The Power of Prayer

Just a quickie:

I just wanted to talk about the power of prayer. I was reminded of this the other day when a co-worker said she'd pray for me. I don't even remember what it was that she wanted to pray for me about, but I remember feeling ambivalent.

On the one hand, I understand that she thought she was being nice by telling me that she was concerned about me enough to ask for divine intervention. But, on the other hand, I was annoyed that she would try to foist her christian mythology on me knowing that it's not really my bag, baby.

This is aside from the fact that I question everyone's motives. I don't believe in the concept of a good deed. I think that everything we do is based on desire. For instance, let's say I love my kids so I want to do something nice for them. Really, at the end of the day, I'm really doing something nice for me. If it cost me more than the joy I would get from performing the deed, I wouldn't do it.

But, that's beside the point. The point is, what did she expect was going to happen? Did she honestly think that she could convince her god to do something different to/for me than he had been planning to do? For instance, let's say that god was going to kill me in a car accident. He was all geared up and had everything ready. Then, just as I was driving down the road to my doom, this gal phones in a quick prayer. Does god say to himself, "Shit - I had this punk in my sites!"

I guess my question is, can you change god's mind? Isn't that the point of prayer? Aren't you really asking god to NOT do what he had been planning to do and instead do what you want him to do?

This reminds me of football. Both teams usually have a little prayer session before the game begging god to let them win. Does god decide for one team over the other based on who prayed harder? Or, is there such a thing as free will and god stays out of it? If that was the case, then it's gotta be annoying for god to listen to all this begging constantly knowing he won't do anything about it.

I think the best explanation I ever heard for prayer was to use the analogy that it was like a child saying "please". But, whenever I hear somebody pray, it sounds a lot more like begging.

BTW, my favorite prayer is the food prayer. It goes something like this: "Dear lord, thanks for the food, blah blah blah... Please allow this food to nourish our bodies." Well, what happens if you DON'T mention that in your prayer? Do you eat a ton of food and nothing happens? "Damn, I didn't get any nourishment out of that steak whatsoever! I probably didn't pray right."

It just seems silly to me, especially when you consider what most people pray for - which is usually more material stuff.

Not to belabour the point, but I'm reminded of a christian "rock" song I heard back in the 80's. It was called something like "The never ending shopping list." They make fun of people who do exactly what I was talking about earlier, which is to use prayer as some kind of christmas list to santa.

I'd love to hear a well thought out rebuttal to my take on prayer, from either christian or philistine.

Now, excuse me while I pray for somebody to buy my house.

No hell below us - above us, only sky...

Heaven's blessings from Sidney!

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It's been 10 days since my last post..

I just found out one of my best friends at work is a Catholic. You'd never know it to talk to her, or hang out with her, or know her in any way, shape or form. I like to call those people "hypocrites". Basically, they're saying, "Yeah, I believe in God and the bible and all that, but I'm just gonna do whatever I want. If there's really a heaven, and assuming I get the chance, I'll throw myself on the mercy of the court."

If I truly believed that the bible was the word of god, and I thought I would honestly spend eternity in Hell, I'd follow that sucker like a fat man following an ice cream truck - an ice cream truck covered in gravy!

I accidentally got tangled up in a religious discussion at the bar last week. Some guy (again, who CLAIMS to be a christian) got bent out of shape when I mocked religion and religious people. Of course, good christian that he was, he was on his second or third beer at the time, so that might have made him a little less open-minded than he might have been otherwise.

At any rate, I asked him the same question I always ask people when they tell me that they're christians: "How do you know that the bible is the word of god?" I actually know the answer to this question, but I like to watch them stumble about for a bit.

The answer, of course, is that the bible tells you it's the word of god, right in the first couple of pages. How can you argue with that? (Well, you can, if you understand the concept of circular reasoning, but I digress.) It further states that god wrote the bible and that god is infallible, therefore the bible is true (because god is infallible, etc).

Most people will argue that they know that the bible is true "in their heart". I use my prefrontal cortex, but if you can think with various body parts, I say go with it. Now that I think about it, I often do think with my penis, so it's probably along the same lines... anyway, where was I?

I imagine the following scenario: some guy walking down the street, stops and has an epiphany, "Hey, you know what? I think that the bible is the word of god! Holy crap, that just occured to me... I should go to church or something." Or, is it more likely that somebody told you about the bible. Then, you went to church, had a little emotional moment, and now you're convinced you are one with the universe.

