Praying

[technodad]

I know this has been discussed as part of other threads before, but the recent news articles discussing the fact that "everyone" is praying for Nelson Mandela has got me thinking about it again.

Why do people pray?

Clearly there are many people across the world who pray, from the rich Monarchy, to the African child dying from Malaria. Some people pray that they will get a parking space close to the supermarket, others that their daddy won't abuse them, and some that they will survive the night. Yet, sadly, children are still abused, and die, whilst fortunate people like me don't have to walk far to the shops.

So, since it is evident that if prayer does work, then it doesn't work in the way people think it should, then why do people do it. Is it:

a) Because people think it does work in a simple "ask and you shall get" sort of way, even though they see poor African children on TV breathing their last breath, which provides overwhelming evidence that it doesn't? (these people can't all be uneducated and stupid, so why think it?)

b) Because the act of praying and belief gives them an inner strength to continue with life despite it's hardships and they genuinely don't believe it will work (this seems a contradiction to me)?

c) Because people don't think about it in a conscious way and the un-thinking habit produces a reduction in stress (like clicking the end of a pen, or biting ones finger nails)?

d) I don't know what else? any other thoughts?

Also, what are people praying for with Mandela? Do they want him to survive for ever (they seem to)? Or are they praying that he will pass peacefully to "heaven" when he does finally pass? Since he is regarded as such a saviour, then surely he is guaranteed a pain free route and pride of place, so why does everyone need bother?

I would be interested in the views of any faith, or those of none equally.

Techno

pedro - the point is, it's meaninful. Why did you think it's meant to be 'accurate'? It was written by a shedload of different people over a very long period of time, then compiled in a haphazard way centuries later. The idea of going to it for accurate, literal, paint-by-numbers facts is naive, surely?

I don't have an issue with things that are meaningful but neither precise nor easy to interpret, though.

juggling - thank you. I'm not being terribly coherent but I think it's a really interesting debate.

I do find it fascinating what different things people make of prayer.

(Sometimes, it's even meaningful )

Malensky

You can't compare the modern literalists/creationists with anyone in the past. Modern creationists are fighting against something (evolution/bb theory) before modern science, no one was doing this. And when science began to conflict with what the Bible said, people started getting locked up for heresy.

Yes, the Bible is contradictory - but people found explanations for that, as they do today. To suggest that there was a wholesale rejection of taking it literally is historically and theologically wrong.

There is a reason, you know, why Darwin left his book locked in a drawer for 20 something years!

So I really can't agree with you at all, I'm afraid.

You also said that Jesus spent "a lot of time" rubbishing the OT. This is not true - and the whole "new covenant" is a myth that Christians tell themselves to explain why they eat prawns and wear clothes of mixed fibre.

Jesus was a Jewish preacher - he said, quite clearly, that the OT laws must stay in place while the heavens and earth are still here.

Am liking where you're coming from Malenky, I think we have some thoughts in common, regarding a liberal interpretation of the Bible - including that being the normal way to interpret it throughout most of the church's history, and due to inconsistency, as well as story and allegory, the only sensible approach

And what you're both failing to understand is that the Bible was interpreted on many layers - the first being literally.

To try and suggest this means it wasn't taken literally at all is a bit ignorant.

ellie - I didn't compare them.

Of course the Bible is interpreted in many layers - and I don't know why you imagine I don't understand that. Literal intepretation isn't 'first' in the sense you seem to mean - it doesn't mean that everything in the Bible has a literal interpretation as well as the other three, it means that literal interpretation is the first mode you try.

You need to look at theological history in quite a lot of depth. But even once you start looking quite superficially, you will find people explaining that the 'literal' meaning is not what the Bible is primarily about, and you will find people bringing in far more systems of teaching than the Bible. The idea that 'sola Scriptura' matters is, relatively, recent.

You're not actually refuting my explanations here by saying they are 'not true' - I have already cited which bits of the NT I meant, and they are still right there where they always were. You can't pretend Jesus somehow didn't say them just because you would like to believe that everyone reads the Bible as you do - it doesn't work that way.

