I have a similar thread like this on a separate religious forum, and I figured I would give it a shot here on the OT. Here it goes:

My name is Kurt, and I believe strongly in the power of prayer and faith. I am willing to pray for those who are suffering or are having difficulties in life at this moment.

I will pray for you for the time-frame of a few days if you want me to.

If you would like me to do this for you or for anyone you know, please send me a PM and I would be happy to do this for anyone

All PMs and requests received will be kept confidential

————

Cliffs: If you are going through difficult times, send me a PM and I will add you to the small list of people I pray for every night when I say my nightly prayers.

Thank you, and God Bless.

The Religious Guy,
~Kurt
Post this in Life After OT instead of here. The Asylum is for people to talk about their problems in a context that isn’t explicitly religious.
While not something I’d use I don’t really see a problem in him offering this here. Different strokes.

Sometimes knowing someone else that you don’t know cares (Kurt in this case) enough to take a few minutes to think about you can be good comfort.
How to say it kindly? If for every time someone would pray they would instead sticked out their hands and made a change for the better, this world would indeed become a better place. Although i really appreciate your kindness from the heart, and i sincerely urge you to continue on in wanting to help, loving and sympathizing people. I digress that you fold your hands together, instead reach out and do physical stuff to help people ,help a neighbor, family,etc. Or write actual solutions or give sympathy to help people. Remember scientifically there is no proof that praying works, because of that it is better to stick with things that will actually help other people.

This nga for serious, yall?

His English may need some work but the message is entirely correct. I would only add that when he said that "scientifically there is no proof that prayer works" he should have said that there is scientific proof that prayer does nothing.

(I particularly like this part: "I digress that you fold your hands together, instead reach out…" )

Atheist proselytizing FTMFL

Atheist or not he is entirely correct when he says that rather than putting your hands together to pray you should use them to do something productive toward the same end… Even when I was religious I thought this… there was a family that went to our church who’s house burned down and during the "prayer request" portion of the service they asked people to pray for them and stuff and I remember thinking "why don’t we all just skip church for a week or two and help them rebuild their house?"

CodeX FTMFL
cute kid

Don’t troll this thread you worthless heathens.

Nothing. Why would I charge?

I don’t just pray, Darketernal. I do what you just suggested. I do all manner of things like give blood, volunteer 4 hours a day every day at the Red Cross, help my friends, give to charity, help the poor… etc.

I know what you are trying to say, but I was just trying to reach out to those who I can’t physically help over the internet with prayer.

you should do both of them … putting your hands together to pray and helping them rebuild their house.

You are providing a service, right?

I dunno, I just remember seeing a website where you could write your prayer request and other people reading it could give you a virtual candle, but they had to pay the website to get these candles… so I just thought that these types of prayer request deals were payed services since they are obviously valuable and we live in a free market economy… you really should be charging for it, or are you a socialist?
I thought this thread was going to be about asking for prayers, but instead it is offering them. An interesting twist to be sure.

Dark Eternal and Codex, while I might agree with some of the spirit of your protests, I do think your insistence on it here is trite as a mofo.

Further, when Jesus said, "Do not put the Lord thy God to the test" you should understand that this actually forbids Christians from conducting scientific surveys on the effectiveness of prayer.

Also, I would submit, that the act of Prayer, if it does nothing else, increases the presence in the person praying of mindful compassion, and fostering these feelings, as prayer does, can be nothing but good, seeing as how a person who has fostered mindful compassion in their mind seems more likely to go out and do good works in the world after the so called ineffectual prayer is concluded. That Prayerful compassionate mindfulness remains, and it continues to inform the actions of that individuals life. When a person overflows with compassion, that compassion has nowhere to go, but to flow out into the world.
What about prayers for unpleasant things? Also, what if not everyone is interested in being treated "compassionately" so to speak?

I guess this is best taken as a general question regarding prayer. If it is accepted that praying for the benefit of others may elevate ones awareness of his own sense of compassion, would it also be accepted then that praying to the detriment of others would elevate ones awareness of his own sense of malevolence?

