(The seeker's prayer. Apparently if you say this prayer God will "make" you believe)
Dear God, whom I hate with all my being precisely because you hate and threaten me with hell, I hate this punishment perhaps even more than I hate you. Or, maybe I should say that I love my comfort even more than I hate you. For that reason I am asking a favor of you. I want you to make me love you, whom I hate even when I ask this and even more because I have to ask this. I am being frank with you because I know it is no use to be otherwise. You know even better than I how much I hate you and that I love only myself. It is no use for me to pretend to be sincere. I most certainly do not love you and do not want to love you. I hate the thought of loving you but that is what I'm asking because I love myself. If you can answer this 'prayer' I guess the gift of gratitude will come with it and then I will be able to do what I would not think of doing now—thank you for making me love you whom I hate. Amen.
41 comments
There was an Old Man with a Beard
I don't hate God, again, I don't believe HE exists.
How can you hate something you don't believe in?
HIS fanclub on the other hand - a different story.
Content with wasting your own life, in make believe communication with an imaginary friend (whom incidentallly, no-one who claims to speak with God can agree on what he has to say), is one thing. To attempt to waste mine is something else entirely.
If you love God, then kill yourself to be with him, you'll get what you so desire and we'll get what we want, a world free from fanatical delusions.
Nobody really *hates* God. I mean, all-powerful beings are pretty cool! In theory, at least - would be very nice if they actually made themselves to, you know, actually make themselves *heard*. Pretty modest track record so far, if you ask me...
@ Empress:
Confession time! I stole it from Roger Woddis, who said these things better than I ever could. Credit where it's due!
He also wrote this:
For we should love the human kind,
Tried it. Nothing.
Big surprise.
Our logic, who art in our heads,
For thine is the sanctity of thought,
That prayer really works! I just tried it, and...
Wait. Nope, I still don't believe. My bad.
Our Father, who farts in Heaven,
By coyoty
...wait. I may be wrong, but isn't this kind of like saying, "Rape me"--'cos if you're consenting it isn't rape, and this guy's saying "I'm allowing God to force himself on me," and OW, FUCK. MY FUCKING BRAIN OW. SHIT. FUCKING FUCK. OW. I need to stop doing that. My poor brain.
Are you a real doctor, or a doctor like Dr Pepper is a doctor?
What are you jabbering about? You know that biblical love equals hate, so your little guilt trip is somewhat redundant.
Fine fine..I see it 2 ways:
God doesnt exist, so I have no reason to hate him.
God does exist, and he is not worthy of worship because he is so hateful and cruel.
-end of line-
SENSE
This prayer makes none.
Interesting. The Puritan Mind website describes Gerstner as 'an Edwardian scholar'. And an Edwardian scholar would indeed have written 'whom'. Strictly speaking, 'who' can only be the subject.
However, Gerstner died in 1996, so he was writing only recently. And language evolves. How many of us answer the phone and ask, "To whom am I speaking?" (Try it some time, for fun.)
My second thought was that he was trying for a kind of faux Puritan-speak. But then up pops 'I guess the gift of gratitude will come with it', which nobody brought up on the rolling cadences of the KJV would ever have said. God, as we know, expresses himself exclusively in 17th century English, so he won't understand either.
Nope. It's pedantic, it drips with arrogance, and it's a stylistic mess.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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