As regards food, Jesus came and changed the rules on that. Now all foods are deemed "clean".

If you would like to understand why the 'new covenant' bit relates to changing dietary laws, you will need to look beyond the Bible itself - as most Christians did for centuries until this modern idea that the Bible is to be the only source of information about how to live.

If you look at basic texts, you will find people had a whole system (Holy Tradition in the Orthodox and early Church, which evolved into the Catholic systems of canon law and decrees). These things supplemented and contradicted the Bible, and that was understood to be the normal way to use the Bible. It was only much later that people thought it might be possible to do away with such complementary teachings, and even then, when you look at how they used the Bible, they were not really reading it literally, but bringing in moral systems of their own.

That is what I would do as a Christian today, and it's perfectly valid theologically. I see no point in pretending that it's ok to hate homosexuals 'because the Bible says so', when such a method of interpreting the Bible has little historical or theological precedent.

I am trying to think what might be useful to read - but Augustine on the Song of Songs is pretty easy to get hold of, and you will see from that how foreign the notion of taking the Bible literally was.

I don't know where you got this idea that people mostly did take the Bible literally - most people, for most of Christian history, haven't even read the Bible! In medieval times, people were taught that the Psalter was the Bible in microcosm, so all a layperson needed to know was that. If you look at the Psalter, you can see that it cannot possibly be the Bible in microcosm unless your idea of what the Bible is for is radically different from literal interpretation.

Malenky.
The bible is inspired by God.
All other books written, are not necessarily so.

What denomination are you?

Yes, I'd agree with that, the Bible is inspired by God. But some denominations also believe Holy Tradition is equally inspired by God. That's why it's interesting that the Bible has become the be-all and end-all.

(I'm Church of England, and relatively high church, FWIW. And I am talking to ellie about historical beliefs, so not necessarily my own, simply what the history was. I'm not saying it's positive that people didn't generally have access to the Bible, but it is simply a fact that they didn't, and could not possibly have been basing their religion on a literal interpretation of the whole thing, when they believed that the Psalter provided it in microcosm. It's important to acknowledge, IMO, because it helps us work out why we differ from Christians in the past - helps us stand up and say 'not in my name' to atrocities committed in the name of Christianity. We have a responsibility to do that IMO.)

pedro, my dear, I did not invite you for you to disagree with me!

Actually not makes a lot of sense for it have meaning but for it not to be taken literally. Like a play or any story that illudes to anything. For example someone might say to their wife/husband.significant other your eyes are as blue as the sea, your hair like golden corn fields, we know what it means and yet it is not to be taken literal.

And do you believe that Jesus was raised from the dead?
Feel the need to check, just in case.

I believe Jesus was raised from the dead (I know you weren't asking me but wanted to say that!

I don't believe in a 7 day creation but I do believe God created. Hell is a terribly tricky subject. I do believe in hell. Exactly what it means other than separation from God, I don't know. But in order to give us the free will not to be with him God must give us another option. I think we call that hell, having lived 30 years with God and finding it so great I would not want to not be going to heaven but it is through no great deeds or wonderfulness on my part. It is purely through Jesus that I know I can get to heaven because of his death on the cross. (My 8 eight year old know it too Techno!)

Just wanted to explain where I am coming from as an evangelical!

Pedro it is great to see you back.

Malensky

You said Jesus spent a lot of time rubbishing the OT. There was ONE verse, something about it's what comes out of your mouth, not what goes in, that matters. One verse does not " a lot of time" make. He also clearly condoned the OT laws & expressly said he'd come to fulfil them. That is, as far as I can see, is the extent of it. Hardly "a large chunk of time", as you said.

Literal intepretation isn't 'first' in the sense you seem to mean - it doesn't mean that everything in the Bible has a literal interpretation as well as the other three, it means that literal interpretation is the first mode you try

No.

Not everything in the OT can be interpreted literally, for a start - a massive amount of it is poetry, song, metaphor and so on.

