Agnostics, do you still ask God for favors?

**George** · 04-11-2007, 06:30 AM

As an agnostic who believes that you can simply never know whether God exists or not do you find yourself praying to God when times get tough? Funny thing but I even know an atheist or 2 that do. And in the interests of full disclosure, so do I

Let me explain.

It pretty much stems from your upbringing. When something goes terribly wrong in your life or if you really need something to go right like pass a test or be selected for a job opening you truly desire. It's comforting and almost engrained in us if we were brought up in a religious setting to place the burden of responsibility on someone or something else.

But why would an agnostic pray to God? Well first of all, for me personally I wouldn't call it praying. I don't do the whole in Jesus name Amen thing. I simply look up (because I suppose that's what one should do when speaking to a being "higher" than him or herself right?) and have a candid conversation. I figure why not. If God really is a being or race of beings with vastly more knowledge than us I doubt he or they are listening to our little problems. Or if God doesn't exist at all the worst case scenario is that I'm talking to myself

. Honestly when I ask a favor of God I'm really doing it more for myself and speaking to myself anyway.

Either way it can't hurt.... can it?

Og · 04-11-2007, 08:47 AM

Sounds like pascal's wager.

It can hurt if casting your problems to a concept of god causes you to not trust yourself such that you fail at the challenge you face.

It can help if casting your problems to a concept of god causes you to find focus and drive to accomplish the challenge you face with skill.

Either way it's how it effects your mental state. The ULTIMATE truth of the existence of god has absolutely nothing to do with how your idea of god effects the way you interact with the world. The state of mind of human beings are amazing.

There's a sanskrit word "sati" that means "to be" and it refers to your entire being. If you love your husband/wife so much that you fall into despair and die when he/she dies then you are said to be "sachee"... You are a husband/wife. In the east, the true wives will throw themselves on the funeral pires of their husbands.

Over here in the west, we do the same thing. Old couples will die soon after their spouse dies out of loneliness.

It's part of my goal in my signature (satchitananda). If you can find a state to place your mind in that gets you from birth to death graciously (or at all) then more power to you. If it's true or not in an ultimate sense is entirely irrelevant.

This is done in physics and mathematics all the time. Imaginary numbers, for example, have absolutely no real meaning. But they are used as an intermediate step to solve the most complex problems in modern physics. There is no real correlary between them and anything that exists.

So, imaginary numbers are to solutions to boundary value differential equations JUST as god is to getting from birth to death in a human life.

Knowing what is ACTUALLY true outside our bodies is just a goal that SOME people take on. It has some benefits and some drawbacks just as taking the idea of god into your life has as well.

In any case, it's in our heads, not "out there".

jaej · 04-11-2007, 09:27 AM

Sati.

That's the name of the girl at the end of the matrix.

Amazing

Og · 04-11-2007, 10:25 AM

Yup

She's the one that survives the transformation of the world once the matrix resets itself. The whole thing changes AROUND her. Wonderful imagery. Those movies are genius. The final conflict between smith and neo is exactly the conflict of determinism versus free will. Smith's final dialog with neo had me in tears when I saw it:

"Why, why do you do it, mr. anderson?
Do you think you're fighting for something?
Something more than your survival?

What could it be?
Freedom? Peace? Love?
Illusions, Mr. Anderson, constructs of a feeble human mind..."

And both of their perspectives joined, annihilated, what was left was true being and consciousness and a new dawn.

It's not just sati, but her parents.. Rama Kandra is a name for Krishna (vishnu) who oversees the cycle of reincarnation. In the movie, he introduced himself as recycling management at the power plant (liquifying the dead and feeding them to the living, reincarnation).

The movie just drips with allegory to everything that's changing in our world today.

jaej · 04-11-2007, 11:50 AM

Seriously. I've always loved them. Even before I really knew what was in them, I always had this sense that they spoke to something deep within me. "You hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability."

Beautiful.

Og · 04-11-2007, 12:00 PM

It's the same as the story of star wars except agent smith is darth vader and neo is luke skywalker.

Joseph Campbell's work was a central root for both stories. His book "A hero with a thousand faces" drives most of modern hero myth movies and such. Campbell's 3 headed villain like the guardian to the gates of hell in greek mythology or the three bears or whatever arrise in the sets of 3 agents that appear in the matrix movies.

George lucas communicated closely and often with Joseph Campbell while writing the original star wars trilogy. Those are probably the best places to see and appreciate Campbell's influence if you're just getting started in comparative mythology.

Just enjoy them

And since we've explored the earth, myths of man now point into the mind (matrix) or into space (star wars) as the frontier where someone can go to learn about themselves and return as a hero.

In the past, the grail knights would go into the forest where it was darkest... Superman or native americans would travel to the north to find out who they were and return reborn.. Now they go into the mind (the matrix) or into space.

Science fiction really is the poetry of our time. It's where the hero myths are and where the bards are recounting the stories of humanity with the dressings of our current understanding of the universe

It's great stuff.

jaej · 04-11-2007, 12:07 PM

And I got made fun of for liking star wars. I always knew there was something wrong with that.

The worst was when my english teacher asked me to describe the force and I could. Everyone laughed-including you lc.

**The An-Jel** · 04-14-2007, 04:06 PM

Asking God for favors. Well as an agnostic as I understand it I really don't know what kind of God is out there or even if there is a God. If an agnostic wants to throw a favor towards God just to see what happens it isn't a test of ones convictions as much as it is testing the waters of what is possibly real. Hell I want God to be a good creature that cares... that would be ideal. A heaven... shrugs... it sounds good to me. Agnostic isn't a statement to me it's a question. Christianity is a statement. Islam is a statement. Atheism is a statement. Agnostic is a philosophical question: What is real? What can it hurt to toss stones into the water just to see what happens. I think as an Agnostic and a human being I want to see God levelled in my favor but thats not to say It Is That Way like the religions and cults do for the most part. I simply want to deal with what is real and figure out my place in it. A lot of Agnostics look at themselves like Anarchists and Rebels. Thats fine but the question is simply out there: What is Reality?

However it turns out George it's like you said it can't hurt unless God is some kind of malicious despo and he does wait for those moments but seeing as not much really happens either way as far as I have seen... who knows? Again with the questions...

brig · 04-14-2007, 07:07 PM

Can't say I do, but then I rarely, if ever, did that before I considered myself Agnostic.

I still take the Lord's name in vain on a regular basis though

jaej · 04-14-2007, 09:35 PM

I was a christian for almost all of my 17 years, so I often find myself thinking in christian terms, and then I stop myself and say 'wait. that god is not real. what you were told you're whole life has no sway over your life now.' It's weird, changing the entire way you think.