Re: Praying for the Poor RE: Christian insanity.

[Doug]

I'm trying to picture how praying translates into "body language" that then has some sort of mental effect on a beggar and I'm just not getting it.

I have no problem understanding how prayer or any other form of mental support can help a person make it thorough an illness or tough times, though I don't think it has anything to do with a deity. My problem is picturing how some kind of physical cue would help a person begging on the street. For instance, as I'm passing a man on the street, he asks me for bus fare or gas money.

I don't give him anything, but I say a quick prayer for him, smile and look at him sympathetically. I think I'm at least as likely to get flipped off as have any positive effect on his attitude. I have no doubt that it is possible that I am just as likely to have a positive effect if I tell the person to get his shit together and earn his own bus fare. I don't endorse doing the latter, but I can't see where any patronizing "body language" would be more effective. I think the improbability is amplified when you consider that people begging on the street are probably more likely to lack social skills than the average person and are thus liable to misinterpret "body language" or miss it altogether. Or for that matter, react to it in an unpredictable manner.

Where I _do_ see a prayer as having an effect is on the person doing the praying. Perhaps saying that prayer and thinking about moral principal motivates that person to do some volunteer work and/or donate to a charitable cause.

Doug




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