In those places where it purports or seems to be giving an account of events - Adam & Eve, original sin, the Exodus, Noah, tribes of Israel and so on....these are the things that are taken to be literal truths, by and large. But not only literal truths, they contain higher meanings too. It's "literal" explanation is first in as much as it is the most basic. An historical account has to come first, otherwise could be no "higher" meaning, could there?

The earliest church fathers debated the origin account, for example - most were united in so far as Adam and Eve were the first humans. The time scale involved, whether there was a talking snake, what and so on were matters of theological debate. If they were intelligent enough to realise that snakes can't talk, then that part of the story must be there for some other reason. God not only wanted people to know how he created the world, but to understand why - and how it was the sin came to exist.

Dismissing all of these as mere allegory makes a total nonsense of Jesus's teachings about being saved through him. Saved from what if there was no such thing as original sin, no "fall" as represented by someone eating fruit?

Magic & Mystery in Medieval England is an area I do know something about - and the root of it all lies with the Bible, or at least what people were being told about the Bible. If you went back in time to 1300 and asked the man in the street how god created the world, you'd get a version of Genesis.

Trying to pretend that "Oh, well - no one ever took it literally anyway" is an excuse to try and explain away Christianity's obsession with what amounts to a very silly series of books written by primitive people in the Bronze Age.

The literal interpretation may well have been the least of it, but to pretend it wasn't there at all (which is what you did say) is nonsensical and simply untrue. You only have to read the works of someone as influential as Aquinas to see that even he was a literalist, although in quite a broad way.

Anyway - here endeth my contribution as I'm off on my holidays tonight.

Happy debating.

Bloody hell - sorry for all the grammatical errors. Hurrying.

Hi again and well done to Italian and yams and others that have the stamina to stick with this discussion. I decided to avoid yesterday and instead enjoy the sunshine with my family!

I've been thinking, though, that each person's reasons for having faith and committing to it are often very personal and hence hard to explain. The situations I have prayed about involve my dc and dh and the results of my praying have often surprised me and I have come away feeling very different about things. Always more able to love, forgive, be patient etc. So it has benefitted those around me, not just me. Which is good.

And my experience of church is good. The services and the housegroup I go to are constant reminders of the behaviour God wants from us - again love, forgiveness, compassion, reconciling differences. I see people supporting each other through bad times, shedding tears together, running food banks, soup runs for the homeless, encouraging each other and building one another up. I am lucky enough to already have good friends and family, but this was something different.

I spent several years experiencing this great side of things, but struggling to reconcile with all the things discussed on here such as the Bible being used to condone all sorts of terrible things. I spent a lot of time reading up on the scary things like Hell, the horrible bits of the OT and NT. Agonising over whether I could trust in God when there is so much we can point to in Christianity and say this is wrong.

If I had walked away I would have lost out on all the great things it brings to my life, but it wouldn't take away the bad things done by Christians (similar to what I think Italian was saying earlier on in the thread I think). I have to trust the evidence I see in my own life, and the lives of other people I know, that God is good. To deny myself God because of what others have done in his name is of no benefit that I can see. And I believe Jesus was raised from the dead!

I don't know where you got this idea that people mostly did take the Bible literally - most people, for most of Christian history, haven't even read the Bible!

Sorry - just seen this.

Absolutely! A point I made initially.

We are talking about those select few who did & who passed on their teachings. So we're interested in what those people who were reading, debating & writing on the subject thought because that's how you get to the crux of what was being taken as literal.

Song of songs, I'm pretty certain, is clearly a parable and I don't think anyone has ever seen it as anything else. Most writing WAS allegory, bear in mind - I would argue (not now!) that Matthew in the NT was purely allegorical and never, ever intended to be seen as a biography of a real, existing person.

I think you've assumed I've meant that each and every word of the OT was taken literally. No. The OT is a collection of different types of writing - history, songs, parables and so forth, so wouldn't/couldn't have been taken literally, and was never intended to be.

The issue is the history bit.

Has Christianity historically regarded Moses coming down the mountain with tablets as an actual event?

Yep. And I think you'd struggle to make the case that it was ever generally regarded as anything else.

ellie, I referred to rather more than one verse! You seem to be saying 'Christians always interpret the Bible literally! How dare you interpret the Bible non-literally!' I'm sorry, but why on earth does it matter to you?

