyone else felt that. The Book of Job especially shows this. If there is a God, he is one very scary mofo.
Click to expand...

Listening to any of Hitchens views is brilliant, and Stephen Fry is amazing anyway.
 
Mozza220559 said:
Listening to any of Hitchens views is brilliant, and Stephen Fry is amazing anyway.
Click to expand...

But he talked a bit too much. He'd be torn apart if he were on Solo! :lbf:
 
Quiffaa said:
I voted for 'none of the above '

As a quaker, I go to meeting for worship

which is more about listening to the still small voice of G'd' within,

I also assume that there is no need to tell G'd' because s/he'll know
I rather like/need to listen to G'd's indications, feel/sense the presence of G'd'
which is refreshing n soothing for me

Sometimes I 'hold someone in the light' who is feeling miserable/ill

non-q-informatiom on quakers
[*]http://www.religioustolerance.org/quaker.htm

"A Friend's meeting, however silent, is at the very lowest a witness that worship is something other and deeper than words, and that it is to the unseen and eternal things that we desire to give the first place in our lives. And when the meeting...is awake and looking upwards, there is much more in it than this. In the united stillness of a truly 'gathered' meeting, there is a power known only by experience, and mysterious even when most familiar." Caroline Stephen, (1908).


Btw, James Dean was raised in a quaker family.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting that, Quiffaa. :)
I'm going to read it a bit later.
 
The_Meaning_of_Life.jpg
 
I prayed as a kid, didn't know any better being raised Catholic. Haven't prayed since I was about 9yrs old???? Never understood how one person could answer the prayers of millions of people. Am an atheist now.
 
jamescagney said:
Excellent point. Kind of like horoscopes in the newspaper... people think they work because they remember the correct predictions and ignore the incorrect ones, or ascribe them to an off day. With that "logic," a 40% to 50% success rate is proof they work, rather than a statistical inevitability.

With prayer requests and acts of god, a positive outcome is seen as proof of God's assistance, and a negative outcome is proof of God's inaction, or of God's inscrutable mysterious ways.
Click to expand...

yeah, this exactly. it's pointless. i used to. id even say up until fairly recently, even though my prayers were probably few and far between in the past 10 years and it was probably mostly out of habit or impulse, but yeah...not anymore.
 
To paraphrase Bill Maher; 'praying' is essentially 'wishing it were so.' A wasted exercise. Frankly, I think it's ultimately going to come down to a choice between these antiquated myths and civilization.
 
I never understand why people try to reason faith or the lack of it. The whole idea of faith is to believe in something regardless of logic.

I don't pray but I say, why not go for it if it makes you feel good.
 
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Quiffaa said:
I voted for 'none of the above '

As a quaker, I go to meeting for worship

which is more about listening to the still small voice of G'd' within,

I also assume that there is no need to tell G'd' because s/he'll know
I rather like/need to listen to G'd's indications, feel/sense the presence of G'd'
which is refreshing n soothing for me

Sometimes I 'hold someone in the light' who is feeling miserable/ill

non-q-informatiom on quakers
[*]http://www.religioustolerance.org/quaker.htm

"A Friend's meeting, however silent, is at the very lowest a witness that worship is something other and deeper than words, and that it is to the unseen and eternal things that we desire to give the first place in our lives. And when the meeting...is awake and looking upwards, there is much more in it than this. In the united stillness of a truly 'gathered' meeting, there is a power known only by experience, and mysterious even when most familiar." Caroline Stephen, (1908).


Btw, James Dean was raised in a quaker family.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Quiffa. Those links are interesting. Please forgive my ignorance, but I didn't know Quakers still existed. They always seem to be spoken of in the past here in the States. Good to see that social justice work is still high on the Quaker agenda. I've been studying the 1847-50 Irish Famine, and the Quakers relief efforts to feed the starving were truly heroic.
 
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