Most of my tag-ees have posted their quiz answers by now, and there are some interesting answers, and some new books (for me, at least) and some that you might have forgotten.
Over at Ozarque’s place, they have an interesting discussion going about religious language. (Today’s is basically one nasty guy attacking everyone, so go back a day or two.) There is one particular notion that struck me as really interesting, and that is that Christians feel guilty about evil in the world. Not that they should feel guilty, but that they do. Most of the folks discussing this are not Christians, of course. Here’s the argument: Jesus said that if you have just a little faith, you could move mountains. Christians pray for peace in the world (for example). If they had faith and prayed right, they would be able to create peace in the world. Since they have not been able to do so, they have messed up, and feel bad about it.
They are talking about language, and are specifically forbidden to discuss theology, but hey! We’re talking about knitting, right? So we can discuss theology if we want to. And here’s my problem with this: I don’t think they’re talking about prayer.
It’s the same problem I have with folks who come into the store talking about how their science experiment “didn’t work.” If you put a bunch of ingredients together with the expectation of a certain outcome and think you failed if you get a different outcome, then you are not doing scientific experiments: you are cooking.
If you say certain words with a certain attitude, and feel responsible for the real-world outcome, then you are casting spells, not praying. “Prayer” assumes the existence of God. Otherwise, it’s magic.
Since I assume that Christians believe in God, and do not think their prayers are magic, I don’t think they’re going to feel guilty if their prayers don’t “come true.” For me, this lends the discussion of how Jesus’s remarks on mustard seed make Christians feel a sort of surreal air. Just as I didn’t quite know how to help the customer who wanted “a poster of the spectrum from black to white.” If your premises and definitions are very different from the person you’re talking with, it makes it hard to have a sensible discussion.
So — for the religious and irreligous of whatever persuasions — do you think prayer and magic are the same thing? Do you ever feel guilty for the inadequacy of your prayers? Do you think we all sound this far off when we talk about religions other than our own (I’m thinking specifically about the many discussions of Islam you can hear nowadays)? Just curious.
On the knitting front, I am heading out for a long drive tomorrow, and a long drive back on Monday, and there will be another driver along, so I might get to do some passenger-seat knitting. Thus, I am debating whether to begin some project with long stretches of unshaped one-color stockinette. Today. After work. In between cleaning the house and packing the car. Any ideas?
I went through a ‘magickal’ phase in my adolescence, and I don’t think that prayer and magic are the same thing. When I pray, I am not making a request that I expect God to fill, I am merely seeking His help with an issue, and I trust that He will handle it in the way He sees best. The only circumstances I can imagine feeling guilty over prayers is if I just didn’t pray for someone or something when it was needed. And yes, I imagine we all sound fairly off when we discuss other religions; I know I do, and that’s why I avoid it.
Do you have a monotonous project in mind, or would you be picking one at random? What about Hopkins, could ou work on that in the car?
I agree with silken_shine, that is, I don’t believe prayer and magic are the same thing. I haven’t thought of prayer as a means to change things for a very long time (not since as a 9 yr old when I negotiated with God with regards to the continuing life of our dog. I said if God didn’t make Rags better I wasn’t going to talk to God anymore. God didn’t, so I didn’t.) When I returned to speaking terms with whatever Powers there may be I no longer thought of prayer as a means of changing anything except perhaps myself.
With regard to talking about other religions – I know a little about Hinduism and Buddhism so I don’t feel uncomfortable adding my 2 cents worth in discussion about those. I do however, avoid a lot of discussion about Islam and Christianity – I had to study both of those in an undergraduate paper and I became so disgusted with both that I dropped the paper. (Hinduism and Buddhism were part of the same paper)
long drives are a very good curative…
Jandals and the old definition of thongs are pretty much the same thing. Jandals are a subspecies of thongs (footwear, not underwear) that are always made entirely of rubber. Australians and NZers take a great deal of delight in claiming that jandals (and pavlovas, and possibly buzzy bees) were invented in their respective countries – I don’t think the matter has been settled yet.
I don’t remember VPL being a common topic of conversation among those I knew at school. Of course we weren’t exposed to American television very much at all when we were in our teens so it probably never occurred to us the importance of such topics 🙂