re: bargaining with god, 'i know i touched her breasts again last night, but i'll make sure to get in six hours this weekend and please bless me with a bible study and i promise never to touch her breasts or lick those sweet dark nipples again. amen'.
for this stuff, i never judge yay or nay b/c i really don't know. is there something set up in the universe that makes things happen if we will them? there's that saying, 'putting it out to the universe', where if you want to change or you want something to happen, just saying it aloud puts the attraction there.
it has worked for me at some very critical points in my life. i can't explain it. it wasn't prayer, but it was something....this was specific stuff that would be handed on my lap...then i'd say, 'woe' like keannu reaves in the matrix.
re: prayer, there have been times when i've prayed for an answer, when i felt really down, when i doubted myself for leaving the jws and asked god for a sign, anything, if the answer was they had the truth and i need to ignore what i don't agree with i'd go back. i was sincere and praying from my guts.
the few times i did that my prayer was always answered. once it was answered by finding the raymond franz book. once it was answered when i picked my wife up from the kh and hadn't been inside for a while, and a sister got vocal and hostile with me for no reason. these things happened within a day of my prayers.
it could be explained as coincidence, but i don't feel it is.
it could be something in the universe that's interpreted as prayer. i don't have an answer, i just have what has worked for me.
and i don't judge anyone when prayer doesn't work for them or if it works for them everyday....if i pray once a month, that probably means i'm suicidal, so i don't pray very much at all and praying even kind of pisses me off b/c of growing up a jw.
so, i don't think it's a waste of time b/c what else are we doing with our time as humans that is really all that important. watching game shows, football, going through a drive-thru @ mcdonald's, masturbating (ok, that's not a waste of time)....