The Power of Prayer

The Question:

Does prayer really change anything? I’ve wondered about this, because if God really wants to do something, He’ll go ahead and do it anyway, won’t He? He’s not going to wait until I get around to praying about it.

The Answer:

God supposedly knows how everything is going to come out. If this is true, prayer doesn’t matter because everything is already fixed and can’t be changed.

God supposedly has a plan for your life which is perfect. If you pray for some other outcome that goes against the plan, you’re being disrespectful of God by saying his plan is not perfect.

God has promised salvation to those who are faithful and believe in him. Praying for something other than what God has planned for you is the same as saying you don’t trust God or accept his plan or judgement.

When I was young I used to thank God every night for not killing me and my family and friends and asked him to continue not doing this. I was in no hurry to get to heaven, which didn’t sound like such a great place compared to my life as a kid at all. I also praised him effusively for his kindness and goodness, in the hopes that he would give me a better life in exchange for the flattery, which was mostly not sincere because I was scared to death of him because I’d read the Bible and saw all the times when he was a real dick to people, often for no good reason. So, while I was in the midst of thanking him for various things like trees and sunlight and air a voice in my head said, wait a minute, he’s all-powerful and all-knowing, so doesn’t he already know I’m grateful for him not killing me, and doesn’t he also know that me buttering him up is just bullshit motivated not by the love I’m professing but out of fear, and why does he need buttering up anyway, what is he, some kind of whiny, immature baby? Why would a supernatural, all-powerful entity need to hear me say anything at all when he already knows everything that goes on in my head? isn’t he just  going to just go ahead and do whatever he damn well pleases, like when he drowned everybody on the fucking planet on account of he didn’t like the way his own creation turned out? Why would I pray to such a capricious, unstable monster anyway? Right after all of these thoughts popped into my head I thought, oh shit, he heard all that, now I’m really in for it, but, wait a minute, he knew all of that was in my head already whether I thought it out loud or not, so there’s no escaping his wrath, but….wait a minute, does any of this make any sense, or is it just such a bunch of conflicting nonsense that….is it possible…is all nonsense? It was at that point I began to think, I’m praying to nobody. Nobody is there. It’s all…in my head. And at that point, thanks to this sudden and unexpected insight, I was done praying.

So yes, prayer does change things. In my case, it led to a disbelief in God.

Tiny Violins

The Question:

I thought I was doing the right thing when I abandoned my wife and kids for another woman over 20 years ago, but I was wrong. Now my kids won’t have anything to do with me; they don’t even want me around at Christmas. I don’t have a question, but I sure wish I could go back and do things differently.

The Answer:

Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice. A miracle like that would require an actual all powerful God, though, and we don’t have one of those. Not that, in your case, you would be deserving of such a miracle anyway. I do believe some of our actions should have consequences, and abandoning children, which is not a requirement when abandoning a wife, should be one of them.

That your lament at this point is your kids don’t even want you around at Christmas indicates it’s still all about you and what you need and want, and not about them. Twenty years, zero growth.

Pleased to Meet You, Mr. Scrooge

The Question:

Our mailbox is flooded around this time of year with letters from organizations asking for money. In fact, I’ve started tossing them in the wastebasket. Why don’t they spend their money on worthwhile projects, instead of wasting it on fundraising?

The Answer:

Everybody advertises because it’s a competitive market and advertising is one of the best ways to increase your market share. Would you say to a store selling shoes to just sit in the store and wait for customers to come in? Sure, some stores do that, just as some charities do. But some stores and some charities go out of business every year and they tend to be the ones that don’t compete for customers or donors.

Simply put, charities don’t have money to spend on worthwhile projects unless they get it from somewhere and the place they get most of it from is people like you, as a result of fundraising. They don’t just “have” money. They have to get it from somewhere.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with throwing letters from organizations you don’t support into the wastebasket. I’m guessing you do the same thing with letters from stores you don’t patronize without feeling any guilt at all.

The fact that letters from charities bother you  makes me think maybe what’s really bothering you is your conscience. Perhaps you should consider donating to one or more championing causes you believe in. Stop cursing the darkness and light a candle.

