What is the point of prayer

[Frank Drebin 5653]

27 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Do what I say and believe what I believe or you’ll be tortured for the rest of eternity in burning sulfurous hellfire.

So, free will.

God loves us and asks very little of us. Accept his grace through His son Jesus Christ. In my experience, and I fall short all the time, the more I live in accordance with His will and focus on the eternal things, the better and more joyful life is  The more I rebel, the harder life is.

[Jiggy-Z 3433]

There is a struggle to determine what power set things in motion in this universe. Religion over time has come up with inadequate explanations that always need updating to jive with the available science.

Worship is a useless excercise since an all powerful creator of the universe would hardly require any fealty and praise.

However, I do believe that we humans have more going on than meets the eye. Not unlike certain  bodily processes that simply occur without our knowledge, I believe the human spirit for lack of a better word, contains the power to alter outcomes and heal others as well as oneself.

Perhaps it is some lost evolutionary trait or art, it could be some spiritual power endowed by a creator, alien tech, or even "the force" (tm)

Prayer may be a means of accessing this insofar as it allows one to truly know themselves and tap into it in probably the most inefficient and ham fisted way.

 

[YGIFS 19452]

6 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

God loves us and asks very little of us. Accept his grace through His son Jesus Christ. In my experience, and I fall short all the time, the more I live in accordance with His will and focus on the eternal things, the better and more joyful life is  The more I rebel, the harder life is.

You must not be Catholic  

A buncha stuff stands out to me at my wife's mass each week, but one in particular is "always and everywhere to give you praise" (priest referring to God).  I joke with my wife and her family, as you point out, "God isn't like a junior high girl needing constant validation and worship.  Let's just try to be better overall is all that's asked."  And they still double-down, "No, it's always and everywhere!"  Yeah, no.  That's not a thing.  That's not even remotely possible.  Just take a breath and be kind to one another.  

To belabor my upthread rants, prayer and meditation help me out a lot.  It just helps call into power your subconscious to run some serious software behind the scenes.  Think about how little time each we spend in serious, serious thought.  I mean we're watching and reading and listening to shit, but how much active RAM power is being accessed.  but again, telling somebody to tell somebody else that you;'re praying for somebody else.  Fucking worthless.  less than nothing because you feel superlative when you could have made a donation or sent a meal and done infintitely more tangible good

[Guest]