Guy Chamberlin
Active member
My thing about the power of prayer is that it inherently implies that the kid in the next room who died of leukemia was less worthy of a miracle.
Weird Time for Christians
- Thread starter Guy Chamberlin
- Start date
Lorewarn
New member
Reminds me of one of my favorite stand-up bits by Patton Oswald, breaking down the abomination of a 'song' that is Christmas Shoes:
funhusker
Active member
NM11046
Donor
Praying is to make the person doing it feel better. There is no cause and effect, it has nothing to do with the patient or person that's on the "receiving" end.
Scarlet
Active member
But first make that kid and his family go through a horrific, agonizing death
"Possible"
funhusker
Active member
Come to think of it, mothers that lose infants should be pissed off.
They dream of starting a family for possibly decades. Go through nine months of pregnancy. Mood swings, home remodels, job changes, and everything else that goes with it. Just so God can change his mind and "call that baby home".
God is pro-choice!
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Lorewarn
New member
Nah, mothers should be happy because that kid has a 100% chance of going to heaven, but if they lived and grew into adulthood and accountability, odds are overwhelmingly against them never getting saved and going to hell.
funhusker
Active member
Definitely one possible scenario. As we sit here on Earth, we will never actually know for sure.
NM11046
Donor
Ah, BUT (I say this as a former catholic) if that baby was never baptised it goes straight to hell. (I think they may have taken this out of the doctrin a few years ago now, but until the 2000's that kid was going down).
Guy Chamberlin
Active member
Since we can never know, and the criteria for suffering seems wildly arbitrary, the motivation for believing is pretty thin.
One thing we can control is being kind and empathetic in real-time.
funhusker
Active member
I don't disagree.
I don't think we have a clue what it waiting "beyond" our physical senses. It's why I'm betting on the the house, it's very likely humans are wrong when it comes to how "gods" work.
Like @Guy Chamberlin said, all we know for sure is the world would be a better place if we try to make it a better place for the people who are here.
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Lorewarn
New member
This is common parlance for "your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven". That's what it means. Very cool that it's an opportunity to participate and manifest our highest ideals around us.
This is absolutely a struggle for everyone. Christians included. I remember when my Dad died of cancer (second go around). I got a call around February (many years ago) and was told he was going off the treatments. They were only going to extend his life not save it. He decided the chemo was just making him more miserable so why bother. Of course the family was praying for healing, and some of my siblings were convinced it was going to work, myself included. He passed away in July of the same year. The prayers may not have achieved the desired result, but many other things happened that were incredible. Don’t have the time or the room to tell the stories here, butI remember praying with my dad about a variety of things in person and on the phone. That hadn’t happened until then. We had a lot of discussions during that time….about life the universe and everything I guess. It was a very difficult time, but I would not change it for anything. My dad was healed, just not in the way that most of us expected. Many people were changed…for the better I think. When you believe in terms of the eternal, death is a looked at differently. I understand that many in the political thread do not buy it. I get it. That is very much OK. I understand that “eternal results” have been abused in many awful ways that have justifiably pissed and turned people off. I can’t argue with that, I just believe that the kid that dies of leukemia is not less worthy.