Question, especially if you are a non-Christian religion or agnostic or atheist

[Guest]

2 hours ago, SKL said:

OK but when you're dealing with someone who had a serious brush with death and they quip about their prayer warriors, can't we just give a little grace?  Is it really that offensive?  Clearly they know that not everyone survives - it's been very much on their mind!  Worrying about leaving their children motherless etc. ... I think we can relax the rules for them for a while.  Kinda like we don't hold people grieving at funerals to the same standard as normal times.  (At least I don't.)

I also think it's understandable to be both thankful that we survived AND sorry that someone else didn't.

I do think it is offensive more often than not because sometimes they are directly crediting God and their effective prayers. 
 A few months after my baby died at birth, a “friend” told me the miraculous tale of how God made her go into labor early because the cord was around her baby’s neck and if God had not intervened with early labor, her baby might have DIED! Of CORD STRANGULATION! In LABOR! Gee, imagine what *that* would be like. 🤨 (Yes, she knew my baby had died. Yet she still was obtuse enough to gush about God sparing her baby’s life.) 

Right this very minute, I have a friend at death’s door in the hospital due to COVID. She is just a few years older than me and was my oldest sister’s best friend. They are literally gathering her family today; she is on life support. 
 

Meanwhile, I have another friend whose husband was just in the hospital for around ten or twelve days, on a vent due to Covid. But - praise God! - he has come home! Whoopee! Now this person has Covid herself. I do not think she is or has been to the hospital but she is quite ill. She keeps asking for prayers. Her social media is literally like the poster child for Herman Cain Award. It all bothers me so much. I don’t think people who filled up our 98% full hospital because they bragged about God and Ivermectin keeping them safe from Covid should be praising God when the overworked medical staff saved their damn lives. 

[Murphy101]

I think 3 things:

1) people are stupid and self-centered. It’s rare they are thinking before speaking, much less thinking of how others will take their words before speaking.

2) God must be entirely loving and merciful not to just smite us all on any given day bc of #1 alone.  

3) I think… gently… I can give all the credit to God for being alive AND for not abandoning me if I die. Same for my husband and my kids and others.  I think prayer matters to being able to find that peace. I think prayer community helps to shore up my weak and sorry self (# 1) to aid in remembering  #2.

Always default to #1 before getting cranky about the God stuff.  IME, if they weren’t saying something about God, I promise you they’d say something equally thoughtless still.  If more people would just recognize they are uncomfortable and don’t know wth is helpful to say and just shut up, it’d probably be more helpful. But #1 makes that hard for most people. 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Murphy101

[Scarlett]

8 hours ago, marbel said:

People say strange things when they are stressed out. Or she may have been so relieved by the outcome she just let loose spontaneously. I wouldn't expect she wanted anything from you; a noncommittal "I'm glad everything is going well now" or whatever is appropriate to her situation would suffice.  I get something similar on the phone now and then; of course in my situation I am never going to actually meet the person and there is no on-going relationship, but I just let them talk and say "I'm happy it's all settled" or whatever. People have offered me various blessings, I just thank them. 

I'm not your target demographic but I also am wary of people getting too Christian-y, especially right away upon acquaintance. I don't come across it much though. My area has a lot of different places of worship that seem to have full parking lots at the expected times, but I don't find it a particularly religious area, if that makes sense. People I come across don't talk about it. Maybe because it is a diverse area, people don't make assumptions.

Re: your group - you could always make a statement that the group is inclusive - all religions, political leanings, etc welcome - and ask that when people are posting in the group they refrain from assuming anything about others in this way.  

Oh this is not the same thing at all but once at work I was witnessed to by a, well, Jehovah's Witness over the phone. After we concluded our bank business, they told me they felt compelled to invite me to visit [jw website] and learn about God. I was quite taken aback but the person had a very kind and gentle demeanor (was also very nice during the call even though I had bad news about the bank account) so I just said thank you. I mean, we are all faceless and it's unlikely we will ever speak again, so no harm done. It was just an interesting moment. 

 

I am guessing this was in Covid times.  Our in person ministry in all forms has been suspended.  We do a lot of phoning, and letter writing and reaching people however we can. Or if not Covid times maybe a shut in elderly person.

[Murphy101]

Personally I hate the warrior crap wrt to “fighting” illness and death.  By all means I value the will to live.  But that’s not the same thing to me.  And I think the warrior mentality can perpetuate  people feeling shame for having a hard time or being weak or having losses. 

[Scarlett]

2 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

Personally I hate the warrior crap wrt to “fighting” illness and death.  By all means I value the will to live.  But that’s not the same thing to me.  And I think the warrior mentality can perpetuate  people feeling shame for having a hard time or being weak or having losses. 

I hate it too. 

[Danae]

4 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

Personally I hate the warrior crap wrt to “fighting” illness and death.  By all means I value the will to live.  But that’s not the same thing to me.  And I think the warrior mentality can perpetuate  people feeling shame for having a hard time or being weak or having losses. 

