Prayer2

Updated: 10/30/04

Prayer
(continued)

Let us look at prayer from another angle. It is interesting to note, insurance companies in their statistical tables, do not give any credit to those who pray. The companies know from past experience, so many thirty-year-old people will die, so many fifty-year-old people will die and so many seventy-year-old people will die. They know there will be so many accidents, so many casualties, so many suicides and so much sickness.

If one does not smoke, he can get cheaper rates from many companies. If one goes to a driving school, he can get cheaper rates. If one has fire protection built into his home, he can get cheaper rates. But NO company has cheaper rates for anyone because he prays. Why not? There is no difference in the accidents, in the deaths, or in the health of those who pray and those who do not.

I like to watch boxing sometimes since I lost some bouts in high school and college. Sometimes you can see the boxer kneel in his corner before the bell sounds for the first round. Sometimes both boxers kneel. What happens? Does the one who prays always win? You should never bet on a bout because one prayed and the other did not. Rather, you should bet on the conditioning and stamina, on the skill and the past record. Sometimes the prayer wins. Sometimes the non-prayer wins. But always, the best boxer with the best skills, conditioning and corner wins. Prayer does not help in boxing. It does not help in science. Prayer does not help in economics. Prayer does not help in medicine unless the sickness is caused by the gullibility of the mind in the first place.

Not only does prayer not help it often hinders. If someone truly believes in prayer, he may depend too much on prayer and not enough on preparation for the event coming up. It is better to study for an exam than to spend the time in prayer. It is better to practice at one's sport than to spend the time in prayer. It is better for the doctor to review the operation procedures before an operation than to spend the time in prayer. Foreplay will warm your lover and prayer will not. Prayer does not prepare one for any activity or anything else except possibly for preaching. My comment here is, most preachers who prepare by praying, do not pray long enough.

Prayer does not take the place of medical care. Observe your paper. Almost daily someone is in court because they withheld medical attention from one of their sick or diseased children. Not less often, someone is on trial for murder or manslaughter because their child died from lack of proper care. They trusted in prayer. Credulity and ignorance marches on, head high and eyes looking to the sky.

You have all read the stories or seen them on television, the lost at sea stories, or lost in the mountains, or sealed in a mine cave in. Most of the time, those who are rescued give God the credit and testify it was their prayers and the prayers of their loved ones that saved them. I once watched just such a live scene on television after a mine disaster. While a woman in the background hovered over her dead husband, a survivor gave his testimony to how his prayer had saved him. Before the reporter could remove the microphone, the woman hovering over her dead husband sobbed out, "We prayed too! We prayed too!" The rest of her words were cut off by the network censorship. What a pity!

Do the survivors think they prayed better or harder, or were more favored by God than those who did not survive? Certainly not IF they stop to think! Surviving in catastrophe has much to do with safety skills, endurance, physical skills, psychic skills, ability to think under pressure and being in certain protected places when the catastrophe strikes.

Some people who are pronounced as incurable ill, get well, some do not. Some who are not so seriously sick worsen and die others do not. Some given up for dead, survive, some do not. Religious people are always quick to let God take credit, not only for the survivors, but also for the unfortunate who do not survive. They lump most of the unfortunate under the great and all-inclusive canopy, "God's Will." (I will be dealing with God's Will later.)

Children are taught (read - brain washed) to pray almost before they can talk. So let us look at giving thanks to God as a form of prayer. "God is great, God is good and we thank him for our food." How about these? "Santa Claus is great, Santa Claus is good and we thank him for our toys." "The Green Giant is great, the Green Giant is good and we thank him for our peas." "Walter Cronkite is great, Walter Cronkite is good and we thank him for our news." All of this sounds silly doesn't it? So, what is the point? SILLY, IS THE POINT.

The point is this. Where are all the deserved thanks for the nursery that raised the seeds for the farmer to plant? Where are the thanks for the farmer and all of his helpers who made the food possible? And how about the tractor people, and the pickers, and the fertilizer people, and the truckers, and the wholesale warehouse, and the bank that loaned the farmer the money to buy the seed and labor? What about thanks for the storeowner and the workers in it, and what about daddy who paid for it? And don't forget mama who cooked it with loving hands.

God has stolen a large amount of thanks and credit from others who deserve it. Isn't it about time that we begin to thank those around us for their contribution to our happiness and welfare?

An old, old story illustrates this point. The minister was getting on to the farmer for bragging so much about what a great farmer he was and what great things he had achieved with the land he earlier purchased. "You must give God credit,” the minister told the farmer. The reply was classic. "Preacher, you should have seen the terrible mess this farm was in when God had it all by himself."

History has never verified a single action, a single row of corn planted, a single family fed, a single boat built, a single suit of clothing made, a single bird fed, nor has anything else been certified as accomplished by the religious Bible God.

