garrisonjj Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Lets see what 40 years of prayer did for me. Self deception and self hypnosis while I talked to myself. Thousands of gallons of gas wasted going to church. Resecheduling activities so I could fulfill the church's expectations.Damage to self esteem,induced guilt,feelings of worthlessness and the fear of hell. Prayer provided me with neurosis,obsessive compulsive activities,fear of god,,,,,and life. Prayer is powerful! Its powerful deception! Prayer helped me to lose thousands and thousands of dollars given to my church to provide good,,,,while its priests perverted little boys and the higherachy paid off many to keep quiet! Now they have to close the fuckin schools because of lack of enrollment and dollars! I'll pray for them! Yes,,,prayer is fuckin powerful! Fuckin alleluia! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fweethawt Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 But -- Your words were heard by a blessed and holy God! That's gotta amount to somethin', eh? <<runs away>> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrayman7040 Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Hey Garrisonjj You mentioned one thing that really hit close to home with me. I was never too deeply involved in organized Chrisianity, but man oh man did I do some praying over the years(sometimes hundreds of little prayers a day), and as you said I was involved with all these silly obsessive compulisive rituals and behaviors that were just plain nutty. I said my last prayer probably two months ago, and all my little obsessive behaviors went out the door with them. The truth has truly set my ass free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Japedo Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Lets see what 40 years of prayer did for me. Self deception and self hypnosis while I talked to myself. Thousands of gallons of gas wasted going to church. Resecheduling activities so I could fulfill the church's expectations.Damage to self esteem,induced guilt,feelings of worthlessness and the fear of hell. Prayer provided me with neurosis,obsessive compulsive activities,fear of god,,,,,and life. Prayer is powerful! Its powerful deception! Prayer helped me to lose thousands and thousands of dollars given to my church to provide good,,,,while its priests perverted little boys and the higherachy paid off many to keep quiet! Now they have to close the fuckin schools because of lack of enrollment and dollars! I'll pray for them! Yes,,,prayer is fuckin powerful! Fuckin alleluia! Fuckin aleluia Almond!!! Very well articulated Gj, this is an extremely accurate synopsis of prayer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurari Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Lets see what 40 years of prayer did for me. Self deception and self hypnosis while I talked to myself. Thousands of gallons of gas wasted going to church. Resecheduling activities so I could fulfill the church's expectations.Damage to self esteem,induced guilt,feelings of worthlessness and the fear of hell. Prayer provided me with neurosis,obsessive compulsive activities,fear of god,,,,,and life. Prayer is powerful! Its powerful deception! Prayer helped me to lose thousands and thousands of dollars given to my church to provide good,,,,while its priests perverted little boys and the higherachy paid off many to keep quiet! Now they have to close the fuckin schools because of lack of enrollment and dollars! I'll pray for them! Yes,,,prayer is fuckin powerful! Fuckin alleluia! I think the church has done more to damage prayer than can possibly be imagined. In their eyes, God is like cosmic take-out. "Welcome to Heaven Burgers, can I take your prayer?" "Uh, yeah, I'd like to get married to that hot girl down the street that I've had a crush on for the last six months, um....a side order of a promotion and raise at work...aaaannnd...uh. Let's see, oh yeah, a new car, make it a Ferrari." "Would you like me to Supersize that?" "Oh uhhh...yeah. If you do that, I'll pray to you every day and do good deeds and give lots of money to the church. Really." Then they place their order and if God grants it, he obviously likes you. If he doesn't then obviously you are being "tested," or were not "worthy" of his time and consideration. Or if you end up with a different girl, a raise but no promotion, and a new Honda, obviously you weren't "good enough" for the Ferrari. Is it just me, or is it phenominally arrogant it to just expect God to be your personal reality check cashier? Why in His name would He bend reality and physics and the laws of nature set he has set in place just for you? I'm sorry this was your experiance, Garrison. I feel your pain, I went through the same thing and I'm glad to be free of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seth C Triggs Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 I'm sorry this was your experiance, Garrison. I feel your pain, I went through the same thing and I'm glad to be free of it. Yeah...I feel bad for that too. I haven't had 40 years like you have, Garrison. But it looks like you've at the very least bounced back from the disappointment. The stories here in some part do echo what I went through except I basically lost any purpose for prayer. I felt that anything I was going to pray for, I would have to get it myself realistically, or at least facilitate it myself. But that was just for myself. I do find that prayer can be a nice spiritual tool, because there are people that can use spirituality (not religion) in a very empowering way for themselves. There, prayer can be effective. For someone like me, a dead-set empiricist and one with a very weird ontology, I would end up passing on that. So I guess my verdict is that if you're the right type of person, prayer can definitely work! If you find that spirituality is good for you, prayer will definitely work out! -Seth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 I think the church has done more to damage prayer than can possibly be imagined. In their eyes, God is like cosmic take-out. Tell me about it. Seeing the utter ridiculousness of the Xian attitude on prayer was one of the biggest reasons I know Xianity to be false. The Babble tell us that if we ask for anything in Jeezus' name, we'll get it. No mention of the Lard giving us what we need as opposed to what we ask for, or not answering in anyway other than what we ask for - the text is plain and clear. If we ask, we receive. Jeezus himself says this. But, gazillions of prayers go unanswered; in fact, not one of the prayers of a Xian can be proven to have been answered by Jeezus, and the overwhelming majority of prayers that aren't answered are proof of this. The Xian form of prayer just sets people up for the fall. It gets them all psyched up that the Lard is poised and ready to give, and all they need do is ask. Now when they ask for something crucial, like a loved one's health or recovery, and don't get it, then how much more damage is done to the one who prayed? If they simply weren't raised with the cosmic take-out version of prayer, more Xians would be spared immense pain. And of course an all-knowing and all-loving god not answering prayers or just anticipating our needs and hooking us up without waiting for us to get hurt first or even ask is just nonsense. No god could behave like that and claim to be all-knowing or all-loving. But Xian apoligists think no one will ever pick up on that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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