Do You Get A Weird Feeling, when people tell you they pray for you? Options

I have two friends that are really serious about Christianity praying and stuff.
And the other day they said the pray for me alot. And me being a Satanist, I felt really weird. It was a slight twinge of something but I don't know what the feeling was. It was very weird. I feel emotions physically too. And my arms had a tingling sensation. It was really weird. Maybe them praying for me is giving me energy by sucking their energy...
I have no idea LOL!

Oh well.

Just strange.

~ Neris-

I take a very different approach to it. But then again I have no set faith so there is no emotional charge to it. I think Acid09 is dead on.

People who offer to pray for you are hopefully doing what they believe is the best thing they can do for you. Now it may be more practical for them to give you $20. But it is what seems best.

A friend of mine had the same issue, except when it came from someone addressing him from a military point of view. Why because he felt it was an honor that they would think of his service to his country enough to pray for him.

After pointing out that there was little difference in the eyes of most Christians between praying for a soldier and praying for what they see as a lost soul, a person in pain, or in harms way.

Now if someone tells me they will pray that I find my way to Christ so that my soul does not have to endure eternity in hell fire…I am going to laugh in their face and begin ridiculing them, or ignore them. Probably would depend if I had anything more entertaining to do. I react to zealots in that fashion most of the time.

In essence, they are making a kind gesture, it might seem inappropriate, but if we are to take any higher ground, it is our job to identify where people are coming from, and respond in a way that they understand.

I know this may seem odd that I say this to a Satanist, but come on, most people are trying to be nice, society is more enjoyable when people are civil to each other. If one has more perspective then another, then they should recognize more.

People show their love in many different ways, I am all for people loving me and try to see it in their actions. It might be them taking me aside and telling me that they are worried about me. Or anything that may seem totally bizarre at the moment…like kicking me out of the house and forcing me to walk 25 miles and hitchhike another 120 to get back to school. But the kicking me out was to get me out of their face for a few hours so we did not try and kill each other.

However many people have trouble expressing themselves. They also have often have odd views of doing what is best.

Parents who are addicts, they love their family, but they are abusive or destructive. The drug of choice is an escape for them, but then it makes life worse for all others around them.

Think of the praying as an act of love, and move on.

@ Vagrant Dreamer

Many people pray with empty words - faith that they were taught to have, ritual prayers that amount to words and verses they repeat blindly, etc. I think the number of people who know how to pray is far outweighed by the number of people who 'pray' on a regular basis. Don't forget that the vast majority of religious individuals are only religious because they were told to be.

That is the most cynical statement I have seen you post…in fact I think your entire post is pretty outside the norm for you.

You clearly have some issues with Christians.

I am tempted to suggest some things, but in essence I think you might want to look pretty deep at this one. I think today most religious people are religious because of community, not because they are told to be. It may seem like the same thing but it is not. Having people who care for you in a selfless way is a beautiful thing, no matter who it is. Having people to turn to in times of need is also a beautiful thing.

About 10 years ago I thought Mormons where complete freaks with really good looking women who would come to my door and talk about their freakism. Later I learned a lot about the religion…still think it is freakish, but I also paid attention to their actions.

Yes, I admit having a weakness for beautiful, intelligent women talking passionately about anything.

In their community they help people out as best they can. They pull together in wonderful ways. The religions dogma is built around survival, they have a history of persecution. The religion is flexible, it changes when it is practical to do so. (I look at that aspect as both good, and sad as it can not be seen as holding to beliefs)

All said I have a very different perspective of Mormons after working with, speaking to them and learning more of their religion.

For people who grew up Mormon and then left, there are some big emotional issues there…but those that move past them, then see the beauty in their old religion.

My current ideological opposition is directed at PITA, but I have to admit I have never put too much emotion or effort into it.

This post has been edited by paxx: Nov 19 2007, 03:00 AM

@ Vagrant Dreamer

That is the most cynical statement I have seen you post…in fact I think your entire post is pretty outside the norm for you.

You clearly have some issues with Christians.

I am tempted to suggest some things, but in essence I think you might want to look pretty deep at this one. I think today most religious people are religious because of community, not because they are told to be.

Perhaps you're right about my cynicism, and there are few topics which get to me like religion and prayer.

