I have a question about prayer. Back when I was a christian I was called sacrilegious for asking such questions but here goes. Recently a girl was kidnapped locally. The police have just found her body. The family is understandably heart broken. A spokesperson has asked everyone "to pray for (girl's name)". Why? She is dead. Whether you are christian or atheist, her problems are over. That sweet child is either in Heaven or simply is no more. Why the prayers? What am I actually supposed to pray FOR? Similarly with the Facebook requests I get to pray for children with cancer. What do I ask? That the monster who afflicted her will utter a divine " oops, my bad" and suddenly make it all better? What's the deal?
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Panacea
a solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases
Just another religious tool used to control people.
Prayer because there is nothing that anyone can do. Maybe it's like a sentiment to the family. Other than that it is to no solution.
I always feel prayer is what you do/say when you cannot do anything else, to make gullible people feel better about the reality that they cannot control.
Are you powerless, helpless to some tragedy? Then pray! And you will at least feel better and feel like you did something! Even if said something is whispering to an invisible sky fairy of which there is zero evidence of, while enormous amounts of opposing evidence of.
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If you believe in the biblical deity Jealous why would you need to pray for anything? His will be done on Earth as it is done in heaven. So if he wants someone to suffer that is his will ad it will happen. Praying is just a way to say that his will sucks and that you want a better deal. But if he wanted you to have a better deal he would have given it to you in the first place.
Besides, if such a deity exists he could easily replace the person who suffered and give him a much better life. He sort of did that with Job's family. Job's first family was killed. After time Job got a new family. So maybe Job's new family was actually his first family that had been given new identities.
That's the problem with religious fairy tales. You can end up with all kinds of weird stuff once you start believing in magic men in the sky.
Prayer, as a method of meditation, might calm you down so that you won't fly into a murderous rage against the perp who did you wrong. So maybe that's a good thing.
Prayer = Placebo. A way to make people think they are feeling better because everyone is thinking about them.
Prayer is like chronic gambling. You never talk about the loses.
rmfr