Why then, would people wish to brain wash their children into believing myths and lies? My thoughts on the matter are there is no place for these types of begging prayers in the lives of intelligent people. Children should not be taught to pray to a Santa Claus in the sky who is ready to bail them out of their troubles. Instead, they should be taught, man is responsible for his own mistakes. They should not be taught someone in the sky will suffer in their place and forgive them for their mistakes. Prayer teaches laziness, injustice and irresponsibility. It places the highest value on gullibility and ignorance. Prayer places a something for nothing attitude in a child's mind. Above all, prayer gives false hopes and false expectations. Prayer is a sin! Prayer is a sin against ourselves, our families and our community. And if there is a JUST God, then prayer is a sin against God. (I have a few kind words to say about prayer at the end of this section.)

Prayer is an attempt to escape reality. It is an attempt to lose oneself in a make-believe world. Prayer is an attempt to set one's responsibility aside and let "George" do it. Prayer is giving up. It is sticking one's head in the sand. At best, prayer is an exercise in futility. At its worse, prayer steals away the ability of the mind to think honestly and logically and makes mental slaves out of men. Prayer is the seedbed of gambling and religion. Prayer is the hope of getting SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.

Think of the posture of prayer. The eyes must be closed. The head must be bowed and if you do it right, you get on your knees. This is the position of the slave or captive. This is the position that all dictators and religious leaders wish their followers to assume. Man is not a captive or slave! At least he is not if he does not wish to be. Is the captive position what you really wish to teach your children? And there are now those who would like to see prayer made mandatory in our public schools. And who are these wonderful people who would foster this shame upon us? They are:

                The arrogant (I am always right).
                The dictatorial (You must do as I say).
                The tyrannical (Or, you will be punished).

For shame!

Prayer is like trying to lift yourself off the ground by tugging on your shoe strings. It is a little exercise but nothing good will ever come of it.

The prayer most prayed by Christians down through the ages is called the Lord's Prayer. It was commissioned by Jesus (so the Bible says). I will quote a portion of it here.

                Our father who art in heaven
                Hallowed be thy name,
                Thy kingdom come,
                Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
                Give us this day our daily bread.

This prayer has been prayed billions of times by Christians as well as by the Persians for over three thousand years. This prayer was an old Mithraic prayer hundreds of years before the time of Jesus and the early church. Why then has the kingdom not come? Does it take God three or four thousand years to answer a prayer? Men have been begging God all of that time for him to send his kingdom. There has probably not been a single day in all these thousands of years when some believers did not pray this prayer on earth.

If God would answer any prayer, he should have answered this one. It is claimed Jesus ordered believers to pray this prayer. Has God answered this prayer? My newspaper, my TV, my computer and my observations show that God has not answered this prayer. Could it be, that if there is a God, he shuts out all the evidence of man's stupidity and gullibility? Could it be that God is too wise, too just and to honest to pay attention to the dreary requests and begging of these self-deluded, gullible, believing people? That is a real possibility.

Have those who are undernourished and starving not prayed to God to send food. And have they not continued to starve and die? If the prayer Jesus taught us to pray carries no weight with God, what weight can we give our own selfish concoctions which we daily speed off toward the Almighty and the Celestial Realm?

Jesus is reported to have said, 'Ask and it will be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you: for everyone that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened."

I ask this simple question. Do you believe that? Do you really believe anyone in his sane mind could possibly believe that statement made in the Bible and attributed to Jesus? Do you believe a person can simply ask God for health, wealth, happiness or anything else and he will receive it? That is, he will receive it as a result of his prayer and the supernatural intervention of God, thus causing the disruption of the natural order of the universe? I doubt any sane person can believe it. A sane person knows better.

Somebody (no one knows who) wrote that God himself said we should ask him for what we want and if we have enough faith, he will give it to us. GOD DIDN'T SAY THAT! God is too wise to say that. God is too just to say that. As a matter of fact, a just God could never have even thought it. Somebody fibbed about God. Somebody was confused about what constitutes God's wisdom, morality and justice. However, an unjust god or spirit might say that. If that is so, then the religions and believers MIGHT be controlled by an unjust power. Think carefully about that.

Has anyone stopped to think logically about the concept of prayer?

We see an all-just God simply could not answer any prayer, which was not his own original JUST plan. In addition, we see that any attempt to get God to act differently than he originally planned to act, is an attempt to blackmail, bribe or tempt God. Any attempt to change God's mind is to insult and belittle him and proves the beggar does not trust his God to do what is right, what is just, and what is best.

