As Ambrose Bierce said in The Devil's Dictionary: "An inventor is a person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization."
First we need to understand why science is more important than faith. Science is applicable. Science is the human embodiment of logic, reason, and knowledge itself. Faith is the surrender of all those things; it's a belief in something with no physical evidence.
Science is also responsible for the infrastructure of civilization. Not all of us can hunt, kill, cook or grow our own food in large quantities. Just the same; not all of us are trained medical workers who know how to clean wounds, and most of us aren't capable of creating medicines that can cure diseases and fight infections. Not everyone who has these skills can teach them either. If you take away that infrastructure; the knowledge to do all these important things is lost as people die; and we go back to the dark ages.
With that said, I know for sure without proper medical treatment, you probably would have died from infection. Of course, I fully expect you to attribute god to "inspiring the invention of antibiotics and civilization" and what have you. Unfortunately, I have more to say on that matter.
It's fine to personally attribute things to god, but to do so publicly is actually quite dishonest. Let's look at why that is. What is god? According to catechism, se's supposed to "transcend the human sexes". He also "transcends motherhood and fatherhood". When the "language of faith" states that "god is the father", it's a metaphor. He has no gender. Isiah 66:13 and Psalm 131.2 are examples where he is likened to motherhood. But I digress; these things still fail to tell us what god is. What it says of god is: "god is god.", "god is unique.", "god is one."god is mystery." "god is infinitely above everything", and "transcends the world and history". My favorite; "god is of himself everything that he is."
The tl;dr version: This is all pretty jumbled and nonsensical. There's no ontology of god. 'He's not coherently defined. So... who or what are you supposed to be praying to? Who or what does anybody pray to? You have no idea. I don't either. Neither does anybody. What frame of reference do you have for drawing the idea that prayer has any power at all? You might have a personal simulation of god that you run inside your head, but it's still undefined. So for all you know, you could be praying to a being that possibly created the universe out of some sadistic need to make creatures suffer; and every time you pray, he hears it - and any time he 'helps', he's actually setting you up for a much worse situation down the road.
So where does that leave us? Well, there's always that silly Physical Evidence And Reasoned Logic idea. 🙂
And that is why I love Chun Li.
But on the point of prayer, and faith, I'll try to put this as coherently as possible.
I believe that prayer is a very important tool. It connects you with everything around you, I believe, and it does indeed focus your energies when done correctly in order to bring peace in order to accomplish tasks.
Is it a form of meditation? Yes. Do I think there is a creator? I know there's one. I'm sure that some will disagree, either in their own hearts and on the board itself, and others will say, "I'm not sure," in the most eloquent ways possible. But I know that prayer connects you to this being.
But it also connects you to other beings as well. Be it a person, or a demon. An angel, or a spirit long past.
Do you have a right to pray, simply because you don't believe in God?
Yes. You do. It is silly to even assume that you don't. That would defeat the purpose. It isn't a christian thing, or an islamic thing or a hebraic thing. It's an all people thing.
It's up to you if you want to pray for bad tings, but I will warn you of the universal laws which make the repercussions very dreadful. But also, it depends on how diabolical it is. And you must also remember, that not everything is bad to everyone.
I always enjoy this particular story.
If anyone in here watches coast to coast AM regularly, you might remember this psychic who proposed that all the listeners focus on rain for this drought-stricken town in Texas. I don't remember the town, this episode happened in the nineties. People in this place were literally fighting for water.
All the listeners, or at least some of them, concentrated on rain for the town. By the end of the broadcast, the drought had broken. Even though there was no rain scheduled for a long time off.
What is more, there was a flood.
SO, yes, I believe in prayer connecting people with our creator. But I also believe that we can manipulate the physical realm.
And no one had better come at me with their bull cocky about "where's the evidence Journia?!?!?" Ask da fuggin' Texans! Or better yet, Email George Noory! He will gladly confirm it.
And yes, there is proof for psychic powers. But just because some people don't exhibit them, or the abilities themselves refuse to be tested doesn't mean they don't exist. They could be like some quantum particles that in theory change shape as they are observed or not observed.
EDIT:
Hell, I prayed for ticklish females! Look what I have in my sig!