(That’s more or less what LaVey advocated… prayer and ritual as a means of clarifying and focusing on a specific goal. Ave Satanas Rex!)
All that being Said,

I have a bit of a crises that I’ve been going through, and I think it’s time to share with you guys. Its something I have been having trouble dealing with for a while now, and it has causes unimaginable suffering in my personal life, that has estranged many people from me who were very important to me, and sometimes it makes it difficult for me to go on. If it wasn’t for the fact that I firmly believe that Suicide is the most absolutely selfish act a person could undertake, my endless contemplation of death might have resulted in some kind of action. Sometimes I’ll be sitting at home alone, and Ill think about my problem and just start crying, and some days when it’s really bad, I can’t do anything, because I just can’t escape the cycle, I can’t stop crying and feeling sorry for myself. I know pathetic right? But I’ve tried everything that I can think of to solve this problem that my normal secular way of thinking can produce. At this point, I am truly desperate, and I’ll take whatever help I can get, in any form, damn my pride and damn the logic that has thus far prevented me from being open to the kind of support that maybe Kurt’s prayers can provide. You see, I have a very large cock. A cock so large that it makes normal relationship difficult to impossible. I’ve tried masturbating furiously before ever making love to a woman, to hopefully make my cock not so god-damned rock hard, but it doesn’t seem to work, and I have no idea what else to do. I’ve seriously masturbated until I’ve rubbed my massive cock raw from the effort, but even then, I continue on like a good little Christian solider knowing that every layer of skin that I "jerk off," from my cock might reduce the massive girth of my cock, so that normal lovemaking can continue. But alas, each time I take my cock out, there it is, like a massive signpost of my shame and humiliation. So Kurt, please pray for my massive cock.

That is an interesting question. If I was LaVay, I might say that what they want isn’t important. If I like treating people with compassion because it makes me feel good, and I like the world that results from my compassionate actions, then that’s what I should do, me thinks.

I think in order to accept the one, the other would also have to be true.

Ask Bill Gates what he thinks of open source software…

?

What in the dumb does that have to do with giving away your own time and money voluntarily?

You dumb?

Either you don’t understand that open source is software given away voluntarily or you don’t understand that developing software costs time and money… you tell me which.

The fuck?

Open source software is not socialism. It doesn’t matter if Bill Gates is opposed to it or not, him disliking it or not does not somehow make it socialist.

This only makes any sense if it is assumed that money is the only value. It is not.

By giving away quality competing software for free you are destroying everyone else’s potential to benefit from their own effort.

That is the definition of socialism… removing ones ability to benefit (or fail) from their own effort (or lack thereof).

Kurt taking prayer requests freely effectively destroys others ability to profit from providing a similar service.

No. That is not the definition of socialism. That is simply a possible effect of socialism.

Socialist propaganda.

Money is a representation of value. It represents all things valuable.

Sure, granted. So you agree this is, in effect, socialism… in that it causes the same result?

Supermarkets distribute food to people.

UN food convoys distribute food to people.

Both have the same result of people obtaining food that they need.

Supermarkets are not UN food convoys.

A private party voluntarily praying for someone or doing charity work is not socialism.

Christ.

how much money would we have to give you to kill yourself?

100 mill, I would do it to set my family up for life.

really? What about 10milly? That would set them up pretty good too?

It has the exact same affect if it prevents someone else from profiting from their effort.

Christ indeed…

You think you’re clever but you’ve only proven that infinite value exists.

Nope, you’re asking me to put value on my life and I put it at 100 mil

So does any company that outcompetes other companies.

I guess Walmart is socialist since it puts overpriced mom and pop stores out of business.
Fact: If you charge cheaper prices than me you are a socialist.

No, competition is not the same thing as offering something for free. One is competition, the other is the subversion of the same.

Are you saying this? Because I never said this… There is a difference between competition and what we are talking about.

I’m not asking you to put value on your life. YOU said all things have a monetary value. So how much to wipe your seed off the face of the earth? If you can’t come up with a number to murder then skull fuck your children, then you must be a socialist. But if you do, you’re a horrible father.

Damn it sucks when your rhetoric comes at odds with itself :nose:

So… If kurt charged 1 penny for 1 million prayers it would be competition and capitalism. But if he charged 0 pennies for 1 prayer it would be socialism.

You don’t know what the words you are using to shit up this thread mean, do you?

So?

No, it is not. If I charge a cheaper price it is not socialism.

Kurt charges a cheaper price, therefore he is a socialist.
Oh wait. What if kurt paid US for the honor of praying for us? I guess that would be competition and capitalism again.

So… he charges us $1.00. Capitalism.
He charges us $.000000000001. Capitalism
He pays us $1.00. Capitalism
He charges us nothing?….. SOCIALIST!!!!!!!!!
Okay none of you know what competition means, got it.

First, I did not say everything has a monetary value, I said money represents everything with value… which of course means a DISCREET value.

Second, reductio absurdum.
I thought you weren’t going to post here anymore, Codex?

Once again… this thread was MOVED to LAOT.

