Why we cannot pray
Prayers are said to be offered as if it's an act of giving but the fact of the matter is it's a taking - we ask for something in return for our supplications whatever form it may take.
That's all right, after all who in this world doesn't have a fervent desire that seeks fulfillment.
Yet, being rational we must at least some kind of a background check on who it is we're praying to. There is no harm in understanding the nature of the object of our prayers and it may lead to an answer to the profound doubt we have regarding the efficacy of prayer.
God, is all good, all knowing AND all powerful. Surely such a being can do something as simple as answer a prayer for a job. Yes, for God, if he is what we think he is, we're like tiny toddlers in a toy shop asking, begging for a toy that could give us immeasurable joy.
Let's stay with the child analogy for a little more. Jesus Christ was none other than the son of God himself. Jesu supposedly sacrificed himself for our sins. It's as if God gave his only son for humanity's sins. I said "as if" because the whole story can be spun around and reinterpreted as god taking Jesus away from us. Wouldn't it have been better for Jesus to have lived and taught us everything we need to know? In that sense then he didn't value us above his son and then we may ask, "If a father (god) can torture his own son (Jesus) to deprive us from a better understanding of god then what of us?" The answer is that we, humanity, are/is nothing to god. We're so despicable or so it seems that Jesus, his only son, was horribly and quickly put to death before we could learn anything that wasn't ambiguous or nebulous or confusing.
Ergo, it must be that our prayers to god will not only fall on deaf ears but may actually invite god's spite, a fact that's written all over the pages of the holy books of the world.
We can't pray. We shouldn't pray.
That's all right, after all who in this world doesn't have a fervent desire that seeks fulfillment.
Yet, being rational we must at least some kind of a background check on who it is we're praying to. There is no harm in understanding the nature of the object of our prayers and it may lead to an answer to the profound doubt we have regarding the efficacy of prayer.
God, is all good, all knowing AND all powerful. Surely such a being can do something as simple as answer a prayer for a job. Yes, for God, if he is what we think he is, we're like tiny toddlers in a toy shop asking, begging for a toy that could give us immeasurable joy.
Let's stay with the child analogy for a little more. Jesus Christ was none other than the son of God himself. Jesu supposedly sacrificed himself for our sins. It's as if God gave his only son for humanity's sins. I said "as if" because the whole story can be spun around and reinterpreted as god taking Jesus away from us. Wouldn't it have been better for Jesus to have lived and taught us everything we need to know? In that sense then he didn't value us above his son and then we may ask, "If a father (god) can torture his own son (Jesus) to deprive us from a better understanding of god then what of us?" The answer is that we, humanity, are/is nothing to god. We're so despicable or so it seems that Jesus, his only son, was horribly and quickly put to death before we could learn anything that wasn't ambiguous or nebulous or confusing.
Ergo, it must be that our prayers to god will not only fall on deaf ears but may actually invite god's spite, a fact that's written all over the pages of the holy books of the world.
We can't pray. We shouldn't pray.
Comments (59)
1. God is not your bitch to be bent over to do your will.
2. I don't know of any works that God wrote.
1. This reply is not founded on empirical evidence, and no a priori knowledge exists. So it could be true or false, nobody knows.
2. Rather allegedly, God wrote the ten commandments, but at a time when writing had not been invented by humans yet. How Moses made any sense of it is beyond me. Maybe there was a sort of Rosetta stone included in the package, with Egyptian hierogliphs and Mesopotamian clay writings to explain the jist of it.
"When I was back there in seminary school, there was a person there, who put forth the proposition that you can petition the Lord with Prayer. Petition the Lord... with Prayer? YOU CAN NOT PETITION THE LORD... WITH PRAYER!" (Audience goes wild.) -- Jim Morrison, on the "Live in Concert" double album by The Doors.
Last Thursday I saw a squirrel outside. There is no empirical evidence that there this squirrel that I saw Thursday. By your argument I cannot say that I know there was a squirrel that I saw last Thursday. That is obviously absurd.
Quoting god must be atheist
It was 15 commandments until he dropped one of the tablets..-Mel Brooks
We have all kinds of writings that are said to be from God. And though you chose a "literaly" written by God example. We do not have it.
God comes down to Earth and meets a Roman. "Roman," God says, "I have a commandment for you." "Oh? What is it?" Asks the Roman. "Thou shalt not kill." Roman retorts: "I can't use that commandment. Our entire empire has been based on blood and sword. Totally counter-productive," and turns and walks away. God walks down the road, and meets a Pharasee. "Pharasee, I have a commandment for you." "Oh? What is it?" "Thou shalt not steal." "WHAT? I can't use that commandment. Our entire economy is based on stealing and lying and misrepresenting products. Sorry." And the Pharasee walks away. Finally God meets Moses. "Moses, I have a commandment for you." "Oh?" Says Moses, "How much does it cost?" God is a bit taken back, "Cost? It costs nothing." "In that case, I'll take ten," says Moses quickly.
