Jersey Girl wrote:
JAK,
You have not demonstrated that prayer fits the description of to "manipulate" according to a formal definition. If you have definitions to offer that do not indicate that manipulate is an attempt to influence or control without devious intent, I'm willing to consider it.
Jersey Girl
Jersey Girl,
Meaning of language is derived from application of words in context. At considerable length, I constructed in previous posts application for
prayer with
verbs which have intent to manipulate the user’s perception of
God for his personal benefit. Likely the greatest of intent is elimination of death. There are many other manipulations short of that which are inherent in the words of religious myth and words in
Christianity in particular.
You will recall that you offered no refutation or denial that the words in these examples are typical of
Christian appeal.
Previously:
manipulate -- to influence
While there are various nuances for the word and applications, it’s applied correctly in my illustrations. Your grandson intends to influence you (whom he can see and with whom has interaction that is fully transparent).
We have evidence for you in your illustration. Your grandson is not praying to you when he asks you to do something which it’s obvious to him that you can do.
However, religious prayer is an attempt to manipulate an environment about which there is rational doubt. Absent genuine evidence for God as characterized by religious dogma of various religions, doubt is a critical component in the attempt to manipulate deity.
Asking God to facilitate a cure for cancer is a significantly different application of attempt to manipulate than your grandson asking you to open the door.
Nevertheless, the word “manipulate” is appropriately applied when people pray that an unestablished entity (God) change/alter an outcome that may become/be the fact.
Praying to be cured of cancer is not equivalent to asking someone to “open the door.” Nor is most prayer equivalent to a communication between people for such a thing as simple as “open the door.” That’s not what people pray for.
Your grandson does not say: “Please God, have grandpa open the door so that I can go out and play.” It would be absurd when your grandson is looking at you and knows, knows what you can do given the situation you described. People don’t pray for what they regard as certainty. (Example: turning on a light switch in a dark room)
So in prayer, people attempt to manipulate God (their notion of the invention God). That attempt to manipulate generally encompasses a condition for which another person is likely inadequate to produce desired result.
In my previous comment, I asked why pray. Why pray?. What do people think or say when they pray?
An expression of “gratitude” may be a perceived method of softening up God. That is, the person: thanks God for a variety of things previously realized or in place, then the person attempts manipulation of the perceived God for more favor.
Of course your grandson, if he is smart, could work the same method on you. He could thank you for something you actually did (transparency is critical), then he could express his desire that you do more for him. That doesn’t make him bad, only smart, courteous, and/or clever.
Why pray?.
Consider that in all these examples there is an attempt to manipulate a perceived entity sufficiently powerful to produce, AND sufficiently subject to manipulation to be persuaded (by prayer to act. Look at the bold highlight which I have added. Notice the action verbs which are used in the attempt to manipulate behavior of the perceived God.
Examples in the following:
Build a spirit of sacrificial love in me toward my life partner.
Teach me to love my wife today the same way Jesus loves me.
Bless my spouse today with your richest blessing in Christ Jesus.
Provide the spiritual needs of my spouse in a way that glorifies You.
Teach both of us to trust your Word without compromise.
Help me keep be faithful to the covenant I made with my eyes.
Protect my children from trouble unless in so doing you're preparing them to serve you.
Lead my children in paths of righteousness and keep them from straying too far.
Protect my kids today, but do what's necessary to train them to make decisions based on your Word.
Lead my children to learn a gentler, more teachable spirit.
Remind my children of Scripture as they contemplate action today.
Grant my children a healthy appetite for your Word.
The efforts to manipulate are extensive in prayers of which these may be typical. These are but a few examples which clearly demonstrate the intent to manipulate some kind of God invention.
Keep in mind as well that invention of gods in the evolution of the human species did not precede the development of early cultures with emergence of language as a form of communication. So “invention” is a correct term to apply to gods and to the newer idea God. Historically, we can trace the emergence of god notions and their collision course with scientific discovery which rendered such notions irrelevant to rational analysis and problem solving.
Let’s look at some other terms often repeated in attempts to manipulate perceptions of gods or God as most religious people today are monotheist.
Some action verbs which are following God in
typical prayers.