I think the “prayer warrior” thing is weird in any context.  Prayer is communication with God.  Why would you make fighting a part of that?  

[prairiewindmomma]

21 minutes ago, Quill said:

I do think it is offensive more often than not because sometimes they are directly crediting God and their effective prayers. 
 A few months after my baby died at birth, a “friend” told me the miraculous tale of how God made her go into labor early because the cord was around her baby’s neck and if God had not intervened with early labor, her baby might have DIED! Of CORD STRANGULATION! In LABOR! Gee, imagine what *that* would be like. 🤨 (Yes, she knew my baby had died. Yet she still was obtuse enough to gush about God sparing her baby’s life.) 

Right this very minute, I have a friend at death’s door in the hospital due to COVID. She is just a few years older than me and was my oldest sister’s best friend. They are literally gathering her family today; she is on life support. 
 

Meanwhile, I have another friend whose husband was just in the hospital for around ten or twelve days, on a vent due to Covid. But - praise God! - he has come home! Whoopee! Now this person has Covid herself. I do not think she is or has been to the hospital but she is quite ill. She keeps asking for prayers. Her social media is literally like the poster child for Herman Cain Award. It all bothers me so much. I don’t think people who filled up our 98% full hospital because they bragged about God and Ivermectin keeping them safe from Covid should be praising God when the overworked medical staff saved their damn lives. 

Time for new (additional) friends?

My “faith crisis” a couple of years ago led me to stop going to a lot of activities where I would be surrounded by Christians. Now, when we get together, it is very jarring to hear them state similar narratives to what you share. It has actually been a profound relief to hang out with “heathens” (Oxford dictionary definition) because the “Christian” god that my friends subscribe to seems rather capricious and cruel if he is actually doing the things they ascribe to him. I think the dissonance I feel when I am with them is because I have stepped out of their cultural narrative and now view life differently….and that is good and healthy to be out of that worldview.

[Murphy101]

22 minutes ago, Quill said:

I don’t think people who filled up our 98% full hospital because they bragged about God and Ivermectin keeping them safe from Covid should be praising God when the overworked medical staff saved their damn lives. 

I totally get this. It’s cringe worthy, isn’t it?  Man oh man, so much opportunity for spiritual growth such example give us but the growing pains are so very real.

And yet… I can’t help but think thank God for those medical staff doing their best to save the lives they can, regardless of worthiness or smarts or denomination or political affiliation or social media posts. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Time for new (additional) friends?

My “faith crisis” a couple of years ago led me to stop going to a lot of activities where I would be surrounded by Christians. Now, when we get together, it is very jarring to hear them state similar narratives to what you share. It has actually been a profound relief to hang out with “heathens” (Oxford dictionary definition) because the “Christian” god that my friends subscribe to seems rather capricious and cruel if he is actually doing the things they ascribe to him. I think the dissonance I feel when I am with them is because I have stepped out of their cultural narrative and now view life differently….and that is good and healthy to be out of that worldview.

Yes, I am thankful that I have a lot of non-nutjob friends. Some of them I specifically cultivated because I knew they were not evangelical Christians. It is also possible I notice it more because I’m not bathed in it all the time anymore. 

[prairiewindmomma]

As to your original question, and how I handle things now, when people start down that path in conversation, I don’t handle it in a universal way.

For some, I think it would be cruel of me to shake their worldview, so I try to shape it. For others, I let those statements trigger warning bells, and I keep them at arm’s length. It’s like they are telling me they believe in vampires and werewolves and I just know they live in crazy town. For the precious few that respect me and my ability to choose what I believe, and my boundaries, I let them into the doorway of my life and I see where it goes. It’s all in how it came up in conversation, how their narrative was shared, and how the overall interaction was…. The vast majority of people who bring up religion in a convo are kept at arm’s length until they demonstrate that they are a healthy person to be around, iykwim.

 

eta: autocorrect did me wrong—changed previous to precious

Edited January 16, 2022 by prairiewindmomma

[Scarlett]

25 minutes ago, Quill said:

I do think it is offensive more often than not because sometimes they are directly crediting God and their effective prayers. 
 A few months after my baby died at birth, a “friend” told me the miraculous tale of how God made her go into labor early because the cord was around her baby’s neck and if God had not intervened with early labor, her baby might have DIED! Of CORD STRANGULATION! In LABOR! Gee, imagine what *that* would be like. 🤨 (Yes, she knew my baby had died. Yet she still was obtuse enough to gush about God sparing her baby’s life.) 

Right this very minute, I have a friend at death’s door in the hospital due to COVID. She is just a few years older than me and was my oldest sister’s best friend. They are literally gathering her family today; she is on life support. 
 

Meanwhile, I have another friend whose husband was just in the hospital for around ten or twelve days, on a vent due to Covid. But - praise God! - he has come home! Whoopee! Now this person has Covid herself. I do not think she is or has been to the hospital but she is quite ill. She keeps asking for prayers. Her social media is literally like the poster child for Herman Cain Award. It all bothers me so much. I don’t think people who filled up our 98% full hospital because they bragged about God and Ivermectin keeping them safe from Covid should be praising God when the overworked medical staff saved their damn lives. 