It’s Not The Money, It’s The Attitude

The Question:

What’s the difference between wanting to make a good living for yourself and your family, and actually being greedy? I admit I think about money a lot, but does that make me greedy?

The Answer:

Money itself is neither good nor evil. It’s how you get it, and what you do with it, that determines the ethical aspect of it.

I believe we are each of us obligated to support ourselves and our families to the best of our ability. Though it is not evil or wrong to need assistance from others in the form of welfare or charity, when we accept it it should be because there is no other option for us. We need to recognize that every dollar we take from the public because we have no work is a dollar that could have gone to help someone else who perhaps can never work. We should strive to need as little help as we can, so that the help will be available to all who need it, which could, if circumstances change, someday be us again.

We should also never begrudge paying our fair share toward those less fortunate, in the form of taxes and charitable donations. That is if we wish to enjoy our successes without guilt or having to resort to the myths and lies Conservatives peddle about the poor in order to justify their selfishness. Our first obligation, of course, is ourselves and our family; our second obligation is the less fortunate. Greed is trying to get out of these obligations.

It also matters how we make our money. If you achieve a fortune or even just a regular living by stealing from or cheating people, it’s wrong and you can properly be labeled as greedy. If you achieve your income through honest work while treating people ethically and fairly, no matter how large it is, I would not call you greedy. In the same vein, if you have employees who cannot live on what you pay them, and you live in a mansion or in a considerably nicer house, I would say you are greedy. I would also say you are not truly successful in business. The truly successful make others successful as well; the greedy succeed at the expense of others, by exploiting them. I’m not saying the janitor should make the same amount of money as the CEO, or the intern as much as the Director of Marketing, the salary range can be huge and still be fair, but

all full time employees should make at a minimum a living wage, and at least have available paths to a greater share of the business if they are ambitious, competent, and honest. Otherwise, yes, you are greedy.

One World At A Time

The Question:

I don’t see what good it does to be thinking about Heaven all the time. I suppose I believe in life after death, but it doesn’t really make any difference in the way I live. What’s important is what we do right now, not some escapist “pie-in-the-sky” thoughts.

The Answer:

True.

Though you shouldn’t live for today to the point of not considering, not whatever happens after death, which is not likely to be life but actually just the continuation of death, but what happens as you get older approaching death. If you don’t plan for old age and retirement, death will be more welcome than life, which is not the position you want to be in. Live for your whole life, not just for today.

The Road Goes Both Ways

The Question:

We finally talked some friends of ours into going to church with us, but it turned out to be the one day of the year they talk about the budget. Needless to say, our friends were put off by this, and I don’t think we’ll ever get them to church again. Can we do anything? They aren’t really religious.

The Answer:

Yes, you can follow their lead. Out the door of your church and back into the real world. Don’t look back.

Where The Answers Aren’t

The Question:

A man I work with says Jesus never claimed to be God or divine or anything like that. I don’t know much about the Bible, but is he right? If so, why bother celebrating Christmas?

The Answer:

You know, you could probably find the answer to your question yourself by picking up the Bible and reading it, rather than by asking Billy. It’s actually readily available in most homes and bookstores and an awful lot of motel rooms and has been translated into most modern languages. There are even study guides and classes and lots of stuff on the internet. I mean, if you’re actually interested.

I know if I thought the Bible was the actual, literal word of god, I would scarcely ever read any other book. I mean, why would you? Why would anybody? I’ll never understand people who declare themselves to be Christians but never read God’s instruction manual themselves. What the hell is wrong with them?

On the other hand, if you don’t think the Bible is the literal word of God, but is instead a compilation of scribblings from prophets that today would be diagnosed as suffering from mental illness that has been codified, sanctioned, and legitimized by centuries of confidence men posing as religious authorities, you would NEVER look to the Bible for the answers to any serious question, but would treat it instead as the bizarre train wreck and curiosity that it is.

What the Bible itself says about Jesus or any other doctrinal question simply doesn’t matter, unless you believe the Bible is what it’s followers say it is. And if you do believe it, why on Earth haven’t you read it?

