On Prayer and Related Matters
What's the deal with prayer? Think about it: it seems aimed at getting Yahweh to do what he otherwise would not have done. Let's leave out the football players who pray for victory and stuff like that. We'll confine ourselves to serious things: praying that your very sick child will recover, or that you'll be able to feed your family, or that we won't go to war. Why would Yahweh need to be prayed to about such things? Doesn't the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good Supreme Being and Creator of the Universe know the right thing to do without being begged by suffering supplicants? And besides, wouldn't Yahweh have foreseen the whole thing: the tragedy, the prayerful response, and his own response? Is this a game he plays, sort of like the cruel game he and the devil played with regard to Job? I just don't get it. By the way, whenever a pope is deathly ill and looks to be heading to his great reward, I hear Catholics urged to pray for him. Come again? If we