The empirical evidence was that you saw it. If you did not see it but insisted that there was a squirrel there last Thursday, but you never heard anyone attest to it, or have some sort of trace of it to report, then there is no empirical evidence.
Because the empirical evidence of god is missing, and only exists in legends, one has to use his own powers of judgment whether to believe the report or not. Some believe that the legends are reports of facts of empirical evidence -- some don't.
Seeing a squirrel is your empirical evidence of which I have to make a judgment as to believe your report or not. If I believe it, it is because I have seen squirrels and I know they exist on Thursdays in all kinds of seemingly random places. So it is not inconceivable to me that you are reporting the truth. In fact, it is very, very likely that you are. I choose to believe you therefore, and I accept your report as empirical evidence.
You are believing testimony as empirical evidence and accept it as true.
Quoting god must be atheist
You are not believing testimony as empirical evidence and not accepting it as true.
This shows that empirical evidence and it truth claim is simply decided by your personal opinion. This is not rational.
Not at all. That is specifically called ‘petitionary prayer’ and comprises asking for something or seeking a benefit. Human nature being what it is, people will seek advantage in anything, even prayer, but prayer itself might just as easily be supplicatory - seeking to understand the divine will - without asking or seeking gain.
There are many contributors on this forum who write from an assumption of the foolishness of religious faith, and then, from that perspective, imagine what 'God' must be like, and what such terms as 'all good' must mean. But they have no real understanding of what the terms mean for the faithful, for the obvious reason that they themselves lack faith; accordingly they project caricatures of faith, and then scornfully ask why the reality doesn't conform with their projections.
To ask to understand how to do what is right, or to attain inner peace, is not the same as seeking a benefit - rain, crops, children, wealth and so on.
Buddhism, it is said, doesn't believe in or pray to the 'creator God' of the Biblical faiths - which is true. But there are clear parallels. In most Asian cultures, householders will often attend temple services and light incense with a clearly petitionary intent - 'may Buddha grant me a long life/healthy offspring/male sons' and so on. Householders expect to receive a spiritual benefit from supporting the Buddhist sangha and to that end often endow monasteries, where inscriptions attesting to such charitable activities exist from ancient times.
As I said, it is human nature. These kinds of offerings and petitionary prayer acts have existed as long as humankind. But in various places in Buddhist scripture there are admonitions against seeking any kind of gain. For example, in Jodo Shinsu liturgy, there is a specific admonishment against 'seeking gain through petitionary prayer'. In S?t? Zen, one is encouraged to 'practice with no idea of gain'. Indeed in the Diamond Sutra, one of the principle texts of East Asian Buddhism, we read:
There are also parallels in Christian mysticism:
[quote=Meister Eckhardt]The most powerful prayer, one well-nigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own.[/quote]
Translation from A Dazzling Darkness: An Anthology of Western Mysticism (1985) by Patrick Grant
No, he is politely pointing out a Strawman argument.
In today's culture atheism is generally conditioned in response to the kind of religious doctrines and practices that it has rejected, and continue to see the question through that prism.
A case in point - atheists are likely to believe that all Christian sects accept in the 'doctrine of vicarious atonement', i.e. that 'Christ died to take the burden of our sins'. They might be surprised to know that this doctrine has never really been accepted by Eastern Orthodoxy, for example.
It seems to me to have been very easy for "God" to give life to the whole creation, and right after that same committing a mere deviation from its plans, abandoning it. Does this prove that "God" is omnipotent? No, it just proves that one of your biggest weaknesses is resentment.
Although I wouldn't word it that way I think it captures the gist of what I want to say. Would you agree then that we humans are god's, as you so eloquently put it, bitches? We (have to) fawn on him since, by his own proclamation, he is the be all and end all. Also, the posture we assume in prayer leaves nothing to the imagination as to who, god or humans, actually bends over for whom. This bitch-analogy is clearly more than a just a good fit to the God-human relationship.
Quoting Wayfarer
Thanks. I understand that the prayer I'm referring to is more accurately described as petitioners prayer but it's my suspicion that prayer of this type constitutes the majority of all forms of prayer. Cynicism notwithstanding I think the popular view is that a god who cares not for our welfare needn't be prayed to. Thus petitionary prayer is probably the most prevalent type of prayer.
Also, staying cynical, it's quite impossible for prayer to be totally unselfish. There's always some personal benefit in all prayer. I mean what would be a prayer that isn't selfish? You say it could be to understand god's will but doesn't that, if realized, give you a certain amount of satisfaction or contentment?