Imagine what would have happened if you grew up in Saudi Arabia or Iraq. Do you honestly think there are millions of christians running around Baghdad asking, "Where can I get me one of them holy bibles! I know in my heart that it's the word of god!!"

But, I'm getting off the point. I'm not here to tell you why the bible isn't the word of god, I'm here to talk about the soul.

The soul is a tricky concept. As I understand it, the part of you that is "you" is your soul. It's the part that has to fight all the temptations of the flesh and whatnot. It's also some kind of conduit to god, right? Apparently, the soul is aware of the supernatural, but you aren't... Yet, "you" are your soul.

Ok, if "you" are your soul, and your soul is a spirit (for lack of a better word), how is that when you drink enough alcohol, your soul turns into kind of an asshole?

Also, clearly, not all souls are holy. For instance, Chuck Manson has an "evil" soul, whereas you obvious have a "good" soul. But, according to John 3:16, Chuck could find his way to heaven if he were to accept jesus and all that. Even with an evil soul! I guess your soul can be either good or evil, it all depends on your free will to accept christ. But, if I have an evil soul, why would I accept christ??? Man, this is confusing!

Some people believe that your conscience is your soul. That's why you can get drunk and act differently. Your soul is the "good" part of you that cries with baby jesus over all the shitty things you do every day. So, my question is this: which of you gets to go to heaven? The awareness part of you (the mind), or the holy part of you (the soul). Or, does your awareness get sucked into your soul for the trip to heaven? If that's the case, what happens to the guy who used to be your soul before "you" got sucked in???

Holy hell - my head is spinning. Or, maybe it's my SOUL that's spinning... ;-)

It's funny that whenever I debate religion with a christian, the person that I'm debating with will argue my logic. They'll use their mythology to dispute my arguments. In fact, the bar conversation that I mentioned earlier ended something like this:

me: "Ok, so how do you know that the bible is the word of god?"
genius: "Well, let me ask you this, how do you know that Homer wrote the Odyssey?"
me: *shaking head in confusion* "Um, what does that have to do with the bible?"
genius: "Well, how do you know that the Oddyssey was written by Homer?"
me: "I don't. In fact, for centuries, scholars have debated whether an individual named "Homer" ever actually existed."
genius: "Oh my god, you're so stupid. Your logic is so completely flawed, I can't even answer your question."
me: "Um, well, here's a link to a wikipedia article that might help:" http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer
genius: "Wow, you're dumb. Only an idiot would fail to realize that god is everything and everywhere."
me: "Boy, do I feel dumb."

I understand why this guy lashed out like that, however. Religious people can't debate religion because, to them, it's not an academic pursuit. It's a belief system. It would be like trying to debate pedophilia with a pedophile, or conservatism with a republican, or nascar with a redneck. These are deeply held beliefs and anyone who would challenge that, even for the sake of debate, is personally attacking them. Not to mention, it's damn difficult to defend religion from someone who considers magical, invisible people to be preposterous (at best) or laughable (at worst).

But, back to the soul. If the soul is a magical, invisible presence that controls your body, then how is it you have free will? Do "you" control you, or does your soul control you. Is it a constant struggle? Does your soul have will-power, and, if so, does it therefore give in to temptation?? Maybe you're a good person, but your soul is a week-willed bastard dragging you down to hell in the same way that one half of the titanic sucked the other half down to the bottom of the Atlantic.

I imagine the soul as a little cartoon person being carried around in a papoose, being strapped to someone and being forced to watch and hear horrible crimes being committed on a regular basis. Poor little soul.

Well, if that hasn't convinced your soul to drive your body over and buy my house, nothing will!

(I'm looking forward to some fantastic comments! But please try to address at least some of my points.)

Imagine there's no heaven...

Holy Moses from Sidney,

First, thanks for all the comments! I sincerely appreciate all of you taking the time.

Second, I think my message might have gotten lost. As Tim helped to point out, I was only talking about the math. I don't think anyone can argue with the fact that the vast majority of humanity aren't (or weren't) fundamental christians. BY DEFINITION, they are guaranteed to go to hell if they never accepted jesus into their heart. If even 50% of all humanity are christians, that still leaves half of everybody who has ever lived going to hell. That's rough!

Today, I want to discuss motivation. My question is this: Why do most people become christians in the first place? It's unreasonable to assume that, immediately upon becoming a christian, someone instantly feels a deep and abiding love for their god. Therefore, there must be some other driving force.

