Essay talk:Two pens

Ridiculous prayer
Any God who would respond to a ridiculous prayer of that kind is not worth praying to anyway (he/she/it would have to have an extremely thin skin, just for starters). 16:08, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * And those Gods sure do seem to have a very thin skin... 16:10, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * I think the gods are too busy stopping wars, ending famine, poverty and disease, as well as causing thunder and lightning, etc. to bother about your pens. Bondurant 16:12, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * I have prayed to my god. The pens are still there. My prayer has been answered, just like every prayer I have ever made has. It's just that this time, the answer was "no". For the record, my god usually does not positively answer ridiculous prayers. Neveruse513 16:13, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * And where is that cutoff for "ridiculous" prayers? How does your God decide what is and what is not worth responding to? How do you decide that your God thinks something is ridiculous or not worth doing? 16:23, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * What is and is not ridiculous is a matter of His Divine Providence and my speculation is admittedly of little relevance. However, when He negatively Answers my prayers, I am 95% confident that the prayer was ridiculous. Neveruse513 16:28, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * (EC) If you pray and it is not done, that is a fairly good indicator. 16:30, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * So if you pray for a person who is serving in the Armed Forces to come home safely, and later that day he gets killed by a roadside bomb, your prayer was clearly ridiculous? That is very interesting, I didn't know your God was that cruel... (actually... I did. Meh.) 16:32, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * It very well may have been a non-ridiculous prayer that He Chose to Answer negatively. I believe it is within His Right to Do so. Neveruse513 16:34, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * So let me get this straight, your God just goes "Ya know what, I feel like answering this random request, but I will just let this person kick the bucket, just deciding without any regard? There is another word I know for that kind of situation called... erm, chance. 16:37, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * To be honest, I don't know just what my god goes...I only know that he goes and it's proven every minute of every day. Neveruse513 16:39, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * Proven every minute? How? If he is proven every minute, that ole God missed an absurdly easy chance every minute for the last 40 minutes! 16:40, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * EC Javascap = fucking funny. Play on! Mei 16:43, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * I've had enough of you denigrating my god. Neveruse513 16:42, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * Plz, god, show Javascap the light by keeping those pens balanced on the edge of his desk. Neveruse513 16:48, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * Neveruse, based upon your inconsistant capatilisation of "God" I can assume there is a 95% chance you are a liberal who denies a Gun Control causes AIDS. I looked at your contributions and found nothing except talk talk talk. Godspeed! Andrew Schlafly
 * Now to provide a rough translation from your statement, Neveruse. You said "I've had enough of you denigrating my God". A good translation I think would read as follows, "I am unable to think of a good response to your line of logic, and am offended that a deeply held belief is being questioned. I am angry at that, and will now scream "Prosecution!" because my beliefs are inconsistant." Is that what you meant to say? 16:49, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * I am just trying to understand the logic in denying my god for refusing to jump through hoops. Neveruse513 16:50, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * "Prosecution" = stop! please! I need these lungs to live! XD Mei 16:51, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * Of course, unless those jumping through hoops are prayers that would have ment a lot to another person that your deity failed to respond to. Unless those jumping through hoops can be just as easily explained by chance or statistics. Those "hoops" can be best explained as your God just not existing. That logically explains why those pens are still there, there is no external force to knock them down, it explains why that soldier died, he had the horrible misfortune of being killed when he was. "No God" best explains why bullets don't turn into snow and why clubs don't turn into smoke. "No God" best explains why this world is so damn convoluted. Those "hoops" you are complaining about are just statistical abberations or normalaties explained by chance, or the illusion of false positives. 16:55, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * He didn't fail to respond. He responded negatively. He's not your lackey. He's your god. I think you have the relationship flipped. You work for Him, not the other way around. Neveruse513 16:57, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * So if he doesn't work for us, then that means... *gasp* he doesn't answer prayers. What kind of God is that?! 16:58, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * Not the kind of God most people think He Is. Neveruse513 17:00, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * Yup, the nonexistant kind. Or the contridictory kind. Or the uninvolved kind. Most likely the first one. 17:03, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * It just seems like you're angry at God for not living up to your expectations...maybe that's why he doesn't answer your prayers? Neveruse513 17:05, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * Angry? Nah. Befuddled? Sure. The big question still begs to be answered... if your God is random and unpredictiable, and uses no series of set rules to determine its actions... why even bother praying to it? Why ask for someone to do something if they rely on a~ coin to do that something? Why ask an uninvolved entity to pull off a magic trick, would you seriously ask a lathargic person to climb a mountain? God, as a concept is contradictiory, and ultimitally, irelevant, something I am trying to explain. 17:39, 18 March 2009 (EDT)
 * of course its contradictory and irrelevant :P Neveruse513 18:51, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

Raise the stakes
Couple of pens balanced on a desk? Big woop. I am not excited, & I'm sure that God isn't either. It's no wonder He's ignoring the whole Thing. You got to up the ante, goddammit! How about balancing a couple of burning candles where those pens are, & then dousing the carpet in gasoline? Or maybe try juggling with knives while blindfolded, or set up some kind of explosive device that runs on a random number generator. Then we can get some interesting prayers going, & God might, just might, take an interest. 16:59, 18 March 2009 (EDT) The Weasel does not accept legal liability for the consequences of his terrible advice. Responsibility for the outcome remains with God.
 * Good luck to that God, I actually might implement that random explosive... [[image:shifty.gif]] 17:03, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

sold!
I am an Operating Thetan and I will knock your pens over in a jiffy. Mei 17:05, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

Are they still there?
It's been almost a month, and I should think that random factors or human error would have caused them to drop by now. 03:33, 14 April 2009 (EDT)

I think you've just forgotten now
3 months, and they're still there? Really? 18:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Should there be a limiting case restricting against both of them falling off?
Just a thought. 19:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Are they still there?
Just asking. -  π     02:37, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

god answers prayers and has healed (me, him, my kid, my cat)
Why is it God has never ever once seen fit to regrow a person's severed limb? Why has god never given sight or hearing back to a medically certified, permanently disabled person? Why, God, do you hate armless and legless people so much? do they not pray hard enough?En attendant Godot 02:52, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Misunderstanding the point of prayer
To me, prayer isn't about begging in the hope my begging will be answered. (No doubt, that is a common viewpoint among the religious, but I think the more mature their faith, the less likely they are to see prayer that way.) For me, the only valid prayer is "God/Goddess, make me a better person". And if you pray that prayer, you may indeed find it answered. 02:53, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you might instead try praying that God increase your ability to write concise responses? Because that would certainly be much appreciated here... -- 02:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could try to be a nicer person? 02:59, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Too late, I'm firmly set in my crotchety old man ways. -- 03:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In European paganism, the whole point of prayer was to beg and hope it would be answered. Then came monotheism with its ridiculous "God, make me a better person" prayers. Then those slowly became the only acceptable sorts of prayers (see Mark Twain's riff on the power of prayer in chapter 3 of Huckleberry Finn). Then the church suffered a large decline in membership. 03:44, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Possibly because people realized that instead of begging for help with their crippling disease from an invisible, yet somehow omnipotent and omnibenevolent god, they could instead take an antibiotic? I'd image that really would be a sort of strike against God...  -- 03:46, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No, that had very little to do with it, I should think; now that we have these evangelical Jesus-junkies with their International House of Prayer, the same enthusiasm is starting to recur. 03:49, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Ha!
I just prayed to God NOT to move the pens.