Quoting Wayfarer
I didn't intend my interpretation of the Jesus story to be a caricature. All it is is a different perspective to a 2000 year old tale of a man, who in the official version, sacrificied himself for the sins of humanity. With absolutely no alterations to the facts written in scripture Jesus can be seen as a light to humanity, snuffed out by god to prevent humans from ever knowing the truth.
:smile: :up:
That there are so many dissatisfied souls points to the failure of god's plan doesn't it? If just one or even a few hundred people were unhappy with their condition in life, then it makes sense to say that god's plan is good. Yet, every single person is unhappy with their lives. Is there something wrong with all of us or is there a problem with god's plan?
What is good for you is not necessarily what you want.
What is God's plan?
It would depend on how you define the term. Do you think you are an example of God in the manner of how people would generally define that term?
Quoting TheMadFool
How does he want you to "fawn" on him?
This statement falls under the category of mental gymnastics akin to how a contortionist must bend and twist into the most unnatural positions to fit inside a box.
Our natural state, ergo what is comfortable for us is to have desires, wish for them to be fulfilled and if that happens jump in joy or if not to suffer for it. What you're saying is like telling a herbivore that plants are not what they want but they "actually" want something else.
Also, one could say the same thing you said without invoking god by resorting to non-religious principles e.g. we can tell person that the kick s/he gets out of drugs may not be what s/he actually needs by way of informing him/her about the harmful effects of drug abuse and the benefits of being drug-free.
Quoting Sherbert you ask!
No idea but presumably parents want the best for their children and that particular detail seems to be contradicted by the facts of the world.
You made the truth claim that God wants us to fawn over him. If you cannot say what that means then you have created a strawman. I don't care, but you may want to actually know that what you are saying is actually true.[
quote="TheMadFool;366757"]No idea but presumably parents want the best for their children and that particular detail seems to be contradicted by the facts of the world.[/quote]
You made the truth claim that Quoting TheMadFool
You made the truth claim that god's plan fails from the fact that there are so many dissatisfied souls. If you do know what god's plan is, then you have created a strawman argument. I think you have better arguments in you. Would love to hear them.
That said, you don't need to be a genius to put the brute facts of the world, the needless suffering, side by side with the omni-attributes of god, and see that something doesn't add up.
Quoting TheMadFool
You are holding on to both sides of a comparison there when they are mutually exclusive.
Praying is not a quid pro quo. You open up what is most important for you and bring it into focus. That it is framed as an appeal to something outside of oneself is not like a letter where a person has to make it out to the proper address for the message to be sent.
I suppose the topic goes toward comparing different ways to express isolation and connection. Maybe it is easier to talk about that than approaching it through an activity that is understood and done in so many different ways.
You remarks are pertinent to the psychology of prayer: the stress on what you pray for instead of who you pray to agrees with the fact that people all over the world pray for the same things - health, wealth, etc - though the gods who they pray to are all different.
That said, even if gods are, as you seem to be implying, just space-fillers, of value only to the extent we have something to pray for, we still need to examine these gods and see whether they're in fact capable of answering our prayers. I think this is common sense; after all everyone expects returns on an investment.
I don't mean to say that the one toward whom prayer is directed is a "space filler."
What I am saying is that faith involves the act of being witnessed, that somehow a prayer is heard. How that is understood varies widely in different expressions of belief. But it makes sense to me to start with the conditions for being heard before talking about how efficacious speaking may be.
The matter of believing one is heard is also a matter of being a good listener to oneself. In the book of Job, for example, many of Job's friends tell him he is doing something wrong and that is why his suffering what is happening. The confidence Job has that they are wrong points to a relationship that is not equivalent to the exchange of goods model you are suggesting.
Quoting Valentinus
I took the above to imply a shift of emphasis from the object of our prayer, god, to the subject of prayer, us, and thereby give us insight into the psychology of prayer; in my view this diminishes the importance of god to a space-filler - there only to make the act of prayer, which is a conversation and requires an interlocutor, rationally acceptable.
The serious attention given to what concerns a person is there or not. As that quality relates to the act of prayer was not suggested as a reduction to something that could be done just as well without the pesky religious stuff.
Consider specific prayers. For example, the "Lord's Prayer" asks for daily bread and to be forgiven for trespasses. You can "prove" the first happened if you ate something but the second?
And the one who prays this is not bargaining like Faustus to get a result but is doing something else.
I guess I am not sure what going to a place far from your concerns to piss on the fire you found there serves a greater rational understanding.
I hedging my bets. That is rational. I use rational methods to arrive at what I believe and what I don't. The outcome may be true or false, but it is approximating the truth as I see it. How else do you think is a better approach?
But if a well-thought-out rational opinion is not rational, then what is? -- Please note: I've been away for some time from this thread, so I must do some re-reading of it.
