You might be missing my point, guys (and gals). I'm not defending the care worker's right to have made that prayer. Neither am I attacking it. I have no opinion about that incident, because I don't think I know enough about it to have an opinion. I'd have to have been there and know the people involved quite well to have an informed opinion about it.

No, I am just holding a general philosophical discussion about the nature of unquestioning belief in any society, how it works, how blind it is, and how unquestioning most people's faith is in the assumptions they normally go on. You, for instance, wyrdolafr....you have faith so strong and adamant that it's harder than carbon steel. You are rock set in your assumptions...they're just not "religious" assumptions, that's all. They are other assumptions formed on a different set of mental rules, and buttressed by the sort of absolute certainty that makes religious fanatics so hard to deal with.

You find that among the religious. You find it among the non-religious too. They all apparently KNOW that they are right, dead right...and that those who see it another way are wrong, dead wrong. Therein lies their problem. Their problem is their fecking judgemental attitude over other people!

I think you're probably both wrong. I think you're probably ALL wrong in a number of ways, in different ways that you'll never know or admit to. I think that NONE of us here actually knows the whole story or has even begun to. Most people haven't even scratched the surface of life yet, but they think they're in the know about all kinds of subtle things that they have no actual experience or understanding of whatsoever. Most people are about 98% ignorant opinions that they got from someone else and 2% actually in the know about anything from real experience. To admit that to themselves would be very scary. So they form an attitude of absolute certainty about all kinds of stuff they don't really know much about, they become opinionated fanatics, and they spend the rest of their life arguing and fighting with other people who follow a different form of opinionated fanaticism.

It's a big waste of time if you ask me...just like most of the wrangling on this thread.

How can you possibly know whether prayer sometimes works or not? How can you possibly be so arrogant as to imagine that you have any basis for claiming such knowledge? You don't know. You have no way of knowing. You just have another loudmouthed opinion based on a set of facile assumptions that you got somewhere. You're no better in that respect than a religious fanatic is with his loudmouthed opinion based on his set of facile assumptions that he got somewhere. You both deserve each other is what I think.

Let all those among you who are 100% sure that they are RIGHT go off to some island, and you can all fight and kill each other there, and maybe leave the rest of us in peace for a change. It would be nice to be among people who aren't so sure they already know everything. Relaxing. Refreshing. Open to discussion. You could pray. You could not pray. And no one would mind one way or the other.