I did read it, but your post is not taking what I said as it was meant, but kinda makes my point for me really so I'm not going to pursue the misunderstanding. It's what you finished with that I'm interested in since it seems that if people simply mean "i'm thinking about you and wishing you the best" when they say that they're going to pray for you, then they could simply say that, and do that, and there would be no need to pray. So, why pray? Do they actually believe that they're doing more than just thinking about you and if so, what is it?

The more this percolates, the more I'm thinking that when people say 'I'll pray for you/them/whoever', it has more to do with them wanting someone else to understand something about their belief system, and by association/implication, about the nature of their thoughts for them, otherwise why bring it up at all.

Then why don't people just say 'I wish you well' instead of invoking a deity?

The answer to this completely eludes you?

New York Daily News continues its trolling:

Location: Mount Olympus

Dinna ken, lad.

Those dogs look kinda sad, they could have chosen happier looking dogs.

Can we have this conversation another time?

What do you think is the answer?

Fourth from right looks like Harvey Keitel, so for all we know they're ecstatic.

Is there some other thread where the follow up to the front page in your OP is more appropriate? So sorry the conversation isn't exactly the one you wanted to have!

NY Daily News seems pretty ****ing awesome, loving the trolling

lol

Sometimes when I'm shocked or surprised I say "Jesus Christ!" or "Oh my God!"

Why do I say that instead of "I'm shocked!" or "I'm surprised!"? I don't really know the answer to this, but I'm guessing this is more a matter of linguistics and cultural history than religion.

I actually have a physically solid answer to this, and from what I can tell it's a pretty primal mechanism, most likely as deep in evolutionary time as the triune brain.

Mouth the five following deity names: "God." "Yahweh." "Allah." "Kali." "Christ."

"Zeus": itisntjustyou "Shiva": thereaintslaving

Well before pre-hunter/gatherer defensive mechanism against sexual exploitation. Note placement of tongue and teeth in each.

Am I wrong? As a self-referential, probably not. YMMV.

wat

No, I want to know if you really can't see any possible answers to this.

Do you really have no idea why some people pray for people's well-being instead of saying "I wish you well" (let's ignore the ones who do both)?

You are trying to build an argument. I want to know if you are asking meaningless rhetorical questions as a part of it. Answer yes or no please.

Prayer is a waste of time because there is no god. It's already established that God didn't create humans or any living animal/plant. The only place left for God is creating the universe.

But one of the world's leading cosmologists, Stephen Hawkings, recently said God didn't create the universe and that he's an atheist.

God not creating life + God not creating universe = No God

That's a fresh new take that we have never heard before.

How about we apply a pronoun mismatch?

This would be a much more novel approach.

Thank you for this update. I didn't know that this issue had been settled.

On the face of it, this seems like an easy question to answer. "Jesus Christ!" or "Oh my God!" are figures of speech, exclamations used for emphasis, mostly used reflexively and unthinkingly, just noises. I don't think that telling someone that you'll pray for them is at all the same thing, there is an intent there, an action is being promised.

For the record, I try not to use the expressions you mentioned because I think it helps Christianity to have it's brand unthinkingly reinforced like that. My perspective on religions includes them being organisations that need to market themselves to survive and that they have a achieved a level of brand recognition that most businesses would kill to have, with their terms, concepts and phrases littered throughout our lexicon.

This conversation is about prayer, not how tabloids are designed. That's an interesting conversation too, but quite clearly not the one I want, or intended to have, and frankly I think we'd all be in agreement on it anyway. If you want to start a thread about it, you could do that, but not in RGT.

They're not rhetorical or meaningless, they're my questions and I'm hoping to get some answers to them. If I had those answers, I wouldn't have started the thread. I think they clearly express my thoughts on this subject.

You know it might be possible that what is for me the least likely answer is actually the answer, that when people say 'I'll pray for you' they don't actually mean it, they have no intention of actually doing that, that it's become something in the US that people say as reflexively as 'bless you' when someone sneezes, that it literally is just a meaningless platitude. I don't find that plausible though and I think that there is some intent, and I want to know what that is and if it makes any logical sense. Basically the question from my OP.

So, if a person presumably believes that prayer either can have effect or meaning, you really can't see why he would say such a thing?

Honestly, I think you need to open your mind a little.

No, I can't see why it would actually be the case. I could argue that people who say that simply don't understand that their prayer is worthless, or I might wonder if they know something or have some understanding that I lack. Hence my questions.

I'm completely open to any explanation that helps me understand, assuming that 'I'll pray for you' isn't simply a meaningless platitude and understood to be just that by everybody concerned, why people think that praying for victims is a worthwhile activity.

I feel that I'm repeating myself quite a lot answering your posts and that it's not really advancing the conversation. Are you any clearer on what I'm asking? Would you like to offer your thoughts on the subject?

Okay here's the logic.

1) Bad event x happens.
2) You pray that God changes history so that bad event x never happened.
3) God changes history so that bad event x didn't happen.
4) No more sadness because of bad event x.