Shit That God Wouldn't Give You.

[Vomit Comet]

How much of your prayers did the SkyDaddy answer? Or was it a fucking wash?

[OpheliaGinger]

All of my prayers went answered by myself.

[Deva]

I have to admit that the whole prayer thing that you make up and speak off the top of your head always seemed bogus to me. I did say a few prayers, but past age 12 or so, it seemed silly, except for reading stuff out of the Book of Common Prayer. These printed prayers are not the same thing. That is more like recitations of a hymn without the music. If you read some of those prayers in the BCP, they are really quite beautiful, almost on the level of poetry.

 

I always thought spontaneous public prayer was dumb-ass stupid. People coming forward to be prayed for. This huge buildup in the sermon to try to guilt people into walking the isle and what do you get? Prayer. Sheesh what a let down. Its always the same thing - asking the Lord to be with you and help you with whatever problem it is. Crap, doesn't he ALREADY KNOW ABOUT IT?

[bird28]

I never prayed much even as an xtian cause it simply does not work. I have an xtian best friend, and I am having financial trouble and all she does is send me bible versus and prays for me... it's not much help.

[hereticzero]

Skydaddy compared to my daddy: Pray to Skydaddy for years for food and a better place to live. I asked my daddy and he fed me and put a roof over my head and it did not take years of me pleading for him to do so.

[Thegodthatfailed]

Skydaddy compared to my daddy: Pray to Skydaddy for years for food and a better place to live. I asked my daddy and he fed me and put a roof over my head and it did not take years of me pleading for him to do so.

 

Hey,that's not a fair comparison! Your daddy had a definite and overwhelming advantage

over the Skydaddy in that he actually existed.

[godlessgrrl]

I prayed desperately to SkyDaddy for a godly man to marry. I got plenty of SO's, but they were mostly assholes. I also got a godly husband, and the marriage was a misery from day one. It never got better despite more praying to fix it (and despite the stuff I did on my own).

 

I prayed desperately to SkyDaddy to heal me from suicidal depression that started in my early teens and lasted into my twenties. He didn't do shit, and neither did meds or therapy help that much either. What finally helped was that I packed myself up and left the life I was in and stopped living with toxic people that kept telling me I was a piece of shit.

 

Out of all the friends I prayed would get saved, only the aforementioned godly husband did. I took it as a sign that I was supposed to marry him. Stupid, stupid me.

 

I never asked SkyDaddy for financial help, and he never provided any. I never asked him to heal my beloved grandmother of cancer, and he didn't heal her. And she died, and her death caused a crisis of faith that eventually led to my apostasy. I never asked for a big house or a fancy car or to win the lottery, and I never got those things.

 

I did ask for SkyDaddy to show me that he exists. He didn't do it. I asked him to bolster my faith when it was faltering. He didn't do that either. I asked him to tell me what spiritual direction I should go, and tell me whether or not I was on the right path to knowing him better. His silence was deafening. I prayed diligently for him to help make me into a better person - nothing.

 

Life just happened the way it happened whether I prayed or not. Sometimes good shit happened, sometimes bad, sometimes nothing; and all I got were either coincidences or silence. I never heard the voice of god, I never felt the holy spirit moving within me, I never experienced anything that could have been something other than my own capacity for intelligent thought or powerful emotion.

 

So I have received neither objective nor subjective confirmation that a god or gods exist. In fact it looks a lot to me as if they don't.

[par4dcourse]

My mom had every faith healer within five hundred miles pray for my diabetes. Didn't lower my blood sugar a point.

An Animas ;insulin pump does what gawd couldn't, or ever worse wouldn't.

[qec]

I'd have to say it was pretty random and the times it wasn't was because the group or my folks got word of what I wanted and fulfilled it.

 

So basically just blind chance + manipulation from other humans.

[Non-Redneck]

I asked the bastard for some evidence that he actually existed. I could have overlooked the shitty evidence for Jesus if I had seen one miraculous event involving Jesus. Fucker wouldn't even do that.

[robbie]

Years after I stopped believing it existed, I abandoned all my principles and decided to pray to it. I begged it to not let my nan die, or at least treat her well. She spent her 88 years worshipping that thing, and as a reward she got Parkinsons, terrible pain and an horrendously undignified death.

