Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

No

Only Judeism

Only Islam

Yes to both Judeism and Islam

[Frumple]

various writers have claimed that three or four days of fasting and prayer are spiritually illuminating.

I can personally attest that a couple days of going without food can make other contributive events (such as fever, lack of sleep, etc.) considerably more likely to result in hallucination, occasionally vivid. Given that consistent prayer, especially of the mantra type, is very much such a contributive event as well, well...

Fasting has a lengthy and fairly storied position in the ascetic arts, really. It's well known for its contribution to meditation, spirituality, tripping balls like goddamn (even without the addition of actual explicit hallucinogens or psychoactives), and so on. Often part of ritual cleansing, to allow impurities to be processed and extruded (i.e. for the kidneys and whatnot to finish up any backlog they may have been working on).

And yeah, spiritually illuminating is a good word for three or four days of fasting, little-to-no sleep, and constant or near constant prayer. You will be out of your goddamn mind by that point, heh. You're probably going to experience vivid hallucination, strong perceptual shifts, obviously you're going to experience fairly incredible psychological effects... it's a hell of a trip. Don't even have to go that long to experience lesser symptoms, but a full go like that? Eesh. There's a reason people saw visions when they went out in the desert for a few days, and preeeeetty likely it wasn't actually god. Human physiological and psychological reaction to that sort of scenario is pretty well known.

[TD1]

No it wasn't lent and a good 80% kept their fast for the whole (month?)

One of the church members had severe cancer so we all decided to pray and fast for her
We did several other things too but I forget

She didn't make it though :/
That was a rough time for the church

Why bother to pray or fast? By Christian reasoning, she's dying because it's "her time." Praying won't make any difference what so ever. I God wants to take her, he will.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Speaking of which
Didn't the native Americans do something to that extent where they left a person in the woods for a day and they weren't allowed to eat or drink until the had an opiphany?

No it wasn't lent and a good 80% kept their fast for the whole (month?)

One of the church members had severe cancer so we all decided to pray and fast for her
We did several other things too but I forget

She didn't make it though :/
That was a rough time for the church

Why bother to pray or fast? By Christian reasoning, she's dying because it's "her time." Praying won't make any difference what so ever. I God wants to take her, he will.

She wasn't dead yet, she was ill.

Had about 50/50 chance of survival but was very sick
We were praying for either a full recovery or permanent healing
(Yes we prayed for her to die painlessly)
And we now know what god's intention was
She died painlessly in her sleep if I remember correctly

[TD1]

If it was her time to die, God wouldn't care about your praying. She would have a 0/0 chance.

And if God wanted her to die in agony, as he so often seems to wish on death beds, she would again stand a 0/0 chance of painless death. It's what God wants...you praying won't change his mind.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

If it was her time to die, God wouldn't care about your praying. She would have a 0/0 chance.

And if God wanted her to die in agony, as he so often seems to wish on death beds, she would again stand a 0/0 chance of painless death. It's what God wants...you praying won't change his mind.

I'm trying not to be angry at this but you're starting to piss me off with this

God did what we prayed for even though it wasn't what we hopped for

[MonkeyHead]

Not that I want to be a dick, but many Christians are hypocritical with prayer, though. They profess god has a perfect plan, then arrogantly try and get god to change it. I really don't understand that, at all.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Not that I want to be a dick, but many Christians are hypocritical with prayer, though. They profess god has a perfect plan, then arrogantly try and get god to change it. I really don't understand that, at all.

We don't know what his plan is though so we pray that it will be what we want
Doesn't mean it will be but "you have not because you ask not"

My church strongly believes in prayer
Not that it will do everything you want but that it can help

[Descan]

Theologically prayer doesn't make sense to me because of what Dwarfy said, but also experimentally it hasn't really shown that it works. Hell, it could even make things worse, if you know you are being prayed for, the potential stress of trying to live up to that

[Orange Wizard]

"God delights to hear the petitions of his people" or somesuch, IIRC. I'll dig out the verse if people want to continue this.

[TD1]

Okay, he delights in hearing them, but that still doesn't make them effectual at all.

I'm trying not to be angry at this but you're starting to piss me off with this

I'm not trying to make you angry Cryxis, I'm just asking questions.

[Orange Wizard]

That, and prayer is helpful for the person praying. In situations where one would otherwise feel powerless, they can pray, and that does help them deal with the situation. Emotions and psychology and all that nonsense.

The issue arises when people start thinking that prayer precludes actually doing something, which is most certainly not the case.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Theologically prayer doesn't make sense to me because of what Dwarfy said, but also experimentally it hasn't really shown that it works. Hell, it could even make things worse, if you know you are being prayed for, the potential stress of trying to live up to that

I'll find it somewhere one day but there was a study on people submitted to the hospital with a life threatening condition or some other and half were being prayed for by a church and the other half weren't
The ones being prayed for had like a 30% higher rate of survival IIRC



Also I'd like to add that prayer isn't just for trying to get god to make something happen
It's also to give thanks to god, ask forgiveness for sins, ask god to help you make decisions and the such

Okay, he delights in hearing them, but that still doesn't make them effectual at all.

I'm trying not to be angry at this but you're starting to piss me off with this

I'm not trying to make you angry Cryxis, I'm just asking questions.

I understand and I'm trying not to be mad
But the way you worded it just didn't settle.
Sorry

The person I was talking about was a family friend




Sooooooo manyyyyy ninjas!

[TD1]

I've heard of that study...but I thought it showed no real result.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

If I remember correctly it showed a pretty significant advantage for those who were being prayed for though they themselves didn't necisarily know about being prayed for

[Orange Wizard]

I remember hearing about a study, but I don't recall the results.

Edit: I was about to say that if the people being prayed for knew about it, and believed in the "power of prayer" or somesuch, then, well, there have been countless studies on the effects on morale and healing.