Why I Stopped Praying

Ask and you shall receive!

I also find praying for things I want personally to be a bit self serving, though I can't always resist the temptation. I also agree that too many religious leaders encourage self-serving prayers.

Yet that doesn't make all praying equally problematic. Prayers for others, prayers of devotion, prayers or respect and their like are IMHO perfectly acceptable.

As far as that "sanctimonious bitch" is concerned, you are talking about someone who has devoted her entire life to caring for others. She deserves better than that. Who knows how many people she has helped and maybe even lives that she has saved through her work over many decades. Even if she hurt your feelings once upon a time, as a grown man you should be able to look back on that time now with a more mature understanding of the world.

Prayer: A way to feel like you're actually doing something to help a situation or person without going to all the bother of actually doing something to help.

And it's not at all arrogant to think than an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent (it says so right here on the label) god is going to change his divine plan for the universe because you begged him to.

Note: those of you who use prayer to attempt to better your own understanding of the universe and your place in it, instead of trying to change that universe, or "help" others, have my respect. Even if your god isn't real (and in case there was any doubt, I don't believe he is), introspection can be a powerful tool.

===> "And it's not at all arrogant to think than an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent (it says so right here on the label) god is going to change his divine plan for the universe because you begged him to."

Not nearly as arrogant as it is to believe that we can understand how such a being may work or think given our limitations.

Our understanding of this universe alone is about as complete as an ant's understanding of nuclear physics. Heck, we still cannot even fully grasp how babies and children grow at the deepest cellular levels and we have millions of examples in our faces every year. We cannot even conquer viruses that we see every day and have been studied to death. To think that we can even begin to grasp how an even deeper "divine" fabric works is ludicrous.

->@dugan: “ As far as that "sanctimonious bitch" is concerned, you are talking about someone who has devoted her entire life to caring for others. She deserves better than that. Who knows how many people she has helped and maybe even lives that she has saved through her work over many decades.”

Like RHB, I went to a Catholic school. It was attached to a convent and mostly nuns teaching K-4. Some were kind and Christlike, amazing people. Others unkind demeaning wretches and had no business being in a classroom with children despite being adept at teaching ABCs and arithmetic and despite whatever good works they might have conducted outside the classroom. In other words, just like the real world and its human frailties. No reason to not call a spade a spade.

Rickdugan,

I’ve known people who spent a lifetime caring selflessly for others.

Trust me, the sanctimonious bitch I refer to was not one of them.

She was “all halo but no wings.”

I've always rolled my eyes at praying for a sports team victory

Religion::

The business practice of some people to profit from training other people’s mind to ignore evidence, logic, and reason, while being able to believe in absurd fairy tales based on faith alone... and being proud of it, rather than ashamed.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

• Voltaire

God really liked the 49ers in the 80s in the 2010s not so much. And for 4 straight years in early 90s He really hated the Bills. Marv Levy must’ve said something unpleasant about nuns.

===> "The business practice of some people to profit from training other people’s mind to ignore evidence, logic, and reason, while being able to believe in absurd fairy tales based on faith alone... and being proud of it, rather than ashamed."

Can someone who spends his whole life isolated in a single room, with little to no external communications, even understand the existence of the national government? Imagine him arrogantly assuring the next person that he meets that it does not exist because evidence, logic, and reason, as he understands these things, do not support that conclusion.

Truth be told, Voltaire's position was the very height of arrogance and limited thinking. It was an emotional reaction spun as one logical response because it erroneously assumes that anything beyond his comprehension simply cannot exist.

@rickdugan

Organized religion is a business practice that has inarguably been responsible for many wars, atrocities, and injustices throughout history.

The business works on the concept of the non-believer as an "out-group" member who, for profit, must be converted or destroyed.

Many if not all religious and businesses claims can be disproven by science and common sense.

CJ, you obviously didn't process anything I posted above. In order to avoid being circular, please see above. Read slowly if you need to. ;)

“Religion’s position is the very height of arrogance and limited thinking.”

There is no group of people on earth, in the history of the earth, than left wing politicians. They make the very religious seem nice. To be fgair the left in America does support Islam and the prophet of Islam who had a nine year old wife.

In the county next to where I live there have been some large wildfires that have destroyed a number of houses. In one small neighborhood of about a 6 houses everyone was evacuated and when they came back all were burned down except for one house that was undamaged. The owner said on the news that the only reason his house was spared was because Jesus loved him. I thought does that mean Jesus hates all you neighbors? The man was just lucky. Jesus had nothing to do with it.

@skibum609

You’re not supposed to be so blind with religious belief, patriotism, racism, arrogance that you can’t face reality.

Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it, who does it neither where or when it is done.

There will always be things we don’t fully understand. To this extent, there will always be room for God in some people’s minds.

As a very astute and acerbic uncle of mine once put it, “If there is no God, then who the fuck pops up the next Kleenex?”

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.

^ I literally lol'ed at this! 😄

But, on a serious note... there's a reason it's called FAITH 🙏

There is a reason why people say faith is useless as an intellectual compass.