That makes my blood boil for you.  I am sorry.  

[DreamerGirl]

I grew up with deeply religious people of different faiths. I woke up to the sound of puja bells of the neighbors and the call of the muezzin to prayer early in the morning. I have muslim friends who prayed during school and fasted during ramadan. My grandparents and my parents read the Bible every day and prayed. So did I until I walked away. They never peppered their conversation with religion or God. It was a part of them and their every day life.

Being religious is one thing but things like  'I prayed for cheap meat prices before I went to the grocery store and God answered my prayer' makes me always think 'why don't you direct that energy towards the larger good if you think your prayers are so powerful'. I have always been uncomfortable with that even when I was deeply Christian. It is something I have seen only here. 

I have testified in front of congregations. But slipping in what God did for me in every day conversation is something I have seen only in the US.

Edited January 16, 2022 by DreamerGirl

[Pam in CT]

re  Always default to #1 [stupid/ self-centered] before getting cranky about the God stuff.

30 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

I think 3 things:

1) people are stupid and self-centered. It’s rare they are thinking before speaking, much less thinking of how others will take their words before speaking.

2) God must be entirely loving and merciful not to just smite us all on any given day bc of #1 alone.  

3) I think… gently… I can give all the credit to God for being alive AND for not abandoning me if I die. Same for my husband and my kids and others.  I think prayer matters to being able to find that peace. I think prayer community helps to shore up my weak and sorry self (# 1) to aid in remembering  #2.

Always default to #1 before getting cranky about the God stuff.  IME, if they weren’t saying something about God, I promise you they’d say something equally thoughtless still.  If more people would just recognize they are uncomfortable and don’t know wth to helpful to say and just shut up, it’d probably be more helpful. But #1 makes that hard for most people. 

Absoluteyl.  All of this, but to the OP question, especially the bolded part.

It certainly isn't fair to hold God accountable for people taking the Name in vain, or using it as an exclusionary screen, or otherwise trivializing it.

 

 

[marbel]

1 hour ago, Scarlett said:

I am guessing this was in Covid times.  Our in person ministry in all forms has been suspended.  We do a lot of phoning, and letter writing and reaching people however we can. Or if not Covid times maybe a shut in elderly person.

It was definitely covid times, within the last year. I was torn between "wow that was bold" and not, because, ya know, I am a customer service rep and I can't say anything negative. But in the end, it was kinda touching. Really though in my job, I am just as likely to have someone curse me out because they overdrew their bank account, so when someone offers me a blessing of whatever type, or wants to help me secure my future in eternity (whatever that means to them), I'll happily take it.  (Now if they would just answer the dang survey with a score of 10, I'd really be happy 😎 )

[Tree Frog]

3 hours ago, QueenCat said:

 

Catholics ARE Christians. 

Yes, they are. There are many Evangelical Christians in my area who believe they are not.

[YaelAldrich]

I answer this as a convert from Southern Baptist (but never really felt like I fit in) to Orthodox Jewish bright up in semi-rural NC and have lived in IN, HI, MD, MA (and overseas). Since I'm also "religious" I can talk the talk. If they get squicked out because I'm visibly Jewish, that's on them.

[MercyA]

Tangent re: the term "prayer warriors." Disregard if you're not interested. 🙂 

I really dislike any militaristic terms linked to Christianity. The song "Onward Christian Soldiers," for instance, really bugs me. I believe as a Christian I am "called to peace" and should "if possible, so far as it depends on [me], live peaceably with all."

That said, I think many Christians probably look to Daniel 10 for their support of the term "prayer warrior." After Daniel fasted and prayed for three weeks, an angel came to him in a vision. The angel said God had heard Daniel when he first began to pray and that he, the angel, had come in answer--but had been held up for 21 days in heavenly warfare. 

Now, that's a whole other theological discussion onto itself. I guess I'd just note that it's the angels doing the warring in that scenario. 🙂 

Many of us have heard the phrase "he sees a demon under every doily." I think the corollary to that is assuming that God is responsible for every little thing that occurs, even a "typist's mistake," as some Calvinists say. I believe that some things, good and bad, just...happen. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by MercyA

[MercyA]

2 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

I think 3 things:

@Murphy101, I think that's just about the best summary of Biblical theology I've seen in a long time. 

[SKL]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

...

Meanwhile, I have another friend whose husband was just in the hospital for around ten or twelve days, on a vent due to Covid. But - praise God! - he has come home! Whoopee! Now this person has Covid herself. I do not think she is or has been to the hospital but she is quite ill. She keeps asking for prayers. Her social media is literally like the poster child for Herman Cain Award. It all bothers me so much. I don’t think people who filled up our 98% full hospital because they bragged about God and Ivermectin keeping them safe from Covid should be praising God when the overworked medical staff saved their damn lives. 

There's a lot here, but I think you are letting an extreme situation color everything else. 

