<p>Why do I hate it when athletes mention God in their post-victory interviews? Because they’re evangelizing, on purpose, trying to use their fame to sway others to their faith. And I hate people who proselytize to me with the heat of a thousand suns. </p>
<p>Moreover, the same conservative Christians who think it’s just dandy for them to ostentatiously pray before football games and babble on afterwards about how God is on their side go into fifty apoplectic fits if a Black Muslim athlete thanks Allah. Can you imagine the brouhaha if a team with a few Muslims won the superbowl, and (just as teams filled with conservative Christians hint that they win because of their faith) intimated that they beat the other team because the winners were Muslims and the losers weren’t?</p>
<p>Prayer is a way to help feel that you are not alone. God might be listening (though I’ve seen many worthy prayers go unanswered and that makes me wonder. . .) And other believers are also joining in a community of prayer. I think prayer gives peace of mind.</p>
<p>I didn’t see anyone mention the Chilean miners. . .I think they were helped by prayer. If nothing else, it was a ritual that helped them keep calm. And they knew that many people around the world were praying for them, so that encouraged them during the long days underground. Thank God, not for a miracle, but for the engineers who were responsible for their rescue!</p>
<p>BTW, my son’s classmate wrote a thesis entitled: “Your Heavenly Father Knows that You Need them All: The Relevance of Prayers of Petition Given the Immutability of God’s Will.” I didn’t read it, but it seems this is something that many people wonder about.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t have any answers. I still pray, but I don’t really think asking for things helps. I find repetitive prayer (the rosary) calming. The “Serenity Prayer” is a good one: God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference. </p>
<p>I think accepting things we cannot change–like the untimely death of a family member–is the hardest. It is impossible to be at peace when you keep thinking,
“if only things had happened differently, then he/she would be with me today.”</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang: I truly get what you are saying about how much you " hate people who proselytize to (you) with the heat of a thousand suns". I have been on the receiving end of such speeches that were given at extremely thoughtless and hurtful times and which, in fact, resulted in my being (as you clearly are) alienated from considering anything the person was trying to say as truth.</p>
<p>People are flawed. They reach for the “easy” way to do what they think is the right thing. And I am sure those athletes who make those gestures and say those things think they might be setting a good example or something. But I have never yet heard of anyone who was convinced of the truth of any belief system based upon what an athlete said or by some billboard on the highway (I REALLY don’t like those).</p>
<p>It breaks my heart that, more often than not, I am afraid, Christ-followers end up thinking they are doing what they should do by simply talking to people about their faith. In my (never to be humble) opinion, that is NOT what we are to be about. That is NOT the example that Christ Himself set. He put himself in the middle of situations where He could meet the needs of the most downtrodden and socially derided people that existed at the time. Gave them food, healed their bodies, let them know peace and grace for the first time in their lives. </p>
<p>I am so sorry that well-meaning people have turned you off so. I hope that some day you will come to understand that it might well truly be a misguided effort to let you see what they have found, and to understand that you can find it too. It really is important in their life and they really do want to “share” it. But again, IMO, it’s a horribly misguided way to do that.</p>
<p>atomom- I think you are right when you say one of the hardest things to accept is something negative one cannot control. I, too, say the serenity prayer a lot, along with the Our Father- the two key phrases there, for me are “Thy will be done” and “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”</p>
<p>Right now, I am going through a bit of a rough spot-and have been praying for interior peace. I tend to pray with Scripture, rather than repetitive prayer, however. But, both are helpful to me. I know that God does not need our prayers, but that we need to pray. Therefore, I think, He listens. </p>
<p>I haven’t read Kushner’s book, but I’m actually going out to Borders right now to buy it. I think I need it.</p>
<p>I said upthread that no scientific experiment has shown prayer to “work.” That’s true if you consider the sense I was thinking of. Praying for good things to happen to (1) a stranger (2) who doesn’t know you are praying for him has not been shown to have any effect. </p>
<p>But in a wider sense, prayer clearly does work. I used to work with a former nun. Someone asked her about prayer and its effects, and she just smiled and said, “Prayer is for you, not for God.” As we can see from this thread, prayer helps people deal with difficult times, find a space away from the everyday cares for a time, and celebrate happy events. Those effects are real and valuable, and I shouldn’t have seemed to denigrate them. Prayer works.</p>
<p>I just wanted to chime in and say thanks for all the thoughtful and respectful posts on this thread. I sure appreciate people expressing their understanding of prayer and what they have experienced with it. It has been an enjoyable read, and an enlightening one for me too. Lots of wonderful and mixed up food for thought. I hope there are more posts to be shared so keep them coming!!</p>