Protect
Provide
Make
Give
Bless
Go
Meet (the needs)
Watch (over)
Restore
Sustain
Heal (applied to a vast array of ills)
Direct
Win (people)
Reveal
Remind
Show
Strengthen
Refresh
Grant
Comfort
Help
Supply
Such verbs are in constructions intended to manipulate an invented notion of deity. Keep in mind as well that notions of deity have changed over time and continue to change as religious myth tends to give way to factual analysis.
People use doctors, hospitals, and the latest in medical science for treatment. Some who are successfully treated thank God rather than the medical team.
Recently, a woman in North Korea (75) received cataract surgery from an American doctor. When she could see for the first time in many years, she kissed the ground and thanked Kim Jong-il -- not the surgeon. When asked what she most wanted to see first after her surgery, she said: a picture of Kim Jong-il. --not her children or her grandchildren.
Every verb applied as a predicate to
God in typical
Christian prayers has the intent
to manipulate the invented/perceived
God entity.
And people who
speak or
think such prayers have as their intent
to control and hence
to manipulate the
God to whom they pray.
Otherwise:
Why pray?
Prayer would be pointless were it not intended
to manipulate the entity to whom the
prayer was directed.
Otherwise:
Why pray?
Look again at the verbs in the examples restated here.
Your attempt to restrict manipulation as pejorative only, is a misrepresentation of the larger context of the term itself. The context of use is critical to the understanding of meaning in the context of the use.
The word “influence” is also a good word. See some synonyms of that word:
Influence Part of Speech: noun Definition: authority Synonyms: access, agency, ascendancy, character, clout, command, connections, consequence, control, credit, direction, domination, dominion, drag, effect, esteem, fame, fix, force, grease*, guidance, hold, impact, importance, imprint, in, juice*, leadership, leverage, magnetism, mark, mastery, moment, money, monopoly, network, notoriety, power, predominance, prerogative, pressure, prestige, prominence, pull, repercussion, reputation, ropes*, rule, significance, spell, string, supremacy, sway, weight*
Prayer has the
intention to influence. Inclusive in that is to “control,” to “force,” to “impact” to “pressure” etc.
Unless you are prepared to refute all the above examples of what
prayer attempts, you have no refutation to the analysis:
Prayer is an attempt to manipulate
God’s behavior to benefit one’s self or those one wants to have benefit as a result of
prayer.
Hence
to manipulate is exactly the correct analysis of what people intend when they
pray. It does not need to be harmful or “devious” as you suggest to be an attempt to manipulate. That is far too restrictive on the word “manipulate” for the scope of the term. It’s not a term which has only pejorative connotation.
Manipulate -- to control, to direct, to maneuver
These are quite useful synonyms. The word “manipulate” is quite related to context of application. The verbs I listed previously and restate here are examples.
When a 4-year old does not want to eat his vegetables, we say, “After you eat your vegetables, you can have some brownies.” O.K? That’s manipulative. It’s not harmful or harmfully devious. Of course, this is an example to illustrate the error in restricting
to manipulate as negative only. People are often
manipulated for their own good. We do the same for very elderly or cognitively impaired as we manipulate them to eat, go to bed, take a shower, etc.
The intent in
prayer is to influence, persuade, manipulate, bribe a perceived
God to give,
to give what someone wants.
Review the verbs above as examples of
prayer.
I recently was in a group in which a preacher prayed with a family before a serious surgery. The preacher had an interesting use of the word “just.”
In his prayer, he said:
We just ask dear Lord that you guide the surgeon’s hand to save the life of our mother..
I thought this an interesting down-play or groveling in expression.
Interpretation: We don’t ask much. We
just ask (compliment and term of endearment) “dear Lord” (then the attempt to manipulate) “that you guide the surgeon’s hand to save the life...” (we don’t ask much, just a little) as in
save our mother. This was not
save for
heaven, this was
save for us NOW.
Control the surgeon’s hand, God.
Then when it was over and the surgery was successful, did the surgeon’s training and skill receive credit? No,
God received credit and the same preacher
thanked God for the successful surgery.
There is not the slightest question that the
prayer was the preacher’s attempt
to manipulate God. But “we just ask” -- as if we don’t ask for much.
It would have been just as effective (meaning no effect what so ever) if the preacher had said:
God, we want you to pull out all the stops on this one and do whatever you have to do to save mother!
The
prayer was irrelevant. The surgeon’s skill and training were.
But I have digressed into the irrelevancy of
God myths -- related but another topic for discussion.
JAK