This is just a high effort version of “…Then may God strike me dead!” but targeting a spiritual minority instead if the hegemonic national religion. Shouldn’t the amount of un-smited politicians indicate that there is no God?
the vast majority of cases, you’ll be right. but no one will care.
however, in the unlikely event where you suffer a immediate tragedy, like trip and break your nose, stroke, bird shits on you. you might start a new religion
I grew up religious and one time prayed for a friend who was going to go though a couple of surgeries and would have to eat through a straw for a few months. I prayed that I could take some of the pain for him if needed. Turned out that I had a small accident and got my first stitches the next day and my friend was able to avoid additional months of recovery because the surgeon was able to do both operations at once. I took that as a sign that my prayer had worked and believed more strongly in God. For a while until I realized that coincidences can happen and that believing in God is pretty stupid.
imagine there was a Messiah, god incarnate born on earth, but he didn’t believe any religious nonsense, and every one in a while he accidentally does some miracles. which he dismisses.
Not quite the same. God (hypothetically) has their own plan, so if I pray for god to smite you, and they don’t, then I can just say “well, I guess that’s not God’s plan”. Whereas, if you believe in hexes and/or curses as something fundamentally different to a bog standard prayer, then presumably the hexer and/or curser has more agency over the result than that.
It’s really funny how the “singular, omnipotent god” religions fucked up the logic behind prayers. When you had many gods and spirits and whatnot, a prayer not being heard could be taken as it not being stronger than another spirit/god, or the god of your choice ignoring you, or something else.
With omnimono, god has a plan, so prayers are either trying to convince him to change the plans (which, if assumed true, opens a very interesting can of theological worms), or will fall on deaf ears, as the plan won’t change.
Shouldn’t the amount of any un-smited politicians prove any spiritual group that claims to have the ability to harm people wrong? I mean why are witches so mad that they can’t hurt a random guy?
This is just a high effort version of “…Then may God strike me dead!” but targeting a spiritual minority instead if the hegemonic national religion. Shouldn’t the amount of un-smited politicians indicate that there is no God?
it’s a risky thing to do,
the vast majority of cases, you’ll be right. but no one will care.
however, in the unlikely event where you suffer a immediate tragedy, like trip and break your nose, stroke, bird shits on you. you might start a new religion
Yeah, I got taken in like this for a while.
I grew up religious and one time prayed for a friend who was going to go though a couple of surgeries and would have to eat through a straw for a few months. I prayed that I could take some of the pain for him if needed. Turned out that I had a small accident and got my first stitches the next day and my friend was able to avoid additional months of recovery because the surgeon was able to do both operations at once. I took that as a sign that my prayer had worked and believed more strongly in God. For a while until I realized that coincidences can happen and that believing in God is pretty stupid.
And squander your magical talents for substitutional atonement??
Strangely enough, I could never get it to work again. Must’ve been my fault though, not God’s.
imagine there was a Messiah, god incarnate born on earth, but he didn’t believe any religious nonsense, and every one in a while he accidentally does some miracles. which he dismisses.
that’s you
Not quite the same. God (hypothetically) has their own plan, so if I pray for god to smite you, and they don’t, then I can just say “well, I guess that’s not God’s plan”. Whereas, if you believe in hexes and/or curses as something fundamentally different to a bog standard prayer, then presumably the hexer and/or curser has more agency over the result than that.
It’s really funny how the “singular, omnipotent god” religions fucked up the logic behind prayers. When you had many gods and spirits and whatnot, a prayer not being heard could be taken as it not being stronger than another spirit/god, or the god of your choice ignoring you, or something else.
With omnimono, god has a plan, so prayers are either trying to convince him to change the plans (which, if assumed true, opens a very interesting can of theological worms), or will fall on deaf ears, as the plan won’t change.
Shouldn’t the amount of any un-smited politicians prove any spiritual group that claims to have the ability to harm people wrong? I mean why are witches so mad that they can’t hurt a random guy?
I can only actually name one politician that was smited
There’s this one Turkish politician that got smited right after he said that Allah will judge Israel
https://youtu.be/B17R9vBOwlQ