Religious debate on prayer belongs here,

Keep it civil and on track gentlemen and gentlewomen and gentlehermaphrodites.

You women, however, can claw each other's eyes out.

Anytime someone says "Pray for them," it's the most pompous thing ever.

A) stop boasting about your thoughtfulness, which is what you're doing.
B) Stop telling me what the fuck to do
C) Keep your god to yourself.

I'm gonna have to agree with Devin here. While I think it's fine to pray for others, I don't think it's right to ask others to pray. If someone's gonna pray, they will. However, there's absolutely no reason to yell at someone when they say "my prayers are with them".

a)I am not boasting. I am encouraging my fellow believers to pray as we are commanded to do.
b)I am not talking to you or any other non-believers. It's not all about you, you thoughtless arrogant little man.
c)No.

Your fellows believers know enough to pray. You think people didn't think of that until you posted it on a message board? Give me a break.

"Wow, I never thought of praying, even though I am a devout believer, until Capt mentioned it on the chud board!"

And jabba, i like when you don't know what you're talking about, which is pretty much all the time.

That's all well and good, but when someone says "Pray for Mojo," you motherfucking pray for Mojo.

What if someone says, "I am keeping them in my prayers"?

I still think that boasting.

Eh, I dunno. I think it's basically a religious person's way of saying "this is a terrible event" or "my thoughts go out to the family."

Coyote was a two-step ahead of me.

Now, as to the prayer issue:

1) It's no less lip-service than saying, "oh, what tragedy."

2) "I pray for the departed spirits of these men and women." This is not offensive. Anyone who finds it so is intolerant.

And really, as naive as it might seem to some of us, we should respect belief in practice.

3) "We should all pray to Jesus and God in this moment of sorrow." This is asking for trouble:

a) Not every religous person is Christian.
b) Not every person is religous, therefore, implying that — everyone — should pray seems arrogant.

Think before you post. I know I ain't the best example, but if you look carefully, I think you'll find most my opinionizing in relevant forums.

PS, DVtS, you illiterate dick, how does atheism imply a complete lack of respect for the dead? Furthermore, there are a few religions where dead is dead. So use what passes for brains, and THINK, before you lecture the godless heathens.

Most religious people know that the mere mention of prayer will irritate those who are not especially in a public arena. There are several options depending on the situation.

1. You can come off as preachy but most people of faith feel that God has given them the right to further His work anyway so the feelings and convictions of others do not matter. This is the attitude that exudes a sense of superiority even if it was originally intended to or not.

2. Keep it personal between you and God.

3. Since prayer is actually a meditation of the mind and heart towards God and/or things of an eternal nature a person of faith can merely mention one's heart and thought being directed to the situation at hand.

Many misunderstanding are due to ignorance, pride, or malice from either side of the debate.

As an atheist myself, I have to say I find people saying “Pray for them” to be no more “oppressive” than when somebody says “Have a nice day” or “Take it easy.”

And I find the idea of taking offense that someone else says they are praying for someone bewildering. I know when I’m being proselytized to, and when a person is just expressing one’s genuinely held faith, and being hypersensitive about every little damn thing hardly seems like the best route towards winning tolerance or respect.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

To me, "they're in our prayers" equals "they're in our thoughts", and I have no problem with this. If I were 'they', I'd appreciate the concern.

But in articles about disasters I often see survivors mention that God must have been looking out for them, and for some reason that bothers me. Sure he was. That's why you were kidnaped/trapped in a mine/burned up on re-entry/whatever in the first place. That's the kind of stuff that makes me shake my head a bit.

But maybe it's just me.

That's the strangest double post I've ever seen.

Wrong. Period.

Let me give an example to back up Jacob's assertion:

"Y'know, I like fucking infants. It may not be for everyone, and I surely am not suggesting OTHERS should fuck an infant, but I, for one, find infant-fucking highly enjoyable."
Is it directed to anyone? No.
Is it trying to convert? Assuredly not.
Is there any rational reason to complain about it? Well, I don't think so, but I'm known as quite the infant-fucker myself, so there ya go.

I will be fucking infants for those poor astronauts....

HOWEVER, if someone says they're praying for someone, I hardly find that objectionable. Of course, as Seabass points out, if God was going to do anything, NOT LETTING THEM DIE would probably be a better starting point. And in Christian theology, you go to Heaven and Hell on your own merits, not on whether or not people are praying for your soul.

Which makes "praying for someone's soul" a pretty worthless act by any stretch, when you really break it down.

But hey, I waste my time with internet porn, others waste it with a Catholic Mass. To each their own, I say.

While that particular exampleis completely idiotic and disgusting it certainly does make Jacob's statement hold water. I would however like to hear Jacob's reasoning on how my little call to prayer caused anyone problems.

I kinda feel bad about that, because truly I DON'T equate the 2 activities; but as a blanket statement, you were incorrect - IF one finds the faith/activity offensive/distasteful/otherwise unacceptable, your mention of it is the same. Forget the infant fucking; what if someone was saying he was going to light a cross at the Klan meeting for them or something? It's an EXTREME argument, but it is an extrapolation that is LOGICAL (though both do intentionally run right up to the line of reduction ad absurdum)

I'm praying for all of you.

