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God's Spam Filter
Are social media tools a blessing or a curse for people of faith? Should we use digital technology to commune with the divine? Does God tweet?
No, God does not tweet nor does God have time to listen to almost seven billion people insincerely pleading for mercy. Of course, a lot depends on our perception of God and where we think he/she resides. In the final analysis it is all a matter of faith. One could have faith in a God who looks like a human being or faith in a God who resembles a piece of rock. Whatever one believes in, whatever one has faith in the communication with that object has to be sincere. This is where the modern-day religious traditions cause a major problem.
Prayer in every religion has become a part of ritual. Prayers are contained in books instead of the heart. We memorize the hymns and the scriptures and -- like little children who have memorized the lesson by rote and proudly stand before the teacher to recite the lines without understanding a word of it -- we go to our religious institutions at specific times and days and recite the verses without meaning it. Moments later we come out and become aggressive, conniving, obnoxious human beings.
So, what does it matter if we twitter the prayer, express it verbally, or do it on Facebook? If there is no heart in the prayer and no desire to let the message of the scripture affect our hearts or our lives then it does not matter to anyone how you express it. I am sure God has a "firewall" that deletes spam from his/her inbox.
By
Arun Gandhi
|
August 12, 2009; 11:36 AM ET
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Posted by: withouthavingseen | August 15, 2009 1:16 AM
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I am a .wav of the sea. :)
Posted by: Paganplace | August 13, 2009 2:36 PM
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If you look at a beach, it might be more of a moving water wall. Fire is deeper down. God makes the waves and we are Surfing USA. Don't get caught in the jaws of Gods sharks and become lunch. PRC and the moon are certain like Liberty in a space where there is no space or time.
Posted by: Dermitt | August 13, 2009 8:53 AM
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Mr. Gandhi,
To be frank, I find your response somewhat self-righteous. Presumably YOUR prayers are sincere - it's only the other six billion of us who are all phony hypocrites.
I do not know you, nor the point of your religion, Mr. Gandhi. I am a Christian, and a fairly poor excuse for one. That's the point of my religion. We are supposed to be "aggressive, conniving, obnoxious human beings." More to the point, we are supposed to know that we are such creatures. Then we can turn to our Creator for help in becoming better, in becoming who we were made to be.
That happens by prayer, and if the pray-er is not a very good person, then the prayers probably start out not very good either. Happily, practice makes perfect, and God, being eternal, is patient with his weak little creatures.
Why should you assume, moreover, that a prayer cannot both in a book and in a heart. I learn to walk and talk from my parents, as they did from theirs. Why should I not learn to pray in like manner? Why can I not appropriate their prayer and make it my own? Can prayers never go from the page to the mind to the heart? Mightn't I start with the wiser prayers of a wiser person who has gone before me, especially as I become aware of my own hypocrisy and general inadequacy?
And "ritual" - you use the term as if it were a bad thing. Should I stop brushing my teeth because I do it every night in very much the same way, without much novelty or emphasis? Sir, I suggest that simply by doing it day-in and day-out, I am showing my commitment to it, and deep feelings of commitment are somewhat secondary. Likewise simply by going to Mass week after week, and moreso day after day, I am both showing my commitment, and investing myself more. And all those prayers that we have in our books, most of which are hundreds, even thousands of years old, slowly but surely work their way into the mind and heart of this reprobate hypocrite.