If there was definitely a god, would you pray to it?

personally im christsian, but i veiv all gods are jesus, sort of re coming, jah is god, jesus is godgod is jesus, sort of a universal outlook

 

I'll take a chance and speak for God, just this once,,hehe,,

God is bigger than that. Prayer is primarily for keeping the connection alive. It's like when you put your lips to the bong. Without that connection, the power of the smoke never fills your lungs. Religious and traditional thought have ruined the meaning of prayer. It's not for making God feel important. That's unnecessary.

So, you pray in order to make the connection. With God it's gotta be LIVE. There's no "Memorex" (from an outdated cassette tape commercial). You'll know when the connection is made. It's electric, and real, up close and personal, and it happens when your heart is in the right place, both with God and with others. Don't think God is gonna pay YOU attention if you're dissin' on your bro or sis.

AFTER the connection is made, and only then, you can ask for stuff. But it better be stuff that's on God's heart already, or you'll get nada, zilch, snake eyes.

 

When I do pray, it isn't to the God defined by religion, it's to the Universe, or the Prime Creator, it's to any body that can hear me other than myself. I usually ask for guidance and help.

 

Religion is like playing a lottery, except the price of the ticket is your life, and the main gamble is not on selecting the winning numbers (religious faith), but on whether or not the drawing will in fact be made. Essentially, religion provides each individual little more than to claim with pride that they live their life trying to bring others to accept their definition of their God, or in some cases impose their definition of their God upon others.

 

You make God sound like a really needy girlfriend =) Why do you want to make that connection though?

 

I'm with you part of the way. The lottery analogy is good, except I don't think it's pure chance. We can use reason, experience, intuition, etc., to improve the odds. I think my religion (Christianity) provides me with little more than to claim with pride that I gave it my best shot, and hopefully left the world a little better than I left it. And I don't give a rats ass whether or not anybody accepts my definition of God (which is pretty vague and could be wrong). And I certainly don't want to impose it on anybody.

 

The odds can only be improved if one can be certain that the lottery will be performed. What I am trying to point out is that even if holding tickets with every possible combination does not assure winning a lottery which is not drawn. That said, I'm not putting religious belief down, as long as it is not imposed on others. For peaceful societies to exist, as well as co-exist, some form of moral rules which define right and wrong must exist, and in the case of the most obviously necessary moral rules it makes no difference as to the source providing them, God or man. Most often I find that those who are most certain of their Gods existence are also most insistent that other be brought to adhere to their beliefs, having them imposed if necessary, while those most certain of no Gods existing have nothing more than socially accepted rules to offer, which are applied to all members of the society. Assuming Christianity as the religion, it is my understanding that even the moral laws contained in the Bible are not absolute, as if broken they can be forgiven, with the possible exception of not recognizing and accepting the God, which in that case would be a purely personal choice and not be of significance to anyone other than the individual making the choice. This is the true lottery of religion, one single choice to make, God exists yes or no. The closest thing to a drawing happening is death, at which time if no God exists there is nothing to win nor anything else to lose, while if a God does exist it would then be interesting to know just what everlasting strings might also be attached to the prize won. It sounds a little like "Hope and Change You Can Believe In."

 

If there was a god id tell him "fuck you for makin me so short" but other than that, im sure we'd be tight.

 

Also sounds like Pascal's wager, which reminds me of those chain letters that tell you if you mail this to 20 friends, good fortune will befall you all your days, and if you don't, you'll suffer the fate of King Tut's curse. I accept a modified version. I'm betting that there will be a lottery, and that if there is, I'll be holding the winning ticket. I know the odds are probably far worse than winning the Irish Sweepstakes, but the possibility keeps my spirits up, and since I don't believe in an afterlife, I don't really expect ever to know whether I'm right or not. But in the meantime, I live "as if", and am happy if doing that has positive effects on my behavior and others.

 

i have a superior being that i pray to

 

You know, this always confused me about you Okie.
You don't believe in an afterlife, but you seem to believe in God?

 

No.

 

Religion, at best is a philosophical explanation of all things unknown, which was essentially everything at one time. This allowed for religion to become a form of government, using events in nature as an indication of the God's satisfaction or dis-satisfaction with the activities taking place in the human societies which recognized that God. Like any form of government, some set of laws exist which are recognized to be the authority under which all must live. Religious based governments allow for a human or group of humans to present the laws they claim to have received directly from the God(s) to be enacted and passed on to the masses. As is the case most often, the God(s) seldom show any interest in prosecuting law breakers, humans in the society are tasked with doing so, under the authority of the God(s). As time passed and humans developed the ability to understand and provide testable scientific explanations of many of the religious explanations. This took away events of nature as a means of persecuting and prosecuting dissidents within the society and moved us to more or less creating laws which were claimed to be necessary for the good of the many. Few governments today give God(s) any thought although many laws exist which the religious can claim to be God given, while at the same time it is easy to see that they are necessary for the existence of peaceful societies with or without a God.
Does a God exist? Obviously so in the minds of many, while also obviously not in the minds of many others. Science has become a thorn in the backside of religion from the time the first humans began to look at the world we live in and try to gain a better understanding of it. We have moved from a completely supernatural view of the universe to one in which most everything has a natural explanation, leaving religion with little more than the uncertainty of death, based upon the existence of each individual having a supernatural spirit which continues to exist after death.
I think most humans would be happiest if a balance between authority and freedom were to exist. The more absolute authority becomes, the less freedom is allowed. For societies to exist in peace some authority must be recognized, requiring individuals to relinquish some of their freedoms, which all would likely find beneficial. As an example, if you are not allowed to freely kill others, then they are not allowed to do the same to you. The Christian Bible claims God commanded "Thou shall not kill", but like most the other commandments which are enforced by law in most every society, does such a law have to be given by a God? Or might humans find such a necessity all by them selves? The existence of a God(s) requires one to accept such as fact on faith alone. The is no empirical evidence at all, although many try to present anything incompletely understood, or stories written long ago which can not be verified factual as evidence.
"If the was definitely a God, would you pray to it?" The answer to that question would have to be based upon asking another question, "What will you do to me if I do not?" and one might also ask, If after death believers will have everlasting life, what will their purpose be, and what will their God ask of them for eternity? Might such existence be even more oppressive than life prior to death?