Not everything in the OT can be interpreted literally, for a start - a massive amount of it is poetry, song, metaphor and so on.

Yes ... that is what I said several posts ago ...

Magic & Mystery in Medieval England is an area I do know something about - and the root of it all lies with the Bible, or at least what people were being told about the Bible. If you went back in time to 1300 and asked the man in the street how god created the world, you'd get a version of Genesis.

No, I'm sorry. I'm sure you believe you know the truth here, but I am afraid you are wrong. In 1300, you're looking (roughly) at things like Cursor Mundi, maybe some wall paintings, that sort of thing. The very best it would be, would be a very loose, non-literal paraphrase.

Indeed, if you read any small number of medieval penitential handbooks, you will very soon discover that many clerics (let alone laypeople) did not know or understand enough to know the Genesis story very well. In fact this was a great concern of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century Church, hence the large number of books produced to try to explain these things.

It is true that people still disagree over how much of the Bible's content is historical (and by 'people' I don't mean religious believers, I mean simply people who use it as another possible historical source). I most certainly believe that at times people wouldn't have known any better than that God made the world in seven days, or Noah's flood literally happened (lots of good flood stories in all sorts of religious literature across the world). However, this is not the same thing as saying the entire Bible can be interpreted literally. It can't, and few people have ever thought it was a good idea.

Dismissing all of these as mere allegory makes a total nonsense of Jesus's teachings about being saved through him. Saved from what if there was no such thing as original sin, no "fall" as represented by someone eating fruit?

Do you know what allegory means? You get that the fruit might represent something other than a golden delicious, right? And that original sin might not be a black cloud hanging over you?

The number of ways people have understood these stories, and this imagery, is immense. Truly it is.

Incidentally, it is quite common in medieval literature to interpret things like Moses' tablets according to their numerological significance. This is a nice medieval way of suggesting that there is a pattern behind the whole world. There are lots of patterns of repeating tens and fives, sevens and threes. This is where you start to see how much more people were interested in than just the Bible, and always have been. People were quite good at holding two different ideas - or two or three different levels of meaning - in their heads. So they were quite able to see all sorts of suggestive parallels that we struggle with, because we expect 'historical truth' to be something quite different.

If you study how medieval history is written, you will find out that medieval ideas about 'truth' and historical fact differ from our own in quite interesting ways, so I'm afraid you can't assume they saw it the same way just because the word 'history' crops up in medieval texts.

I will also say, while I am talking about it, that magic and mystery actually gets us back to 'prayer' (thank goodness), because I find it fascinating how different a prayer in a language you can understand, and a prayer in a language you can't, affect you.

My DH prays in a language he has mostly learned by rote (as of course do a lot of Muslims). I get the impression it is very much a meditative exercise. I find it really interesting that when people pray by extemporising, to me it is far less easy to concentrate.

Do most people on this thread (the religious ones I mean) pray set prayers, or do you know what you want to say and find your own words? I'm just curious about the differences between the two.

Malenky, do you believe that Jesus was raised fron the dead?

brill post zulu.
Have a nice time on holiday Ellie.

yams - yes, I do.

I will say, though, a quotation from the West Wing has been running through my head today. It's when someone asks Toby if he believes the Bible is literally true. He says, 'Yes, sir, but I don't think either of us is smart enough to understand it'.

I know that's a joke but I think there is a lot of truth in it. I know historians disagree over the historical truth of Jesus' life, and some would say perhaps the story is a sort of composite of what various Jewish zealots did. But I think it has a deeper truth, which is about the way we need to get in touch with some kind of humanity that is loving and selfless and brings out the best in us. You know, the idea that Christ became human because we couldn't properly understand these things in the abstract, as divinity.

Thanks yams. To answer Malenky, I usually find my own words. If I'm really stuck I might say the Lord's prayer, but that is the only set prayer I know! I usually just muddle through my own thoughts, trying to find the words as I go along. Interested to know what others do too. Do you have set times of day to pray and do you pray alone or with others?