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Reading the prayer feeds on Facebook that I am inevitably tagged is very interesting to me as a non-believer.  I mean I'd be lying if I said I never prayed; I'd also be lying if I said it ever worked for me.

I like to be grateful.  I am grateful for my wonderful and healthy kids.  For a great life, you know the usual stuff that I attained through hard work, community and mixed decision making abilities. I am, in fact, very likely to say how grateful I am out loud; I like to express my gratitude.  But boy wouldn't it be incredibly selfish of me to thank a god for all that stuff while such bad shit is still happening in the world?  Like god clearly is ignoring Syria, Darfur and the AIDS babies in Africa so I can pray for a new car...?

That makes shit like this seem very, very selfish, "Thanks God for getting my bills paid this month" or "Please God, let the Steelers win this week!" while statistically thousands of babies died of AIDS or were kidnapped and raped.  This seems a bit weird, don't you think?  Like a totally wasted, selfish prayer?

Some of my believer friends would tell me that it's all part of a divine plan that I am not meant to understand.

Bullshit.

If the divine plan is that I can scrape by and make a decent living at the expense of needless random sufferings, then you can have it.  Don't tell me children are kidnapped, tortured and raped, while I get to live a happy life, is some part of a divine plan that has yet to be revealed to me.

The more reasonable explanation is the universe is random and chaotic and things that don't make sense just happen.  For no particular reason.  There is no explanation.

If you do believe I challenge you to say this prayer: "Dear God, please don't worry about me, I am a capable adult in the country with the most abundance.  Instead, please start working on taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves and protect them from the predators (which presumably you created), the diseases (again that you presumably created) and the wars that ravage them (that presumably you could stop at anytime).  And I'll take care of mine until then."

...and let the Steelers take care of themselves.

Gyanez 6 June 18
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5 comments

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0

Well stated! I was with you all the way until you told god that the Steelers could take care of themselves!" HA. I am from south western PA and I choked on that!

0

Stop being so logical and thoughtful and just have a little faith.

Seriously though, God's kind of an asshole.

1

This is one of my things, or pet peeves around religion.

A long long time ago religion annexed a lot of humanity itself and branded it "of God", when it really is simply a part of the human experience.

Feeling "grateful" you got the rent paid and don't have Cancer and have enough to eat is not really Gratitude.
Gratitude breaks down to grateful or thankful, both of which require someone to be grateful or thankful in response to.
What we are actually experiencing is relief from the stress of need or fear. "Whew! Wow what a great feeling to have all that done, Glad I am all set and good to go." You are grateful to you own efforts in this sense or thankful you don't have Cancer.
There is no one you are thankful to, your just glad you don't have it.

That very human experience has been hijacked by religion, and placed instead upon a being they can show me no evidence of, the feeling of gratitude I feel is re-directed to that being and the sense of pride in a task well done is then asserted to be sinful in and of itself.

Prayer never made sense to me even when I was a believer, to me that meant you lacked faith. If you really had faith then you believed God knew all and already knew what you wanted and needed better than you did. You did not trust your own faith.

0

To my mind, if anyone wants to pray you only need one ' I wish the best of things for all things'.
That takes care of everything, ever. And I'm sure Mr Jones' headaches and sister Mary's lost pencil case will all be covered!

1

Since praying is talking to yourself praying for personal qualities might just help. I quite like the serenity prayer:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

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