My understanding is that, at least for some, the prayer is both, “Can you make x happen or show me how to?” and also, “Grant me your wisdom, aka make me such that I want what you want and what you want me to want.”
Of course, I would also say that if God wanted to make you such that you want what he wants, you would already want it, and not just want to want it. So (like many religious answers) it doesn’t actually solve the issue. Help here would be appreciated - it’s not like “efficacy of prayer” is a new problem, so what have the Abrahamic religions come up with in the last 3,000 years?
Would you say the same if they were all Satanists?
Reenforcing people’s faith may make some people more humble, but for many of the people I know in this country it will make them more self-righteous and firmly entrenched in their opinions, because of the belief that God is guiding them so they can’t be wrong.
I don’t want their interpretation of the beliefs of some God to influence their decision. What if they’re deciding about sodomy? Or interracial marriage 50 years ago?
Totally sarcasm, it is the kind of thing you would hear thrown around as a fact in the type of place which also insists that official prayer is ok as long as the popular protestant chaplain is the only one ever offered the opportunity.
Fine by me if they’re Satanists. I was intentional about not specifying which god they’re praying to, or whether that god is even real. Might even be a Pastafarian town, if there was one.
As for ignorant bigots, well they’re probably going to decide issues in bigoted ways whether they pray or not. One might hope, at least, they might be reminded of ideas like mercy and justice which (just about) every religion promotes. It does sound as if you think all religious people, of all religions, are ignorant bigots. I assure you that’s not true, but I don’t expect to change your mind.
It might surprise you to learn I have never even heard the word “sodomy” spoken by anybody in any church I have ever attended. They’re right now wrangling over the ordination of LGBT people, but a whole lot of members are over 80, so I think it’s best to be patient.
Actually, mine does, but only in the smallest amounts. I know that’s not what you meant.
Replace with OD-able drug of your choice? My relative’s friend died of an OD (apparently heroin is quite on the upswing among young people these days). Why not just assume dobby is trying to say something meaningful without having much knowledge about your drug of choice? Whatever.
If we would all just love each other more like Jesus, these controversies about prayers at city council meetings would seem trivial compared to the wonderful happy lives we would all be living. I have seen people who were not religious who emulated Christ. That should be the real important thing, not what words we say in public.
I don’t think that all religious people are ignorant bigots, but it is irrelevant to me that you never heard the word “sodomy” in a church.
My point was that people can hold all sorts of bad, bigoted beliefs specifically because their religion told them to (and let’s not pretend that all religions left all bigoted beliefs behind 50 years ago). They can also hold good beliefs, yes, but should we let the possibility that they might be swayed in a positive direction trump the possibility that they might be swayed in a negative direction?
Put it this way: imagine you are on trial, and you have the opportunity to select your own jury. For each seat, the judge presents you with two options: one religious (Catholic priest, bible-thumping Westboro Baptist, fiery Muslim imam, Shaiva, Satanist, etc.) and one secular. Are you saying that you would pick the religious person every time?
To me, it’s the same question. I would prefer to have a jury of all secular people than a jury of all religious people whose religion may influence them. Likewise, I’d prefer a council to try and think in humanist terms than to re-affirm their belief and commitment to a God I don’t agree with before making every decision.
The goodness or badness of the beliefs is not the point of the First Amendment. If it was, we could just engineer the optimal religion with all the good stuff and none of the… my God, so that was Jefferson’s fiendish plot! To make us all Unitarians!
I would probably prefer the same jury you would. But that’s also not the point of the First Amendment. It’s interesting to recall that the “separation of church and state” was originally a Baptist idea to prevent the government from perverting religion - not vice-versa. I’ve lived in places where that “wall” was a mere speed bump, and I think those Baptists had a point.
Why not read his/her response? [quote="dobby, post:44, topic:30285"]
Totally sarcasm, it is the kind of thing you would hear thrown around as a fact in the type of place which also insists that official prayer is ok as long as the popular protestant chaplain is the only one ever offered the opportunity.
[/quote] Yeah, whatever.
Moore, however, strongly denied that in a phone interview Monday, saying the speech was aimed at describing what he believed were the biblical foundations of the United States. The Chief Justice said First Amendment protections extend to everyone, regardless of their beliefs.
“It applies to the rights God gave us to be free in our modes of thinking, and as far as religious liberty to all people, regardless of what they believe,” Moore told the Montgomery Advertiser.
Something about that statement makes my head hurt...
Well, that answers my question about what would happen if someone asked a imam, Shinto priest, or practitioner of Wicca to give the daily blessing. Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
[quote=“Boundegar, post:37, topic:30285, full:true”]
Well, if you believe no prayer was ever sincere, you certainly have a point.
[/quote]It’s often quite worse if it’s sincere.
There are many types of prayer. As meditation. As a rite for establishing group cohesion. As a depersonified, goal-directed entreaty. The first is inappropriate for a public assembly. The last two are inappropriate for public not of the faith it’s directed at.
I believe that Santorum and Bachmann and Phyliss Schlafly and _____ [fill-in] are sincere. Sincerity has nothing to do with it. It doesn’t make their [inevitably goal-directed] prayers any less dreadful.
Yeah. I get it, and am generally less pissed off by people insincerely saying they’ll pray for me, than the sincere ones.
The sincere ones, when they say they’ll pray for me, mean that they think everything I believe is wrong, and that they want to beg their god to mind-control me, take away my free will, and force me into thinking in a way they want.
They’re saying they don’t think it’s worth their time to speak persuasively or to understand me, or to hear what I have to say, or to even consider the implications of their own beliefs, and that instead they’re so hateful of the way I am that they’re unwilling to sit still when they think they have a universal power on their side, and can ask it to force everyone they don’t like into conforming with a norm that makes them comfortable.
ETA:
The “I’ll pray for you” people always couch the idea in cuddly spiritual terms like “I hope god softens your heart” or, “you’ll come back to god.” (My family still thinks my atheism is some kind of phase, and don’t understand that I came to it through a close examination of both Christianity and religion overall).
When they say “I hope god softens your heart”, they imply “you’re a hateful and angry person” as well as “I don’t think you deserve free will at all, and can’t have the responsibility to manage your own thoughts and beliefs. I hope my god takes away your ability to think.”
Christians rarely understand the implications of their faith, and it pisses me off that they say these things with such conviction when they spend no time thinking about what what they say means to people who don’t take “god is real” and “god is good” as true a priori.
Where the hell else are you going to fight a pig aside from in the mud? Begging the question of why are you fighting a pig instead of leaving it alone, you don’t find them coming to do battle on ice rinks or dancefloors very often.