Also, anyone who says he can change God's mind is a fraud and liar. Anyone who says YOU can change God's mind is telling an untruth and is not worthy of being accepted as truthful. Besides, would you really wish to worship a God whose mind could be changed back and forth from his perfect wisdom and justice and be made to do what some selfish, lazy, begging Tom, Dick or Jane asked him to do? If you are honest, I think not.

If you have been a religious beggar, isn't it time to stop belittling and insulting your God? Let him know you trust him. Stop asking him to give you something for nothing! If you are religious, why not trust your God to do what is right and just? Stop trying to run the world for him.

Prayer is a deceptive superstition that says a person can get something for nothing if he will just beg long enough and hard enough. Prayer is an exercise in non-thinking. Prayer, as presented to us in the Bible, is an exercise in slavery-hood. Prayer is a lie. But worst of all, Prayer belittles the Almighty God. Almighty God is not an errand boy, nor does he wait on a consensus of opinion before he acts to carry out HIS plan.

As I said in the first paragraph of this paper: Prayer is a religious BELIEF. To the Clear Thinker, it is the most illogical and unbelievable belief taught by religion. The concept of a begging prayer to a just and good God goes against all the teachings about all the Gods in all the religions. The teachings in the holy books tell the believer who God is, what his attributes are and what he does. Yet, the concept of prayer disputes ALL the claims made about all the Gods in all the holy books. If the claims for prayer are true, then all the claims about the attributes of the Gods in the holy books are false. Pick one!

Suppose I were an alien from far off space. I can live many thousands of earth years. Suppose my planet faced a soon to come time (a few thousand years off) when our sun will expand and die. I have discovered earth. I like it. But, it is swarming with an inferior superstitious people and my people are small in number. My technology is awesome and millions or years ahead of earth. I need the people of the earth to supply my needs in the future. How would I take over?

I would establish some religions, work a few tricks (miracles) and give sets of moral rules to follow which taught people to think like slaves and to accept any authority over them as good. I would offer eternal life (which I can't do but no one could prove me wrong). I would offer it to those who follow my religions. I would demand belief in my religions and offer death (one way or another) to those who did not believe me and become my mental slaves. I would work a few tricks from time to time, give prophesies about my coming later and cause some distress and suffering on earth to prepare my welcome as their savior.

When my people arrived, I could come with great fanfare (like stopping all earth's electrical functions for a week) and I would take over. I would declare myself to be their savior or god. All earthlings would then become my slaves, factory workers, farmers and so forth. Impossible? Not as impossible as the unbelievable things taught in the Bible.

Maybe you should wonder why there are two Gods in the Bible, and why the one who wants us to be FREE and THINK is called the bad guy, and the one who wants us to be slaves and NOT THINK (to believe) is called the good guy.

If there IS something out there hearing and answering prayers and running our chores for us (as some insist), it is NOT the Good and Just God. It could not be a good, or just, or all-powerful God for the reasons just explored. If it is not the good and just God, who then is doing this? I want no part of it. Something is very wrong if ANY of the Bible claims for prayer are true. Maybe there is something out there that wants YOU and wants to turn you into its mental slave.

ONLY HONEST DOUBT CAN PROTECT YOU
FROM THESE HARMFUL, FALSE CLAIMS!

I said I had a few good words to say about prayer, and I do. Prayer is self-analyzation and self-conversation. It is a self-searching. It may be the only time during your day when you can be HONEST with yourself. There is no substitute for honesty, especially with yourself. Never deceive yourself by trying to find justification for the wrong things you do. Admit your wrong doings and shortcomings at least to yourself. If you do that you WILL become a better person.

There ARE prayers, which we can pray which are to our benefit. And if our prayers are never heard by any power, these prayers ARE heard by the mind and subconscious of the one who makes them. Having heard our own prayers, we may then be more careful with our lives. We may even find ourselves answering our own prayers. Try praying some of these prayers taught to us by Apollonius (Pol of Tyana). Or, make up your own.

Give me, oh God, my just due.
May I do only those things, which are good for all men.
Let righteousness rule my life.
May justice rule my thoughts.
Teach me the Good.
Help me shun evil.
Let me possess only what I need.
Let me need nothing.
Withhold from me all that would corrupt my life.
Let my eyes see the good, the just and the honest.

I would like to add five prayers of my own here. You may wish to make up some of your own prayers. Think about it!

May I never seek something for nothing.
If I do, let me never get it.
Grant that I may find a new truth today.
Let me do to others, as I would have them do to me.
Let me meet today, a kindred spirit that we may rejoice together.

Prayer, as taught by the old religions as well as the modern religions, is a harmful lie fostered upon mankind and kept before us to dull our brains and to make us slaves to the religious and political powers that be. The secret to being FREE is learning to honestly doubt the wild and baseless claims made daily to us by religion and politics.

Wouldn't you like to be FREE?

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