Ep. 74: Happy 2010!

[NH Baritone]

I once bought two hotdogs from 7-11 and gave one to a hobo...I'm not sure if that was mean or not because those things are pretty much poison.

If you ate the other one, then at least you were suffering along with the homeless. Think of it as wearing the hair shirt.

I think you meant eating the hair shirt.

[Brad]

Quite literally so - there's probably hair, or at least fur, in hot dogs along with the chemicals.

[bluequill]

:lol:

Quite literally so - there's probably hair, or at least fur, in hot dogs along with the chemicals.

Just as long as we don't make your Gromit avatar into a 'hot dog'. Wallace would miss him.

[Magenta]

Deleted for personal reasons

[milkmaid]

Um, hi. I'm new here, but I don't feel new; I've been listening to the podcasts for a long time.

The toaster idea makes me sad. Because I know there isn't going to be any difference. Prayer doesn't change anything.

I used to blog, and after a devastating event in my life I posted this:

http://marciakilpatrick.blogspot.com/2008/03/and-this-is-confidence-which-we-have.html

After that first comment, though, I deleted the post. It's a good thing the comment writer chose to be anonymous. Because if I knew you, I would punch you in the face. Way to be a Christian asshole.

(I put the post back up so that, if anyone here has any interest, it can be read.)

[crazylegsmurphy]

Welcome to the forums!

I'm interested, I'm always interested in reading people's posts. Oh, and there is a huge difference between praying to your toaster and Jesus..you're guaranteed to get delicious toast from a toaster!

[JustJim]

Oh, and there is a huge difference between praying to your toaster and Jesus..you're guaranteed to get delicious toast from a toaster!

"Guaranteed"? You've obviously never had toast I made in my toaster...

Jim

[JustJim]

The toaster idea makes me sad. Because I know there isn't going to be any difference. Prayer doesn't change anything.

I agree that supplicatory prayers offered in order to get God to do something a person wants God to do never achieve the desired results, except by coincidence. But there are other kinds of prayers, and I think that some kinds of praying can have some positive effects on the person who's doing the praying. It might make the pray-er feel good. It might relieve stress. It might even temporarily reduce blood pressure, slow breathing, and lower heart rate. Depending on how it's done, it might have long-term effects similar to those noted in studies of various forms of meditation. So, while prayer doesn't change anything in terms of getting people what they're praying for, if that's how they see prayer, it's still not necessarily a total loss.

Welcome to the forum!

Jim

[milkmaid]

Thanks for the welcomes.

Jim, you said

prayers offered in order to get God to do something a person wants God to do

This is the sort of thought that irritated me when coming from Christians. I wasn't praying for God to make my kid's team win, or for God to find me a parking space, which I actually once heard a Christian speaker say she did.

It was something that was absolutely within God's will.

"And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked of Him" (1 John 5:14, 15)

I had been struggling for a while, but when my prayers along with prayers of many "Godly" others in this matter didn't make any difference, I realized that the Bible isn't true.

I wish I could be the sort of person who got solace from prayer as you described, but it feels empty now.

[JustJim]

I had been struggling for a while, but when my prayers along with prayers of many "Godly" others in this matter didn't make any difference, I realized that the Bible isn't true.

I wish I could be the sort of person who got solace from prayer as you described, but it feels empty now.

Well, although I agree that's one reason to doubt the Bible's "truth" - at least regarding the effectiveness of prayer - for me there were so many, many other reasons, as well. That doesn't mean, of course, that there are no truths in the Bible, as I'm sure almost anyone who's read it recognizes - just as there are many truths contained in purely fictional novels, stories, myths, legends, fables, etc., as well as your local newspaper, online news service, or evening news reports. I think the often-mentioned assessment of the Bible as something akin to "a few nuggets of gold buried in a few tons of manure" is not all that far off, depending on how seriously you take the Bible as the actual, literal, inerrant word of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, all-forgiving, everywhere-at-once kind of an invisible, undetectable, unobservable, immeasurable, unverifiable, personal, intervening God of all the Universe... etc. Personally, I neither take the Bible that way nor think of God that way, and haven't for many years. I'm even sometimes embarrassed that I used to, at least until I realize it wasn't my fault. I was 'brainwashed'. But I'm feeling much better now....

For me, "prayer" has been replaced by meditations of several kinds. I find meditations that lead to silencing my mind from all thoughts, words, and images are the most rewarding. To just "be" - at the most basic level I can achieve - quietly "participating by not participating" as a part of everything else around me feels good, and needs no 'analysis' or 'understanding'. It just "is".... I also do a modified form of Transcendental Meditation (from back in the seventies, when I actually paid for a real mantra and took lessons from a disciple of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - because I didn't know I could achieve exactly the same results by using the word "one" instead). And sometimes I do some meditations that focus on sensory awareness of a particular sense at a particular time as it interacts with my other senses. I don't know what you call it, but it really helps with awareness.

Anyhow, I never "ask for" anything or "talk to" anyone in meditative 'prayers'. So I'm never disappointed.



Jim

[milkmaid]

And oh, oh! Pick me! My giving to those on the street experience:

http://marciakilpatrick.blogspot.com/20 ... urtle.html

Sadly, I've become much more jaded since then. That's another post, though.

[milkmaid]

Okay, also? If God was real, he would keep me from being so impulsive.

After posting the above I realized that joining the forum and then posting successive links to my stuff was a little too attention-seeking. I wanted to come back and delete it, but I'm not sure how this place feels about deletions.

My blog is defunct; I'm not trying to attract new readers or anything. I just liked the mix of people here and wanted to talk about what was in my head, but I'm lazy and didn't want to type it all out again. Hence the links.

Anyway. Y'all carry on.

[Emery]

hey Marcia, welcome to the forum. I like your musings, hope you enjoy your time here.

-Emery

[milkmaid]

Aww, thanks, Emery. I hate that I am late to all of the discussions.

I listened to the sex podcasts today. Oh, my.