If you have a problem with people saying "praise God" when a loved one comes back from death's door, honestly that's not normal.  Likewise if people asking for prayers disgusts you, I dunno what to say.  Guess I will say nothing.

[Murphy101]

48 minutes ago, SKL said:

There's a lot here, but I think you are letting an extreme situation color everything else. 

If you have a problem with people saying "praise God" when a loved one comes back from death's door, honestly that's not normal.  Likewise if people asking for prayers disgusts you, I dunno what to say.  Guess I will say nothing.

But… you said hella lot already?

Tangentially - 

I get super cranky when someone says in a let’s move the uncomfortable topic along:

”You should pray about that” (insert serious big deal that even any half-assed devil worshiper would pray to God for help for and should be a given that of course a Christian is praying about it.

Gee. No kidding?! I should pray for my friend dying? My baby likely to miscarry? For a son to survive a car wreck? Thanks for the tip. 🙄

the other is “we all have our cross to bear” which almost every time actually translates to  “oh well better you than me - I got my own problems”

This irks more than the first one bc no one has their own cross to bear. Not even Christ could bear his own cross.  Do people who say this not know that fact?!  Have they never read the gospels?!

[TravelingChris]

6 hours ago, MissLemon said:

When I lived in NY and Chicago, no one ever asked me anything about religion. Someone might mention a religious event they were attending, like a baptism or bat mitzvah, but it was like "Yeah, my nephew is having his bar mitzvah, so I won't be able to make the softball game after all".  Whether or not you were religious was personal business. It didn't impact whether they would be your friend or not. I was friends with people of all different belief systems and never had an issue.

When I lived in Alabama and now here in Texas, people ask what church you attend as a screening and recruiting tool. If you don't give the right answer, the relationship ends there, unless you agree to attend their church. It was really bad in Montgomery and Birmingham. I would be waiting for an oil change or online at the bank, and someone would approach me to tell me all about their special relationship with Jesus. Telling them you were happy with your current church didn't end the Convo; they'd keep on about how their church brought their relationship with Jesus to the next level, and you needed to switch to their church. 

It's honestly exhausting to deal with this. I consider religion to be personal, and having total strangers grill me on my beliefs is so rude, IMO. 

I was able to dodge the question more easily in Texas, and this had better/more  friendships here. In Alabama, there was no way out of it, so I only ever made friends with people on the USAF base. 

ETA: It comes down to the difference between sharing something about yourself (your beliefs) and attempting to correct something seen as broken in me. I am happy to hear about what is important to someone, but I am not at all interested in being "fixed" by someone. 

Not my city in Alabama.  No one here has asked me where I go to church.

[Shoeless]

6 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

Not my city in Alabama.  No one here has asked me where I go to church.

If memory serves, you live in Huntsville, which is far more liberal than B'ham or Montgomery. 

[TravelingChris]

4 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

Personally I hate the warrior crap wrt to “fighting” illness and death.  By all means I value the will to live.  But that’s not the same thing to me.  And I think the warrior mentality can perpetuate  people feeling shame for having a hard time or being weak or having losses. 

Well it is super helpful to many of us who have to battle diseases for 40 years or more.  We don't have terminal illnesses (at least not directly).  But a number of my Facebook groups are called blank disease warriors or people reference that.  It has nothing to do with not having hard times=almost all the people with my diseases have hard times a lot--we lose so much with our diseases--but what most of us try to do is find an alternative way of life that is still meaningful and pleasurable.  Is it always-absolutely not.  But being a Lupus Warrior or Rheumatoid Arthritis Warrior, etc doesn't bring me any shame and I have never heard any member of the approximately 6 disease groups I am a member of ever mention disliking that idea of fighting our disease.  

[TravelingChris]

4 minutes ago, MissLemon said:

If memory serves, you live in Huntsville, which is far more liberal than B'ham or Montgomery. 

It isn't liberal.  Almost all of our officials are Republican and Republican Presidential Candidates always get the vote here in the final election.  But what we do have is a much more educated population=  and I think that makes the difference.  Also, this area does not like the more extreme Republicans like Roy Moore.  

We have a Congressman who is running for Senator and I have heard more than one person say they aren't voting for him in the primary because he is too stupid--- he questioned whether the Mississippi River dumping dirt in the Gulf of Mexico (and presumably other rivers doing the same thing too) could be causing a rise in sea level.  That isn't the only reason I won't be voting for him in the primary but it is one of them.  I will be voting for a local businessman who is also a military hero and is a much more calm personality than our current Congressman.  I haven't decided who to vote for in the Congressional primary yet. 

[Shoeless]

Just now, TravelingChris said:

It isn't liberal.  Almost all of our officials are Republican and Republican Presidential Candidates always get the vote here in the final election.  But what we do have is a much more educated population=  and I think that makes the difference.  Also, this area does not like the more extreme Republicans like Roy Moore.  

