Sometimes -just for old times sake I (atheist ) pray for help. If help I pray for is provided 3 different times should I feel obligation to believe in God?

Hello K:

As I read the Atheist Handbook, you're allowed 2 goddamn's a day, 2 god bless you's, and one OMG.  If you go over, you ARE obligated to go to church..

excon

Ok but just for my funeral.

 What about "son-of-a- bee?" 

Ya it's like that with Santa Clause too. When I was about 45 I stopped believing in him. Then a few years after that I thought I would write him a letter for old times sake. That Christmas there was a new chain saw under the Christmas tree and it was exactly like the one I asked for in the letter. Cheers and happy weekend!

You do believe in God.  It is so obvious.  You cannot stop talking about Him.

That's an idea. I could start believing in Santa again as well.

Could be but it's the man made scriptures that screw my thinking

Ok.

Do you know anything that is right? How do you know? What we call "right" is determined by a list of things that we carry in our head, invisible. Quite often you meet someone who has a very different list from yours and the two of you consider each other to be deluded. That is the meeting of a believer and an unbeliever. An atheist insists there is no such list.

I pray for health, wisdom and compassion but not necessarily for myself all the time.
I think sometimes somebody else gets it instead and I don't.

"it's the man made scriptures that screw my thinking"

1- If all or most of what it said made sense to you would it really matter that it was man made?

2- Perhaps it's the proportion of statements that don't make sense, or the degree by which they don't make sense, that screws up your thinking. If so why not check up other scriptures. They might have none or they might have levels that are low enough to be acceptable to you.

Power of positive thinking.

I wouldn't know where to begin to try to deconfuse things of the bible.
I have read parts and pieces of different scriptures; i've not been very much inclined to settle into reading whole books much at all.

I'm a bit puzzled.

You sound like the atheist who on hearing horrible things about believers said, "Thank God I'm an atheist."

Did you temporarily become a believer so that you could pray and then reverted back to atheism afterwards? Or were you giving God a chance to show up, like the Australian guy in this video who grew up atheist asking God for a sign in the middle of the night saying something like, "I know you must be busy. There's probably a lot happening on the other side of the world.... but if you could just make this candle ruse up in the air, like in the movies... that must be nothing for you, after all you made the whole universe...."

 

It does not make sense for an atheist to pray to me....if you don't believe why would you pray? If one is simply not sure then one may actually be a agnostic in search of a reason to believe in God and not a true atheist.

I'm more inclined to believe in a phenomenon known as power of the mind rather than a supernatural force even after one time I was heavy into alcoliism and my Pentecostal friends dragged me to their church when i had a servere hangover then early in the service I miraculously recovered and felt better than I ever did before. Every one noticed and I spent the afternoon with those friends but when I finally got home one of my drinking buddies came over with some booze and I couldn't resist. I finally did quit the booze years later on my own Accord without outside help. But i've had other significant experiences of mental and physical healing that came about of a suitably inspired mind power.
I do not have to need a religion or believe in supernatural powers.

Pray to you? No, like sometimes like I say I might pray just for old times sake like I did when I was a Christian for the 1 percent chance a God might exist..

Faith can 'move mountains' if one can be inspired to achieve absolute faith in ..something.

"different scriptures"? or scriptures of different religions?

so what is this "power"? Is it a natural power?

Are you healthy, are you compassionate? I can see you are not dumb. Are you sure you are not getting answers to your prayers?

Not pray to me. To God.
Should have a comma.

It does not make sense for an atheist to pray, to me.

I don't really think I am getting prayers answered supernaturally. But if there is a God I think he has been fairly good to me.
Guess i'll find out if there is a God when I kick the bucket...

But my honest thought is "GOD DOES NOT EXIST"