Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Are you certain that was the bottom? Among my duties was taking amputated limbs and toxic waste materials to the city incinerator for disposal. The heat from the incinerator was so intense that once the door was swung open, you could not approach closer than about ten feet. The attendant there was completely spooked by me and my morbid missions, so he refused to help beyond opening the door with, literally, a ten foot pole. So I would have to stand back ten feet and try and chuck the arm or leg through the doorway. Sometimes I missed and had to borrow the attendants pole to drag the arm or leg back to me for another try. That really creeped out the attendant when that happened so after a time I started making a point of missing on the first toss just to see him get all discombobulated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander
I couldn't tell you the origin, whether it was some decision made into a rule or simply a universal custom. Working in hospitals you develop a morbid sense of humor and I recall one time when we held a mock funeral for a carton of milk which had expired.
Yeah, I would think you'd have to develop a pretty good sense of humor to do this type of work.
If you're praying for God to do something, aren't you asking God to change his mind? Not only is that impossible if he's a perfect being, but it seems the height of arrogance to presume you could change his mind.
Why do you pray for the family with the sick child? Doesn't God already know the kid is sick? And couldn't he just magically heal the kid if he wanted to, without being asked? Couldn't he have prevented the kid from getting sick in the first place?
Prayer seems like asking a genie to grant you a wish.
I do find the religious behaviourism....let me rooolll that around my tungue one amore time ..behaviourism.. fascinating. Especially since I had it proven to me in a long ago thread in these werry boards that religious belief is an evolutionary necessity or we wouldn't have evolved it - though the person who proved it to me began to deny it as soon as he realized the implications -
The whole ad -hoc worldview of self -delusion is as staggeringly inept as it is prevalent. Justifying oneself is more important than getting at the facts. Prevalent in individual discussion all the way up to politics.
Feeling good about oneself is common from supporting 'my team' up to religion and politics - and,yes, Darwinism. I can feel deep down inside the feeling that winning the argument for the Darwinists and utterly humiliating the opposition is what it's all about (though I note and resist the temptation...he says... ). So, of course I know that's what is driving the others to maintain their position any way they can, up to and including personal attacks, rewriting the Bible to suit themselves and issuing a lot of directives and guidance notes about God's wishes,intentions and desires for us. I watch with a sort of bemused smile as someone performs on the boards as though he was God's spokesman.
And what indeed is prayer about? Well, it has evolved through necessity just as religion has evolved while of course denying that there is any change at all. The fact that it does not deliver in any practical way, though of course, one can count the hits retrospectively as 'answered prayer' (or miracles or punishment for something or other) has meant that it has become something other than expecting any result other than feeling good about oneself.
Prayer has the satisfaction feeling of a duty done. The pleasure of community with others (recall the post of a vid of people hymn -singing together:'How happy they look') and the feeling that one has joined a privileged elite with the personal approval of the creator of life, the Universe and Everything, no less.
While I studiously ignored a certain all-but-state-funeral recently I could not help but catch a glimpse of a beardie in a tinsel robe standing in a pulpit with his hands out in a gesture of cupping God's effulgent grace into his own unworthy body. I am no body -language expert but it sure looked to me like it was all about himself.
And what indeed is prayer about? Well, it has evolved through necessity just as religion has evolved while of course denying that there is any change at all. The fact that it does not deliver in any practical way, though of course, one can count the hits retrospectively as 'answered prayer' (or miracles or punishment for something or other) has meant that it has become something other than expecting any result other than feeling good about oneself.
Prayer has the satisfaction feeling of a duty done. The pleasure of community with others (recall the post of a vid of people hymn -singing together:'How happy they look') and the feeling that one has joined a privileged elite with the personal approval of the creator of life, the Universe and Everything, no less.
If you're praying for God to do something, aren't you asking God to change his mind? Not only is that impossible if he's a perfect being, but it seems the height of arrogance to presume you could change his mind.
Why do you pray for the family with the sick child? Doesn't God already know the kid is sick? And couldn't he just magically heal the kid if he wanted to, without being asked? Couldn't he have prevented the kid from getting sick in the first place?
Prayer seems like asking a genie to grant you a wish.
It is, although where the analogy breaks down is that for at least the first 3 wishes a genie is far more reliable.
If it helps you to understand where they are coming from a little better, God, in Christian theology anyway, actually invites you to ask him for stuff, to the point of not doing some things for you unless you ask ("ye have not because ye ask not", a particularly crafty twist on "this bad thing happened because you don't have enough faith"). It's his way of developing a "relationship" with you. So from the viewpoint of an individual Christian it's not really hubris, but humble supplication. Of course the overall idea that God Almighty, Ruler Of Heaven and Earth(tm) gives a fig about what you eat for breakfast IS an inflation ultimately, but I'm just describing the mental tap dance believers use to transform this inflation into something that, on the surface, appears to be humble dependence upon a loving creator.
Would not let me Rep Him again either, but great post Arequipa my friend
SO to answer the OP, my least favorite expression is "That's not what the bible says"
Not in a context of arguing about what the Bible does or does not say, but rather when someone uses this phrase as a way of saying "You should be living your life by some fictional book"
There have been countless times I have heard this when talking with theists, more specifically fundy Christians, when talking about science, philosophy, life etc
Someone will say "Oh...evolution? That's not what the Bible says"
Well, Good for the Bible. I do not live my life by it, but if other's choose to, that is their choice. Or not.
Bless you, my Son; The Intention is taken for the deed. Verily,I say unto you that a seat is reservethed for thee right next to the beer - fountain....
Bless you, my Son; The Intention is taken for the deed. Verily,I say unto you that a seat is reservethed for thee right next to the beer - fountain....
Forsooth, thy humble servant doth appreciate it, although personally I would prefer a fountain of fine Riesling, if it not be too much tribulation for thee.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
). So, of course I know that's what is driving the others to maintain their position any way they can, up to and including personal attacks, rewriting the Bible to suit themselves and issuing a lot of directives and guidance notes about God's wishes,intentions and desires for us. I watch with a sort of bemused smile as someone performs on the boards as though he was God's spokesman. 
