Welcome doubtful, hopefully you won't be doubtful for much longer, instead you will be convinced! Convinced that it's all a load of crap ;)
How many pit props need to give way before you get the hell out of the mineshaft...
Praying for the brothers.... god, nothing would get my goat more when I was a JW than prayers for our brothers in war-torn or disaster-stricken lands. 'What about the other thousands of people affected?' I would think. Such sectarian judgemental attitudes prevail within the brotherhood. Save us and screw the rest please Father. Of course the real point of prayer is self-reinforcement of your beliefs. If you constantly read about something, pray about it, talk to fellow believers about it, try to convince other people of it, give talks and comments about it, you will have no time at all left to think about whether you actually believe it deep down. In fact you will end up convincing yourself of it.
Prayers, in essence, are a way of getting you to relinquish control over your own life and hand it over to a deity, and therein possibly to the person or people who claim to represent that deity. You put all your burdens upon that deity, you hand everything over to them, and give up your own volition. You become a far more accessible tool for your religion to use.
When I ceased believing JW doctrine, it took me a good year or so to stop that feeling of wanting to pray every time I came up against some obstacle or challenging circumstance in life. Eventually though you realise that noone is going to get you through this but you yourself, prayer is like a security blanket or a dummy, it makes you feel better even though it has zero practical function.
Something from an employment training course I attended:
No-one is coming to do it for you.
- There is no knight in shining armour.
- There are no fairy godmothers.
- There is no genie of the lamp.
- There was no Wizard of Oz.
BUT there are lots of people who will help you, as long as you help yourself.