 

Very thoughtful and well-put. As a Christian, I take issue with some of it, of course. I think there's certainly a lot of truth to what you say about religion being developed to explain the unknown and to provide legitimacy for social norms,and religion does face the "God of Gaps" problem (or should I say God of Chasms, since it seems the more science discovers,the more it finds it doesn't know). I wouldn't go so far as to say there's "no empirical evidence at all" for believing in a God of some sort. The ordered complexity of the universe, and the incredible number of fortuitious coincidences that would be required to explain how we are here to have this conversation, provide the basis for a reasonable belief (though hardly "proof") that there is Something Big Out There, although the phenomena could have other explanations. Some of us also sense a guiding hand in our lives that could also have other explanations. (Was it Lili Tomlin who said; When you talk to God, its prayer; when He talks to you, its schizophrenia?) Anyhow, human artifact is one possible explanation, something real is another. I've placed my bet on the latter, but try to keep a reasonably open mind.

 

You're not the only one confused about me, pal. Sometimes I wonder. But I see no conflict between belief in God and lack of belief in an afterlife. For much of their history, the Jews didn't believe in an afterlife either, although the belief crept in in the Hellenistic era with the Maccabees. I think the post just above this may give some insight into my religious orientation. To me, God is, among other things, an experience that I have to work hard to shut out from time to time in order to get anything else done. Whether it's real or delusional is a question I'm not in the best position to answer, but so far I seem harmless (I think).

 

if i actually could get evidence that this god heard my prayers then yeah i would. otherwise i never know if im just wasting my time talking to air, humbling myself, asking for guidance from nothing.

 

No... or yes, but what do you mean by praying? If you mean expressing my gratitude throught a form of dialog/art/poetry etc. than yes, I would pray. But it would not be formal, ritualized prayer. And I would also question this God as I see fit, I would try to learn, to criticize and not take anything for granted.

 

I am god:willy_nilly:

 

Religion is a subject that naturally spawns disagreement as it continually has to be interpreted to meld with changes taking place in societies all around the world. I once attended a Baptist church service with a co-worker and listened to a sermon preached which condemned another Baptist church "down the street" whose members were said to be "bound for hell" due to some disagreement between their differing interpretation of the Bible.
I see natural order in mathematics, chemistry, and physics, to exist in a universe which on a large scale both dimensionally and time wise can be viewed as chaotic. We can calculate probabilities which most often take in to account the currently accepted age of our universe, but that assumes time began with the creation of our universe, which in reality may be but just a single tick in comparison to time past. What might be the cause and effect or function of virtual particles in our universe? Something created out of nothing, albeit short lived.
Answers are a result of asking questions, and progress in achieving better and more correct answers to all our questions is to relentlessly try to form better questions which provide us with not only better answers, but new questions which had not been asked previously. Education is to provide us with knowledge of what is known. Progress is made when we add to the knowledge that exists.
If you're curious, I'm Buddhist, but have no supernatural beliefs. To me what is most important is how we all interact with one another, regardless of our beliefs.

 

I guess I'm just religious by nature. For example, last night I went to a great meeting: nice folks; good food; good fellowship; lots of open, thoughtful discussion. And I came away giving mental thanks to God for a really peak experience that seemed spirit-filled. It was an atheist group, and my religious enthusiasm sparked an internal dialogue that went something like this:
Me: "You muddleheaded Jesus freak. Do you really think God is sponsoring atheist meetings?'
Myself: " Why not? It could happen."
Me: That's almost as crazy as your claim you see Jesus in a WalMart checkout line.
Myself: I run into Him every time I go there. He must shop there a lot.
Me: They'll put you away and fill you full of thorazine.
Myself: With the economy the way it is and their budgets the way they are, I'll be back on the streets in no time. Besides, it's no crazier than seeing him in bathtub stains. The last guy who did that cashed in big time. I could buy some WalMart stock and get the word out.
Me: Crazy motherfucker.
Myself: Hey, same to you buddy.
I: Okay, guys. Take it outside. I can't get my head clear with all this wrangling going on.