We have a Congressman who is running for Senator and I have heard more than one person say they aren't voting for him in the primary because he is too stupid--- he questioned whether the Mississippi River dumping dirt in the Gulf of Mexico (and presumably other rivers doing the same thing too) could be causing a rise in sea level.  That isn't the only reason I won't be voting for him in the primary but it is one of them.  I will be voting for a local businessman who is also a military hero and is a much more calm personality than our current Congressman.  I haven't decided who to vote for in the Congressional primary yet. 

I didn't say it was a liberal city. I said it was *more* liberal than the other two. It still skews conservative, but not as extreme as Montgomery. .

[Murphy101]

10 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

Well it is super helpful to many of us who have to battle diseases for 40 years or more.  We don't have terminal illnesses (at least not directly).  But a number of my Facebook groups are called blank disease warriors or people reference that.  It has nothing to do with not having hard times=almost all the people with my diseases have hard times a lot--we lose so much with our diseases--but what most of us try to do is find an alternative way of life that is still meaningful and pleasurable.  Is it always-absolutely not.  But being a Lupus Warrior or Rheumatoid Arthritis Warrior, etc doesn't bring me any shame and I have never heard any member of the approximately 6 disease groups I am a member of ever mention disliking that idea of fighting our disease.  

Yeah I’m glad that works for you but I can tell you what made me hate it was my husbands type 1 diabetes. “Let’s fight diabetes!”  He hates that attitude.  There’s no battling diabetes. He has spent 43 years  learning to accept that this is just his life. It’s not a bad life overall. But it’s never going to be a life without diabetes.

[TravelingChris]

4 hours ago, Danae said:

I think the “prayer warrior” thing is weird in any context.  Prayer is communication with God.  Why would you make fighting a part of that?  

I don't call myself a prayer warrior but a disease warrior or rather a warrior for several diseases.  

I dislike a man at my church and avoid him completely because he has the prayer warrior thing going on.  Basically he thinks anyone can be healed if they pray hard enough and others pray hard enough for them.  It has driven a friend of mine from the church because he lectured on that to her (and others in the classroom).  And what also bothers me greatly is that a number of others think that because he does these lectures cause he feels guilty about his wife\s death at least 20 years ago and/or blames the previous pastor who retired for not praying enough or it is a form of grief for him, that it is okay for him to accost people with this awful belief and berate them.  When he did this in class when I was there and so was my husband, I was both angry and almost in tears.  I stood up and told him that he was misinterpreting the Bible and my husband then stood up and said that what he was doing was harmful to people, not helpful.  We are not Christian Scientists.  We are Presbyterians and this is not a belief of our church.  

[TravelingChris]

3 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

Yeah I’m glad that works for you but I can tell you what made me hate it was my husbands type 1 diabetes. “Let’s fight diabetes!”  He hates that attitude.  There’s no battling diabetes. He has spent 43 years  learning to accept that this is just his life. It’s not a bad life overall. But it’s never going to be a life without diabetes.

I accept my diseases but I still have to battle them.  There are no cures and probably won't be in my lifetime.  I think having to take all the meds I have to take, go to all the doctors I have to go to, suffer all the loses I have lost and continue to lose due to my diseases, go through hospitalizations and now surgeries too because of my diseases, etc-  yeah, I have to continue to fight the battle to live the best life I can with all my limitations.

[TravelingChris]

6 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

Yeah I’m glad that works for you but I can tell you what made me hate it was my husbands type 1 diabetes. “Let’s fight diabetes!”  He hates that attitude.  There’s no battling diabetes. He has spent 43 years  learning to accept that this is just his life. It’s not a bad life overall. But it’s never going to be a life without diabetes.

And I get specifically why "Let's Fight Diabetes: which is really meant for Type 2 Diabetes which may be able to be relieved by losing weight, eating better, etc-- is really annoying for Type 1 Diabetics.  I really do get that because I can get really angry when people start lecturing on tv or in writing about fighting high blood pressure which doesn't apply to me at all==I didn't get it because of salt, or weight or eating the wrong things.  I have labile hypertension which is partially due to side effects of meds and partially due to dysautonomia.  

[PaxEtLux]

5 hours ago, Quill said:

She keeps asking for prayers. Her social media is literally like the poster child for Herman Cain Award. It all bothers me so much. 

 

Thank you Quill.  I don't want to offend anyone, but you should know there are others who feel the same way as you.  Personally, I'm very partial to the CS Lewis quote about praying not to change God, but rather to change himself.  So, I find these requests for intercessory prayer confounding.  Does God not already know whether someone with bad Covid is going to survive or die?  Are we asking God to change His mind by lots of prayers?

[Murphy101]

4 minutes ago, PaxEtLux said:

 

Thank you Quill.  I don't want to offend anyone, but you should know there are others who feel the same way as you.  Personally, I'm very partial to the CS Lewis quote about praying not to change God, but rather to change himself.  So, I find these requests for intercessory prayer confounding.  Does God not already know whether someone with bad Covid is going to survive or die?  Are we asking God to change His mind by lots of prayers?

