It’s not unlike me walking around hoping someone walks up to me and throws me the keys for an Aston Martin or wants to be charitable and gives me a hundred million dollars.
Except I know that’s not going to happen. And I’m not praying to some sky daddy for it.
MATTHEW 6 Giving to the Needy 1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
One thing I will never understand is how people can believe that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful being who created the universe, and wields supreme authority over everything the universe encompasses, and yet simultaneously believe that he’ll take the time to listen to your petty bullshit and wiggle his fingers to get you a new car, or make sure your favorite team wins the superbowl. Surely, if he’s so overwhelmingly powerful, the pleas and devotion of us mere mortals would be completely inconsequential to him. So do Christians believe he’s omniscient and omnipotent, but also incredibly insecure?
Not only that, but he also created them as poor and killed their baby cousin with cancer and tortures all the exploited people and animals in the world.
I don’t believe in omnipotent or omniscient gods, only normal ones, but I’ll bite your hypothetical.
An omniscient god would necessarily have a perfect sense of empathy. They would know what everyone is feeling. And to know a feeling is to feel it, so they would feel every feeling in the world, at full intensity. Obviously such a being would need to be all emotionally resilient as well as all knowing. But they would care for the problems of mortals, because they would feel what mortals do. Perhaps in such a hypothetical, prayers are simply a person attaching a feeling of urgency to their needs, in hope that their god will feel this urgency too and respond.
But of course, I believe in normal gods, so this is all just an intellectual exercise to me.
He is also omni-benevolent. So, if you are a good Christian, making good thing for a good person is an act of goodness, so He will do it. That’s not a contradiction, but logical consequence of His omni-benevolence.
The true paradox is in so called problem of evil. How come, for example, that small innocent children can horribly suffer in this world, with Omni-benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god?
Even if it is true, it is still a contradiction. It is like when someone noticed that a circle can not be a square at the same time, saying that it is yellow does not help.
The true paradox is in so called problem of evil. How come, for example, that small innocent children can horribly suffer in this world, with Omni-benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god?
Exactly. Take the example of a child suffering from cancer. Are they suffering because God cannot stop it? Then he is not omnipotent.
Are they suffering because God doesn’t know about it? Then he’s not omniscient.
Are they suffering because God just doesn’t care? Then he’s not omni-benevolent.
A god as described by most religious people, especially Christians, cannot exist while at the same time suffering exists. And don’t give me the “free will” or “challenge” bull crap because a 5 year old with cancer cannot exercise their free will because of the cancer and they do not deserve that kind of pain. It’s cruel to “challenge” a parents faith by making an innocent child suffer.
Yeah - Christians don’t even have resurrection to fall back on here. At least Hindus can cite karmic debt - the idea that little Timmy, who is suffering from leukemia, is just reaping the reward of being an absolute bastard in a former life.
Hindu do not have this Omni-omni-omni god. But Christian do. One excuse could be that if child suffers and die then it gets to heaven. But then, why would Omni-benevolent god would put chile through that?
Praying helps. Praying is a mediaeval, prescientific form of therapy. Talking out your day, and your feelings, to someone who will listen. That works just as well with a family member, a supposed god, or my imaginary friend Bill.
And given that therapy costs money and many people are poor, prayer is an appropriate self-medication option for many people who need to talk to someone about their feelings. It’s even an appropriate option for people who see a therapist but not as often as they’d like.
Now this is all beside the benefits prayer has if you’re trying to create or empower an egregore, of course.
So that’s why it doesn’t work—I must have used all my wishes already. Now, if I just run this lamp backwards under an upside-down half moon, I should get them all back.
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