Religious people all around the world have faith. All Christian sects have faith. The same can be said of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhism, Sikhs, Baha’i, Scientologists and every religion that has gone extinct.

Faith led all of these deeply religious, sincere people to a bewildering array of contradictory beliefs.

What better evidence could you ask for indicating that faith is worthless as an intellectual compass?

What on earth does faith have to do with intellectualiity

Or it's

Compass (Such butter fingers I have today! Fortuitous, perhaps...lol)

Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance Isaac Newton

i think that everybody prays,,,, like when the IRS knocks on your front door

If the Rev’s comments seem harsh, just remember he’s in Houston. Home of Joel Osteen and some other mega busine—oops I mean churches 😝

Twentyfive,

When I was a kid, I recall getting excited when the science teacher said we were going to learn why things fall to the Earth. She then told us the story of Issac Newton in the apple orchard and ended up telling us that things fall because of gravity.

I was immensely disappointed. I had learned NOTHING about why things fall. Even as a child I realized that giving something mysterious and unknown a name is NOT an explanation.

It is a weak and empty intellectual dodge.

The same applies to looking up at the starry night sky and asking how did all this come about and being satisfied with the answer “God did it.”

It’s the same empty, intellectual dodge.

Endlesssummer,

You got my point exactly! Faith has NOTHING to do with intellectuality or a compass for finding truth. But some people follow faith expecting it to lead them to the truth (despite the obvious evidence of how faith has led billions of people to a welter of conflicting beliefs).

imho praying to any divine being-well that will most likely net you the same result as praying to a roll of toilet paper or a used condom lying on the floor of some strip joint restroom. but i suppose prayers and preaching the words do serve a purpose for several that i've witnessed. i've seen it in the streets, public trains and buses. when they pray/preach they are locked in, have a purpose and are self-fulfilled. i look at at this way-if those several people are happy with whatever they are doing just let them. they aren't harming anybody.

Today the business of organized religion is on the decline because there is less of a market for religion

In today’s world education and information help people to learn about religions predatory business scams.

We have all heard the phrase “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Rattdog,

Deeply religious people praying and acting upon their faith are not harming anyone (unless they are lynching people who have the temerity to have been born black, are bombing Planned Parenthood clinics or flying airplanes into buildings).

I appreciate that most religious people don’t behave in such outrageous ways, but that’s only because their faith is not absolute. They set limits on where their faith can take them.

You should feel free to believe or not it’s ok how you treat others is much more important, IMO just remember if you’ve ever been a soldier, there are no atheists in foxholes

There are atheists in fox holes.

Unlike religious folk who believe in a vengeful, bloodthirsty God, atheists have nothing to fear in death.

The way I look at it, I was not alive for billions of years before I was born and I survived THAT!

I wouldn’t call myself a religious person but I do have faith and I don’t see my faith as vengeful or bloodthirsty, that’s an unfair characterization. I don’t think your lack of faith is a something that I would fault, but you shouldn’t think your way is the only way, that is getting into the province of zealots. For me my way works I hope your way works for you as well.

The sufferings of millions of humans in the lower levels in the cast, class, race systems throughout almost endless time is irreconcilable with the existence of a creator of 'unbounded' goodness.

Twentyfive,

I don’t recall saying my way was the only way.

What I did say was that faith is useless as an intellectual compass because it can lead you literally ANYWHERE. This much should be self evident given how people of faith around the world believe such a welter of contradictory religious doctrines.

By contrast, EVERYONE who uses empiricism instead of faith, no matter what views they may have started with, eventually comes to the same conclusions . . . the formula for water is H2O, the atomic weight of cobalt is 58.933194 and E=mc2.

Meanwhile, if your faith is sufficiently deep and strong, you can believe ANYTHING (and, sure enough, that’s precisely what happens)!

Not to be argumentative I wasn’t speaking to anyone or any particular statement all I was doing was clarifying my faith, for the record my faith doesn’t exclude legitimate scientific facts and or theories I believe there’s enough room for that in my life. I generally reject stupidity and don’t respect anyone that thinks they know everything. There really are some things that cannot be explained, scientifically and when they become explainable I believe that explanation fits in with my theory of faith.

Frankly, as a Christian, I resent being lumped in with supposedly Christian assholes like Franklin Graham, Joel Osteen and their I'll.

Christ preached tolerance, forgiveness and humility before God. There is none of that in what comes out of the mouths of these charlatans.

Every religion has its share of these types, people who at best have forgotten that we exist to obey God serve God and our fellow human beings, not that God exists to serve our ever desire. At worst, these callously corrupt people leverage peoples's faith to relieve them of their money, or even their lives.

Every one of these, whether it's pedophile priests, con men or just intolerance of LGBT individuals or other faiths is a corruption of what Christ taught.

.....and their ilk.

Damned autocorrect🙄😖

I agree with ATACdawg. There are too many folks who preach a good game, but who don’t follow the true message of Jesus. The Catholic Church has become a giant corporation with it’s own lawyers and balance sheet. It’s sad, but it is a poor representation of Jesus and his apostles.