Is It Evil to Pray For The Sick?
Francois Tremblay Permalink
2 comments
J-Walk posts about an interesting quote and issue: is praying for the sick a sanction of the unfairness of life?
Having recently finished Professor Ehrman's "God's Problem," I was struck by his decision to never say grace over food. His logic was that if there were people in the world dying every five seconds from starvation, it was tantamount to thanking God for giving this food to him, at their expense. He felt he couldn't be thankful that he had been singled out for reasons that had only to do with his birthplace, which made quite a bit of sense to me.
Thus I began to consider analogous behaviors and the first one that I thought of was praying for the sick to recover. If Ehrman's original proposition, that praying to thank the Lord for food that you have, while others are starving is valid, is it not equally valid when it comes to praying for the sick to recover?
And more interestingly, what does that say about believing in a god that brings this state of affairs about?
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2 Comments:
I don't think praying for the sick is "evil" as much as it ridiculous.
If someone is sick and dying, well then, isn't that "God's will?" And if it's God's will, aren't you challenging "Him" by praying for Him to change His mind?
Praying is really just asking God for a do-over ---- as well as a waste of time might I add...
=) Steph
There was a facebook group called "pray for [some guy's name]" and the group was created because a boy had been missing for three weeks. If they really wanted the guy to be found, maybe the members of the group should have actually gone out and looked for the kid rather than praying.
Prayer is evil in so far as it makes the people who do it satisfied that they are contributing some helpful effort when really they're not.
There is a news story going around the atheist blogs at the moment about a girl with a treatable illness who died because her parents prayed for her rather than take her to the doctor. The parents honestly thought they were helping the girl to recover. In that instance, yes, I think prayer is evil.
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