A thread about the nature of prayer, as requested by silveroak.

I once heard someone say that there are only 4 prayers:
1. thanks!
2. please!
3. wow!
4. sorry!

I think it was a rabbi who had said this, in some article I read a long time ago.  I thought it was somewhat insightful, and couldn't really think of any prayers that didn't fit into those categories.

What would be the difference between the "thanks!" and "wow!" prayers?

"Thanks" is in response for something specific, a prayer of thanksgiving. Like "Thanks for getting us through these troubled times."  "Wow" prayers are more generic worship, like "You're really great God--I just called to how awesome you are," kinda thing.

For those who may believe in entities which are not omnipotent and unquestionable there is also "Explain!"
Actually I expect that occurs with people who do believe in omnipotent beings as well, though they don't like to talk about that s much. also within this category would be things such as 'How can I serve' or 'What would you have of me?'
Now when Catholics pray to Mary which of these still apply?

I feel like 'explain' would fall under 'please!'

Prayers to Mary seem to cover the first three. For instance:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee - wow
blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus - thanks
...
pray for us sinners, now and at the time of our death - please

I don't apologies come up very often, unless you've somehow insulted Jesus, or you're just apologizing all around. I guess you could apologize for committing sins in the area Mary has purview, although her particular forgiveness doesn't do anything. It's just a form of meditation which centers you on avoiding that particular sort of sin in the area.

Of course, all of them are on a different level from praying to God. You thank God for making you and all of creation. You thank Mary for serving to bring Jesus to Earth. You wow at God for being super and God, and wow at Mary for being a super-nice lady, and an example for good living.

So how is that different from how I might pray to Persephone, for example?

I don't know. How do you pray to Persephone?

Okay admittedly a lot of the details will be different. I'm sure offerings of pomegranite don;t have a huge part in praying to Mary, but the point I was getting to is that Persephone is queen of the afterlife, and asking her to look out for deceased love ones is common though Pluto is the real lord of the underworld because Persephone is a warmer figure. On the other hand both Persephone and Hades are considered deities.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14406818

Saw the above article in the BBC the other day, and was a bit disturbed by it.  Apparently some pastors in london are telling people prayer will cure their HIV, and thus they should stop taking their meds.  And, not surprisingly, this has caused some people to die.  Would it be too much to ask for them to say instead "hey, prayer will cure your HIV...but check with your doctor to make sure it's gone before quitting your meds"?  I mean, it's one thing to think you can cure HIV with prayer, it's another to not even check if it actually worked!

I agree with you in substance.  It's reprehensible.

By the same token, it highlights a fascinating topic:  the freedom of religion and self determinism versus stopping a horrible crime against faith.

If we take this to another area, let's say abortion:

1) If you get an abortion, you will go to hell (say some churches);
2) Having an abortion is a right of self determinism because it is the individual's body (say some civil rights adherents)
3) An abortion kills another human being (says some churches)
4) An aborted fetus is not a human being (say some civil rights adherents)

In Tycho's case, the individuals are essentially choosing to test their faith and die if their faith does not work out...and it is impossible to say their deaths are based on a lie because it is their faith.

On the other hand, it is impossible to prove the same things about abortion.

Yet the two ideas are typically directly contrary beliefs of the religious vs. the non-religious.

What can you do about the preacher (would say the unfaithful--and I mean unfaithful in his congregation, not in general)?  Probably nothing unless you can find grounds for fraud, but faith probably won't qualify.

What can you do to stop abortions (would say the faithful who believe abortion is wrong)?  Probably nothing unless the law changes.

I dunno, that analogy seems a bit tenuous to me.  Abortion is an issue of values and morality, and hence is a bit subjective.  The prayer thing is about someone being cured of a disease or not, which is pretty objective.  Rational people can debate the relative value of a fetus and a woman's right to control her own body, but no one can really question the fact that prayer didn't actually cure these people's HIV (since we can see that they died from it when they stopped taking their meds).  It's not really an "issue of faith" once we can objectively determine that this guy praying for you really doesn't do what he says it does.

But all that said, I wasn't suggesting any laws be changed to stop this church.  People should be free to stop taking their meds if they want, whether because they think someone's cured them with prayer, for because they just don't want to take them.  I just see what this church is doing as morally wrong, and wish the people that are going to die because if it would just do a simple check on the claim before stopping their medication.  I raised the point less as a "we need to do something about this!" thing and more of a "when are people going to stop falling for this stuff!" thing.

See, I have to disagree with you there.  If he didn't get healed, the faithful will say he simply did not have enough faith or it wasn't God's will.  Otherwise, every failed prayer in the world would result in the same result you come to.  They will not say it's "objective" in the sense you seem to mean it.

