Thursday, February 15, 2007
The Power of Prayer
As promised, the bad-taste valentines have been moved over to Fun With News, so go check 'em out there if you missed them.
Today's topic is prayer. As a Buddhist, I don't actually believe in prayer, I must admit. Buddhism's tough-love party line on this topic is that there isn't really anyone to pray to and, even if there was, He wouldn't intervene in your personal problems, which are all self-inflicted anyway, so your best bet is to sit quietly in the corner, pull your head out of your ass and think about how you're going to solve your own fuckin' problems. Or something like that.
But perhaps I'm being too harsh. After all, I can recall an episode from my youth where prayer apparently worked.
When I was a child back in the early 70s, the good-old CBC broadcast a prime-time public service documentary on the dangers of venereal disease. The show made quite an impression on my young mind. However, since this was the early 70s, the show was very detailed and graphic about the effects of venereal disease but very, very vague about how one contracts such diseases. For all the information the program gave me, I thought venereal diseases were as contagious as colds or the flu.
I was therefore deathly afraid of contracting them. So, as my evangelical Christian mother had taught me, I turned to Lord Jesus to relieve my fear. For several months, in my nightly child-like prayers, right along with "God bless mommy and daddy" I included the line:
"Dear Jesus, please protect me from getting gonorrhea."
My mother became increasingly agitated by these prayers. She tried to tell me to stop, much to my confusion.
"But Mom, you don't want me to get gonorrhea, do you?"
...At which point her head would explode in exasperation.
But my mother's reaction wasn't the worst. One Sunday, our Sunday school teachers asked us to list some of the things we prayed for. I found their gales of laughter to be very hurtful and, frankly, ignorant.
For all the persecution I suffered from my childhood devotion, the prayers did the trick. I am pleased to say that, to this day, I have never suffered from gonorrhea, syphilis or any of your more fashionable modern STDs. Praise Jesus.
And you, dear readers? Have you any tales, serious or humorous, about the effects of religious devotion?
posted by Mentok @ 11:52 a.m.,
6 Comments:
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At 2:03 p.m.,
Elizabeth said...
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I'll just take this opportunity to once again remind the world of my favorite made-up word: Buddismal.
I do remember back when I was a Classicist, we had to do a series of readings from the New Testament in Greek, and I had to read aloud the Book of Luke's version of Christ's last words, which, in my translation were: "Peter, enjoy my stuff." And oh how I was hated for being literal. -
At 9:31 p.m.,
jamwall said...
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i don't believe in prayer either..particularly since i'm an atheist.
but i laughed out loud at your "jesus, please protect me from getting gonorrhea."
i can envision those going into further comedy bits
"jesus, please protect daddy from getting those sore spots on his naughty parts after he drinks a lot during business trips." -
At 1:31 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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liz - OK, you've stumped me. I've Googled "Peter enjoy my stuff" and Luke 23:46 six ways to Sunday (har!) but all yer fancy book-larnin' gots me bamboozled! ;-)
(That'll teach me for making hillbilly gags, eh?)
jamwall - oh man that's even too gross for me! ;-) -
At 2:29 p.m.,
Elizabeth said...
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Well, in Greek, the line is: 'Pater, eis cheiras sou paratithemai to pneuma mou', which literally translates as 'Father, I put somewheres into your hands my blowy thingy'. [blowy thingy later translated by authors as 'spirit'.]
And, of course, all of those words have completely different meanings in the dialect of Greek I'm actually trained to read, Attic. But yeah, Pater = Father and Petros = Peter, which I actually should have known. -
At 2:43 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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Pneuma Mou? Isn't that the Romanian pop hit all the kids are singing these days? ;-)
(Seriously, I have enough familiarity with the classics to be suitably impressed that you were learning Attic Greek no less.)
There have to be a million gags flowing from "blowy thingy" (e.g. the Father, the Son and the Holy Blowy Thingy) but I imagine classicists have already worked those to death already. -
At 4:04 p.m.,
Bathroom Hippo said...
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I believe in prayer.
I could give a thousand examples...but I'll just give a simple one.
A year ago I stopped praying. My test scores sucked..I did not get very good grades at all. But before and after that when I prayed daily I always received very good grades on tests. The studying techniques remain the same. Could be a confidence factor that prayer has? Possibly. Whatever works.
But I'm totally with you on the "get off your ass and do something about your life instead of asking God to fix it every single time."
