igor, OH,
I see how it is, you get to be the evil all-powerful web master who can say whatever he wants free of consequences,
right?!?! HA!! I say BURN IN HELL, sinner!!
I hope that it is blatantly obvious that the preceding message is plastered with sarcasm, and is 100% in jest.
enzo, I understand what you are saying, and I agree your stance as stated above. I too think it is ridiculous to pray for every little aspect of your life to be planned out to your benefit. That's not the way I thought it was supposed to be (within the partial knowledge acquired from my small extent of a religious up-bringing I did have with my grand parents). Praying is supposed to be reserved for the important things in life, like keeping food on the table and staying healthy, and other keys to survival. I understand why the belief that Jesus must be accepted as your Savior before your death has become popular, but, like you
enzo, I think that moral living is a larger piece of the puzzle that seems to be upstaged by this belief nowadays.
I do, however, have a stong belief in the statement "The Lord works in mysterious ways." Maybe this is more of a personal belief. Perhaps it does seem to imply that praying is not necessary. That's where faith comes into play in my book. Why not believe that it can't hurt to pray? I think, if nothing else, praying makes you feel that things will get better. For those that believe, it is a source of hope, and therefore comfort. A great example here (sorry to site yet another film...) is this scene in
Inner Space when Martin Short is speaking to Dennis Quaid who is in this pod inside him, and says "give me the strength of ten men," and then Martin proceeds to kick the crap out of a bad guy who confronts him. Well, what Martin doesn't know is that at this point, Dennis and his pod are now inside of Meg Ryan, but he didn't know this - the
belief that he was given the strength of ten men was all he needed to prevail in the face of opposition. Call it a lame example if you wish, but I believe that this carries weight in the real world, and is actually feasible in a real world situation.
Thanks for reading-
-JD