The Prayer Thread.
Since a thread about religion has already been opened, I thought I would try my hand at what would be considered a religious topic: prayer.
Before I start, please allow me to state that I am not pushing my beliefs on anyone.
But rather I am sharing them - Sharing your beliefs, and pushing your beliefs on someone, are two completely different things.
And I ask, that when sharing, or commenting on something that someone has posted, that we check our egos at the door, and try to remain civil, and utterly professional in what we post, and how we comment what has been posted.
I pray to God.
I believe that God has always been looking out for me.
I believe in his son Jesus, and that Jesus died for our sins.
I believe that there is power in prayer.
All human beings have the idea of faith born into them, either we have faith in a spirit being, or we believe in science, or we believe in our fellow men; or in human philosophy, but every human being does believe in something.
To put it simply, all of us have a spiritual need!
I believe prayer, aside from reading the Bible, is a great way to fulfill that need.
And I believe that God will listen to me, as long as I am sincere and honest with him.
What do I pray for, or about?
Anything that troubles me, whether it be in my professional or personal life.
Or if there is something I wish to accomplish, I am willing to ask for his help.
Comments
This should probably be moved into the religion thread. But anyway. Prayer in some ways makes sense to me as a thing that people do. We've all had moments where we've felt lost or overwhelmed and the idea that there's some greater guiding force that we can turn to for help can certainly be attractive in those moments. It can also function like a sort of verbal diary, where you just air out your grievances and it makes you feel better, even if there's no one actually listening.
The part that gets me, though, are the times when prayer fails. And I'm not talking about your home team losing the semi-finals in the last few moments of the game. I'm talking about when a father pleads for his daughter to be protected on her honeymoon trip with her new husband and the plane crashes. Or when an impoverished child begs for his mother's health to improve and she continues to suffer in agony and die. Knowing that these things can and do happen. Every. Single. Day. Again and again and again. To strangers and loved ones alike. How do you continue to pray? How do you ask for warmth from a being that you've seen let children die in the cold?
If I entrust the health and safety of my loved ones to someone who I know has the ability to protect them and they don't do it, why shouldn't I fault the person who failed my trust or stop believing that they had the ability to help me in the first place? "Oh but, you see, it's all part of a greater plan." Why does the best possible plan conceived by the greatest possible being require this exact amount of death and suffering in a bunch of tiny beings in a world that is, ultimately, just a proving grounds for a much better world? Is little Billy's mother really such a wrench in the works that the only way for humanity to achieve the kingdom of heaven is for her to die of bone cancer at that exact moment? Doesn't seem like all that great a plan.
So yeah...Needless to say, I don't pray.
I used to pray at night before bed when I grew up in a Roman Catholic family as a kid. I don't pray anymore, but I definitely have made silent pleas, hoping that there is a greater power out there that can help in times of need or in times of immense grief when I lost someone close to me.
I don't know if any higher power actually heard my pleas for help, but it certainly did make me feel better. Because prayer puts your mind at ease, prayer has been shown in scientific studies to reduce stress levels. Regardless of your beliefs, praying or meditating when you're stressed is certainly a good thing to do.
I can't give this any more likes.
Fair enough.
I prefer meditation but I think it's about the same thing. Meditation can be very helpful though. And I am an atheist, so this isn't some religious thing.
It is quite the statement to make declaring all people are born with faith. How can you prove that isn't something taught to us?
I love meditating. When I'm feeling over stressed there are few things better than a 20 minute meditation session. I only wish I could find more time to make it a regular thing.
Prayer: The greatest way to pretend to do something.
It's funny, when people pray and their wishes come true they proclaim god has answered their prayers, and when their wishes don't come true it's all part of a plan that no one can possible fathom. They're grasping at anything they possibly can to make themselves feel better. I used to pray, until I realized I was just talking to myself, and that I might as well have been asking my Teddy Bear to grant me three wishes.
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Is the purpose of prayer to ask something of God or is the purpose of prayer to talk to God?
Far and away the first.