Well now hang on a sec.  The Bible is full of examples where God listened to prayers and adjusted or didn’t. But it’s clear scripturally that either way, He was in fact listening.  Problem is His listening and work within us often takes literally generations to see.

“pray for me/my family”

Look at it this way, the more screwy her thought process and the worse her theological reasoning and the worse her situation - wouldn’t that just mean she truly needs all the help she can get?

So when someone posts asking for prayers about something that I totally saw coming a mile away bc of their own actions? Ya know what? Whatever we can say, probably the most positive and sincere petition of their need is “Heaven help them!”

Neverminding I’ve been a total moron a few times myself over the decades and yes, I needed prayer and begged for it.

[MercyA]

15 hours ago, PaxEtLux said:

Does God not already know whether someone with bad Covid is going to survive or die?  Are we asking God to change His mind by lots of prayers?

To the first question, one's view on that depends somewhat on whether they are an open theist. Quoting wiki for convenience: "Open theism says that since God and humans are free, God's knowledge is dynamic and God's providence flexible. While several versions of traditional theism picture God's knowledge of the future as a singular, fixed trajectory, open theism sees it as a plurality of branching possibilities, with some possibilities becoming settled as time moves forward." 

I would describe myself as an open theist.

To the second question, there are definitely examples in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, of God either changing His mind or seeming open to it (Genesis 32, Amos 7, Genesis 6, Jonah 3, etc.). Also, in the New Testament, Jesus taught in parables emphasizing the need for persistence in prayer (Luke 18, Luke 11). So, yes, I believe God can change His mind. It seems odd to me to say that He cannot.

Edited January 17, 2022 by MercyA

[popmom]

7 hours ago, MissLemon said:

When I lived in NY and Chicago, no one ever asked me anything about religion. Someone might mention a religious event they were attending, like a baptism or bat mitzvah, but it was like "Yeah, my nephew is having his bar mitzvah, so I won't be able to make the softball game after all".  Whether or not you were religious was personal business. It didn't impact whether they would be your friend or not. I was friends with people of all different belief systems and never had an issue.

When I lived in Alabama and now here in Texas, people ask what church you attend as a screening and recruiting tool. If you don't give the right answer, the relationship ends there, unless you agree to attend their church. It was really bad in Montgomery and Birmingham. I would be waiting for an oil change or online at the bank, and someone would approach me to tell me all about their special relationship with Jesus. Telling them you were happy with your current church didn't end the Convo; they'd keep on about how their church brought their relationship with Jesus to the next level, and you needed to switch to their church. 

It's honestly exhausting to deal with this. I consider religion to be personal, and having total strangers grill me on my beliefs is so rude, IMO. 

I was able to dodge the question more easily in Texas, and this had better/more  friendships here. In Alabama, there was no way out of it, so I only ever made friends with people on the USAF base. 

ETA: It comes down to the difference between sharing something about yourself (your beliefs) and attempting to correct something seen as broken in me. I am happy to hear about what is important to someone, but I am not at all interested in being "fixed" by someone. 

How long ago did you live in Alabama?

[MercyA]

Also, I hope you don't mind the rabbit trails, Quill. Not trying to hijack your mostly-for-non-Christians question with theological discussion.

And I'm really, really sorry people were so unkind to you. 😞 

Edited January 17, 2022 by MercyA

[Pawz4me]

7 hours ago, PaxEtLux said:

 

Thank you Quill.  I don't want to offend anyone, but you should know there are others who feel the same way as you.  Personally, I'm very partial to the CS Lewis quote about praying not to change God, but rather to change himself.  So, I find these requests for intercessory prayer confounding.  Does God not already know whether someone with bad Covid is going to survive or die?  Are we asking God to change His mind by lots of prayers?

The best example I've heard of that is when someone hears a siren and prays it's not their loved one in an auto accident or having a heart attack, or not their loved one's home on fire, etc. The event has already happened, the siren is in response. Do they think a prayer is going to convince God to undo the event? (Now obviously some people pray that whatever event triggered the emergency vehicle isn't a bad one--that no one has died or is seriously hurt, etc. And that is of course a totally different thing than praying that a specific person isn't involved in an event that has already occurred.)

[Carrie12345]

36 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

The best example I've heard of that is when someone hears a siren and prays it's not their loved one in an auto accident or having a heart attack, or not their loved one's home on fire, etc. The event has already happened, the siren is in response. Do they think a prayer is going to convince God to undo the event? (Now obviously some people pray that whatever event triggered the emergency vehicle isn't a bad one--that no one has died or is seriously hurt, etc. And that is of course a totally different thing than praying that a specific person isn't involved in an event that has already occurred.)

The funny thing (to me, lol) is that I, a full on atheist, will in fact think “Oh God, please don’t let that be my house/child/spouse/friend.”  Obviously that’s not a genuine prayer to anyone for post-event intervention or anything of the like, but I am socially/psychologically conditioned to want to bargain with the universe.

It’s things like that that make me wonder how many cultural Christians (or other) vs. religious Christians (or other) exist. I think I was raised around many more cultural Christians than true, deep believers.

