spankthebadwookie,

See the problem? Trivialities.

Forget the view of "etiquette" for a moment. Try addressing - for once - the argument that allowing a diversity of subconversations into a thread is something that INCREASES engagement from forum members, that allows people to find common subjects of interest, allows people interested in one subconversation to be exposed to the other and get interested in those, and in no way prevents the former discussion from taking place. A rigid "no talking about anything except exactly what the OP wants to talk about" is ridiculously stifling and inhibits an engaged forum. Especially in a case like this where instead of just asking about prayer, you post a highly controversial and trending front page you should expect people to talk about that front page and not just exactly what you want!

I doubt the bolded is true. Imagine a dinner party. One difference between this and a forum is that if everyone is paying attention to a table wide conversation, then only one topic can occur at a time when on a forum multiple can happen at the same time. But even in real life, often the dinner table splinters and multiple subgroups are formed to talk about things, reforming to the big table, separating again, and so on. Further, it is very typical that there is a constant flow of conversation, dancing around different topics as people have interesting things to say, going off on tangents, etc.

Now this is key: have you EVER seen someone at the dinner party while still chatting away on their preferred topic yell out to those at the other end of the table that they are being incredibly rude to talk about something else? That would be incredibly rude. And you have the audacity to call us rude?

Also note that you have now broken every one of your vows. Not only have you broken the original claim that you had made your last post on this issue, you have now broken your secondary claim that you would only reply once to each person who has disagreed with you. It's a lot of posts, but notice something important: it hasn't inhibited the other conversation you want to have one bit! See how that conversation and this conversation are going along in parallel?

What you did say, was that you purposely don't use those exclamations:

ROFL.

The promise to do it because that's what they intend to do. There's no relevance here on whether it would actually accomplish anything. It's a promise to act. Would you have this same confusion if they said "I will light a candle for you"? The promised action is absolutely clear and they are making the promise because they intend to do it.

(1) They say they are going to pray because they are going to pray.
(2) They pray because they believe prayer has benefit.
(3) They tell the victims they're going to pray because they believe telling them will increase the level of support and comfort the victims feel.

If this is really beyond your ability to understand, there's no hope for you. It's impossible for anyone other than you to fix your own intentional stupidity.

I think Boosh thinks that Christians saying they will offer a prayer is their subtle and conniving way to:

Wonder if he boycotts all songs, books and movies which reference the abrahamic God for the same reason.

I'd joke about hives, the Roman Zeus and hot cross buns if the Nazarene weren't so badass.

:/


srchterm: Iove.

Anyway. Friction non-fiction time. Have a good arvo.

I'm not sure. He's also said that

So it's really hard to know what MB is thinking other than he's convinced that there must be a negative thing and cannot possibly be a positive one.

In your mind, wishing makes about as much logical sense as praying. (It's not going to change the state of the universe to wish.) So why would anyone ever say "I wish you well"?

Greetings,

Many Christians believe God will change his mind at times because of the prayers of people. There are several cases where God changed his mind in the OT because people prayed that forms the basis for this belief.

It would probably help to just accept things at face value. If people are praying for God to comfort the victims and the victims' families then their request is transparent. The people praying expect/hope God will comfort those suffering.

Probably depends on the person. If a person has sincere faith in God and sincerely prays I think it is anything but.

A static God (or Godhead/Tao/whatever you prefer) is pretty well nigh useless if it's not a peg for a certain historical era or juncture point, wouldn't you say?

So obviously if such exists, it's going to be a indulgent, patient gestalt.

Or a sadistic mf who enjoys the suffering of his creation

the #1 commandment for religious people

And wrote the book on something imaginary like psychokinetics? Sure.



Always tobacco. Cheers.

I see. I thought you were asking, Why do people say, or tell other people, that they will pray for them in response to a tragedy. But you are more interested in why they actually do pray in response to a tragedy. More specifically, you want to know what they think they are doing when they pray in response to a tragedy.

Probably the best answer to this would be given by the religious people here as they are the ones who actually do this and so would presumably know best why they are doing this.

My own reasons are probably not very representative as I am not a member of any religious. I'll participate in religious prayers or rituals because I think it helps social groups form tighter bonds with each other and also because it can be emotionally comforting in a way not too dissimilar to reading good poem/novel or listening to music can be. I also think that people who are grieving feel comforted by the knowledge that other people around them often feel the same sorrow they feel, that it gives more meaning or value to what they lost. Because religious rituals are so strongly associated with death or with great tragedy, I think this can be one of the more effective ways of demonstrating that sorrow.

Finally, I think that it is a sign of respect for what is lost. In the same way that I want other people to miss me and grieve if I were to die, I feel like it is a way of respecting what is lost to take some time to participate in mourning rituals on their behalf.

A few points.

