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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2609 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 17, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Anyone want to try steelmanning these passages?

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.

I believe that there are types of prayer that have benefits, but not this type of prayer. The elements of prayer that I defend are:

  • mental rehearsal. If you are praying in ardent desire for an object then you are increasing your ability to focus with desire on that object, which trains the mind against distraction and allows the unconscious mind to form connections around an object. This is similar to rubber duck debugging.

  • salience of longterm goals re: negative contingency. If you are mourning over a sin and continue to mourn over a sin, then whether you sin or not becomes much more salient (being associated with the contingent risk of further mourning). I think this relates to the evolutionary theories of depression in very interesting ways and I also think this is a major type of prayer in the Old Testament, but I digress.

  • the cultivation of a good attitude (spirit). We all want to be more patient, more careful with our attention, more attune to our real identity, and prayer can help with this given that you are effectively practicing an attitude when praying.

All well and good, maybe I’m missing some other benefits, but the passages above seem to conflict with my interpretation. This seems like plain wishful thinking, which studies have shown to be harmful. Am I misinterpreting them, am I missing something? One possibility that came to mind is that while such an activity is bad for the individual prayeé, it increases one’s devotion to God under false pretenses, increasing the strength of the community in toto. However if that’s the case then I don’t like it. Another possibility is that these passages are “shorthand”, a super-simplification of how prayer actually works which is helpful to draw people in. I don’t know.

It doesn’t say when you’ll get what you asked for.

Maybe you’ll only receive it in the hereafter.

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