PRAYER, ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY FOR SALVATION, ACCORDING TO FANATICS
Prayer is communication with God. It is union with God and believers say it is
two way. God unites with you when you pray and you unite with him. Catholic
teaching states that grace is necessary for salvation and prayer is the means of
obtaining grace so prayer is necessary for salvation.
The Catholic Church following the Bible which says that all who call on the name
of the Lord for eternal salvation will be saved teaches that prayer is
absolutely necessary for salvation. This doctrine is in the Bible which claims
that the prayer of accepting Christ is necessary for salvation (page 1, The
Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection).
Anybody that is damned is damned or thrown in Hell forever simply because they
did not pray enough or when they needed to (page 30, 31, The Great Means of
Salvation and Perfection). Without prayer to get God’s hand over you, you would
commit every sin you could (page 56, The Great Means of Salvation and
Perfection).
The Church opposed the Pelagians for denying that prayer was needed for
salvation (page 5, The Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection). It observes
that Jesus said that without his grace one can do nothing and not that one
cannot complete anything (page 6, The Great Means of Salvation and of
Perfection). Logically then the reason Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden was
because he did not turn to God in prayer for help in the face of temptation
(page 10, The Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection). If that is true then
Adam sinned by not praying so he was a sinner before he ate the forbidden fruit
yet the whole point of the forbidden fruit was so that Adam would sin if he ate
it. So God overlooked the sin of not praying for help in order to pick on Adam
for eating a fruit. This is a totally absurd doctrine. Not turning to God is
worse than eating of a fruit.
The doctrine that prayer is needed for salvation means that praying is more
important than doing all possible good works. It is better to give five seconds
of your entire life praying than to do all humanitarian works consistently and
heroically all your life without praying. This is misanthropic fanaticism
carried to the extreme. How people can claim to be humble while claiming that by
praying they have done the main good work is amazing. If you have the right to
believe something so horrible then how can you object if somebody else believes
in acting this horrible? I mean if somebody wants to offer human sacrifices? If
faith comes first as you say then you could not blame them for thinking they
should do it and are right to actually do it.
Forcing a person to pray makes the prayer worthless. But if prayer is necessary
for salvation then you are forced to do it for you will rot in Hell forever if
you don’t. You might not feel forced but you would if you really believed. You
can be forced while not feeling forced. You are asked to live every moment like
it was your last. And prayer is necessary to prepare for the last moment. It is
the one thing that you cannot omit. That means that if you are going to live as
if you are ready to die you are forced to pray as much as you physically and
mentally can. Compulsion makes your prayer impotent. The doctrine of eternal
punishment prevents you praying. The doctrine then could only come from the
Devil if it is true that prayer is the only way to salvation. If you don’t sense
you are being forced then you do not really believe in what you think is the
word of God and you cannot be saved anyway.
Even if we reject eternal punishment there is still the problem that God hates
sin infinitely so it is the worst evil. God’s love is immeasurable so his hatred
of sin is immeasurable so we should hate sin at all costs and pray to avoid it.
Again compulsion steps in.
Nobody has the right to accuse you of being capable of being bad enough to turn
yourself into a demon who hates all people for all eternity. You need proof to
say such things. The prayers then of those who believe that prayer protects
people from eternal punishment are bad in the sense for they come from a faith
that accuses you. The believer wants to feel he helps you as opposed to really
helping you.
The Church says salvation means that we will all be in an eternally good and
wonderful relationship with each other and God for all eternity. God is the same
yesterday, today and tomorrow and is seen as the source of all being. He is not
like a person and does not have a body. He cannot change for he is absolutely
perfect. Prayer is about a relationship with God. If praying for another person
changes me and nothing else what does that mean? That I am using the person's
trouble and problems to feel I am improving. Virtue that manipulates others like
that is not virtue at all. Perhaps the prayer makes me feel better about helping
others better? Maybe that can happen whether there is a God or not. Prayer is
not a relationship with God even if he exists for a relationship is about two
people changing each other and becoming closer through that changing. There is
no such thing as really doing anything for anybody else by praying. Asking for
dying John to have a happy death in a few minutes will do nothing for him at
all. I am fooling myself.
People will deep down be happy to think that they have caused some beneficial or
desired things to happen and thinking it will be what matters most to them
Prayer is only really possible for those who believe in gods who are very human
and have human frailties. This gets around the problem of a god who loves
immeasurably and infinitely. Everybody else just only thinks they are praying.
Books Consulted
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