As an example, my mother hates the fact that none of her children are religious.  But our household was never truly religious outside of what happened in the church building on Sundays (or holidays.) She won’t engage in much conversation about it, but I’m convinced she’s more distraught about our social identifiers than any relationship with any sort of god. And I think that’s weird. But common.

[Farrar]

In my urban blue bubble, I see the opposite at least as often - Christians who have to explain that they're religious Christians to people who assume white middle class folks they meet are agnostic, atheist, maybe sort of religious at holidays or Unitarian. Though typically there's no tension and it's not like it comes up often. As others are saying, it's a non-issue most of the time here.

[TravelingChris]

9 hours ago, MercyA said:

To the first question, one's view on that depends somewhat on whether they are an open theist. Quoting wiki for convenience: "Open theism says that since God and humans are free, God's knowledge is dynamic and God's providence flexible. While several versions of traditional theism picture God's knowledge of the future as a singular, fixed trajectory, open theism sees it as a plurality of branching possibilities, with some possibilities becoming settled as time moves forward." 

I would describe myself as an open theist.

To the second question, there are definitely examples in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, of God either changing His mind or seeming open to it (Genesis 32, Amos 7, Genesis 6, Jonah 3, etc.). Also, in the New Testament, Jesus taught in parables emphasizing the need for persistence in prayer (Luke 18, Luke 11). So, yes, I believe God can change His mind. It seems odd to me to say that He could not.

I have a very complicated theological view.  I got with all the O words like Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent.  In other words, all powerful, all knowing and all present.  The all knowing issue refers to God knows the past, present, and future.  But here is where my views are a bit different than traditional and influenced by physics-  God is outside of Time- which is very hard to imagine for us time bound creatures.  So the past, present and future are kind of meaningless to God because they are all occurring at the same time.  We can only react in a way that has meaning to us. I won't pray for something like that everyone who wears a mask dies or everyone who doesn't wear a mask die (or less drastic, get COVID as a substitute for dyeing).  But I pray for those who are unvaccinated and get COVID---I have no idea what will happen or what God has already foreordained- but I think that is what God wants me to do.   

[QueenCat]

14 hours ago, Tree Frog said:

Yes, they are. There are many Evangelical Christians in my area who believe they are not.

Oh, I know about how many Evangelical Christians think this and the fact that they are wrong on this. I used to live in an area like that. Catholics were very unwelcome in the Christian homeschool groups.

Edited January 17, 2022 by QueenCat

[DreamerGirl]

Re: Prayer

I have always associated prayer and blessing together. It is very cultural because we have a tradition where putting a cross on the forehead by elders is very common. It is very much based on a different religion. People always laid their hands on the head to bless. My last physical memory of both my grandparents is of me kneeling down when they were too old to get up or laid in bed and having them lay their hands upon my head and pray for me as I left for the airport. We both knew we would not be seeing each other again.

I think when people pray for another it is a visible form of their concern for them if it is not done with any agenda. What I despise is when it is used as to aggrandize themselves, as in throw bible verses loudly and pray in a very showy way. It reminds me of the pharisee and the whitewashed tomb analogy. 

Due to COVID and the severity of delta in my country of origin, I get the desperation when things go so out of control and everyone around you is suffering and the power of prayer if you think it can make a difference.

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by DreamerGirl

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

As an example, my mother hates the fact that none of her children are religious.  But our household was never truly religious outside of what happened in the church building on Sundays (or holidays.) She won’t engage in much conversation about it, but I’m convinced she’s more distraught about our social identifiers than any relationship with any sort of god. And I think that’s weird. But common

I totally relate to this, except I do really believe my mom is a serious Christian, through and through. But she did tell me once that she clearly failed in the one thing she endeavored to do: raise kids who were *committed to the church.* It’s fascinating to me that she chose those words. Not, “That my kids would all follow Christ.” Not even, “That my kids would be committed to doing good in the world.” Seems strange to me, just as it seems strange to me when parents are singularly committed to having their kid be a doctor or a baseball player or go to a particular college. 

[SKL]

Whether or not prayer makes a difference in what God is going to allow, I believe there is value in a community of people sharing the emotions that go into prayer.  It can be healing in more ways than one.  Life experience and studies have shown this.  You don't have to be a Christian to take part in this or benefit from it.

I have never been a fan of selfish prayer either.  I've struggled with praying about things where if I get what I want, there's some loss for someone else.  But it still feels better to pray that God's will be done, than not to pray.  At least for me at those times.

As for Covid, I pray for decreased seriousness of disease, advances in medical knowledge, rest for health care workers, etc.  If that offends people, I'm not sorry.

I also pray that people will remember how to love and not hate, sooner rather than later.

[Pam in CT]

re turning to prayer in exceedingly difficult times

2 hours ago, DreamerGirl said:

Re: Prayer

I have always associated prayer and blessing together. It is very cultural because we have a tradition where putting a cross on the forehead by elders is very common. It is very much based on a different religion. People always laid their hands on the head to bless. My last physical memory of both my grandparents is of me kneeling down when they were too old to get up or laid in bed and having them lay their hands upon my head and pray for me as I left for the airport. We both knew we would not be seeing each other again.