Grow A Pair

The Question:

Every year we say we’re going to make our Christmas more spiritual. But then we get caught up in the sales and the parties and everything, and by the time Christmas rolls around we’ve lost sight of its true meaning. How can we avoid this?

The Answer:

By not doing the things you don’t want to do. Set a strict limit on gifts, and stick to it. Stay out of the stores once your budget is met. Turn down party invitations. Schedule the kind of events you think are more “spiritual”, and do them. Don’t do the stuff that makes you hate yourself in the morning. It’s not rocket science.

You might want to consider the idea, however, that Christmas does not have a true meaning. At least it does not have a meaning upon which all people agree. Of course every year we have hysterical morons on Fox News nattering on about a War on Christmas they made up, and depending on the church you attend you might hear similar blather from some man in a dress with a microphone and a bully pulpit, but the truth of the matter is Christmas traditions and Holiday traditions from other faiths (and non-faiths) vary widely across the globe and nobody “owns” Christmas and there is no universal, proper way to celebrate it. Many people, myself included, are nostalgic for the Christmases of their childhood, but others don’t have fond memories of those times at all. Consider what it must have felt like, for example, to be a poor child attending a school where most of your classmates were better off than you, and how it must have felt comparing the meager presents he got, if any, with the opulent loot some of his classmates were bragging about getting. Or imagine being a child in some war-torn part of the world, where Christmas is something you’ve never even heard of. I guess what I’m saying is, on the scale of potential problems facing people, the problem of making Christmas more spiritual barely moves the needle. You can do it if you want to just by taking control of your own life and being willing to live with the fallout, if there is any.

Get Them While They’re Young

The Question:

Our 4-year-old keeps asking me questions about God, and I don’t know what to tell him. I’ve tried to put him off by saying that he’s too young to understand things like this, but that doesn’t satisfy him. What should we do?

The Answer:

Kids are naturally curious. If you don’t tell them, they’ll pick up the information on the street or from their friends.

-Oh wait, that’s sex.

I have to say this question surprised me. Most everything we know about God -which is actually nothing- is best understood by somebody who thinks like a four year old. It’s mostly geared to that level of sophistication. In fact if you don’t start drumming in religious nonsense at that age or even sooner, you’re going to have a lot more trouble getting him to take it seriously as an adult or even as an older child. I’m not saying it’s impossible, it’s just way more daunting. Your enemies here are common sense, reason, and emotional and mental maturity. Once those set in, if they ever do, good luck selling the kid nonsense.

An apt comparison is that other mythical being people like to bullshit kids about, Santa Claus. Would you wait until he was a teenager to tell him about Santa because he was too young to understand at four? How do you think that would go?

The Drunk’s In The Mirror

The Question:

I wish my wife would get off my back. She says I need to get treatment for my drinking, but I can stop any time I want to. What’s wrong with a few drinks anyway?

The Answer:

She will get off your back. The day she decides to leave you.

If your spouse says you have a problem, you have a problem. The problem is your spouse doesn’t approve of your behavior and lifestyle choices. You are a partnership. If you aren’t on the same page, the partnership deteriorates and dissolves. It doesn’t matter what the behavior is, or whether or not you think the behavior is over the line; what matters is it upsets your partner. What you are doing is hurting her opinion of you. If she matters to you at all, her opinion should matter to you too. In fact it should be as important as your opinion. That’s what marriage is. Or should be.

So this is your choice, really; scale your drinking back to a level your wife is comfortable with, which may be abstinence, or…prepare to lose your wife.

If the drinking is more important to you than your marriage, keep on boozing it up. If your marriage is more important than your drinking, put the bottle down. Don’t kid yourself; the very notion that you think this is an issue with two equal sides indicates you are an alcoholic and out of control. Because casual drinkers not only can stop any time they want to, when a spouse asks them to stop, they do. Alcoholics are people who say they can stop any time they want to, but never stop until they’ve lost everything.

She can’t make you get treatment; that’s up to you. You’re not on a path right now that makes that eventuality likely. You’ve in denial. Alcoholism is a real disease, and denial that it is is one of the chief symptoms. Don’t trust your instincts on this; trust your spouse’s. Of the two of you, she’s the one most interested right now in your welfare.