I submit that it's fear that drives someone to become saved. "Saved" suggests that there's something from which to be saved, of course. Saved from hell is the presumption.

Consider this: If you don't accept christ into your heart, what's the alternative? Eternity in hell, right? That's an awfully serious "Carrot and Stick" scenario. I think the mafia has a similar program... You remember, it's something like "An offer you can't refuse."

Imagine this: I come to your house and offer you riches beyond belief if you'll only love me with all your heart. That's literally all I ask. However, you have to REALLY love me, not just say you love me. Also, you really should start living for me (although, in some versions of christianity, it's not absolutely necessary).
On the other hand, if you can't (or won't) love me, I'm going to have to kill you by burning you to death, slowly and painfully. I don't WAN'T to burn you to death, but I just can't abide you with me otherwise. I already burned my dog to death in your place so that you'd have the opportunity to love me, and if you can't appreciate that, maybe you're just an ungrateful bastard after all!

Is there really a difference with what I suggested and what the christian bible (the new testament, anyway) purports? IMHO, it's exactly the same thing. Naturally, given the scenario I proposed, of course you'd find a way to love me with all your heart. You might even convince other people to start loving me, too, just to show how much you love me. Also, they may not really believe that I will burn them up if they don't, so, really, you're saving them from the fate that they'd otherwise suffer!

And WHY do people deserve to be burned up if they don't take what I offer? Because they're great, great grandfathers were jerks and didn't do what I told them to do.

Another factor in the "fear as a motivator" series is, instead of fear of everlasting pain and suffering, it's the fear of being nothing. It is damn near impossible to consider not being. That there is no hereafter. I'll bet that you can't do it... that, whether christian or not, you'll always imagine something after death. Go ahead, try it... I'll wait.

Finaly, I think the last reason people are hoping for some kind of life after death is so that "bad" people get what's coming to them. I can't count how many times I've heard a christian talking about how they hope some guy fries in hell, etc, etc. I think it stems from a sense of powerlessness. If they weren't powerless, they'd take matters into their own hands and not wait on an angry god to do their punishing for them.

Next week: The soul! What is it, and how does it work?

Now, conquer your fear and go out there and buy my house!

Losing my religion... part 1.

Shalom from Sidney,

First of all, I don't want to shit on anybody's religion. I understand that almost everybody needs something to believe in, else they couldn't get their asses out of bed in the morning. That said...

First, let's start with the math. I think a lot of Americans consider themselves to be fundamental christians, which is, in their not-so-humble opinion, the only "true" religion. This immediately eliminates 95% of the human population, if you consider all the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, Mormons, Atheists, Luciferians, and Wiccans, just to name a few.

This suggests that god's plan initially starts with sending the vast majority of humanity to hell.

I was "raised" (for lack of a better word) as a baptist. I know for a fact that most baptists consider many (at least half) of their brethren to not be "real" christians. This always cracked me up, but that's beside the point. Let's assume that they're right - they oughtta know, after all.

Ok, that brings the grand total of humanity destined to hell up to 97.5% There are currently 6 billion people on the planet, which is roughly 20% of all the "humans" who have ever lived. Therefore, 97.5% of the 30 billion human beings who have ever lived (29.25 billion and counting) are slated for hell, while only a paltry 750 million get to go to "heaven". That's 39 to 1 for the mathematically challenged among you.

Baptists are pretty much black and white like that... if you ain't going to heaven, guess what?

This is primarily why I have such a difficult time buying fundamental christianity - it's the numbers. I don't even want to go into how much blood has been shed in jesus' name. I also will not bring up the stats on boy scout leaders, good christians all, who have been convicted of child molestation. Nor will I bring up any of those pesky televangelists who literally rob folks blind.

Nope, I'm taking the moral high-ground in all this.

To be honest, the only "religion" I've ever heard about that I think is remotely reasonable is Wicca. All I know about them is their motto: "An' it harm none, do what ye will." Translation, as long as you're not hurting anybody, do whatever you want. That's all I really needed to know. Hell, I might even convert! Well, I guess I can't convert since I don't really subscribe to any particular religion, but if I did, I'd convert in a heartbeat.

Ok, that's all for part 1. That's probably enough to shake the faith of at least half of you. On the other hand, if you can finish this multi-part post without losing your faith, consider yourself a true Christian.

Next, the Mormons!

Now, if you really were a good christian, you'd go out there and buy my house!

p.s. I purposely left all the proper nouns lower-case - I know it drives you crazy! hehehahahah.