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ZZTrujillo — Prayer
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Published: 2012-03-29 09:17:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 2399; Favourites: 51; Downloads: 23
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The Only Thing That Prayer Does...Related content
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If that were the case, why are you so upset that people are feeling BETTER? I think that is a valid question.
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nationalpost.com/news/world/ne…
Here's just one case of prayer causing indirect harm.
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That’s like saying dreams are a waste of time, and that we should spend our sleep planning for the next day.
Speaking of dreams and prayers, here is an interesting study (and this should be plenty of information to look it up yourself, if you want to; don’t rely on everyone else to take notes for you): Brain scans of monks who have professionally sung chants for years, show that they are LITERALLY dreaming while awake, in a similar manner to dolphins, while in deep chant meditation. This is an insanely, potentially useful skill. They can keep working on other things while chanting, and can handle 20 hour work days with no trouble. The Four hours of normal sleep is more for resting their muscles then getting REM. It takes years of practice to master this, but imagine if it was taught to all children as a practical skill booster, working on it every day? Work 7 hours regular, at whatever, then another 7 while chanting. 30 hour crab fishing shift? Chant away the hours and stay alert and mentally rested. Truckers don’t have to ruin their health on countless energy drinks.
Fewer drowsy related accidents Or work deficits all around.
How, exactly, is prayer useless? Perhaps the mediocre, simplistic Protestant kind, but It’s practical applications are clearly untapped and grossly underestimated. We evolved a tendency to religious instinct for a reason, and it is a lot deeper then the usual cynical dismissals. Don’t let your personal bias get in the way of truly figuring it out, or if you can’t help it, then at least admit your bias prevents you from having an objective, anthropological perspective on it.
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Really, look at the starving kids in Africa
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So we are just wasting time here suffering and dying.
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Which is still bullcrap as people still pray and can still suffer
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Because Christianity is another word for "persecution complex"
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Point is, if the ass is going to let people suffer, he shouldn't get the time of day
Secular humanism for the win
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Can you prove "it's very beneficial to the soul"? And he didn't suffer, and even then he is guaranteed not to suffer again!
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That is called "shifting the burden of proof". You made a claim, you have to back it up
Do you think I care, and that is where you miss the point. He can stop all suffering and does nothing.
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Yes. You made a claim, I asked how you proved something, then you asked the opposite. That is shifting the burden of proof. If you said if something is possible, then you claim to know how.
And your other paragraph makes it sound like neither of us actually won something, when it makes you look like an idiot. Because I'm not the one making a claim. Stop trying to act smart, you clearly don't know what the hel you are talking about
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You are an asshole. Fine. You wanna avoid answering WHAT YOU STATED FIRST, then here it is; Christianity makes people think tht the more they suffer for their cause, the better they are seen as the good guys. Hel, you kinda proved it with the "it's very beneficial to the soul" crap.
Now, if you are done with the dishonest tactics, explain hoe "it's very beneficial to the soul", that a soul exist or buzz off! You clearly can't if you are just focusing on unimportant details
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I will be praying for you. Prayer has made a world of difference in my life.
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People will still die, get sick and inflict pain on others regardless
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Because thinking that praying for something will cause that something to happen is dangerous. There are children who have died from perfectly treatable illnesses because their religious parents would rather pray over them instead of taking them to an actual medical professional. It's completely disrespectful because you're completely disregarding the REAL PEOPLE who get things done to provide people with what they have; food, a roof over their head, curing sickness, a loving family, all these are the products of REAL PEOPLE, and if you still think otherwise then take a good look at the homeless, orphans, and everyone else whom your "loving and just" god has so obviously neglected to provide these things. Above all, it's contradictory to the notion of "God's will" and "the divine plan", thinking that he'll change his mind just for you just because you prayed, persisting in this delusion even when it so obviously DOES NOT WORK.
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Simple logic; you go around thanking whatever god you were raised to think is real when you were a naïve, impressionable, trusting child without a sufficiently working bullshit detector for everything, you are effectively giving all the credit to this figment, which is blatantly disrespectful to the real people who actually did the work. If someone you didn't even know or ever see was getting all the credit for all the hard work you put in, you'd be pissed and rightly so.