 

If it's got a plan, then frankly I don't want to know what it is...there are some things that are unacceptable whether or not it offers a reward in return.

 

I tried to get it to make me straight when I was still Catholic too...that clearly didn't work.

[MultifariousBirdLady]

I asked the bastard for some evidence that he actually existed. I could have overlooked the shitty evidence for Jesus if I had seen one miraculous event involving Jesus. Fucker wouldn't even do that.

 

Ditto, this.

 

Now, with respect to this topic, as a child and teen there were a bunch of things I asked for that I didn't get. Later on I ended up reading and agreeing with the idea that asking for material things and boyfriends and such was not what one should be praying for in the first place. But evidence? Understanding? Knowing what God's plan was for my life? Making sense out of ideas like why a supposedly loving God would abandon huge numbers of people in hell? You bet I asked for those things.

 

 

One of the things that happened after I found Paganism was an incident where, after being involved with Wicca for a few years, I had a religious experience which caused me to realize how much Christianity had gotten me used to begging for things from the divine, and how completely unproductive and self-defeating this was. Very simply, the experience made me understand that if I wanted something, I had to get up and work towards it myself. Doing so changed my life.

[★ Citsonga ★]

I have to admit that the whole prayer thing that you make up and speak off the top of your head always seemed bogus to me. I did say a few prayers, but past age 12 or so, it seemed silly, except for reading stuff out of the Book of Common Prayer. These printed prayers are not the same thing. That is more like recitations of a hymn without the music. If you read some of those prayers in the BCP, they are really quite beautiful, almost on the level of poetry.

 

Interesting. I was pretty much the polar opposite. To me, reading the printed prayers just seemed programmed and fake, whereas off-the-cuff prayers from the heart seemed so much more genuine.

 

Not that that matters much now, of course, since we both know that prayer is bullshit, regardless of the method used.

[Seeking]

About the only thing I asked for with sincerity and regularity was faith. The harder I prayed, the more it dwindled. Now it's completely gone, and I realize I was praying to no one.

[dB-Paradox]

An interesting fact on prayer I learned today at a local Freethinkers group, a statistical study: If someone prays for a sick person, and the sick person does not know about it, the failure rate of prayer is twice as great than if the person knows they are being prayed for. I think I got that right. So basically, prayer has absolutely no power. Unless, of course, you know some one's praying for you. But then it's not the prayer that worked, but the placebo effect!

[Franko47]

This was a big element of my deconversion.

 

 

I never prayed for money, power, fame, talent, or anything along those lines. I wanted God to help me understand religion, understand faith, understand how reality worked. Help me with some of my psychological and emotional problems, stuff that sometimes was holding me back. Help me find a nice girl, someone like me who would be supportive and willing to share their "headspace".

 

Sorry, but zilch. In fact, it's almost as though after praying again and again in all sincerity for this stuff, these areas of my life got WORSE. This was when I began to suspect that something was horribly wrong. If just a small, minor part of these problems and aspirations had improved, I might have hung in there, but no. It's almost as though the guy was working against me, or else "He" was trying to point me down the road to non-religion and even a skeptical and atheistic view. In fact, I'd swear that "God" has been kinder to me since I de-converted.

 

To be honest, having to appease and beg an invisible entity to help you never quite seemed right, anyway. Not when there were actual people around me who could help me out (and some did) without having to "give glory" to some invisible power who may or may not like me or give a hoot.

[dagnarus]

When I was in Christianity the one main thing which I wanted was to be able to know his will so that I would know I wasn't one of those people in Matthew 7 who thought the were serving God but really had nothing to do with him. He gave me nothing. This was probably the ultimate revelation which got me out. Praying to, worshiping, serving, having a relationship with an invisible being which you have no way of interacting with. It's farcical. If what your doing to serve him was actually pissing him off how would you know, even if he struck you in the ass with a lightning bolt you still wouldn't know it wasn't Satan.

[AC Skeptic]

Like most teenage boys, girls were always on the mind, and I awaited expectantly for God to provide that relationship. I read books by Christians for teens about relationships and sex and was always very excited about my future relationship with my wife. I was also very expectant that she would be very attractive.