Well, once I found that idiotic and disgusting was something I was good at, I stuck with it.

I will say I am somewhat regretful of the example I chose; my fingers kinda ran far ahead of my brain on it, and I at the least wouldn't want to take the example all that seriously, Scott - I wanted to use something extreme, but I'll admit it would have been a tad better to dip a toe into the extreme pool as opposed to the cannonball I performed.

All I did in the original thread was to ask if, just this once, you people could keep your god to yourselves. It was just a request, never a demand. Obviously, it was an impossible request. I should have known better.

There is no need or reason for me to espouse upon the many, many problems I have with people calling on a god in a time of disaster, or, frankly, any other time, and why I find it antagonizing, arrogant and insulting. It's pointless. You'll never understand why I feel the way I do. So there's just no point.

I already apologized in that thread for even bringing the subject up. And even that was taken out of context. Please, allow me to once again apologize for bringing it up.

So, fuck it. It's boring and stupid and worthless arguing with you people. Good luck with all your prayer. I'm done with this 'debate', and this forum in particular.

Could you, just this once, keep your first-person pronoun out of your communication? It's horribly pompous.

Hi Jabba,

Obviously if you didn't know then you are not among my "most religious people" statement, are you? Now if I had said, "All religious people," then you could take my statement personally but since it doesn't seem to apply to you...

"You got it all wrong holy man....I absolutely believe in God." (Pitch Black - context changed slightly)

In fact I am extremely religious but I find it important to understand opposing view points. One of my teen sons is an atheist and I love him more then my church. Understanding him has been a tremendous learning experience in tolerance and intruding on other people's convictions.

What I find fascinating is the emotional level on both sides, extreme religious and not, to crusade for their cause with almost an equal zealousness and fervor. The result is a lot of collateral damage on those around them.

I'm am amazed that someone as smart as you, you would be bothered by someone asking everyone to pray. It shows that you might have a sentsitive ego, I don't know. You could've ignored it and proceed to discus the facts of the accident. But, no.

It would be as childish if I gotten upset that someone said "F*ck Jesus."

I really don't understand this at all.

I'm a confessed atheist, but why would anyone give a FLYING FUCK if someone wants to invoke god or prayer? What the fuck do you care? How does it hurt or hinder you, unless YOU have that deep a problem with faith. Get over it.

I'm sorry Jubba, I was responding to what you wrote to me and not to what Jacob said. I find most zealots to be disturbing, religious, political, or other...

See, I do not feel justified invoking the name of God in a public forum due to my understanding but then I would not attack someone who asked all of us to pray to Buddha either.

SIX posts into the main thread:

Wonder what the reaction would have been if I had asked everyone to smoke a bowl for the astronauts.

I have to say that this time your humor is greatly appreciated by me. I may even take a puff...

I may have missed this entire thread and be posting completly out of left field...

But what is wrong with me stating what I am going to do?

What is wrong with me simply asking people to do something. Qualifiying this statement is how I would say it. Now, here's how I'd edit Cap's post just to everthing would be more copesetic.

"If you're a praying person, please pray for..." That's usually how I say it and I seem to avoid getting flack and attacked for no good reason.

I unsure how to take some of the posts, as some tell me to take my God and stuff it and that chills me to my bones.

Pray for the astronauts and their families. Wow, folks can be offended by absolutely anything. To begin with, Pray for the astronauts, I personally wouldn't be praying for their souls. This prayer would be for the safety of their return. If a safe return is not possible at all the prayer turns to peace, comfort and understanding for the friends and families of those that were lost. God is complex and hard to understand in his motives sometimes and we as humans, due to human nature, are not going to understand why those 7 people had to die that way. The big picture may not be very apparent to us right now, our questions may never be answered. Point being God had a plan for those people and this was part of it. As for the rest of us, the tragedy will provide useful information for the future of space travel. God works in mysterious ways and doesn't have to justify any of it. He brought us into the world and can take us out any way he chooses and we can't do anything about it. You can get angry about it all you want to, that's human nature, but it won't do you any good. It's best to just learn from what happened and move on. Prayers should be directed to those who need peace and comfort in their time of need. Just my 2 cents worth.

I thought God gave us free will. the arguement that he can kill people whenever he chooses destroys that idea. If you say God has a plan, that's why they die, then you are also saying it is his plan when a five-year old is raped & murdered.

If God does give us free will, then praying does nothing anyways.

A bit off topic, but it's bothersome none the less.

Silly me. I assumed that people would be SMART ENOUGH to figure that part out. Obviously I don't want to force anyone to pray (as if you could do that). And obviously I don't think that I would be the spark that would cause folks to start praying but I know that I need reminders t opray more frequently. Before they may have prayed once or six times. Maybe reading my post would cause one additional prayer but then non-believers aren't gonna understand that either. I am truly sorry for offending any atheists out there, but not so sorry that I will keep God to myself. Can't do it. Nope, nope.

