Why shouldn't God take sides on sporting events? He's omnipotent. It isn't as if our game against San Antonio would be some kind of distraction from the problems of starving children. Not a hair would fall from your head except in accordance with the will of God, right? Given that kind of attention to detail he has, it doesn't seem to be a waste of anyone's time to pray for the Rockets' success.
I've always wanted to see a post game interview where someone from the losing team says "God wasn't on our side tonight.." If God's omnipotent he has no reason to take sides. What's the point of rooting if you know who's going to win. Plus its not like God's going to put some cash on the line for the Rox to make things interesting. I mean who's going to bet against God? It seems to me that praying to God over every little petty thing like, "please God let Adam Vinateri make this kick to preserve the spread" would get kind of annoying. If God has endowed us with free will would God want us to be inoking him over petty stuff?
Praying doesn't do much - there's actually studies ascertaining the power of prayer in helping sick patients get healthy faster or lowering mortality rate. It didn't work. Surprise. However....if you pray for things you truly desire, which is really just concentrating on your desires - sometimes they can come true. It's more about focusing your intent then anything else. Funny thing is, the universe can conspire to make things happen for ya.
Ah, you have taken the first step into a larger world. It is the Force you speak of. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not these crude messages on a BBS. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, GARM, D&D.. everywhere
The problem for praying for a sports team to win is that what if there are other people praying for the other team to win. God can't make everyone happy!
Prayer brings billions of people peace of mind, so it's certainly a key component of our very humanity.
I don't think God would 'take sides' or 'root' for a particular team. He knows who will win, and may even preordain who will win, so there's no rooting to be done. But, that doesn't mean he doesn't have an interest in who wins and who loses. These events have some impact on people's lives -- who gets beat up on Superbowl Sunday, who gets the $65 million contract, and things much more mundane too. And, why would God be annoyed? In a Christian vision of God, wouldn't feeling annoyed make God less than perfect or less than perfectly loving? And, if he's omnipotent, wouldn't he implicitly have infinite patience for our inane requests? Those who do believe in prayer pray over cosmically minor things that are important to the individual -- a job interview, an injury, a cute girl. If prayer is at all efficacious in anything, I don't see why it wouldn't be for a game. I'm not characterizing prayer as a magic trick (where God counts the number of people who prayed for the Rockets and Spurs to determine the winner), but in knowing the people's supplications and the need of his Creation, would work all things to his own glory.
Prayer is one of the techniques we can use to influence our reality. Your reality is the sum of your sensory inputs and your neural processing of those imputs( influenced by your physical nature , your heredity, your developmental experiences, yada, yada, yada,). You can make concious choices about the sensory enviroment you choose to experience. If you are too hot outdoors you can choose to move into the air conditioning. If you are distraught over the news of the modern world you can choose to turn off the TV and stop your paper. If you are uncomfortable with seeming randomness of love, success, pain, sickness, terror and the certainty of death, you can choose to apply a sense of order to it, "it's God's will", you can choose hope in a hopeless world. (Or some other dissociative tactic) some people just be scart'
God might be infinately patient for all inanity but that doesn't mean that has humans endowed with free will we should look to God to help us out of every little thing. Jesse Ventura once said "Religion is a crutch for the weak minded." and if people turn to prayer so that Yao hits his free throws, that I have the strength to open the lid on pickle jar or that Popeye's doesn't run out of biscuits strikes me as not only relying on religion as a crutch but as a Rascal motorized wheelchair. IMO it debases the human will but also the idea that there is a difference between the sacred and the profane.
So in that case, it doesn't matter how hard you train, it all depends on if god want you to win?right. Also Why would god listen to prayers about little things(like someone hitting a free throw), but not listen to the prayers asking for a better life of the poor, or survival of the dying? What did the people in the western world do to deserve a better life then someone who is dying in africa of hunger?
You know, God has about 1.9 × 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic light years of stuff to worry about, and, it's expanding exponentially at the speed of light, so he might be busy. (not to mention multiple deminsons) (you can go about the same order of magnitude down into the quantum level too....lotta details besides, you)
Infinite power = infinite inscrutability.. so I really doubt you can take what an omnipotent god "said" at face value. Assuming, of course, it even says anything at all Plus a god that favours the Spurs is dead to me, hmph!
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad. Friedrich Nietzsche
O God, ease our suffering in this, our moment of great dispair. Yea, admit this kind and decent woman into thy arms of thine heavenly area, up there. And Moab, he lay us upon the band of the Canaanites, and yea, though the Hindus speak of karma, I implore you: give her.....give her a break.
Mr. Nietzsche don't be a hater. The world has been ugly and bad enough without any help or resolution from Christians... Long before there were any Christians the world was at war, raping, plundering and pillaging just fine on its own. People seem to do poorly at loving one another, long before Jesus said "This one new commandment I am giving you- PLEASE love one another" (my emphasis and paraphrase)