 

I didn't date anyone until I was a junior in College, at which time I began dating my future wife. We were both conservative Christians at a conservative Christian college. Before I actually had the relationship defining talk, a stable among conservative Christian dating methodology, I went to a evening worship service and PRAYED fervently whether this woman was the one God wanted me to date / marry. I was never charismatic nor certain of God's will in my life, but since I had good feelings about it at the time I decided that was enough of an answer, we began dating that night and married 10 months later. It has been awesome ever since. We have a very strong relationship, are good friends, partners with our children, etc. And while my wife had always been pretty in college, as our marriage progressed she got hotter and hotter until she was objectively super good looking; I kind of had it all. Thank you God.

 

It did take a little while longer then I would have wished. I started wishing around 15, and had a few rocky years of pining away for a relationship my first few years of college. But in the grand scheme of things, being in your solid future life long relationship at 21 is very young.

 

God provided for us. And now we're atheists. Its hard for me to wrap my head around it, but our meeting was more a contingency. It wasn't perfect chance, as our mutual beliefs were self-fulfilling. We were attracted to the same school, and both were raised by good decent parents to be loving and decent people who can get along with each other. And sharing our religious beliefs were a bond that brought us very close, a closeness we keep even after those beliefs fade.

[movingon]

I prayed a lot, for years, for a godly man to marry, i got nothing. No one even looked my way. I got someone when I moved outside my Christian circle and accepted a non-christian. It's the happiest I've ever been.

 

I prayed that God would heal me from being sick. I was sick pretty much all the time with one affliction or another. I started to pack away from the Christian faith, my stress level of trying to be good enough went down, and with that, so did how often i was sick.

 

I prayed for very few people to get saved, its always been their choice in my mind so i never bothered with it really.

 

I've asked for money, and I suppose you could say God provided it, but honestly, most of the money I have I have either worked for, taken out a loan for, or written letters to help me out for... so consider it a blessing or work.

 

I did ask for SkyDaddy to show me that he exists. He didn't do it. I asked him to bolster my faith when it was faltering. He didn't do that either. I asked him to tell me what spiritual direction I should go, and tell me whether or not I was on the right path to knowing him better. His silence was deafening. I prayed diligently for him to help make me into a better person - nothing.

 

This is me to a "T" as well

 

Granted, I may have thought I heard God's voice many times, but hindsight tells me it was more wishful thinking and that the things that happen happen.

[Dagan]

I asked god to reveal himself to me in some way I would know could only come from him. I saw and heard nothing. A year later, I'm a closet atheist.

 

Before this, I had a vibrant "relationship with god" and thought I heard him during prayer, and thought every little fortunate thing in my life was god blessing me. But the second I started having doubts and asking questions, god's "voice" went silent and I saw random events for what they really were, and I saw that many of the good things in my life were because I had worked for them and made them happen, or because others had been gracious. God had nothing to do with them.

 

On the other hand, when I was six years old I would ask god to help me find my missing Lego pieces on the rec room floor. Somehow they always turned up, except the ones that got sucked up the vacuum cleaner, woo woo.

[Shyone]

I asked god to reveal himself to me in some way I would know could only come from him. I saw and heard nothing. A year later, I'm a closet atheist.

 

Before this, I had a vibrant "relationship with god" and thought I heard him during prayer, and thought every little fortunate thing in my life was god blessing me. But the second I started having doubts and asking questions, god's "voice" went silent and I saw random events for what they really were, and I saw that many of the good things in my life were because I had worked for them and made them happen, or because others had been gracious. God had nothing to do with them.

 

On the other hand, when I was six years old I would ask god to help me find my missing Lego pieces on the rec room floor. Somehow they always turned up, except the ones that got sucked up the vacuum cleaner, woo woo.

I've got a strange question. If you had this relationship, and you "heard" him, then how do you know He wasn't really talking to you?

 

Is this a late realization, retrospective analysis, or has something happened to show you that you were never really talking to Him in the first place?

 

Clearly many Christians have this "personal relationship", and I can't understand why they don't see that they are talking to themselves. I had such an epiphany while praying, but I don't think I ever heard God talking to me.

[Skepticaldude541]

Skydaddy ended up supplying a romantic partner, which eventually led to my deconversion. <---- Epic god fail.

 

He never would give me the ability to quit "defiling" myself twice a week or so. I felt guilty enough to be horribly depressed about it because I could never "get the victory".

 

Most of the crap I prayed for was for myself to become more deluded and "closer" to him so it was rather easy to answer those prayers myself.