So just tell god simply that you love him, or something? If you don't ask for anything, it is not a prayer.
"to pray" is to beg, to ask for, to beseech. Examples: "I pray you lay down your weapons before I smite thee." "I pray for no rain today on my wedding day, the seventeenth in numerical sequence."
You seem to be desperately hung up on gods and dictionaries. I'm not. Very few of those who have gone in for prayer have been asking for anything for themselves, surely? Look in your dictionary for thee word 'may': we are all free to use it.
You assume too much, my friend. I did not consult a dictionary; I know the English language.
What you are saying is that you go away from the commonly accepted meaning of the words when you speak or write English. To you "pray" does not mean pray; it means something totally different.
How on Earth do you suppose to communicate with your own species if you decide to use the words outside their meaning?
You've boggled your mind. You think speaking in tongues is the proper way to address issues on a philosophy website. At least that's what you are advocating when you say you go away from the dictionary meanings of words when you use them.
'Pray' means what religious people do. Usually they go in for thanks and perhaps the needs of others. You are trying to impose a meaning that belongs to nursery-school children, surely, listing demands like fat little capitalists? Philosophical discussion seems mainly to be an attempt to write dictionaries, and as an old 'English' lecturer I prefer to use language as it comes naturally out of instructed usage.
When they go into the need of others, they are still begging. Not for themselves (and I never stated that the begging is always and only for the benefit of the person doing the begging; you assumed it along the conversation at one point or another, without indication), but still, they ask god to help their children, parents, community members, the world, in one aspect or another. This is asking, begging, praying, and without it a prayer is not a prayer.
You say a prayer can involve thanks. If it only involves thanks, then that's thanksgiving. And that hardly ever occurs. When we sit down to eat, even then we don't only just thank the lord for the bounty; we ask him to bless it. That's what makes it a prayer.
Not in the tradition I was brought up in, not at all.
Perhaps yes, but your past still does not give you the right to alter the meanings in a way that is not commonly accepted practice or not part of the communal convention of meanings.
What I see here is that you created in your mind an equivalence of communicating with god with the word "prayer". I put to you that "prayer" is a form of communication with god in which the praying person asks god some favour. Forms of communication with god that do not involve requests are not prayers, and I put to you that using that word thus wrongly bastardizes the word, meaning that the word used is used for a meaning it does not have.
Again: for a lecturer of English or in English this very sad. In my opinion a teacher should stand out by using words in their proper meaning. By being PROUD of using a word outside its meaning, is not really what a teacher I want my kids to learn from ought to do. Very sadly, more and more teachers are in the habit of doing precisely that -- teaching wrong things.
Because you called your opponents' arguments "dictionary games" you obviously are trying to downplay the importance of correctness. This is a weakness in two ways; on one hand, you emotionally downplay without using an argument, so it's an ad hominem falacy (appeal to the humanity of the opponent); on the other hand, you reject the validity of your opponent's point without a supporting argument.
Using words outside the meaning of dictionaries is a dangerous precedent. What if I tell you, "The cable car is in good shape, it will never fall down" when you put your children in it, and if it does fall down, PROVIDED WE USE A CONVENTION OF BEING ABLE TO USE WORDS OUTSIDE THEIR DICTIONARY MEANING AND STILL CALL IT PROPER COMMUNICATION (which you, iolo, advocate here), then I can claim that I meant "the cable car is in bad shape, and it will fall down" and you have no discourse, since you entered into a convention that states that the language convention is invalidated.
I just used 'prayer' in the way it is used by people who go in for the activity. I'd though you'd been quoting one of the sillier dictionaries.
I was using the word correctly.
In my limited experience (I get bored easily) a great deal of 'philosophy' seems to be devoted to arguing about the meaning of words. I call these dictionary games.
Agreed - but if people suppose it means asking for goodies from a non-existent sky-daddy, goodies you won't get, I suppose it makes sense not to, since you'd end up feeling worse?
Wish-list prayers aren't the only kind. There's prayers of thanks, praise, apology, confession, etc, and also just soliloquizing: a kind of talk therapy.
The word 'orison' is an interesting variant. Connected to 'oratory,' and older than 'pray.'
Who cares?
A pretty high proportion of people are half-wits, let's face it.
The definition in the OP that prayer consists of ‘asking for something’ from a separate entity..i.e.god. Is a common definition yet i feel deeper probing into many religious texts allude to a more subtle nature and function of prayer. Just like the notion of god, alludes to a more complex ‘being’ than just a separate entity sitting on a throne, blessing some, smiting others.
The statistics for ‘answered prayers’ probably point to it being a gamble and really serves to help a person feel better, than the prayer actually being ‘answered’.
Whereas there are more subtler forms of prayer occurring constantly by us all that are being answered.