Well don't be suprised when people who don't want to hear about YOUR God or don't want their children's minds filled with YOUR religion (I know that doesn't apply to the boards, but in other aspects of life) to get pissed when you spit out your beliefs in a public place.

Free speech allows you to say what you want, but it also allows others to tell you to shut up.

That being said, I think athiests & agnostics need to choose our battles, & this one isn't worth it.

I think you are a touch confused here. Having free will and having your number come up are two different things. You don't have the free will to choose when you will die. You do however have the free will to choose whether to attack a child. I don't think that would be in the best of interest, though. Children are held quite high in God's eyes. As the old saying goes, Give someone enough rope and they will hang themself. God gives us all the rope we need, we are the ones that choose how to use it. Besides through the free will of the attacker we as a people have learned something. God isn't going to stop that attack or a tragedy, these are things that allow us to grow in our understanding of the world and to put our hope in something far greater than the actions of this world. God lets us run things, but rest assured those unforgiven souls will be punished.

If god chooses when freak accidents occur, than he is taking away free will. god had to make sure that for everyone on that flight, their time was up.

If there is even ONE occurance where god has stepped in, that eliminates the possiblity of free will.

I think you missed the part about free will doesn't include when we die. They had the choice of whether to get on that shuttle or not. God, being all knowing, knew the decision that they would make. Even if one or more of them hadn't gotten on the shuttle, who's to say that they wouldn't have gone some other way? Apparently their time here was finished, their goal reached. God acts and reacts to the decisions that we make even though he knows the decisions before we make them. We just don't know what the repercussions of our decisions will be.

[quote]beavis:
So God helps people commit suicide, cool guy.

<strong> So we're not really dealing with a pro-active kinda guy here.

The fact is, if someone would have said, BEFORE capteucalyptus posted his message, "Don't pray for them, there is no God, they're dead" we'd still be in this shit storm of an arguement.

Any menttion of religion is going to piss someone off, learn to expect it and start working on your notes...

People also shouldn't get mad when Iraq says it was God's punishment that these folks die.

[quote]Hubris, the new pet rock:
Wow, I am completely bumfuzzled here. No, God doesn't help people commit suicide, it doesn't mean that He didnt' know that you were going to do it though. Now we are back to the part about God not stepping in and stopping something that was supposed to happen in the first place. Of course there is always the possibility that your number wasn't up when you decided to commit suicide and someone arrives to save your crazy ass. You have the free will to try to control it, but there is no way that you can. If your number hasn't been called it isn't going to work out for you. Again we learn from the mistakes and experiences of others. The stopped suicide attempt may turn into a powerful testimony.

I am fascinated in hearing your reasoning behind this.

So god does not impose his will on us. That's fine with me. Just don't say after a tragedy that it was god's will, or god works in mysterious ways, or any other bullshit. if there is a god, he is just watching and had nothing to do with the accident.

Of course this being the case, prayer becomes an exercise in futility. Something done to make the prayer feel better, not to improve the state of those they are praying for.

Their statement is a possible answer, that may or may not be the case. Wasn't the same thing said of 9/11? We will still learn something from all of this. Reasons are almost never apparent in the shadow of a disaster.

Christians believe (calvinists accepted) that God has already saved every person on this planet , if they accept God into their lives. By that token, there is no need for God to save anyone from death because God has already saved them.

If God exists, God has created a world where we will all die. I'm not sure it's fair to say God is picking people to die every day since God has already instituted death for all people.

Let's face it; people doing dangerous work are more likely to die than a person sitting on their couch. Since we all know we pass on, we take our chances and God picks up the pieces.

Edited for their/there

Rath, he's completely right...

God does have an effect on everything, He's not just some onlooker. Without knowing the God that I know, you will never be able to understand where I am coming from. Yes, that's a bold statement, I meant it that way.

Faith and prayer is a wonderful thing, think it futile or not. You just don't understand it, nor do you probably want to right now and that's alright, your perogative if you will.

Prayer does work, I have seen it work, and you or any other nay-sayer on this board will ever tell me otherwise. I am sure there are a few others around here that will tell you the same thing. I'm not forcing anything on you or telling you what to believe, you have the free will to believe whatever you want to. When you do see it work and something great happens you will know what I am talking about.

[quote]beavis:
So this whole "numbers" theory is the basis of your religion, eh? sounds kinda iffy to me.

We do have control over our life and death to an extent. The fact that god allows you to live until he pre-determines your 'number' being up seems like a rationale for not giving a shit either way.

"Well, my number could be up any minute so I may as well take half a sheet of acid and jerk off until my dick turns into a devil bunny and tries to eat me."

You hold a gun to your head, pull the trigger, and the lights go out, forever. If you fuck it up it's your own fault. The point I was trying to make that if god determines when your 'number' is up, he (she, it, whatever) facilitated your death. God helps people commit suicide. Your 'number' was up and nothing you did or didn't do could stop it. That is simply not true.

Point being, those who claim to follow the word of God seem to have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that they aren't all on the same page. If god wouldn't save those on the shuttle through prayer, why would any other prayers do any good, either? Physics had more to do with those Astronauts dying than any God ever did.