Prayers

Rattigan350

When I read online forums about when someone dies or something bad happens, people comment saying "sending prayers".

I wonder, why, what for? Prayers have not brought anyone back from the dead. Have they healed anyone? Hard to say

whether it is the body or help beyond that.

I just feel so uncomfortable with prayer because it does not make sense.

Like when people pray before a meal. The concept is that Jesus prayed before giving out the fish to feed the multitude. That was a miracle. Miracles like that don't happen. Today it is like what Bart Simpson said "Why give thanks, I bought the food with my money".

MadGiant

Believers want to believe, maybe it help them organize their ideas.

I already posted this on another thread, I am not the author.

Prepare thyself, he who reads this, to tremble and quake before the Incredible Word of God, as written by THE LORD HIMSELF! I hate hopes and I hate dreams! They violate My Divine Plan! How dare you humans lounge around and dream of ways to thwart My Divine Plan? If I made you a gravedigger, then stay a gravedigger and be glad I don’t have you arrested. Don’t spend your days praying of becoming a porno star.*

Many people start bugging Me with this shit from a very young age. For example, I recently had a young boy who wanted to become a pilot when he grew up. But I’d already decided to give him awful 20/60 vision. But did that stop him? No. That dumbass spent his whole life bugging Me with his prayers to become a pilot. And yet he ended up becoming a pizza delivery boy with a acute addiction to Robitussin and Jack Daniels anyway, just as I’d always intended. All these little hopes and dreams and all the wishing and the begging is just pathetic! I don’t much appreciate that which is pathetic.

Life is not fair, ok? It’s not fair, and I never said it would be fair. Was life ever fair in The Bible? NO! Some men are born to be slaves of other men, some women are born to be raped by their fathers, and that’s just the way it is! Some things will never change. I am what I am and it is what it is!

Ismael

krejames

As I always said to those brothers who insisted on giving long boring public talks (I mean prayers) before meals, the bible simply says Jesus "gave thanks" or "blessed" the food before eating. That's different to the sanctimonious display given by many JW males at dinner parties and other social gatherings. I rarely pray these days but I don't rule it out. Some scientists believe people who pray have better health (most likely because it's a good stress reliever).

cofty

What does it even mean to "bless" food?

Prayer is no different from any other superstition.

Bruja-del-Sol

The effect of prayer has been scientifically proved: http://blogs.christianpost.com/biblical-spirituality/scientific-studies-on-prayer-does-prayer-really-work-13400/ (just searched in Google for 'scientific proof on prayer')

And yes, you might have bought the things you eat, but 'someone' or 'something' has provided the source for anything and everything you own: I call it the Universe and Mother Earth, others call it God or Jehovah, or Nature. Everything we have comes from a natural source, wether it's herbs, food, plastic, you name it...

Gratitude and Love have been proved to be the most powerful energies on earth. So why not say 'thank you' to Nature (or whatever you want to name the source), won't do you any harm. I say 'thanks' a lot, whenever I see or experience something that makes me feel happy or grateful, when I feel love for people or animals etc. It has made me feel a lot happier than the 'prayers' in the cult, which felt more like an obligation than something heartfelt.

Rip

Cofty, Prayer is not superstitution if you know the Grandeur of God and that you are insignificant among elements of the universe though he raised you above all.

If one thinks God isn't real then your statement is correct, and that may be the real question in case.

suavojr

Prayer to me is like meditating. In what way is it similar? We all know that prayer is when you think a God can hear you, but just like meditation can help you evaluate the situation and know yourself better. Prayer can help you focus your thoughts and concentrate on how to get out of a difficult situation. But when people start to think that you have super natural powers when praying, and that all the small things in life are controlled through prayer, that's when it turns into superstition.

cofty

The effect of prayer has been scientifically proved: - Bruja-del-Sol

No it hasn't. The link you provided did not lead to a single scientific study. Instead it was full of anecdotes from Readers Digest and the Woman's Home Journal.

There was a controlled scientific experiment on healing prayer a few years ago. It was sponsored by the Templeton Foundation. It showed prayer had a statistically significant negative effect on people who were prayed for.

There is absolutely no evidence for the efficacy of prayer. If god ever does heal an amputee please do get back to me.

I too feel enormous positive emotions about life the universe and everything but "nature" is not personal. Talking to it makes no sense.

Prayer is not superstitution if you know the Grandeur of God and that you are insignificant among elements of the universe though he raised you above all - Rip

How is it different from superstition? Some people wear lucky pants because they think in some way that can't quite be explained, it might increase the chance of a good outcome. Other people mutter reverent words to an unseen deity. There is no difference.

There is also a bigger issue here. If you thank god for your steak pie and peas then you believe he provided your meal. He is therefore responsible for the famines that leave millions of children hungry and thirsty. So god does have favourites.

slimboyfat

Prayer is no different from any other superstition.

Well that's certainly one way of looking at it.

WTWizard

Those prayers have zero use for us. It doesn't replace someone who died. It doesn't make going to Nigeria any less stressful or pointless. It doesn't repay anything, get you a new job (it can, however, stop you from finding one if you find the new job "unscriptural"), make you more money, rebuild a house that is damaged with a fire, or heal someone that is sick in the hospital. And there is nothing to be thankful to joke-hova because you worked to earn money and paid for your food with that money after some Rothschild (joke-hova's "chosen" one?) took a hefty portion of that money away for nothing.

What prayers do is feed joke-hova with psychic energy. Every time we pray to that thing or Jesus (a thoughtform invented by joke-hova to enslave us), we are feeding joke-hova energy with which to bring its messiah to enslave us all. Pray to joke-hova for work, healing, security--you are actually putting energy in toward your own damnation and that of the whole human race. Thank that scumbag, you are putting energy in toward your own damnation plus giving joke-hova a green light to pull out any blessings. Besides that, you are wasting your time letting your food get cold and letting the flies get access to it.

Prayers

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