Comment by Loren Miller on September 28, 2012 at 6:36pm

I will insist with my dying breath that one of the most essential things for anyone to do to fully enjoy and be effective in their lives is to take full ownership of their lives.  That includes taking credit for the successes and responsibility for the failures.  It also means understanding those failures and learning from them, to more fully empower growth and development.  It means making an honest appraisal of oneself, in the spirit of the phrase: "The unexamined life is not worth living," and another: "Tenet nosce - know yourself."

Prayer, false hope, and the kind of wishful thinking these concepts support has no place in such a life, whether you're a man or a woman.  They presume an active mechanism where there is NONE.  Further, that old saw about "god helps those who help themselves" suggests to me that if you need support, you better provide it yourself, because god isn't going to do much (if anything!) for you.

The ONLY person anyone can depend on for self-understanding, learning, or growth is one's own self, people.  We know that.  Question is: when will the believers understand that?

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on September 28, 2012 at 10:20pm

Okay Liz, I gotta couple thoughts. Faith and prayer are bad for women because they fortify, solidify injustice-sexism and misogyny.

Stops many women from achieving their full potential-careers, intellectual development and willingness to accept a piece of garbage mate.

Paves the way for additional shaky thinking-discourages critical thinking.

Comment by Liz on September 28, 2012 at 11:17pm

@Glen, certainly yes.  It's awful convenient how proscriptions (or is it prescriptions?) for "suitable" devotion back up patriarchal culture, and encourages irrationality.  Which, oddly enough, is a common insult thrown at women anyway.

@Loren, yes!  It's a damaging habit for all humans, for the reasons you describe.  Self-reliant and self-reflective individuals are threatening to any hierarchical structure (a church, for one), and especially threatening for a patriarchal structure that really runs on the assumption of female obedience. 

I'm not certain believers as a whole will understand that their growth, moral compass, whatever else must come from their own personal efforts.  If I'm feeling charitable, I'd say because it may be too frightening to let go of the idea of a cosmic telephone operator that you can reach dialing the right number...or I can be a bit tetchy and say they simply prefer the lazy way of handling problems ;)

Comment by Joan Denoo on September 29, 2012 at 12:32am

Liz, I like the way you put this dilemma. I felt you read my mind. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on September 29, 2012 at 12:39am

Loren and Glen, as usual, wise words and encouragement. 

Comment by Liz on September 29, 2012 at 11:27am

Thank you Joan!  It's something that's been a bee in my bonnet for a while, too!

Comment by Steph S. on October 2, 2012 at 11:25pm

They don't want us to think.

Comment by Liz on October 3, 2012 at 8:51am

@Steph - thought is antithetical to successful submission.  And the more I read, the more I am convinced that religion as we know it is at its heart a mechanism for consolidating power in the hands of a few, and dominating the rest, especially women, because (I suppose) "teh babies". 

Mind you, I feel that way about a lot of large organizations :)  On an individual level, I will appreciate a religious person who is aware of this sinister undercurrent and tries to work against it, instead of hoping with their hands folded.  But that's a high bar to clear.

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