You're right that the morality is different in the two issues.  I was just pointing out the juxtaposition of the two and how different sides can use the same type of logic to come to opposing and seemingly contradictory conclusions.

To take my logic a step further (because I ran out of time earlier), the even more interesting analogy is to look at those who bomb abortion clinics.  They are doing so based on faith to prevent the "murder" of unborn children.  One side will say they are harming others besides themselves, and that makes it different, and they will reply that they are preventing the murder of babies, which justifies it.

Is that an act of faith?  Perverted though it is, the answer is probably yes.  But in that case, our law can step in and prevent them from following through and imprison them despite their faith.  No such luck with those who deny themselves medication out of faith...or those who engage in hunger strikes...

...although interestingly enough, from a legal perspective:

Those who attempt suicide generally provide the court with enough reason to forcefully commit the person to a mental hospital.  If found mentally incompetent, they could be forced to take their meds.  It would be interesting to see that play out against the freedom of religion and self determinism.

While I'm sure they'll say something to make it sound like they weren't wrong, I think it's safe to view this as a pretty clear cut case of them actually being wrong.  They told someone to stop taking their medication, and then that person died.  God didn't save them, prayer didn't save them.  The preacher can dress it up however he likes, but at the end of the day, he promised something he didn't deliver.

As for bombing abortion clinics vs. hunger strikes, I have to see the comparison as both missing the obvious difference and fairly offensive.  Bombing an abortion clinic is murder.  It's killing other people.  Whether some people feel its justified, or whether some religions feel its justified, it's unquestionably murder.  Someone who engages in a hunger strike harms no one but themselves.  To imply that they're on the same level simply because the person's faith may motivate both of them is a bit of a leap to say the least.

The question, in my mind at least, isn't whether people should be able to do anything they like if it's an "issue of faith."  Their motivation doesn't really come into it.  If you kill someone because you think God hates them, or you kill them because you personally hate them, you're still a killer.  Freedom of religion is about letting people practice their religion on themselves, not about letting them practice it on others.  The people who stopped taking their meds made up their own minds.  The preacher who told them they should bears some moral responsibility for the death, but legally, the decision was up to the person who believed them.  That's very different than if the preacher started breaking into people's houses and stealing their meds because he thought God would cure them.  In that case he'd be practicing his religion on other's, and freedom of religion shouldn't (and wouldn't) protect him.

So using your logic, Abraham should never have taken Isaac to be sacrificed and should have disobeyed God.

Oh, absolutely.  That story is one that I find particularly repulsive in the bible.  If a deity tells you to murder a child, that's a very good point to realize that that deity is a psychopath that you shouldn't be worshiping.  Gods that demand human sacrifice tend to be viewed pretty negatively these days, and rightly so, in my view!  The fact that God said "just kidding!" before Abraham did the deed doesn't make the request reasonable or good in my view.

If I attack Heath with a knife, and you kill me to protect him, is it also murder? I would tend to say no, it's defending someone. Bombing an abortion clinic would be closer to 'Jim told you Katisara is attacking Heath in that dark room right there, so shoot the dark shape and save Heath!' (where Heath is all of the fetuses, and Jim is God). There's a caveat here, that if you don't NEED to kill me to save Heath, you're morally obliged to take that path instead. But ignoring that, I think it's a situation whose ethical value can't really be determined until we understand better if fetuses are 'people' or not. The fact that the bomber believes that's the case because he heard it from God, or because he proved it mathematically is irrelevant.

Isaac was not a child.  In fact, most interpretations are that Isaac was an adult who gave permission to be the sacrifice (just as Christ did).

That story is also possibly symbolic.  The point of it is that God has to sacrifice his son as an ultimate sacrifice for the world, so Abraham to be more like God has to understand what it would be like to willingly sacrifice his own son.  Both of them, as you will recall, were "only children" in that sense...or only begotten...
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:14, Fri 21 Oct 2011.

This also reminds me of a Book of Mormon story you might remember, Tycho:

Nephi was told by God to go get his family records from Laban (part of which, presumably, were incorporated into the Book of Mormon), an evil man who had murdered and committed atrocities.  He encountered the man drunk at night and helpless.  He was ordered by God to kill the man.  He hesitated because he had never killed and thought it was wrong.  God told him that if he does not kill Laban, then Laban will have his men hunt down Nephi and his family, so he must be killed to bring to pass God's work.  Otherwise, the evil Laban will thwart God's work.  God says that evil men must sometimes be killed to bring to pass God's work.  So Nephi kills him, gets the records and gets away.

I emphasize here that Laban was a known murderer and "evil" man, more like Osama bin Laden.