Also, I never said that.
admittedly describing your replies as "posts" at all is being generous, but in any case the idea was for you to restrict your asinine frothing at the mouth to other venues

Okay. My question was tasteless anyway, I regret asking it, so I’m sorry about that. I was in the shower and couldn’t come clean, so I came back to delete it, but you already saw it so….

Anyway. Sorry about that.

It was a good question and a clever one to challenge what I had said. The problem is things exist which you cannot put a price on, I never meant to claim they did not. If you want to boil it down to math and logic then those things would have infinite value, and no amount of money can properly represent infinite value.

I bring it on myself.

I do have to say though Codex, that if something has infinite value, it makes just as much sense to give it away for free as it makes to sell it for a fixed value, because both are a functionally equal percentage of the things total worth. Therefore, given that God is infinite, it follows that his intersession also has infinite value, and therefore a monetary value cannot be applied to prayer, which is merely the way of requesting or petitioning to benefit from this object of infinite value.

In such a case, there cannot be a fair market value.

If I and a mentally handicaped individual were to debate the validity of Keynesian economic models, the retarded person would obviously lose. There would still be a competition, but the other party would be at a great disadvantage. Now with that said, I could offer brain surgeries for free and I am certain no one would wish to purchase my service at a price of $0, why is that? Socialism.

Nice, but value is determined by the buyer not the seller.

You cannot compete with someone by offering such a low price that you cannot stay in business…

Michael Scott Paper Company…

Competition does not mean everyone wins. You could just admit you are wrong with equating free prayers as socialism.

Competition does not exist when 1 of 2 parties fails due to undercharging for their services and running themselves out of business.

They are competing even if one prices themselves out of existence in the process. You are wrong, why can’t you admit that?

/facepalm

You don’t know what it means to compete. Taking actions that will guarantee your failure is not competing.

Why is that google can offer me email for free? Just stop already.

It is fair competition if one of the companies is able to produce the good or service at a cheaper rate than their competitor. In this case, a company can feasibly sell an item for less money than their competitor is able to produce it, and still make a profit. In the case of prayer, since it costs nothing to produce, and since Kurt has clearly determined that his time has no value, it is possible for him to offer his service for free and stay in business, undercutting his competitors who are not able to produce prayer so cheaply.
So are open source software engineers, or for that matter churches, "failing"?

Also, to say that buyer rather than seller determines value is patently false.

E-mail has no value…

Yes, in that they are not participating in business in the first place. You can’t be successful if you don’t compete to begin with.

Wrong. I determine the value of something for sale, if the value I determine is greater than the price that was set by the seller then I buy it.

You sure about that?

I take it back… it has value but such low value no one bothers to try to sell it, like a random rock I pick up off the ground would not be worth trying to sell.
Dollar signs are just place holders for value. You keep digging this hole…
If I’m being attacked outside a sizable stone next to my feet might have immense value… even though most of the time it would have next to none.
If your primary email address was compromised, would you be concerned? Why? Dig that hole.
Why is that Office is still the primary productivity software used throughout the world when there are free alternatives they can’t "compete" with?
Or why do people pay for lawyers when they can be assigned one from the court for free (in some states)? How can lawyers for pay compete?

And yet obviously they are competing. It would be absurd to say that ubuntu doesn’t compete with Windows just because there isn’t a charge for it.

Wrong. Wrong, in that it is absurd to think that everything for trade in the world has a price tag affixed to it. Have you never heard the phrase "make me an offer"?

Valuers determine value, and in any transaction there are two valuers at minimum.

Additionally I remind you again that money is not the only representative of value – which is why people occasionally choose steak over … whatever peasants eat.
Or why is there even private schools? Public schools are free. How can they compete?

He doesn’t think his time has no value. I think he believes that he gets more value out of praying to help people than he does not praying to help people. I’d venture that if he was given the choice of never praying again to help people…. or have to pay $100 to be able to pray to help people again… he’d gladly pay the $100.
Or water for that matter, rain water is free, how could bottled water companies compete with what is free?

of course you’re right, I was being a jerk to Kurt so I could mess with codex some more
And lightbulb manufacturers?! There is the sun during the day and it is free. What a bunch of idiots.

I didn’t think you were intentionally being a jerk to Kurt. I thought you just so happened to phrase something in a jerky matter to Kurt because you were focusing on the point you were making to Codex.

I just thought I should point out/clarify that he doesn’t see no value in his time or what he is doing. Especially since it didn’t change the point.

and you were right to do so
Too many questions, not enough time to answer them while I’m at work…

you tell us why.

