religion

Regarding 'Jabez's Prayer', I will say at once that I am a very poor Christian, and indeed a bad man. My besetting sins are many, and the least of them are the fleshlier ones: the really deadly ones are pride and intellectual arrogance. But I can honestly say I have never sunk to confusing prayer: the soul's colloquy with the Creator, mortal man's dialogue with the Deity: with magical incantation and the ritual of the 'spell.

People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh?And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere. This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn't looking, in the same way that Boy Scouts' Association minutes are done on office photocopiers all over the country.So, reasoned Koomi, it was not a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme Being. It would only attract his attention and might cause trouble.

Praying because you're afraid is not like praying because you have faith. Faith and fear never meet. If you are faithful and still feel scared, it's whether you're not praying right or not praying at all.

It is possible to induce incorrect notions of cause and effect in most people in just a few minutes. All that is necessary is to expose them to rewards which they believe they are generating based on their actions when in fact the rewards are randomly awarded. People will latch onto any seeming success and repeat it, even when they have to explain repeated failures as well. It appears practically impossible, or at least very rare, for humans not to be influenced by immediate experiences of concrete results. This is true even if the experiences turn out to have limited theoretical validity. The moment of surprise is not when people repeat alchemical failures but when they begin to do something else.

I admit at the beginning that 'popular religion,' 'demotic religion,' the pieties of the common folk, tends to sink to the lowest common denominator, be it in syncretizing saints with old, half-forgotten pagan godlings, or in preferring the nasal whine and the revivalist shoutin' to solid sense and learning, regarding intellect as positively inimical to the workings of the Holy Ghost. But it is in American religious life, especially Protestant American religious life, that things bottom out completely.

I'll pray for you.""That's very kind of you.""I can't spare you a whole rosary, you know. Just a decade. I've got such a long list of people. I take them in order and they get a decade about once a week.

He asked me if I ever prayed-- and I lied.Then he asked me if I ever got an answer, or a sign that my prayer was heard-- and I told him the truth."Yeah... me neither."His hands sounded like leather as he slowly rubbed some warmth into his knotted knuckles."So what happens to all of those lost prayers?"I didn't know if I should tell him the truth of what I really believed... or not.I put my hand on his slumping shoulder, smiled and told him the truth of what I believe, "Don't worry...

I get that. For you, it__ more than following a bunch of rules__o sex, no booze, no swear words, pray every night and twice on Sunday.

God didn__ design your life so you would constantly fall down, but he does hope that you will be brought to your knees.

The circumstances of our lives are pieces of a larger scheme in the puzzle of life, and in His Perfect Wisdom, the pieces fit.

What's to rationalize? You mean you shouldn't pray if you haven't got your s--t together? This is another fairly common misconception of faith, which is that people who go to church, or people who pray, or people who talk about their religion must be, somehow more pious or ethically rigorous or have more morally cleansed lifestyle. The high correlation is supposed to be between faith and your search, the depth of your search, your willingness to try, your willingness to admit error, your hope and belief in the ultimate meaning and value of that search.' - Timothy Shriver

When the going gets tough: the poor close their eyes, the rich open their wallets.

If you are religious, pray. If you are philosophical, contemplate. If you are spiritual, meditate.

Sniffing glue is a homeless nonbeliever's prayer.

People who fit don__ seek. The seekers are those that don__ fit.

Close your eyes, and with Jesus, journey back through your day. As you do, confess sin as you see it...

He regards it as the highest insult for the wicked to boast of His covenant while profaning His sacred Name by their whole lives.

Closing one__ eyes when praying doesn__ increase the odds of the prayer being answered. It merely decreases the odds of being distracted.