[FreeLily]

My first clue something was amiss with SkyDaddy was when my hormones kicked in and I fell hopelessly in love with a rather unassuming high school classmate. At the time my mom was fundie and my dad was catholic and I was simultaneously being indoctrinated in both. I literally prayed without ceasing, slipping in an occasional Novena, and after three years of this he hooked up with a snotty majorette. I figured if I kept praying, God would eventually break them up and lead him to me.

 

That was in 1985. They're still happily married and have five kids.

 

It took years, but now I look back and laugh at how seriously I took a silly adolescent fantasy. And I realize, I was asking Santa Claus for candy. We all long for things at one time or another that we later realize were never worth the effort and were unlikely to have ended well. I wasted a lot of time and energy begging Santa Claus for something so trivial in the scheme of life.

 

Not that that was the end -- in fact, I got progressively more involved in Xianity for several more years. But that was the first time the seed of doubt was planted.

[Vomit Comet]

Here's something that the SkyDaddy dropped the ball on, and it was the clencher for me. Refer to my second-most-recent post to date in the "23 Minutes in Hell" thread over in Rants and Replies to get the full story.

 

1. I had true love for once in my life. She was a nominal Catholic. We were each other's first true loves.

 

2. I was a virgin and she wasn't. She wanted to make love to me. And I said "fuck it" and was ready to go, because I wanted her so bad and I loved her so much.

 

3. But when the night finally came I thought I received a "sign" from the Skydaddy, so I lost my shit.

 

4. I threw her out of bed and she cried harder than I've ever seen a woman cry.

 

5. Then I dumped her, and it broke her heart into a million pieces.

 

6. She never knew why. She just thought it was because of my religion.

 

7. The truth was this: I thought a demon would enter her through my cock and drive her to madness and suicide. I thought that by keeping my dick in my pants, that I was literally saving her life! But of course I couldn't tell her that. She had no idea about any of it and obviously would not have understood.

 

8. So I prayed and prayed and prayed my little heart out. "Oh Lord, please let her see You in me. Please let her see the example I have set for the faith. Please oh Lord, please let me lead her to the Lord. Then I can love her again and I could marry her, because all I ever wanted was a wife. That's all I've ever asked from you, and you know it."

 

9. The fucking reverse happened. She didn't go from being a nominal Catholic to being a full-blown born again fundie. As a direct result of the disgust and heartbreak my religious faith had caused her, she went from being a nominal Catholic to being a fucking ATHEIST. I was destroyed.

 

10. "Fuck you, Lord! Thanks for fucking nothing. I destroyed my first True Love for you, and you obviously did not give a fuck. You've never done jack shit for me. All your 'Truth' has ever done for me was deprive me of my full humanity. You can lick my asshole while giving me a reach-around, you old cunt."

[qec]

Like most teenage boys, girls were always on the mind, and I awaited expectantly for God to provide that relationship. I read books by Christians for teens about relationships and sex and was always very excited about my future relationship with my wife. I was also very expectant that she would be very attractive.

 

I didn't date anyone until I was a junior in College, at which time I began dating my future wife. We were both conservative Christians at a conservative Christian college. Before I actually had the relationship defining talk, a stable among conservative Christian dating methodology, I went to a evening worship service and PRAYED fervently whether this woman was the one God wanted me to date / marry. I was never charismatic nor certain of God's will in my life, but since I had good feelings about it at the time I decided that was enough of an answer, we began dating that night and married 10 months later. It has been awesome ever since. We have a very strong relationship, are good friends, partners with our children, etc. And while my wife had always been pretty in college, as our marriage progressed she got hotter and hotter until she was objectively super good looking; I kind of had it all. Thank you God.

 

It did take a little while longer then I would have wished. I started wishing around 15, and had a few rocky years of pining away for a relationship my first few years of college. But in the grand scheme of things, being in your solid future life long relationship at 21 is very young.

 

God provided for us. And now we're atheists. Its hard for me to wrap my head around it, but our meeting was more a contingency. It wasn't perfect chance, as our mutual beliefs were self-fulfilling. We were attracted to the same school, and both were raised by good decent parents to be loving and decent people who can get along with each other. And sharing our religious beliefs were a bond that brought us very close, a closeness we keep even after those beliefs fade.

 

 

Wow.