7 ms·

This is one of those things that you are hopeful it exists, but you also pray that people won't need.

by tapan_jk 5y ago

dsign 5y ago
The big problem being that prayer doesn't work.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  If prayer stops people forgetting about the problems of the world, I'd say it does.
  - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
    Religión is considered by the common people to be true, by the wise to be false, and by the rulers to be useful. --Seneca
    - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
      (In fact that's too cynical on Seneca's part. Religión is useful for, one imagines, the majority of it's member's, who gain among other things social connection and a safety net from it.)
      - silicon2401 5y ago
        This is a generalization. Go on /r/exmuslim, /r/exjw, and /r/exmormon on reddit to find countless stories of people from whom religion provides quite the opposite of a safety net. If often as not creates a source of fear, emotional and physical danger, ostracization, and shunning. Not to mention extreme cases like honor killings. You may as well say North Korea gives you a safety net and community (as long as you ignore the ways that it doesn't).
        Jeff_Brown 5y ago
        I don't dispute that those things happen and are horrible, but I believe "as often as not" is incorrect. What's your sample? If your sample is a forum where people tell conversion-to-atheism stories, it's not representative. Almost of the religious people I've met feel that way about their church. Admittedly, my sample is surely not representative either. In particular people stuck in a church community against their will probably don't bring it up a lot with people they don't know very well. FWIW I'm an atheist. I recently wished I was able to invoke some kind of God concept while talking to a colleague who this year lost her mother, her boyfriend, and two other family members to Covid. I intend to look for something entitled Prayer for Atheists, if it exists.
    - dorkwood 5y ago
      I've seen this quote before, but I haven't been able to find it myself. Which text is it from? Here's one from a letter to Lucilius. Seneca is easy to misquote. "Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise? He it is that gives noble and upright counsel." - Seneca
      - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
        Interesting! A lot of people on wikiquote[1] appear to believe it's a misattribution. I've only ever heard it secondhand. [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Seneca_the_Younger#.22True.2C_False.2C_Useful.22_Quote https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Seneca_the_Younger#.22Tru...
  - mrtweetyhack 5y ago
    so does a bullet
- afroboy 5y ago
  Well if prayer make you go through hard times and give you peace and hope instead of going into depressing than yes it does work.
  - dsign 5y ago
    Prayer doesn't prevent malfunctioning kidneys, yours or those of random strangers, as far as I know. So, it doesn't work.
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
Like the artificial bee that Amazon patented.
pak 5y ago
People already do need it! In the US alone, about a half million people are on dialysis. There are many health and functional consequences to both intermittent and peritoneal dialysis; they are not exactly benign treatments.
steve76 5y ago
Prayer is the recognition you exist among something better. If you are Christian, you exist not because of a past mistake or chance, but because whatever is better could have a much easier time vaporizing you, but for whatever reason, decided not to. Don't expect it to mystically grow you a kidney. Do expect it to keep a drunken mob of organ vampires from taking yours. You're going in there. The people there are going to patch you up as best as they can. But your discomfort means very little. Do it, or die. God does it. God does it to himself. What do you think is in store for you? Think of it as just material waste we are dumping into a black hole, turning our local cosmic region into a place for pure ephemeral humans. I think I'm going to start saying people converted to Catholicism. Not little people. Big powerful people. Bill Gates. Elon Musk If they say "no, they didn't". I'm going to just say, "yes, they did. That's not up to them". Here's a third of all they own. It goes to Catholic institutions near where I live. After the tech guys, the baptist and protestants. Hollywood, the ugliest place in the world. And it's just a dry run for the godless lawless international fools who think they get to do whatever they want and tell everyone what to do.
jnsie 5y ago
It's so badly needed. For some US-centric perspective: "the almost 750,000 people who live with kidney failure are 1% of the U.S. Medicare population but account for roughly 7% of the Medicare budget." [0] This is obviously just one part of the issue; I don't need to describe how attritional and life-altering chronic kidney disease and, subsequently, hemo-/peritoneal-dialysis are. [0] https://pharm.ucsf.edu/kidney/need/statistics#:~:text=Costs,7%25%20of%20the%20Medicare%20budget https://pharm.ucsf.edu/kidney/need/statistics#:~:text=Costs,....