Don't get me wrong, I do pray to Divine Providence, the Source, The Great Mind. But I was taught as a youngster - by christians, yes - that I must say my prayers at night and in the morning, over every meal, and that I just had to say "thank you for everything" and "please bless the people I love" and "please help me with this or that" - in that order, with no explanation of what faith really is, either because the adults that taught me 'prayer' didn't understand it or didn't know how to explain it to a kid. In my community, in the south, people mostly pray out of judgement. My family of a 150+ cousins, aunts, uncles, and second, third, and fourth cousins, aunts, and uncles - we're very southern - have almost all told me at some point "Oh, you're gay? You poor thing, I'm prayin' for ya." In so many words. While I don't doubt that they love me in the kind of peripheral way that extended family care about everyone in their gene pool, that kind of statement is made in judgement that my lifestyle goes contrary to the Law of God.

The handful that know about my heathen ways no longer speak to me, and more than once a rumor has arisen in my family that I am somehow responsible for one or another illness, misfortune, natural disaster, etc. Hence why I live in new york city now. Still ignorant, but of a less familiar flavor.

On the occasions that I have talked about God to my family members, and a lot of other people in the South - I went to a church with 15,000 congregates - it's the classical christian attitude that God is outside of creation, watching, judging, and helping the faithful. When I learned what real faith is, what real prayer was, I realized that I had a very different view of God, Religion, and my connection to the Divine than my peers in this subject.

In new york I have seen and worked with charity organizations who are non-religious. They are typically spiritual people, and some of them individually are christian, hindu, muslim, etc., but the point is that Religious people do not have a monopoly on selfless service and love. Religion is about sectarianism, about one group of people being better than others, about one group knowing the 'true path' while all others are lost and damned to hell. Or, all others will get it right next time. I have met only a handful of Religious people - a few hindus, mostly buddhists, a couple of muslims, and maybe three christians - who are truly selfless individuals, and in the case of the christians and muslims, they are rather independent in their beliefs about their religion.

But, I'm not really criticizing religion, they all have good points - I'm criticizing the people who make up the congregations. I have experienced, with christians, nothing but judgment, hypocrisy and backwards thinking. And while these are universal human traits, none do it with the divine authority better than christians and muslims. The only religious people I have ever had almost universal respect for? Jewish people. Never met a jew I didn't like. If they do judge just the same, then they keep their mouth shut about it, and never tell me they'll pray for me. THe most I ever got: "If you're life is wrong, and you are close to god, then god will help you fix it to be right. If he doesn't then you're fine. None of us really know what god wants, we just pay attention and try to figure it out. All the holy books we have are just records of other people trying to do just that." Paraphrased, this was some time ago.

So yes, I'm cynical. I suffered constantly from 'religious' people, particularly christians, when I was a child, all the way up into my adolescence, although by then I didn't care as much. People who will tell you they love selflessly, and use "I'm saved" as an excuse to act holier-than-thou, and talk about even one another - "She says she's saved, but I'll tell you, that woman just does not have the light of god in her!" Don't even get me started on old women who think they have the gift of prophecy. Never was there a nosier breed of christian with more to say to you.

While I may come off as perhaps somewhat emotional, I'm really not. At this point it's just a cold analysis. In my opinion, the action is worthless unless it is backed by truly selfless love. Especially when it comes to praying for people - if it's done with judgement, self-righteous vigor, self-love (I'm such a good christian because I pray for people), then it's tainted, and worthless. True prayer must be completely selfless, you must suspend all judgement, all worldly dogma, and open yourself to the Divine in a pure way. And if you do it enough, it sticks - at first just for a few hours, then a few days, and if you do it enough, one day it sticks more or less permanently. It's energetic. It's the effect that Divinity has on Consciousness, and it can be observed - both through people's actions, and through observation of the energetic quality of the individual. I have met few of those individuals, and they were mostly old. Something about old age seems to bring people closer to God in a realistic way - maybe because they realize death is just around the corner.

It is almost impossible to open yourself to the Divine in this way, if you have a preconceived notion of what it is, how it functions, what it wants, and how it wants it. The worst crime that religious people have committed, in my opinion, is to intermingle amongst all this good stuff, a bunch of lies/misconceptions, which not only corrupt people - or aide in corruption - but also separate people from divinity.

peace

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Nov 19 2007, 02:05 PM