Do some Christians worship due to a need to be subservient and ingratiating?

Great Debates
1

There is a case of a missing young woman in TN, and I’ve been following a few discussions about the search. And before anyone thinks I"m heartless, yes this is tragic, I do hope she’s found and if I were closer I would help with the search. Anyway, most posts are just the normal “hoping/praying she is found”, type, but one pathetically obsequious and ingratiating post was so over the top I just started wondering. Here it is:

"Father GOD, Here I am again and I just want you to know how THANKFUL I am that you have provided the leads that you have. I am THANKFUL for all the people that you have allowed to search for Holly ! Father for the items that were found, and for the MANY MANY MANY people that are PRAYING and asking you to PLEASE BRING HOLLY home! Father GOD I am THANKFUL! that you have PROVIDED people that are in charge of the many pages supporting HOLLY! "

I’m sorry, but this is pathetic. She’s thanking god for “providing leads” and “allowing people to search”?? And she thinks that god provided the personal items of the victims that were found during the search?? And that he has the power to bring the victim home if he so chooses? Really? I don’t want to turn this into another theology discussion, but seriously, if “god” were so personally involved in controlling alll these minute aspects of the investigation, why don’t people like this question why “god” simply wouldn’t. let. her. be. abducted. in. the. first. place? :confused:

When I real “prayers” like this, I just wonder if the person posting them just has an inner need to be slavish and groveling - and that religion gives them a socially acceptable way (as opposed to, say, a BDSM relationship) to act out on that?

2

I don’t know if I can explain this to you, because I think to understand it you have to 1) alter many fundamental assumptions about the universe and then 2) understand that she is completely rational within the system as set out but 3) perhaps not that good a negotiator (or writer).

Assume:

  1. God exists.
  2. God can be a micromanager, and already has every event in the universe mapped out.
  3. God hears all prayers, but
  4. God responds favourably only to some.
    4a) If God has not answered your particular prayer, he will not respond well to criticism or further nagging.
  5. God likes to be acknoweldged and thanked.

Basically, assume God is a powerful but bad boss. By barging into his office (praying) you might get him to solve things and you might get him pissed off enough to just kill Holly. This woman is attempting to use junior high school emotional manipulation on a capricious authority figure: praising the parts of His plan she likes, and telling him how many of his other humans like them too.

Yes, the original bad event was God’s work, too (duh), but we’re just… avoiding that subject. Elephant in the room, mentioning it not productive. And yes, God could snap his fingers, but pushing Him too far in that direction could get a nasty backlash.

TL; DR: It’s not just psychology, it’s magical thinking combined with the woman’s understanding of the flawed personality of God.

3

Great post, thanks!

I guess my larger question though, is…are Christians like the author of that pathetic prayer just acting out their need to be subservient doormats? IOW, if it weren’t religion, would they just find other ways to be fawning and ingratiating?

4

What does this mean? I see it on 4chan all the time. :confused:

5

“[Your post was] too long, [so I] didn’t read [it].”

6

As used in the post in question, the meaning is “Here is the TL;DR version:”. That is, “Here is a summary of my post if you found it too long to read.” It should really be put at the beginning of the post, not the end, because anyone who skips the post because it’s too long will probably not see the TL;DR coda.

7

I don’t think so, no. They’re manipulators. They think if they have just the right combination of grovelling and demands, God will answer their prayers. That suggests that, perhaps unconsciously, they think they can outwit him, that they’re actually more powerful than him.

Of course, there are those into religious flagellation, mortification of the flesh and such, but I think that’s a different scenario. Some of them do truly believe that damaging their bodies will enhance their spirits, but yeah, some of them just get off on it.

8

She’s not trying to manipulate God. But she does think that God rewards those people who do good and punishes those who do bad. Bad includes having a negative attitude or saying bad stuff to God.

I mean, Dr. Drake gets close, but he suffuses it with an animosity the woman is not feeling. If God caused the problem, he had a Good reason, and is just as likely as not to return the girl. It’s not that she can convince God to do anything, but that she screws up the chances if she does something wrong.

In no way does she even entertain the idea that God might be wrong.

Furthermore, the idea that God micromanages is a bit overboard. She believes that God can micromanage, but that he also will allow things to follow their natural course. God only does the good things, while Satan is responsible for bad things.

9

I’m not seeing subservience necessarily, although without a tone of voice, I wouldn’t completely rule it out. To me it seems like the words of someone who believes that the purpose of prayer isn’t to ask for things, it’s to show gratitude. And that person has been put in a situation where they can’t NOT ask for something so they’re ending up with this prayer that’s sounds like it’s working at cross purposes with itself.