This is one of those things that you are hopeful it exists, but you also pray that people won't need.

dsign 5y ago

The big problem being that prayer doesn't work.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
If prayer stops people forgetting about the problems of the world, I'd say it does.
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  Religión is considered by the common people to be true, by the wise to be false, and by the rulers to be useful. --Seneca
  - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
    (In fact that's too cynical on Seneca's part. Religión is useful for, one imagines, the majority of it's member's, who gain among other things social connection and a safety net from it.)
    - silicon2401 5y ago
      This is a generalization. Go on /r/exmuslim, /r/exjw, and /r/exmormon on reddit to find countless stories of people from whom religion provides quite the opposite of a safety net. If often as not creates a source of fear, emotional and physical danger, ostracization, and shunning. Not to mention extreme cases like honor killings. You may as well say North Korea gives you a safety net and community (as long as you ignore the ways that it doesn't).
      - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
        I don't dispute that those things happen and are horrible, but I believe "as often as not" is incorrect. What's your sample? If your sample is a forum where people tell conversion-to-atheism stories, it's not representative. Almost of the religious people I've met feel that way about their church. Admittedly, my sample is surely not representative either. In particular people stuck in a church community against their will probably don't bring it up a lot with people they don't know very well. FWIW I'm an atheist. I recently wished I was able to invoke some kind of God concept while talking to a colleague who this year lost her mother, her boyfriend, and two other family members to Covid. I intend to look for something entitled Prayer for Atheists, if it exists.
  - dorkwood 5y ago
    I've seen this quote before, but I haven't been able to find it myself. Which text is it from? Here's one from a letter to Lucilius. Seneca is easy to misquote. "Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise? He it is that gives noble and upright counsel." - Seneca
    - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
      Interesting! A lot of people on wikiquote[1] appear to believe it's a misattribution. I've only ever heard it secondhand. [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Seneca_the_Younger#.22True.2C_False.2C_Useful.22_Quote https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Seneca_the_Younger#.22Tru...
- mrtweetyhack 5y ago
  so does a bullet
afroboy 5y ago
Well if prayer make you go through hard times and give you peace and hope instead of going into depressing than yes it does work.
- dsign 5y ago
  Prayer doesn't prevent malfunctioning kidneys, yours or those of random strangers, as far as I know. So, it doesn't work.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

Like the artificial bee that Amazon patented.

pak 5y ago

People already do need it! In the US alone, about a half million people are on dialysis. There are many health and functional consequences to both intermittent and peritoneal dialysis; they are not exactly benign treatments.

steve76 5y ago

Prayer is the recognition you exist among something better. If you are Christian, you exist not because of a past mistake or chance, but because whatever is better could have a much easier time vaporizing you, but for whatever reason, decided not to. Don't expect it to mystically grow you a kidney. Do expect it to keep a drunken mob of organ vampires from taking yours. You're going in there. The people there are going to patch you up as best as they can. But your discomfort means very little. Do it, or die. God does it. God does it to himself. What do you think is in store for you? Think of it as just material waste we are dumping into a black hole, turning our local cosmic region into a place for pure ephemeral humans. I think I'm going to start saying people converted to Catholicism. Not little people. Big powerful people. Bill Gates. Elon Musk If they say "no, they didn't". I'm going to just say, "yes, they did. That's not up to them". Here's a third of all they own. It goes to Catholic institutions near where I live. After the tech guys, the baptist and protestants. Hollywood, the ugliest place in the world. And it's just a dry run for the godless lawless international fools who think they get to do whatever they want and tell everyone what to do.

jnsie 5y ago

It's so badly needed. For some US-centric perspective: "the almost 750,000 people who live with kidney failure are 1% of the U.S. Medicare population but account for roughly 7% of the Medicare budget." [0] This is obviously just one part of the issue; I don't need to describe how attritional and life-altering chronic kidney disease and, subsequently, hemo-/peritoneal-dialysis are. [0] https://pharm.ucsf.edu/kidney/need/statistics#:~:text=Costs,7%25%20of%20the%20Medicare%20budget https://pharm.ucsf.edu/kidney/need/statistics#:~:text=Costs,....