1) I think you are exaggerating how far the side discussion was from the OP. My initial comment was a negative comment about people who criticize religious people for saying that they are praying for the victims of a tragedy. Since this is exactly one the directions you went yourself in this thread (in describing this as being "selfish"), while it wasn't directly answering the questions in the OP, it was indeed related to that topic.

2) I take the RGT Rules pretty seriously in my moderation of this forum. Whenever I infract people or delete posts I try to do so with an explicit justification in mind on that basis. So here is what it says:
The rules explicitly state that some thread derails are allowed. Which thread derailments are allowed is determined by the discretion of the moderator. So yeah, I allow side discussion and derailments on the basis of my best judgement about whether it will lead to an interesting or useful conversation. In my view, a poster's judgement on whether to allow derailments is one of the primary criteria on which to evaluate their fitness to be a moderator. The criteria I use is that I generally want them to be organically related to OP, not a continuation of an ongoing discussion from another thread, not related to personal attacks on specific posters, non-trollish, etc. I generally try to not interfere too much and I give some preference to the wishes of those who have longer histories in the RGT community (of which you are one). I don't really remember what off-topic posts you were infracted for when you first joined, but I take it now that you are one of the people who sets the tone for this forum. As such, I'll take what you want to talk about to be itself somewhat constitutive of what is "worthwhile" to discuss in RGT in a way that I wouldn't have when you first joined.

3) I think IRL discussion is only an imperfect guide for forum conversations. We have many more people here who want to talk about many more sides of an issue than you'll generally find in a real life conversation, where it would be unusual for there to be more than 3-4 people involved. So I would be hesitant to apply too strictly the rules of etiquette that apply there to our conversations here.

4) I'll note as an example of how these kinds of side discussions can arise that even this discussion of moderation and side discussions is itself a side discussion, one started by you and continued by you.

Yes, and if you reread my OP in that light, I think it's clear that that's what I meant. I would admit to poor phrasing if I thought that has caused the confusion but on this occasion, I think the meaning is quite clear. Perhaps you'll also see why I don't think I've had any good answers.

Also, I really do want to explore the logic of prayer. I've said that I don't see how it's possible to change god's mind, I'm assuming that there are arguments to counter that position that are better than 'there are examples in the bible' (I've responded to that) or 'people think they can' (meaningless)? I have done some reading up, but I also want to discuss this with people here and so I'm hoping that someone will engage on that issue.

I think that my suggestion that people pray for selfish reasons, in a conversation exploring why people pray, is on-topic and relevant, and a conversation about whether or not that is one of the criticisms being leveled at them by those who wish to politicize prayer for their own benefit, isn't. Worse, the comments about gun-control and the nature of and motivations behind tabloid headlines sparked discussions about both and I don't consider either to be remotely relevant to the topic of why people pray. So I'm going to respectfully disagree with you there.

Thank you for elaborating on the rules.

Something I'm well aware of, have mentioned ITT and have done my best to try to avoid by responding once in the thread to each person who has addressed it (with the exception of you with whom I'm discussing it because you're a mod) and then not responding to follow up posts ITT by them. And which is why, to the chagrin of some, I've been discussing this by PM.

I see no point in continuing it ITT now though, so I'm done. If I need to talk about it anymore, which is unlikely, I'll PM you.

Wonder the same thing. How can a God, as smart as smart gets, be surprised? I would think he'd know everything that could and would happen even before creation. He would know the payer before its prayed and know if he answered and changed his mind before its prayed. Which im not sure would be changing ones mind.

Then there are the bibles prophesies. If true it means the bibles God does know the future so he would have to calculate the mind changing in there.

Go read Alastair Reynolds' House of Suns.

Position. A god can be surprised, but the surprise takes the nature of inspiration and awe. You can be either individual or pantheist. You can be part of a collective.

Old Abrahamic conceptualizations have angelic structures. It's no fun being the sole observer all the time etc.

Keep going, man.

Meh. You wanted to know the logic of why some believe god changes his mind or actions in response to prayer. I said, one reason that some will appeal to are the clear examples in the Bible of God doing so. You then said, but the Bible is inaccurate and can be interpreted differently. But that is not relevant. You asked for the logic of the position. I gave you the logic (for some people). You disagree with one of the premises, which, fine, so do I, but that doesn't affect the logic of the view. If we are going to just disagree with the premises, you can just as easily say that there is no god so of course god can't change her mind.

Okay.

Yes, but your awareness of this hasn't stopped you from responding to this topic. A basic rule of thumb for me is that if you want a conversation to stop you have to let the other person have the last word. If there are multiple people involved, you have to just stop responding. If you can't do that, then you don't really have grounds to complain about that conversation continuing.

My second favourite author after Stephen Baxter and now I have to reread that one because if it's relevant to this conversation, I totally didn't pick up on that the first time round.

