I find the idiot to be the one who doesn’t pray, myself.
Because their outcome is so different…
That’s a bit unfair to yourself. I wouldn’t say that you’re an idiot because you don’t pray.
Though your post does remind me of my favorite scripture from the New Testament: ‘And Jesus called upon his followers, yea, and he sayeth to them, Ye must uphold that which is righteous, and ye must pray, and to your brethren who do not pray, ye must say, ye are idiots.’
I’ll bet that I would have found grabbing a life jacket and getting on a boat a lot more useful than praying.
Well, at least Skyler is praying for the cancer to come back…so there’s that.
Let us all observe a moment of hand-shitting for the good Cardinal.
Have you been taking lessons from elucidator?
'Cos that one stunk up the ROOM. He’d be proud.
My OP was about a certain version of a larger issue - the ubiquity of prayer in society. Someone said it wasn’t a problem, and I pointed out a place where it does become a problem - to folks like me (and, obviously, many others on the board). You call it moving the goalposts. I call it being willing to expand the topic for the benefit of others. Maybe you should pray that such things don’t happen here.
It’s never lupus.
I for one am happy that CC was hear to set us straight on the usefulness of prayer. Such original ideas. Bravo.
MsWhatsit was paraphrasing this snippet, by the way:
Via King James.
At any rate, a large majority of people praying must be calling for intercession from the completely wrong God.
You phrased your OP extremely poorly, then. The way it reads, it isn’t about “the ubiquity of prayer in society”, but about prayer itself, and its lack of efficacy.
For example:
And so on.
I am His humble disciple.
Whenever I hear the sirens of ambulances or the medivac helicopter, I say a little prayer I know, over and over, in my head, until I can’t hear it any more. It’s a pretty little Christian prayer, just a sentence long, can’t even remember where I learned it. Why? I guess because when I hear those sounds I fear for them and want to help. But what can I do? So, I say a little prayer.
Perhaps it’s just silly superstition. (A really good chance, since I’m not even a Christian.)
I still like to do it, for no really good reason.
But I’m not certain why you care that I do such a silly superstitious thing? What’s it to you? Why would you be so riled by reading something in the paper about a bunch of believers wanting to pray for a guy who has cancer? Are you this upset if someone throws a pinch of salt over their shoulder? Avoids opening an umbrella indoors?
There seems too many really worthy things to get upset about, to be caring about this, to me.
Bullshit?
There’s so many things to be offended by, and prayer, honestly, isn’t one of them. If anyone finds it offensive, then I truly feel sorry for them. I’d suggest they learning to turn and walk away. Save the blood pressure for things that might matter.
Goes on the list for Post Of The Year.
I get offended when people tell me that they’re gonna pray for me, and then act like they’ve done (or are going to do) something really effective, and expect me to be grateful.
I don’t care if someone wants to pray for me, as long as they don’t expect me to be absolutely overwhelmed by their generosity.
How far away can you walk on a sinking ship? If people are gonna pray, let them do it in silence. Does god give bonus points for volume?
So, are you offended by people praying? Or people mentioning praying? One hopes you are aware that the vast majority of people who pray, don’t brag or mention it. Emmy winners and basketball stars notwithstanding.
I mean, no one knows I say a prayer during the medivac noise. Is it still offensive? Or is it only offensive when I tell some one, I do so?
Which is it? I’m confused now.
It’s just a nice thing to say. I doubt it’s even expected that any of those people will actively pray. It just means they give a damn. Are you actually expecting anything to happen when someone sneezes and you say “bless you”? Or do you tell everyone who says that what an idiot they are too?
I don’t like religion. I think it’s bad for the world. But this is a pointless rant about something certainly harmless and possibly helpful to some.
Calling people idiots for praying for someone’s health is not clever. It’s not flying the flag for science, or atheism, or rationality. I’d like to say it won’t earn you points on SDMB either, but apparently I’d be wrong on that. What it certainly does do is make you look like a bit of a dick.
I saw a bumper sticker recently that said “Hands that serve are more holy than lips that pray.”
Damn right.
On the other hand, prayer/meditation/what-have-you is demonstrably good for the brain.