A) You have no evidence there even is a "next life". Even IF there was, a perfect, eternal life in "paradise" would get incredibly boring fast. And B) The old pathetic "He's God, don't question him" argument. You know who else tells you to not question them? People who seek to scam and/or control you. Quit making up excuses.
I'll let George Carlin answer this one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2N…
6:23-7:09 "Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan, gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice, and for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now you come along and pray for something. Well, suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want him to do, change his plan, just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan. What's the use of being God if every rundown shmuck with a $2 prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?...Suppose your prayers aren't answered, what do you say? 'Well it's God's will, thy will be done.' Fine, but if it's God's will, and he's gonna do what he wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place?"
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I understand that prayer isn't just asking for things (I was raised Christian btw) but it is still no different from a child wishing on a star or talking to their imaginary friend or magically enchanting something.
And yet you haven't explained what that plan actually is, considering you make it seem like you know what it and his will are and how many ways there are of achieving it.
"Infinite intelligence" he is obviously not. Just look at all his failures in the bible. The first and biggest one; puts Adam and Eve (who only have the understanding and reasoning of toddlers), the serpent, and the forbidden fruit in the same place. And assuming that he had foreknowledge of what would happen, that means he damned humanity on purpose. He creates Lucifer, again knowing what would happen. His creations start acting up so he drowns them. Apparently still having not fixed the problem, he can think of no other solution than to send down his son/himself incarnate to ultimately be tortured and murdered in one of the most gruesome ways possible, which apparently still didn't fix the problem since we are all still 'born sinful and must repent'. That is not "infinite intelligence", that is incompetence.
You obviously don't understand how belief works. Belief is the state of being convinced. You can't just change what you believe any time you want, it's not a club membership you can just unsubscribe to on a whim.
You're the one claiming that there is an afterlife, the burden's on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it, and I know I'm not the only one here who's exposed your "shifting the burden of proof" fallacy. You don't believe in Allah or Vishnu or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, why don't you go and try to disprove them?
"God accomplishes his will THROUGH people who work...You can give thanks to God for the good work people do," that is still disrespecting people, because under that notion, you think people can't do any good on their own merit, that they need a divine agency pulling the strings. Get this straight, religion DOES NOT OWN good deeds nor morality, people don't need a god to do good.
You asked why and I gave my answer: because it is just wishful thinking with no more efficacy than chance, deluding yourself with a fairytale to try and avoid how harsh reality is, diminishing the good work of real people by claiming a divine other's behind it all, and at times is used as an alternative to providing actual help (and that there are some who've died or almost died because of it). Why does it upset me so much? What more evidence must I give? Religion is strategic lying on a massive scale, retarding progress, retarding people, giving them a slave/battered spouse mentality or at the very least turning them dishonest, performing "apologist-acrobatics" excuses trying to justify what is obviously unjustifiable.
If you consider demonstrable facts about reality, ex. "People will still die, get sick and inflict pain on others regardless" or a Wikipedia article on placebos, an attack on your faith, what reason do I have to think that you care about what's actually true? If something were actually true, it would not wall off any relevant question or challenge. If that means you can no longer cling to your religious belief, so be it.
(And btw, outside the Carlin quote, I only swore once to emphasize the point, I'm not a swear-whore like some other people.)
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1. I know I wasn't involved in the initial thread. However, looking at the time stamps, there hadn't been any response on that for months, so I took it upon myself to answer your unanswered question.
2. Yes, I left on my own volition, because I took off the filter, took off the happy-go-lucky façade, took off the "God glasses", and saw it for the immoral bullshit that it is, which you keep dodging when I point them out. I'll even throw in a few more for good measure:
-Psalm 137:9 - Happy the one who takes and dashes Your little ones against the rock!
-Matthew 21:18-22 - Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
-Numbers 31:17-18 - Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.
-1st Corinthians 14:34 - The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak.
-Matthew 5:29 - So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.
-Luke 14:26 - If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters… he cannot be My disciple.
-Matthew 5:17 - Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
-Matthew 10:34 - Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
3. Again, dodging. You realize there are MANY denominations of Christianity alone, with just as many if not more individual interpretations. And don't give me that "one true Christianity" crap, every one of them claims that. (I already know that the basic premise is nothing short of expanding his empire, btw)
4. Dodging, but then again, I wasn't expecting you to disprove other gods, I never did and wouldn't, because it's not up to the people who aren't convinced by a claim to disprove it, which was the point I was making.