AFAIK, the only way to resolve the 'omniscient god/no free will' dilemma, it to posit that god lives in an eternal now. That being the case, it's not possible to surprise god. How small a period of time is 'now'?

None of this matters. It doesn't matter whether you do or do not believe his or our topics were sufficiently close to your OP. Being the exact topic you want to talk about simply does not matter, and insisting that one is ONLY allowed to talk about what you want to talk about is detrimental to the forum. The point was that the conversation wasn't a "hijacking", but unfolded in an organic way. One should EXPECT that if you post a controversial, internationally trending headline people are GASP going to talk about that headline and not just exactly the angle you want to take on it. And there is nothing wrong with this, it provided an opportunity for forum members to come together and discuss something they were interested in and did not crowd out your ability to have your conversation you wanted.



I doubt this is going away, xo you really should meaningfully address it at some point. This is becoming a pattern with you, that as soon as a conversation isn't exactly the topic you believe it should be, you send me (and perhaps others?) angry PMs refusing to engage further on the forum. So if not here, at some point you are going have to actually engage with the points that Louis, Original Position, and myself are making about how you are just objectively wrong here. I agree with Original Position, but will go further. The whole typing out paragraphs of response and then announcing that nope, doesn't matter what someone else says you are not going to respond is - to quote you - "rude, selfish and terrible forum etiquette". Demanding other people not talk about what they are interested in is - to quote you - "rude, selfish and terrible forum etiquette". What is NOT terrible forum etiquette is to have organic side discussions and this discussion here is evidence of how an organic side discussion does NOT inhibit the discussion you wish to take place. You are simply objectively wrong here.

Finally, please stop adjusting your claimed rules. First you said you were done on this issue. Then you amended it to once per person. Then you amended it to once per person unless it was a mod. Now you are still pulling the "doesn't matter what you say, I'm not responding" card.

The really strange part about all of this is that you've never really presented anything that supports your assertion. That is, you don't think it's possible, and you want people to "counter" that position, but all we've got from you is the assertion that you don't think it's possible. There's literally no strategy that can succeed against you because you can always come back with "I don't accept that argument."

You're just going to reject everything out of hand, in basically the same way you reject anything you disagree with out of hand. You're going to accept your interpretation of the Bible over religious people's interpretation because you disagree with it. You're going to accept your assumptions about religious people's beliefs and motivations over their own claims about their beliefs and motivations.

This doesn't represent an attitudinal disposition that favors learning. It's headstrong ignorance.

It's also indicative of arguing in bad faith.

Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs trilogy also.

Remember the initial origin of the cast of characters in HoS and the importance of Palatial and you see what Reynolds is grasping at. There's a poignant scene midway I won't spoil in plainxtext:



Regardless of ^, the narratives and by-play are quite important for textual context, and so are the disagreements. Consider these to be impatient Kardashev-III sentiences and you've got the context for the re-read.

If you've seen Jupiter Ascending, you know exactly who Bella Lind is. They're huge fans of his work too. And yes, it is implicit that the movie came from the book.

If I'm wrong, I owe you both another trilogy.

Posit: Individual goes post-kardashev out of a baryonic Universe. Looks back at his own mortal life, decides he just wants the same thing only he'll tuck in a little extra quantum influence by allowing his observances to spread through his favorites. After all, it was enough for Caesar. Why not Fortuna?



I never finished the Dark Defiles. But you'll find the sword in front of Old City Hall off Bay/Queen, Richard. **** this linear tip-tap **** sometimes.

Can I ask what your personal view is? If god exists and is omniscient, then how could prayer change god's mind?

I suspect that you have much, much more to offer on this subject, but it's like getting blood out of a stone.

If you offer examples from the bible, how can it not be relevant to point out that the bible also contains contradictory examples? I realise that I'm not trying to persuade you, that you're just describing the logic being used by some, but it's still relevant.

I don't see God listening to prayer as being incompatible with some common notions of God.

For example, any sane person would believe that God has given humans free will, and free will necessarily means that God doesn't know what's going to happen. It's like me creating a game with a randomization element. I'm still the creator/master of all that happens in the game, I still know the boundaries of all that could and would happen, but I've fenced off a small section of the world where elements are free to surprise me.

Of course, if you believe in personal prayer, you come up with ridiculous juxtapositions such as God listening to your prayer but not the blood curdling screams of a child being raped or someone being gassed by the Nazis, but that's a separate argument.

So Mightyboosh, just to confirm, when someone goes on a tangent in a DIFFERENT thread then this one, does the not talking about it anymore extend there? Or are you you going to try to silence organic conversation in those threads too? Perhaps you will try to silence conversation and then only spend one post - err, one post per person -- err, unless they are a mod -- - defending this there?