So, I was dropping off meals for my parents;
Mom was in the phone relating a story from when I I was a kid. The short version is we had gone into a ditch while traveling cross country. It was icy. We were going slow enough for the average conditions but for whatever reason, they weren’t salting ~1000ft of highway- we saw the city plows getting on at the same exit the county plows were getting off, leaving a gap.
In any case, my mom related the story as if the tow truck that came out was some kind of miracle, and just happened to be going by, etc.
No. We had a cell phone and AAA roadside. Dad called for service.
Personally I don’t find big issue with praying but kids should not be exposed to this sort of mentality. It’s frankly insane that we allow religious indoctrination for children.
Prayer as a form of meditation is fine, but when it actively takes the place of working towards solutions and/or improving situations…. At best it’s a lazy response to feel better.
For example, praying for the homeless or starving. Praying about it changes very little. Granted unless one happens to be Jeff Bezos, there’s not a lot we can do, but even that much doesn’t happen when people see prayer as a viable alternative to doing it.
If you look at the theories behind modern spell work (I find magic systems interesting, whether “real” or from a game) you begin to realize that prayer is just a form of spell work.
The problem is, it’s really fucking bad at it.
Also, the church then becomes hypocritical (what, again?) for banning spell craft.
Transubstantiation? More like transmutation.
It kind of depends on the purpose behind the prayer.
Ritual prayer (like blessing a meal, or similar invocations,) are more symbolic or ritual.
Prayer for certain things… healing the sick, more money. Trump winning the election. Winning the lottery….
Yeah, those basically are spells. Yup.
If you stopped the indoctrination of children, religions would die within a generation. You’d just be left with fringe cults here and there that we’d laugh at.
Sounds like something that happened in ex-republics. For example during 2023 cristmas 1% of citizens visited christian churches in my country. And considering source(police) this number is probably inflated.
Relative to countries where many people visit church every week we have pretty secular society. Meanwhile fe(de)ral propaganda will continue to sell bullshit of “staples”.
Yep. And yet the same people who squawk about the “LGBT religion indoctrinating kids” have no issues indoctrinating kids in actual religions.
Trust me, when they suggest using your superior intellect to get back at the angry oversized bully, they don’t really mean it.
I think prayer is practice deferring to authority and resignation to one’s fate as an obedient peon.
i’m not religious and i’m not doing it, but i think praying also has a psychological aspect that should not be underestimated. you take some dedicated time to reflect on your current problems, what you want in life and the people around you, possibly just before going to sleep so your subconscious can digest everything over night and might give you a different angle.
typing all of that, i realise i should start doing my own form of non-religious praying o_O
As a former pastor, I you’re pretty close to understanding prayer.
God isn’t Santa and doesn’t grant wishes. Prayer is more about contemplation. It’s seeking courage, strength, and acceptance.
Praying for healing isn’t about literal miracles. It’s about accepting that something is out of your hands.
Meditation IS certain religions. Such as Buddhism and Hinduism. They know that their stories are fables to teach morality to the youth. In fact most tribal religions know this as well. Only in Christianity do these fables take on a literal interpretation.
The existence of a diety is different than the tales surrounding a religion. Many religions are very aware of how far fetched most tales are.
I was first thinking meditation as a form of non-religious praying, but that is more clear your mind or be in the moment. It’s not really reflecting which I think is an important part of praying. At least it was for me when I was religious.
Why do you think meditation is not this ? Just like prayer, there isn’t one “proper” way of meditating, you are free to do it just the way you want it.
To me praying looks like a way to pretend that you did something while actually you didn’t do anything. Very convinient but it won’t do anything.