5. Your just making assertions with no proof, AGAIN. Oh, of course, "you'll find out when your dead, and subsequently can't prove me wrong," and the "merciful" god who "never turns his back on anyone" is going to allow, if not send, people to be tortured forever in a fiery pit of eternal suffering simply for not being gullible enough to believe he exists. Can't convince me any other way, so you resort to threatening damnation, you immoral piece of shit.
6. www.alternet.org/belief/shocki… You wanna dare try that ignorance again?
7. Again, you're doing nothing but berating and not explaining or providing any proof, which you would have little trouble doing if you actually had the "knowledge" you say I lack. You ARE required to prove what you claim is "Truth", otherwise you have no business spreading a lie around like a cancer.
Good day.
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There have been studies that show that prayer is no more effective than flipping a coin, rolling dice, or any other matter of probability, with no difference to who or what is being prayed to or for. It's true that it calms some people down (i.e. people who're already convinced of it), but it still hasn't proven to have any more effect than that of a sugar pill. But the biggest examples of its failures are in cases of the seriously disabled (ex. legal blindness, paraplegics, chronic illness, etc.), people who're commonly prayed over to be healed AND AREN'T. And of course you have the link I provided about the children who died because of it. All these examples of when prayer doesn't work, it is obviously lying to claim that it does.
As for religion in general, just look at the previous examples I gave above. It's lying to claim it is moral, loving, just, merciful, peaceful, etc., when its own doctrines and the actions of the people who've followed it over the ages have clearly demonstrated the contrary. It's lying to claim it is "Truth" when you don't have a shred of demonstrable, testable, verifiable evidence to support your claims (personal conviction is not evidence).
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Since it says you're from the U.S., and because I went to Christian school, I'll just use Christianity as the example religion here.
I'm not a Christian at all, but seeing this makes me wonder what kinds of Christians YOU were exposed to, so I mean it literally when I say I'd like to know.
Because when I was a kid I went to Christian schools and went to church, and based on my experience, this is totally wrong. It sounds as if you've never actually heard the content of a real life prayer before, in context 
Safety
Strength/Courage
Victory
Forgiveness
Healing of someone.
Now, aside from that last entry, (and perhaps the first one, depending on how you look at it) does that sound like prayer going hand in hand with doing nothing?
When a Christian prays for strength, they're not asking God to solve their problem. They're asking Him to give them the strength or courage or whatever they need to solve it themselves, and if they pray for success USUALLY they already have their actions planned out and just hope they work out.
Let's say a person is truly faithful and a strong believer, and they try to do something, but find they can't because they're petrified with fear, so they run away and pray for the strength and courage to do it. If they truly believe, then they could get a shot in the arm from their prayer because they believe the being they prayed to granted them courage. Then they go on to do the thing they were too scared to do before. If that happens, can't you argue that, even if the being they prayed to was imaginary, the prayer did, in fact work? They may not get the competence they needed to do the deed, but they got the courage.
Also, have you heard of the placebo effect? That's actually documented enough by science that medical researchers have to worry about it in the back of their minds when doing clinical trials. With certain things, it is actually proven to be possible to get additional physical healing because of a positive belief that one is going to be healed by the thing one believes in. The trick though is that you must truly believe it for it to work. If there's doubt in your mind, the placebo effect fails. I think prayer can be the ultimate placebo, because no matter how much you try to tell a believer that their beliefs are either imaginary or just plain wrong, they'll still believe, and thus get the placebo effect bonus every time it is applicable and they have the faith.
So my questions in the end are, do you view religious people as people who do nothing but pray a large percentage of the time? Did you ever really listen to the content of everyday prayers? Also, did you ever research the placebo effect? If you've ever read studies about that, and a connection between that and religion, I'd love to know what you found and where. I'm wondering if a large-scale study into the healing rates of religious VS non-religious has been done, and I'd prefer to get a recommendation from a human rather than only jumping on the Google.
