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I envy you in your belief in that God seems to have reached out and made himself known to you. You were chosen, made to feel as if you were of enough value to be paid attention.
I don't quite see it that way, MQ. In fact, I was at the time one of the least "worthy" or people of "value" at the time. I attribute it to the discipline and diligence that characterized my life at the time. I have come to see discipline over our bodies as one of the means of finding God. It puts a completely different patina on my view of the Hasidim and other extremely disciplined and devout religious practitioners. Discipline seems to be a major factor in meeting God. I am not sure it is critical what you discipline your body for as much as the fact that you achieve control over it. Paul in Colossians even hints at the show of wisdom in such discipline.
Colossians 2:23 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
23 Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in superstition and humility, and not sparing the body; not in any honour to the filling of the flesh.
An intelligent response requires a good argument. It is hard when all there is is blind hate.
Perhaps you could me to some posts of yours where you have been critical of religion.
I honestly don't remember any. Even when you start a thread, you will word to preclude any balance.
I don't think that shows any ability to be a critical thinker.
On the other hand, take the thread where Thrillobyte thinks he is proving so much. Zeez, there I am, sorta sticking up for christianity. I have praised some of the teaching in the New Testament. I have told of devout friends and neighbors who lead an honorable christian life who reach out to non-christians with sincere friendship. I do provide some balance. And that includes in the area of prayer. Prayer does tend to make people feel good, but often for the wrong reasons. It feels great to have that hope that your prayer will be answered. But when it isn't, it doesn't feel great at all. Just ask my wonderful christian neighbor. Oh wait. You can't. Despite her prayer group, she died of cancer within the past month. Just ask the people who have a prayer circle online for a baby with heart issues. All the successes...if you call over a dozen heart surgeries and procedures successes. And the baby isn't even 2. Too many people get so wrapped up in it and refuse to see the ultimate reality. And do you why...it's the blindness of love...in the case the love of religion...and we all know that love and infatuation -- about religion and about prayer -- does not allow a person to see the balance.
I am just asking if we can have a dialogue in a thread without the condescension. It is not necessary.
These are questions one puts to a fourth-grade Sunday School class, not a woman in her 60s who all her life has sought to find in Christianity what so many others seem to find just by memorizing Bible verses.
I believe I am engaging in a conversation with someone I respect. I don't feel that respect is returned when my response is dismissed as knee jerk. It is ok to disagree.
My questions arise from truly not understanding your point. If one expects prayer should be answered, and also answered in way that is desired, then why not all prayers?
Why should I think my prayers has some special quality or I am special? It is possible I am missing some nuance about Christianity and how prayer is viewed. If so you can explain that. I have always found the Lord's Prayer humble and simple.
In my view prayer is a request and it may or may not be answered the way I want it or when I want it. Often when I look back at my life I realize what I prayed for I did get. My prayer in this stage in my life is mostly about safety and welfare for all, and for courage to face whatever comes my way and be at peace. I don't expect any immediate answer.
Perhaps you could me to some posts of yours where you have been critical of religion.
I honestly don't remember any. Even when you start a thread, you will word to preclude any balance.
I don't think that shows any ability to be a critical thinker.
On the other hand, take the thread where Thrillobyte thinks he is proving so much. Zeez, there I am, sorta sticking up for christianity. I have praised some of the teaching in the New Testament. I have told of devout friends and neighbors who lead an honorable christian life who reach out to non-christians with sincere friendship. I do provide some balance. And that includes in the area of prayer. Prayer does tend to make people feel good, but often for the wrong reasons. It feels great to have that hope that your prayer will be answered. But when it isn't, it doesn't feel great at all. Just ask my wonderful christian neighbor. Oh wait. You can't. Despite her prayer group, she died of cancer within the past month. Just ask the people who have a prayer circle online for a baby with heart issues. All the successes...if you call over a dozen heart surgeries and procedures successes. And the baby isn't even 2. Too many people get so wrapped up in it and refuse to see the ultimate reality. And do you why...it's the blindness of love...in the case the love of religion...and we all know that love and infatuation -- about religion and about prayer -- does not allow a person to see the balance.
You insist all your questions should be answered. You have not answered my question as to why other man made systems such as Democracy or the Govt. not be held responsible when people behave badly. Religion is inspiration and man made for a purpose. When do we not hold people accountable for their actions and instead blame the system?
You want to dictate how I should view religion or post about it. That is ability to throw a tantrum not critical thinking.
I don't quite see it that way, MQ. In fact, I was at the time one of the least "worthy" or people of "value" at the time. I attribute it to the discipline and diligence that characterized my life at the time. I have come to see discipline over our bodies as one of the means of finding God. It puts a completely different patina on my view of the Hasidim and other extremely disciplined and devout religious practitioners. Discipline seems to be a major factor in meeting God. I am not sure it is critical what you discipline your body for as much as the fact that you achieve control over it. Paul in Colossians even hints at the show of wisdom in such discipline.
Colossians 2:23 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
23 Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in superstition and humility, and not sparing the body; not in any honour to the filling of the flesh.
That is an interesting and important point you are making Mystic. I see the same reflected in the AA 12 step recovery program as well - control over body and cede control over your life to God or Higher Power.
You insist all your questions should be answered. You have not answered my question as to why other man made systems such as Democracy or the Govt. not be held responsible when people behave badly. Religion is inspiration and man made for a purpose. When do we not hold people accountable for their actions and instead blame the system?
You want to dictate how I should view religion or post about it. That is ability to throw a tantrum not critical thinking.
I'm not in the religion forum to talk about democracy and the government.
No, I don't care how you view it. But I am critiquing your post. However, you still have the right to believe as you wish.