Why are you asking stupidly obvious questions? There is no point you are making here…
I mowed my own grass. Grass mowing companies can’t compete with that. Socialism!

I also mowed my elderly neighbor’s grass. Socialism to the EXTREME!!!

Yes, there is. There are free alternatives for many goods and services which compete with dollar valued goods and services.

again.

I was seriously a bit concerned when I first read that post and was getting all gung-ho to offer my (hopefully not) worthless advice.

Then I lol’d. (Or at least I would have had I not gotten myself all worked up in a tizzy)
Usually when a company offers a service for free, it is because they are actually yin the business of selling some other service, such as advertising space.

lol. Sorry brosephine

No, it is obviously socialism.

okay, i’m wrong.

Oh. It was well done.

But something you had said a long ass time ago made me think that you were being serious. Which*… as far as trolling goes… gives you double points.

*Making obviously ridiculous comments but having people fall for them regardless.
Hey guys. Did you know that dying of old age is murder?

I mean, the end result is the same, you are dead.

I am so smrt you animals.
There are obviously several problems with your assertion, codex, but I see a fundamental one which may have yet to be pointed out – "socialism" is specifically a politico-economic concept. Talking about prayer offerings or for that matter software design generally has no political component which means you’ve gotten away immediately from any kind of literal meaning. So instead of actually talking about socialism, you’re using the word in the context of some literary device.

Using it as you do, apparently making sure that the food on a presented dinner plate is spaced correctly constitutes socialism. Is it really sensible for you to fight so hard to defend an application of a word that’s so fundamentally drained of its meaning?

Posting that was socialism because you didn’t charge money for your opinion so newspaper editorial writers and internet bloggers aren’t able to compete. After all, by giving away opinions for free you are destroying everyone else’s potential to benefit from their own effort. That is the definition of socialism.

Additional opinions are also needed because a single opinion is not by itself worth reading.

Just as long as they are charging for them. Fucking pinko commies are dominating this forum. In fact, every single one of you is just giving away your opinions and/or prayers for free and driving those poor bloggers/prayer networks right out of business.

I protest. At no time have I ever contributed anything that could be mistaken as a knowledgeable opinion.

Obviously your posts have no value because nobody paid you money to read them. And money represents everything with value. Well, everything with a discreet value. So either your posts have no value or they are so precious that they are priceless and worth more money than exists in the US.

WTF are you guys doing to my thread?

I said I would pray for people in need.

IT IS A FREE SERVICE BECAUSE I WANT TO.

Now, if anyone wants me to pray for them or for someone they love, please post here or send me a PM.

Kthxbye.

why do you think that God will accept your prayers?
You guys take everything so seriously

Sorry Kurt…
"I said something fucking stupid and now that I’ve taken a day and figured that out, I’m going to tell you all that I wasn’t serious." -kotex

I was obviously just screwing around with kurt… my problem is my apparent need to defend everything even if I am not serious about it. All of your problems are taking everything everyone writes seriously when it’s obviously not, like whatever it was I said about simius and his son that everyone got so offended about… which I can’t even remember.

Also, I am in a completely different mindset when I am at work then I am at home… I posted allthatshit.jpg at work, now it’s the weekend and I’m a bit more "carefree" and less argumentative, and this is the probably the last time I post on OT this weekend because it’s decent outside for the first time since fucking September here and baby is going to go swing and slide for the first time in a bit

You are such a piece of shit.

AWESOME FELLOWSHIP BRO

I’ll post pictures for you later in the other thread

You insulted me. You insulted my son. You insulted my parenting skills. And then you refused to apologize for it.

You are a piece of shit. Not the victim of us not taking a joke. You weren’t joking then and you are still a piece of shit now.

Remind me what I said again, because it was a joke and you are blowing it out of proportion.

Go on, do a search and find it and tell me what was said, because now I am really curious and I do not remember.

Make it worth my time.

I don’t need another 3 page pendantic explanation from you about how when you insulted me, my parenting and my son you didn’t mean what you wrote over the course of 30 posts.
Also, I might add, when I called you a piece of shit it was for purposely coming in here to insult kurt and derail his thread. The other stuff is just icing on the cake.

Ban bet…?

YOU SOCIALIST MOTHERFUCKERS!*

*only socialist between 4PM-10PM and only socialist at participating restaurants

did you get my request?

Wow… it was ONE post you got upset about and it was obviously not intended to be mean. You remind me of my ex in the way you blow everything out of proportion and act like a dramatic whiny bitch
Kurt I request you to pray for Simius to find the post we are talking about so that he can realize he’s being a huge drama queen.

