Quote:What you appear to be suggesting is that the chief motivation for many who declare "I'll pray for you"
I meant prayer in general. "God, please help me do X" "God, please give me X" "God, please take care of X" "God, I need X" "God, make X happen" etc. Most people who pray tend to (appear to) use God almost as a shooting star or a genie lamp that can help them out. In fact, that concept can be extended to faith in general. It seems most religious people tend to use God as some kind of afterlife insurance.
If God didn't allow prayer for personal benefit, how many people would pray? If God didn't promise eternal salvation, how many people would be religious?
Quote:Personally, I don't think there's such a thing as a "bad reason to be good."
There are a surprising number of people out there who legitimately wonder why atheists aren't running around raping and killing others. The implication is that they see no reason not to do so and would be doing so themselves if not for their faith. That does disturb me. When you only do good because of X, what happens when X disappears/changes/becomes less of a motivator?
Quote:I can see the utility in pointing out hypocrisies, but frankly, I don't think it's worth it, particularly if you're genuinely searching for answers. Like ManipulatorGeneral said, a plurality doesn't change the morality. I don't care if every single self-identified Christian is a raging hypocrite; it doesn't invalidate the religion itself.
I was not trying to invalidate Christianity by posting that. It was just for general discussion.
Quote:That said, in my experience, many religious people tend to explain away serious problems by saying, "Oh, it's God's will," or "Pray, and it'll be better." That can be a problem, imo.
That too.