I think part of the problem is that 'we' think that because the bible says, "Ask and you shall receive" means that we 'shall receive' what we're asking for NOW, and HOW we want 'it'.
Right, I was always told that too. I always took it pretty literal that "ask and ye shall receive" thing, it's just another of the many promises that just aren't true and to read more into what is actually said quite plainly, is grasping at straws and having to say that it doesn't mean this or doesn't mean that falls under reading between the lines when there is nothing there to read. I think it is supposed to mean what is clearly states. There's that reading into something that just isn't there.
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Jesus never said, "ask and you shall receive immediately, nor did he say to ask and you shall receive the EXACT way you want.
No he didn't say that, and that's the point. A statement like that would have given hope to those of the biblical times but I doubt they tried to turn it into a thousand different meanings, they took it at face value.
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If I pray, "Dear Lord, please send me some money so I can get food to eat for a day", is it more important that I get the money, or that I get the food? If my neighbor comes over with a pot of stew...or if someone offers to buy me a hot dog...were my prayers answered?
No, you were seeking food and you got it. Or money or both, either way if some nice person sees a need they fulfill that need. Religious or not, that's just doing the right thing. No prayers necessary. It may seem like a roundabout answer to prayer but it comes just as a coincidence and not in the form you asked for. Jesus was very specific and to the point. If you so desire, one can read all day between the lines but that doesn't make it true, it is assumption.
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A lot of times, prayers are answered, but not in the way we want. And because of that, quite often we think they weren't answered at all. To me, that's a mistake. God often looks behind the reason for our prayers, and distributes accordingly.
You know I don't believe that but let's just go back to when I did. I read between the lines too, so much so that I believed even my dreams meant something biblical was happening or going to happen. I believed in the Rapture, and that all of us 'deserving' believers were going to be taken away before the horrible tribulation. That was just ignorant and stupid thinking on my part and there were times when I thought my prayers had been answered. When you're a believer, you force the puzzle pieces to fit because if you don't, then what is left?
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A lot of things have happened in my life because of prayer. Sometimes immediately, and sometimes months later. While *I* may think that I need an answer NOW, God knows that I don't.
But how do you know what god might be thinking? If he were real and I were she/he/it/them, I would be kind of irritated that Christians are assuming things and not listening to god's/Jesus' words.
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But if I have enough faith in Him, He'll answer me when an answer is needed. Not necessarily when I WANT it, but when it's needed.
IF you have a lot of faith, then you will be disappointed over and over again because unanswered prayer, or at least what one thinks is unanswered prayer, becomes more and more disheartening when you realize it's coincidence and nothing more, and you start questioning and realizing it can't be true. It just isn't. Sad, but true. It's sad to me now, that so many have been duped like I was into believing things that are incredulous, impossible, contradictory and inconsistent. The bible is the very thing that it warns not to be associated with....worshipping an idol/object rather than god itself. To me, the bible is that object and it is the cause of hardship, fanaticism, rage, violence and a massive amount of disagreement of interpretation.
Nothing against your beliefs Mink, I admire your knowledge and tenacity.
As are most of the promises to believers. They are specific, often unqualified, and often quite florid as well. God is supposed to be our friend that "sticks closer than a brother", our father who shelters us "under his wings".
And I note that believers here are doing their level best to avoid talking about tragedy and loss, they are constantly returning to discuss the kinds of things I doubt NS even had in mind in starting this thread -- frivolous requests, childishly demanding instant results or dictating methods of delivery, etc.
When I prayed for my wife to be healed I didn't dictate how it would happen. It could have come through doctors, it could have come from on high, or anywhere in between. Why would I care? Just make it happen. Instead she suffered terribly for years and years and finally choked to death in her sleep after being stripped of every shred of her dignity. She knew she was being disappeared, that she would eventually be forgotten, and even those who kept her memory alive would "move on". The nature of her "invisible" illness had already made her irrelevant to most of the world. She clung to life so hard, until one day, facing surgery that she knew she would not survive, she said to me, "I'm screwed, aren't I?" She did not deserve that. No one does.
When believers discuss tragedy and loss they can only talk of some ineffable higher purpose or greater meaning, the opportunity for growth and greater trust and faith, about how the beloved is safe with Jesus and was needed in heaven and all without irony or the understanding of (or perhaps just not caring about) what a slap in the face and salt in the wound it is for the bereaved.
Paul said somewhere in his scribblings that believers don't grieve "like those who have no hope" but it is not about some forlorn hope of being reunited in some future afterlife; it is about the pain of loss in the here and now. My wife (and my son, and my brother, and my mother) were valuable to me and were part of what gave me joy in THIS life.
As near as i can tell, believers DO in fact grieve the same as everyone else. They love and experience loss like everyone else. So to me, letting go of all the campfire stories about the supposed meaning or regrettable necessity of my suffering made me no worse off in terms of grieving, and much better off in terms of being confused, baffled, disappointed or feeling abandoned, by god and his people. YMMV.
In any case my current status and the durability of it are no longer about the proximal causes of me critically examining my faith and whether it was a valid lens to view the world from. Once I could look objectively at my life without the patina of assumptions of my particular dogma, I found a thousand other small improvements in my life from ditching the whole belief-system. None of it is resentful on my part. Indeed, it got RID of any resentment I might have been understandably feeling. Now that I understand that god, life and the universe owe me nothing and in fact cannot give me anything (contrary to the claims of Holy Writ), I can quit feeling picked on and relate to reality in healthier and much more realistic ways.
It seems to me that if god's going to do what he wants to do anyway, then there's no sense of me praying for anything. That's presuming for the sake of the discussion that there is a god.
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