I think when people pray for another it is a visible form of their concern for them if it is not done with any agenda. What I despise is when it is used as to aggrandize themselves, as in throw bible verses loudly and pray in a very showy way. It reminds me of the pharisee and the whitewashed tomb analogy. 

....

..... I get the desperation when things go so out of control and everyone around you is suffering and the power of prayer if you think it can make a difference.

 

That desperation for a lifeline is the idea behind the aphorism "there are no atheists in foxholes."

For myself, I think of that construct not quite literally, not quite that previously-secular people under great duress suddenly experience an epiphany which leads to belief in a Deliverer.  I think of the phenomenon as more like a vocabulary, a set of easily-accessible verbal language and physical choreography through which the extreme longing for deliverance can be expressed.  The word "prayer" is right there; the postures of supplication are right there; in the desperation of Foxhole Moments when the need for expression is urgent, those conventions are *right there.*

 

[But I receive religion, including my own, as something more like a "language," or a form of expressive art, than I do as literal Truth, so, FWIW.]

[And also, for every story of a foxhole epiphany, there is a counterstory of people who once were firm Believers, but lost their belief in a personal God in the face of genocide/ tsunami/ death of a child/ other ghastly misfortune.]

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Pam in CT
[missed the ask to "please do not quote"]

[annandatje]

I live in an area of just under 1,000,000 in a conservative southern state.   I am frequently quizzed about my religion and my church attendance by both strangers and acquaintances although we are a more diverse city now.  I respond with the truth: I am an atheist who does not attend religious services except to celebrate or mourn with others who are important to me, for example, funerals, christenings, communion, bar or bat mitzvah.  I learned to be more direct when several people took my response of "not religious" and "not looking for a church home now" as a challenge to get me "churched."  

 

[Scarlett]

I am always fascinated and troubled by people losing their faith in the face of personal loss.  But I was never taught that we will have our troubles miraculously solved.  I was taught that we are living in a fallen and imperfect world and time and unforeseen things befall us all.  These things aren't punishment from God.  Even when we have consequences from our  own poor choices (addiction leading to health problems, wreckless behavior leading to injury etc) those are consequences not punishment directly from God.

What I was taught was to pray for things that are in harmony with God's will and purpose.  And for the necessities required for survival (this includes more than physical survival).  And that God will help us to endure the bad things of this imperfect world.

Regardless, these things are tough.  I am sorry so many of you have suffered so much.  Life is tough I think.

 

[Scarlett]

@Pam in CT You quoted @DreamerGirl

[Pam in CT]

1 hour ago, Scarlett said:

@Pam in CT You quoted @DreamerGirl

Thank you; missed that.

[prairiewindmomma]

As a now-atheist, I think there are absolutely atheists in foxholes, so to speak. Death can be final and complete and that can be ok. I obviously can’t speak for others, but I find this is one of the dichotomies between religious and nonreligious communities—it’s as if the religious believe that no one can truly be non-religious. Or that religious people think that non-religious people are somehow sad/lost/unfulfilled in their lives. It’s also not surprising to me that this conversation swirled back around to points of theology. When we talk about religion being the basis of a worldview and informing your thoughts and conversation—religious people tend to swing the convo back to religion. And non-religious people tend not to. Those of us who have had both types of experiences can “flip” between languages…but to hear my always-atheist friends talk about this culturally…they don’t necessarily flip between languages and find it very odd that religious people keep pushing a religious narrative in the everyday conversations.

[Guest]

59 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

As a now-atheist, I think there are absolutely atheists in foxholes, so to speak. Death can be final and complete and that can be ok.

Yes, I agree with that. 
 

In my own personal life, I struggled *more* when I believed there was a personal God who loved me, yet he would “allow” or “cause” (amounts to the same thing) my baby to die. (Also, lest anyone think I’m myopic, there were many other tragedies around me that simply could not make sense from that belief system.) My life improved quite a lot when I stopped wanting God to “redeem” my baby’s death, stopped thinking there had to be some greater good that would emerge from it, stopped trying to explain to myself why God could let babies die on the day of their birth. When I shifted my thinking to, basically, “Life sucks and then you die,” my mental health improved dramatically. 
 

I do not call myself an atheist (maybe I am still averse to that due to culture), but all parts of my life improved when I decided the only things I’m certain of are 1) some day, I will die and this ride will be over; and 2) I’m still alive right now. So I might as well do what I can with the situation I find myself in. 
 

I do still hope for a heaven because there are people I sure do want to see again but, for now, I focus on what I know exists right now: the air in my lungs and this one, puny, short-term life I’ve got. 
 

And literally, as I am typing that, I just got the text that my friend just died of Covid. Around 56 years is all she got. So, might as well do the best you can with the life you get because we are all terminal. 

[MercyA]

I’m so sorry for your loss, Quill.