Brian63
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2001
- Messages
- 1,639
- Location
- Michigan
- Gender
- Male
- Basic Beliefs
- Freethinker/atheist/humanist
Recently I posted this on my Facebook page:
There are a few elements of the idea of prayer that have long befuddled me.
1. Why would someone make very selective prayers for certain creatures at certain times for certain circumstances, instead of all creatures at all times for all circumstances? People will commonly say “I will pray for you” as a response if you describe your health or financial or social troubles. Those gestures are made in goodwill and mean well, but just thinking of the logistics of it---If you have the incredible ability to influence what the almighty overseeing entity of the entire multiverse does, why would you limit prayers to such extraordinarily tiny favors instead of going all-out with them? Instead, pray for God to maximize the welfare of all entities throughout the entire realm of existence for all time. Not just here and there, pick and choose. Do it for everything, everywhere, all the time.
2. It amounts to requesting God change His mind, or do something different from what he would have done prior to you making that prayer. Does God look at John Smith in Phoenix, Arizona and say “Oh hey, now that he has made this prayer for me to do [X] then I will do it. Prior to John’s prayer, I was going to do [Y] instead.” Or is there some threshold that must be met, so that if a certain minimum number of prayers are made, like 30,000, then God will do whatever those prayers are for, otherwise---oh well.
3. Prayers and relationships with God are formatted so that God will always come out favorably, no matter what God does. If God inflicts a person with sarcoidosis, people will say that God has some other grander purpose in mind and that we should just believe that giving us sarcoidosis was (somehow) necessary for this omnipotent being to obtain a grander goal. Giving us sarcoidosis is then actually proof that God is good. On the other hand, if a person becomes cured of their sarcoidosis, that also gets pointed to as proof of how good God is. It is a win-win scenario for God. Regardless of how horrific a deed God commits, his followers will say it is proof of how good he is.
When you consider all these elements and many more, it does not seem at all out of bounds to think that this Christian religion may not be real after all. So much of it does not make sense, so little of it does make sense. As a kid trying to figure out whether or not it was true, and heavily leaning towards that it was not, I was still open to the possibility of being wrong. Still, even if I was wrong, at least I was “reasonably wrong.” That was a phrase I remember repeating to myself often. It is not outrageous for a person to think that the Christian religion does not add up, when you start examining it more closely. What is the harm of being “reasonably wrong” on this issue, and why should someone be eternally punished for being so?
There are a few elements of the idea of prayer that have long befuddled me.
1. Why would someone make very selective prayers for certain creatures at certain times for certain circumstances, instead of all creatures at all times for all circumstances? People will commonly say “I will pray for you” as a response if you describe your health or financial or social troubles. Those gestures are made in goodwill and mean well, but just thinking of the logistics of it---If you have the incredible ability to influence what the almighty overseeing entity of the entire multiverse does, why would you limit prayers to such extraordinarily tiny favors instead of going all-out with them? Instead, pray for God to maximize the welfare of all entities throughout the entire realm of existence for all time. Not just here and there, pick and choose. Do it for everything, everywhere, all the time.
2. It amounts to requesting God change His mind, or do something different from what he would have done prior to you making that prayer. Does God look at John Smith in Phoenix, Arizona and say “Oh hey, now that he has made this prayer for me to do [X] then I will do it. Prior to John’s prayer, I was going to do [Y] instead.” Or is there some threshold that must be met, so that if a certain minimum number of prayers are made, like 30,000, then God will do whatever those prayers are for, otherwise---oh well.
3. Prayers and relationships with God are formatted so that God will always come out favorably, no matter what God does. If God inflicts a person with sarcoidosis, people will say that God has some other grander purpose in mind and that we should just believe that giving us sarcoidosis was (somehow) necessary for this omnipotent being to obtain a grander goal. Giving us sarcoidosis is then actually proof that God is good. On the other hand, if a person becomes cured of their sarcoidosis, that also gets pointed to as proof of how good God is. It is a win-win scenario for God. Regardless of how horrific a deed God commits, his followers will say it is proof of how good he is.
When you consider all these elements and many more, it does not seem at all out of bounds to think that this Christian religion may not be real after all. So much of it does not make sense, so little of it does make sense. As a kid trying to figure out whether or not it was true, and heavily leaning towards that it was not, I was still open to the possibility of being wrong. Still, even if I was wrong, at least I was “reasonably wrong.” That was a phrase I remember repeating to myself often. It is not outrageous for a person to think that the Christian religion does not add up, when you start examining it more closely. What is the harm of being “reasonably wrong” on this issue, and why should someone be eternally punished for being so?