<p>Nah, I don’t think they’re evangelizing. They’re practicing false humility. “See how pious I am? I give props to God even though I’m a great athlete! Isn’t that humble? Which is another great thing about me, by the way.”</p>
<p>seems to me that God is hep enough to not have to bother constantly about everything happening inn the entire universe all the time, every moment</p>
<p>I give God credit for setting things in motion and letting it roll out; God doesn’t need to supervise every catalytic reaction; those will occur without intervention</p>
<p>I think it’s the same way with humans: it’s hubris for us to believe that we are so important that God oversees every action and that every occurrence is something explicitly caused by God</p>
<p>gravity does its work on skiers w/o tweaking by God, which is why I do not believe that God specifically planned for Sonny Bono to die</p>
<p>I’ve always found it blasphemous to ask God to alter his plan for me or anyone else, including to ask for more inner peace than is already in the plan. Quiet meditation is known by those of many religions (or no religion!) to increase inner peace.</p>
<p>On the subject of proselytizing and evangelizing, I try to follow the model of St. Francis of Assisi: go out and spread God’s message, and, if necessary, use words. Of course, as in all things, easier said than done.</p>
<p>I believe God is forgiving. I believe He really wants us all to be forgiving too. He doesn’t sweat the small stuff and neither should we. It doesn’t matter what other people pray for, really. God is always here. He’s got this.:)</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, I’m not a believer in the power of prayer to affect things and see prayer as more meditative, but there are legitimate studies that suggest praying may help if one believes it will help. </p>
<p>In a study of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, those who prayed and thought that their God answered direct prayers were happier and recovered faster than those who didnt pray and those who thought that their gods didnt answer personal appeals. [The study was by Jenkins, R. and Pargament, K. (1988) as cited in Lyubomirsky, S. (2008) The How of Happiness, The Penguin Press, New York, p. 231. I think this is the actual cite: Jenkins, R., & Pargament, K. (1988). The relationship between cognitive appraisals and psychological adjustment in cancer patients. Social Science and Medicine, 26, 625-633.]</p>
<p>Note that this differs from the studies you were citing, which involves others prayers for you but this study involves one’s own prayer for oneself. </p>
<p>My interpretation of these results is not that those who thought they had personal gods who answered prayers have made the correct religious choices (although this is one plausible interpretation), but rather that the mind can have a very powerful effect on the body. We also see this with the placebo effect. Sugar pills can actually cure diseases with some reasonably probability if people think that they are real medicine aimed at curing the disease. Most drugs do not better than the placebo, but the placebo is often surprisingly effective. </p>
<p>Although this is a little different, Carol Dweck is actually finding the same thing about intelligence. If you think you can become more intelligent, you can actually improve your IQ but if you don’t think so, you won’t. Our minds are much more powerful organs than we think.</p>
<p>Sorry, CF. I didn’t see the post #90, although I think the support for it is pretty interesting. Our medical system does these major ideological flip-flops with any acknowledgment or irony. Twenty years ago, it was accepted fact that all of these alternative modalities like acupuncture or yoga/meditation or chiropractic were quackery. Now, the dogma has changed. I think we’ll see a new flip-flop as medicine embraces the power of mind over the body. The stuff I read does make me want to do a lot more meditation and develop the power of my mind. It is in my 30 year plan to be meditating and do yoga at least 5 times a week, though I’m getting there slowly. I do think that this will be an exciting area for medical and biological research.</p>
<p>There is a book called Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon’s Experience with Exceptional Patients by Bernie Siegel, that I read back in 1989 when my mom was dying of cancer. A review from Library Journal stated the following
I am not a religious person, but do agree with other posters on this thread that positive mindset (I also read Carol Dweck) can have positive outcomes. This “positive mindset” can be prayer, meditation, or something unique to a particular individual. My mom did not have a “miracle” remission and that isn’t really what the book above is about. Love, Medicine, and Miracles helped me find peace with her life as an ill person and also helped me find peace with her death.</p>
<p>I have recently starting praying to God although I have remained agnostic for quite awhile. I started to pray because I was in depression due to stress a couple of weeks back, and everyday, I would pray to God asking him to help me through this time. And I realized, what really made a difference by me praying to God, is the fact that I started to think more positive thoughts. Hence I just want to say that I believe what prayer does is to help one emotionally through stress or trauma, such as lifting a person’s spirit and helping one feel better. However if that person is not able to help themselves in the first place, God won’t be able to help at all. “God helps those who helps themselves”</p>
<p>“God helps those who helps themselves” - A nice thought but not in Christian Scripture, BTW. I actually preached a sermon about sayings people mistakenly attribute to the Bible and that was one of them!</p>