You went on a whole tirade belittling my son and trying to tear down what I had shared about my parenting of my son. After you were called out on being a dickhead by everyone you even proclaimed proudly that you were doing it just to see how mad I’d get at it. So you can fuck off if you want to pretend it was just a single post.

I tell you what, I’ll offer you a perma ban bet about it.

I bet you would and have crossed that line here in this sub-forum.

What do you say?

Find it, I really don’t think this ever happened, and this is not the first time you’ve accused me of this and not followed through with proof.

I’m not betting you anything, you are making an accusation about me so either prove what you are talking about or recant your accusations. That is how it works if you have any honor or character whatsoever.

Yeah you know this is called a forum and forums have this handy feature whereby they keep things you have posted and they also allow you to search for posts by username AND subforum and even with a date range I believe.

So no, I am not asking him to travel back in time, I am asking him to use the tools at his disposal to find what he is talking about and back up his accusations or to drop them.

If you’re so confident, why not take the bet?

TELL ME MORE HUMAN

I’ll take a week bet that I have never done what is described here:

"You went on a whole tirade belittling my son and trying to tear down what I had shared about my parenting of my son. After you were called out on being a dickhead by everyone you even proclaimed proudly that you were doing it just to see how mad I’d get at it."

As judged by a jury of our peers in On Topic AFTER Simius finds the posts he is talking about. If Simius cannot find these posts after 2 days or the ones he presents are judged to not indicate what he said above then he will take the ban.

I’ve been here for 5 years, I cannot remember everything I have ever said but I do very much doubt I’ve ever done that. It’s not worth risking a perma over though.
…and to be honest if I did anything like what he describes I deserved a ban for it at the time and I’d gladly take it now.

Other threads locked, but I’ll do you one better and post a video. Went to Pixley Falls in Boonville NY, had an awesome day and I’m in a great mood, which is why I’m agreeing to this bet

Ah shit sheriff simius is goin get his rope and hang some fellar

You are a piece of shit. Everyone knows you are a piece of shit. Everyone knows you did what I said you did so there is no reason for me to comb through the thread and find the exchange to prove it.

Make it worth my time. Make it a 1 month ban and you have a deal.

You would think you would want to prove it regardless of any bets… you know, since you are making an unfounded accusation and all…

The only one who thinks they are unfounded is you.

1 month ban bet. Do it.

10 days, final offer. Take it as good will and my desire to make things right if by some small chance I actually did what you describe here.

10 days and you don’t post in LAOT for 1 month.
Really, how hard is it to find this if it actually exists? Use the search and whatnot… look for "simison" because I am sure that was used somewhere around posts about your kid…

I don’t have searching abilities so it is going to take me a while to even find the exchange. It isn’t about proving it anyway. It is about getting your thread derailing bullshit out of this forum. Everyone already knows you did what I said so proving it isn’t a concern of mine at all. Like I said, make it worth my while.

It would seem it already is

Oh, and don’t speak for everyone… no one else has said as much…
Fine, but this is the LIMIT of my generosity… no ban, 20 days out of LAOT.

Let no man say I am unreasonable.

No. You are lowering the stakes.

You lying fucking pussy.

Lowering the stakes?

You said the PURPOSE of this was to get me out of LAOT… so I went from 10 days to 20…

So either you are lying… ironically… about what your purpose is or you forget what the previous offer was.
It’s also QUITE ironic that you think you have the moral high ground here after making accusations and refusing to back them up unless you can somehow make a personal gain out of it… You don’t make accusations you aren’t willing to back up where I come from.

You should be thrilled I am even willing to entertain this after you have acted so shamefully.

You went from a 10 day ban to 20 days not being in 1 forum. That is lowering the stakes. And if you recall, I want you permabanned. Or at least gone for a month.

Your featherweight offer isn’t worth the effort I’d have to go through just to prove something everyone already knows is true.

You are the one who is so curious about it that you want to see it. "Go on, do a search and find it and tell me what was said, because now I am really curious and I do not remember." Why should I do you any favors when I’ll get nothing in return. Particularly considering that fact that I think you are a piece of shit that isn’t worth anyone’s time.

You claim you’d never cross the line by insulting someone’s parenting or their child. You deny that you have done so. Put up or shut up and admit that you are a hypocrite.

You are such a sleezebag pussy.
Oh. I have an idea. How about a 1 month sub bet?

That way I can ignore your ass.

If you’re having money problems Simius all you have to do is ask, I would gladly donate a month sub to you… no bets/tricks/gimmicks required.

Knock yourself out.

But we should still do a one month ban bet on top of that.

No related posts.