Gratitude has been shown to have a positive effect on a person’s health. And groups can develop a practice of cultivating gratitude, both with each other and towards a deity, country, nature, etc., just because of the benefits of cultivating gratitude.

If a person is accustomed to gratitude praying, it won’t feel like a prayer if they leave the gratitude out. It will feel different. It will feel like it’s not connecting. It will feel like it’s not working. And if you’re trying to tip the cosmos towards keeping someone alive, you want to feel like it’s working. So you’ll keep the gratitude in, even if the pickings are slim, to help the prayer feel like it’s working.

Also, without a tone of voice, and maybe a few questions, I can’t tell if this person isn’t trying to remind or even rebuke the other posters for asking, asking, asking, without also showing gratitude and giving praise. If the way you pray is the proper way to do things, because that’s the way it’s done in your church, and you rely on and take comfort in doing things properly, you may end up with a prayer that looks odd to others who don’t know the proper way to do it. This may be someone showing off, which is the opposite of subservience.

Then again, if your style of prayer is treating God like a regular guy, well, you don’t want to be rude. You want to establish a relationship. If you only ever see your nephew Joe when he wants to borrow money, you won’t feel particularly thrilled to see him walking down your driveway. You don’t want to be God’s nephew Joe. So you pray a relationship prayer, that keeps things in context and reassures God that you think of him even when you don’t need $20.

So, that posted prayer could be coming from an attitude of subservience, or it could be coming from a habit of gratitude, or just habit and propriety, or politeness and the acknowledgement of an ongoing relationship. Since only one of the two people in the prayer relationship is a god, how much acknowledgment of the difference in standing would you expect?

10

Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.

11

I didn’t mean to add animosity, either on the woman’s part or on God’s. It’s hard to describe the interaction from an outsider’s perspective without using loaded terms.

12

Just found the woman’s facebook page.

At first I thought she was an impressionable young 20-year old, since her profile pic is of one. Then I saw that she has replaced her profile pic with that of the abducted girl. In fact, she seems to be a grandmother.

She posts nonstop prayers like this on her profile IN ALL SCREAMING CAPS almost every hour on the hour. No one ever responds.

Scary.

13

I’m curious about this too. If there were no religion, and so-called “kinky” lifestyles like 24/7 BDSM relationships were common, would people like this woman be first in line to lick and grovel at the feet of their human, male “master”?

14

Why single out Christians? Doesn’t every religion have as a fundamental tenet that there’s some superior being (either a deity or nature) that we’re subserviant to?

For that matter, don’t physicists believe that there are “laws” of nature that we can discover, identify and describe, but are powerless to actually affect? Don’t meterologists believe that a hurricane is going to go where it’s going to go?

It seems to me the only real difference is the “subservient doormats” with religion actually believe in intervention, while the rational scientists don’t.

15

Sure but are all of them as fawning in their prayers as this woman? If a Hindu boy was abducted and missing, would Hindus fall all over themselves thanking their deity for “allowing” people to search for him?

16

I would say “the woman’s flawed understanding of the personality of God.”

I would also distinguish between this prayer and true worship of God, which is more accuarately “to show profound religious devotion and respect to; adore or venerate; to be devoted to and full of admiration for; to have or express feelings of profound adoration.” Worship is far more than obsequiousness.

17

For her to have a flawed understanding of God, that assumes there is a God she is misinterpreting. That may be so or it may not be, but I don’t think that idea is necessary to understand what she is doing. This is the difficulty in discussing the issue. A religious perspective has ideas about what God is like as a being and how He should be worshipped / venerated. An atheist thinks it’s all too silly for words. What I’m trying to offer is a comparative religious perspective: understanding the woman’s behaviour with reference to other human behaviour, both religious and non-religious, without necessarily invoking the specific shoulds or shouldn’ts of mainstream Christianity.

Oh, and I really don’t think it has anything to do with a submissive personality, but that’s just my opinion.

18

In many cases, yes. It’s just that their prayers are generally not in English, so it’s harder for many Dopers to understand.

19

Yes, and then the juggernaut would roll over them.

20

OK, not sure if you’re joking or not but…anyway. How exactly does god “allow” people to do anything? I thought we were supposed to have free will?

And again, if god is so involved in this case that he is “allowing” certain people to search for her and “allowing” clues to be found along the side of the road, why the holy living &^%()! did he just “allow” her not to be abducted in the first place??:confused: