Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

We've been discussing prayer a lot in the Can God Be thread, and this segment of the discussion has matured enough to be its own topic.

To summarize the discussion to this point: we were going back and forth (both religious people and atheists) about just what the point of prayer is. Upsilon made the quotes you see on page 8 of the aforementioned thread.


But of the type of complicated that "a child can do but even a master has more to learn." Like the game of Othello, which my friend Chris Young is doing some research into.


Absolutely correct! So let other readers beware: if you think God is giving you karma points for sitting through a church service in which you don't participate, you're wrong. If God wants you to praise him, Upsilon, it won't be in a liturgy. For me, part of my praise to him is to glorify him here, online, for people like yourself to see! That takes a lot more effort and thought than reciting some 300-year-old script... but I think it's worth it.


Not empirical evidence, if that's what you're getting at. What we have is God's promise that he addresses and answers our prayers, and he commands us to pray our supplications to him (Phil 4:6). It's taken on authority by Christians, not on statistical inference.

Having said that, God quite often grants supplicative prayers of young Christians in order to train them to trust him, and it's the more mature Christians he usually tests with the hardships of a time metaphorically "in the desert." Talk to a doctor in a critical care unit, and ask him if in his experience prayer has worked for his patients. Once you get past him being politically correct or spouting his own philosophy, perhaps he'll tell you what his experience has been. I recommend trying this with a few different doctors.


How are you "involved" in a political campaign? How are you "involved" in your family? In your classrooms? In a drama? The way you involve yourself in most anything has to do with all kinds of things in your mind, but the main manifestation is verbal. Same with prayer. All kinds of stuff goes on in the Spirit and your will and thought, but the main measurable is prayer. So "yes, a chinwag. More, but not less."


As with my "involvement" comment above, the manifestation is identical... but I'm not sure that the internal state of the speaker is the same. I know that it's meaningful just to sit watching a movie with my ladyfriend, even though I act no different than I would were I watching it alone. But as I said in the Recent Movies thread, a movie shared is better. So I intuit it is with a journal versus a friend. However, my choice of the term "intuit" is intentional, since it is simply intuition. I will not start any theologies based on that minor pseudo-insight.

_________________

People, at least in the US, have their right to pursue happiness, not necessarily to be happy, but rather to at least pursue it. If someone want to believe in a God, or many Gods . . . or a piece of celery . . . that's their business as well as one of their supossed rights. However, if someone's pusuit of happiness infringes upon someone else's pursuit of happiness, then they become questionable and in most cases end up breaking some law. Very literally, take a rapist for example. They have their right to pursue hapiness, and they do, but it infringes upon others and causes irrevocable damage to one or many people. Thus, that rapist is dealt with accordingly for taking his "pursuit", as sick as it sounds, too far. Essentially every US law serves the purpose of keeping people happy, from keeping things like the aforementioned rape from occurring. The US, along with most of the world, sets laws to keep boundaries on the pursuit of hapiness. Most likely, if someone infringes on another's pursuit of happiness, they're dealt with accordingly.

Isn't telling someone that their religion is wrong or misguided infringing on their pursuit of happiness? Preaching to someone and making them uncertain, confused, or 'lost' certainly is as as mentally damaging in some cases as a rape is. When someone questions their faith, and begins to ask questions that have no certain answer, their mental state degrades . . . . and this is the type of "logical thinking" that produces mental instability such as depression, anxiety, and in some cases such exotic illnesses as schizophrenia and dissassociative personalities.

Animals, and other species not as developed as a humans, do not suffer from the degradation of their mind on the mass scale that we do, for they don't ask endless and unanswerable questions. Ignorance is bliss, yet everday we hear of yet another person blowing something up "in the name of [their] God".

As things move on in time, entropy (chaos) increases among everything. We no longer use hrses, we use cars. We don't mail leters anymore, we email them and secure them with 256 bit encryption.

In my opinion, and I'm sure in the opinion of many others, religion is created to answer 3 questions - Where did we come from?; Why are we here?; and Where are we going?

Will we eventually move and think so fast that we cannot control ourselves any longer? God's other 10 commandments must not have been important enough for us to know them, even though he did give them to a guy on top of a mountain . . .who was alone . . . and we never hear from God again . . . . strange.

Just think what would happen today if someone said they climbed a mountain, talked to God, and pulled a "here's what he said and told us to do" sort of thing - medication and psychotherapy. Sorry if I've wasted your time.

Someone has to be very weak willed for that to happen. Or have a history of mental instability prior to questioning their beliefs...

_________________

OTHER Ten Commandments? Having studied the Mount Sinai text pretty thoroughly (in the original Hebrew even!) I'm fairly confident there were no OTHER Ten Commandments, just the original Ten.

And we never hear from God again? What gave you that idea? What about 1000 years of prophets, like Isaiah, Zechariah, and Joel? What about the apostles St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John? And, most importantly, what about that guy Jesus Christ, who died and rose from the dead?


Possibly. But then again, what if they are wrong? What if the god in which they believe is a cruel, false god? Are we not to correct them? (and this is just as true for people who construct false images of the true God, like the KKK, who believe that God is a white supremist). And the purpose in doing so is to help them to find ultimate happiness, which can only be found in the graces of the true God. Hope in a false god will not last forever; only hope in a true God can.

I have to agree with Dr. Zaius on this one. Most people who take their religious faith at all seriously will react in one of two ways: (1) being willing to discuss the issue like a rational person, or (2) dismiss you as a total heretic. In my own experience with mental illness (I work in a dementia ward at Lutheran Senior Services), I have observed no direct link between mental illness and theology. Most of the mental illnesses you listed are much more closely associated with bio-chemical imbalances or other medical phenomena, except in cases of trauma (like the death of a loved one or a rape). So, in short, your argument is not securely grounded in any medical or psychological data.

_________________

So, more to the point, should we pray for thesgman? If we did, what should/would we expect as a result?

Does God bend to our will in prayer? If God does bend to our will in prayer, and we pray for God to change someone, will he bend their will in bending to our will? Is it instead a game? What are we to expect when we pray for someone's salvation?

Thanks for starting discussion, thegsman. Your comment would have been very proper in the aforementioned "Can God Be" thread, and you've been answered by two people who couldn't be more diametrically opposed theologically! Congratulations!

I pray because God tells me to pray. I believe he changes me through prayer. But to be honest, I don't expect him to act very much on my prayer if he doesn't act immediately. I know, I know, in 2nd grade Sunday School, we're told that God sometimes answers "wait" to our prayers. But that doesn't seem as Biblical anymore, and it certainly doesn't jive with my experience...

well... um... hmm. Actually (and I am typing as I think, so forgive any potential contradiction as I reason)... I have had some good results from some "wait" answers. But they always seem to be caught up in the next wave of waiting. Maybe I'm rambling, but the experience is genuine. All of my long-term investments are in the "wait state" and don't look too good.

But I pray anyway. Not because I any longer think I can force God's hand, but because he tells me to!

_________________

Buz, how do you "know" god wants you to play to him/her/it? Did you receive a transmission directly from the deity? Or are you just going by what the preacher man and an old book says?

_________________

There are a number of preachers and old books that I do not "go by." But I do go by what God revealed in the Bible, and inasmuch as a preacherman is abiding within those bounds and good sense, I'll go by him. Since the Holy Spirit indwells godly Christian preachermen, and Jesus Christ is the Word (i.e. the Bible) incarnate, then I guess that also means I received a transmission from the Almighty! Cool. I like those transmissions.

It is rare that I receive a personal revelation, more commonly a mere epiphany, and most common a message as outlined in the previous paragraph.

And to answer your question, Philippians 4:6 contains one of the commands to pray, and is the off-the-top-of-my-head source of my knowledge that God wants me to pray to him.

I am guessing that your question was a challenge in interrogative form, demanding I account for my boldness in speaking dogmatically for God. If it is agreeable to you, let us enter a "for the sake of argument" mode.

Here's the premise: if there is no God, or he is essentially unlike the Christian Bible describes, then prayer is obviously useless as a divine measure. All parties will (probably) agree to that. So, for the sake of argument, let's assume for the remainder of this thread that the Christian God of the Bible exists and is reasonably accurately represented in that Bible.

I am not taking it as a foregone conclusion, I am simply saying that the discussion has two branches, and one is completely answered... leaving the only unanswered discussion topic along the other branch. This could be really fun for you: use Christian reasoning and sources to exercize your logic, exploration, and debate skills! You don't have to agree with us, simply establish that you understand what it is we're talking about. I think it's possible I could learn something from more input.

If you don't want in on the thought experement, that's OK... you'll simply be discussing material on the branch of the discussion that we all already agree upon rather than contributing to the explorative activity. And there's plenty of other threads debating God's nature too. I think it would help the Christians on the board to take you seriously if you proved that you understood us (and simply didn't agree)... since the average outspoken anti-Christian is just plain ignorant of our way of thought. I know it would lend credence to your claims in my estimation of you!

_________________

You somehow think it's required for you to pray, because some story book says you need to? And then, you think that men somehow harness the will of god though them, even though all they're doing is reciting from said story book... So, for all you know, they could just be messing with you. Faith can be a dangerous thing, total unquestionable loyalty leads to disaster. Your reasoning seems highly questionable, because some book and a preacher man said it, it must be from god? Right, come back to me when you start hearing voices, and you shoot rays of sunshine out of your eyes...

It's total arrogance to think that your "reasoning" is just, but if someone else were to use the same functions for a different message, you'd call them crazy. Just think about it, the notion of an invisible man controlling everything? Come on. Even if there was some hyper evolved being with super cosmic powers that triggered the big bang, I doubt that it would care about little ole Earth. So praise is not necessary...