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What I, in general, am referring to here is the use of prayer when something occurs, like a natural disaster or a terror attack. Many people I know who are Christian find prayer to help the situation. They find that praying for people to get better or for less people to die will actually solve the problem. Though the situation is not actually resolved, they feel better that they at least prayed for those who are injured and dying. Now I think it would be rather arrogant for me to view ALL religious people like this, as I am sure many do help out when the time comes, but this was mostly in reference to people I know personally who do this kind of thing. Who would rather sit home and pray that things get better rather than physically doing something about it. Also, I am sure real prayer, honest prayer, is so private and personal that asking if I listen to the content of people's actual prayers is ridiculous. I am speaking about prayers people post on Facebook or Twitter. The shitty prayers which, as I state above, are there simply to make someone feel good for doing nothing.
Most of what you have listed above is missing the point I am making. Your 'question' asking if the list you gave "sound like prayer going hand in hand with doing nothing?" is missing the point of what I was saying. The actual act of prayer is nothing. By this I mean it is not an action; it is wishing on a star. What becomes of that nothing, however, is someone feeling better. Safety, Strength, Courage, Victory etc.
Your suggestion of the placebo effect is quite an interesting one. I am well aware of the placebo effect. And though it has been shown to work sometimes, I think it would be quite irresponsible to use this in lieu of actual medical help, much like how it would be silly to opt for prayer in lieu of actual physical action. Praying for all the cancer to go away or starving children to be fed isn't going to actually lead to these outcomes, but it will make one feel like they did something to help someone else. It gave the person praying strength, but that doesn't mean much to those still starving or dying.
TL;DR
Do you view religious people as people who do nothing but pray a large percentage of the time?
Not all of them, no.
Did you ever really listen to the content of everyday prayers?
Only ones which are made public.
Did you ever research the placebo effect?
Yes.
If you've ever read studies about that, and a connection between that and religion, I'd love to know what you found and where.
I haven't read any studies which specifically made connections between this and religion, but found a few opinion pieces which either connected them, implied them, or spoke about the danger of placebos.
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Thanks for your reply. Sorry I spent so much my time missing the point and wasting yours 
Also, I totally would not have been offended if you'd explicitly said way too many people just pray and do nothing... the picture kind of implies that, so... yeah...
And yeah, placebos totally should not be used in place of actual treatment. If simply changing one's mind, while doing absolutely nothing else actually increases the body's potency against deadly bacteria by 4%, well, that's actually an amazing thing that that's possible, and if the battle is close enough, that could save your life, but... if medicine improves that by 80% I think I'd rather have the medicine, side effects or no. And of course if the 4% stacks with the 80% I'd want that 4% too!
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Thank you for staying civil as well! I agree that far too many internet interactions turn to name calling and random insults. That never gets one anywhere! I'm glad this was not one of those interactions haha
And yeah. I wanted to make it clear what I meant to say. I felt the typography spoke for itself, but if you had a problem understanding it, I wanted to make sure you understood where I was coming from in detail.
Exactly right. I find people put far too much faith in faith.
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You and that Todd fellow just restored some of my hope in people.
It is always good to see other people who can have a mature and civil conversation, and I do not mean just on the internet.
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Thank you very much for the nice comment and the fave!
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"Good things come to those who wait" reminds me of this.
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The "request form" prayers are the worst. "Pray that I'll get this job," or "Pray that my teacher will change his mind about my final grade." At least prayers for abstract things like strength or wisdom are at least somewhat of a placebo, because they make the person feel empowered. But to ask for specific things is to say that if there is a god up there who created the whole vast limitless universe, I've basically reduced that god to my own personal vending machine.
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The whole idea of prayer is flawed anyway. If god already has a plan, praying suggests that you are asking god to deviate from his perfect plan. You are, therefore, bringing into question the validity and omnipotence of god and his perfect plan. And to suggest that you have been given these things because god heard you, deviated from his plan, and granted it to you is borderline blasphemy! This is because it suggests god's plan wasn't planned out in the first place after all, which makes god not perfect and, therefore, not god.
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Duuude, seriously!! The "Pray For Japan" trend is bullshit. They're a Buddhist country for one thing, and for another, praying for Japan isn't gonna do shit...And that goes for everything else in life too. Fucking prayers....
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Buddhist, shinto, and mostly secular. 65% non-religious population, I think.
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That's true. And that percentage is rising in Asia as of now since I last checked. Smart people, Asians. XD
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