You ask me to understand? I understand all I care to. Understanding is not required. I acknowledge, that's good enough. It's impossible for me to understand, because since I have broken free of that way of thinking I can't bring myself to believing anything other than it's complete craziness. So go ahead and mock me for being "Ignorant", I'm not the one who praises some super being in the sky...

_________________

Dr. Zaius, your conclusions are already acknowledged as valid given your assumptions that there is no Christian God. There is no need to convince enyone that, if a Godless reality is axiomatically assumed, prayer and faith are a waste of time. No need to convince anyone, and no need to defend yourself.


That question would be the topic of the thread, yes.


Again, the branch that's already answered. No one is arguing with you in this thread on that. That's the topic of the 9-page "Can God Be" thread, and thousands of books, articles, songs, paintings, poems, et cetera.


Yes, that is why my loyalty is not unconditional. I do not axiomatically assume the existence of the Biblical God, I reach it as the result of reasoning based on the axiom that I exist. So, it seems that people who axiomatically assume nonexistence of God are more "unquestioning" than I, good doctor.


Actually, my reasoning comes to the confirmation of the hypothesis of the Biblical God as a conclusion, then using that as a lemma I use the Biblical authority to derive the authority of Spirit-filled leaders, and using both of those as intermediate steps, finally conclude that God wants me to pray. I have studied logic at the graduate level even under atheistic teachers and apply the clear logic here. So your perception of the questionability of my reasoning comes from the fact that you don't understand it yet. I recommend you go to the library and read the book Miracles by C.S. Lewis for a confirmation of my methods in completeness rather than in summary. But if you've already dogmatically decided what the answer must be, then that would be a waste of your time.

Usually the supernatural voices you'll hear audibly should be subject to the same level of scrutiny as an unknown Pastor, since they could just as easily be evil. Finally, I've often been told I have light in my eyes.


If someone would use the same level of reasoning with different axioms, they will come to different conclusions: much like non-Euclidean geometry. Insanity instead comes from the lack of power over reasoning or invalid (that is, wrong) stimuli being sent to the brain. It is when someone uses brain chemicals to arrive at their conclusion (instead of reasoning) that they are crazy. I have met crazy people, one of which called me the King of Kings (maybe the sunlight shooting from my eyes?), in an insane asylum. So I do not call people with different axiom systems, like yourself, crazy.


God didn't evolve: time is an artifact of sapce-time inside the universe, so whatever (if anything) created the universe does not change. That's freshman physics.

The fact that I believe he cares about little old Earth is a derivative of my conclusion that the Bible is inerrant. It is not an assumption or blind faith.


Then neither is discussion required. Thank you for sharing your dogmatic opinion and I assure you that I give it all the consideration that it merits as such, and more.


Then why do you participate? I am really trying to understand your line of thinking here, and think that if we met under different circumstances we may have even been buddies...


I do not mock you Dr. Z, I engage you in discussion as a peer with blind faith that everyone has something to contribute. I will re-evaluate that position.

But you don't sound like someone who's trying to help people understand things better, you come off more like someone who got hurt and is lashing out at things he associates with the cause of that hurt. If it's personal I will not raise the wound here in a public forum, but if you would like to talk about it I will listen. And I won't listen with an attitude of "justifying myself and using your vulnerability against you," but I will listen as someone who sees past the deeply hurt man lashing out and sees the valuable person inside. You can use the email function or the PM system to talk... but it's just an invitation -- not a demand.

_________________

Don't pray for me if you don't want to. If you do, and it means something to you, then thanks. Although . . . why just pray for a random person like me?

Sorry about the tone of voice I use all the time, it's a habit from writing about this stuff too much.

On the issue of mental instability/theology . . . don't most people who have or develop a mental condition develop it during their late teens/twenties? The unerlying cause of nearly all mental instability is what could be called a "weak will". Think of a manic depressive, or mental regression, for instance. People break down over time, become depressed, and regress (most likely to child like state) as a means to make themselves . . . or attempt to make themselves . . . feel better.
Would you also agree that a person who suffers from schizophrenia and is able to control it own their own, without the use of drugs, is a very strong willed person with an extremely strong mind? This undermines any relevance that a will, or mental competence, has nothing to do with mental instability/conditions.
Study BF Skinner, A. Bandura, Freud, whoever you like, it all comes back to an overstressed mind. Schizophrenics are certainly overstressed, nearly all the time being mentally exhausted due to their chemical imbalance. Yes, it is a chemical imbalance . . . . which causes the overstressing of the mind.

The chemical imbalance is not what causes the mental illness - it's the effect the imbalance has on the mind that causes the illness.

I understand that you believe something different than what Buz believes.

However, I will not allow ANYONE to belittle ANY OTHER PERSON'S beliefs.

If I see any more overly snarky comments such as this, we're gonna have a talk.

Let's not get our pat on the back revoked, now...