Without trying to make this super philosophical, I'd just like to point out that if no one thought any further than the rationale that you have laid out here, there would not be any people of faith. I can certainly see people getting stuck on the "bad" parts of the universe that we live in, but if they think beyond that issue, they ultimately get hit in the face with a simple question, that being what could God have done differently in our creation to assure that no natural suffering would ever happen? How could God have created us as physical beings in a physical world without some natural, scientific side effects? It is totally beyond our comprehension. We have no answers, and I assume that most people do not try and play God by drafting together a complex theoretical design of life that would fix the supposed flaws of the universe that was created. Obviously such a thing would be baseless. I would think that you would admit that pointing to our universe's physical imperfections as poor design or some some sort of proof of a higher power not existing is a massive, massive over simplification. All things considered, following from the idea that the world/universe was created by God, the physical universe that we live in was not meant to be perfect. Life was meant to be finite, at least in the physical sense. Our physical lives end one way or another, be that at the hands of science, or unfortunately, the actions of another being.
So all in all, I don't see how "bad" things in our world should rationally deter people from prayer. Again, people understand that our physical world was not meant to be perfect (even though it is obviously still brilliant and complex), and that our lives are finite for a reason.
How so? You have a supposedly almighty, perfect creator designing from absolute scratch a world for his most beloved creations, yes? And yet in that same world, at any point in our lives, random mutations in our DNA can cause our cells to over-multiply and kill us painfully. Creatures exist whose sole purpose is to burrow inside our bodies, multiply, and make us shit ourselves to death. And hell, deformations in people's brains make them into sociopaths that physically can't love and empathize with others. Calling these things "imperfections" is a laughable understatement. And, with God being all-knowing, unless he wanted these things to occur or at the very least didn't care whether or not certain people suffered immeasurably through no fault of any will, it is just poor design.
But fine, sure, let's say that...for some reason...it was completely impossible for God to have created the world in a way that resulted in less overall suffering. Does that mean that God is incapable of interfering with natural, non-free will based events in this world in a way that would reduce suffering? If so, then what the hell is the point of prayer? If not, then why isn't he doing so all the time? If it is physically impossible for cancer not to be a part of this world, but God can still cause cancer to be cured, then why doesn't he just do that every time, or even just every time one of his followers asks? It wouldn't make the world perfect or free from suffering. After all, cancer would still exist. We would still die. It just would make for less random death and suffering in the world. But no. What we have is a situation of someone watching millions of children writhing and screaming for help in a world of his own design with the ability to act and save them all and deciding, "Eh, I help these ones."
Prayers usually are boring and ineffective. However, I've seen a video once. It was about black people praying and singing. They did worship moving figure of black man(?). There was only one white woman in their church, lightly dressed. She was very hot, danced and sang wildly. Their prayers worked, one black guy was released from prison. Don't know what church was that but it was really cool.
It can go either way, or as a combination thereof. However, I'd wager that it commonly leans towards asking.
Instead of focusing on one sentence of my post, it would have been great if you would have touched on the total message/ intention of what I had said. If you had done so, you would have an answer to what you just posted here. You more or less just restated the same exact idea that I had originally responded to in the first place. In response to this, I'm probably just going to end up doing the same thing. I guess I'll try and make my intentions more clear, though honestly I feel like my original post was pretty straightforward.
You say that my labeling of the "bad" things in our world/universe as imperfect is a "laughable understatement", but this is because you apparently missed the point of this labeling. I wasn't downplaying these issues what so ever. What I was doing was making the point that our physical universe was not meant to be perfect, thus these "imperfections" are present. Again, following from the idea that we were in fact created by God, we were not created with the intention of being able to live forever. Our physical existence was purposely made finite. This is a very basic concept that believers understand, making your rationale against the point of prayer rather irrelevant. I mean really, you're essentially arguing that our mortality is evidence of poor design or non design, when that mortality completely falls in line with the intention of our physical existence to begin with. Your stance doesn't make sense.
I had a feeling you were going to reach this line of thought.. which is why I probably should not have removed my answer to this from my original post. To answer the question though, no, there is nothing from my point of view that paints the picture that God is incapable or unwilling to interfere with the world that he created. Obviously God wouldn't interfere every single time something "bad" came about as this would totally defeat the purpose of our finite, physical lives, but that isn't to say that God wouldn't occasionally step in every now and then. God is believed to be benevolent and understanding. Just because he has made a world where death is present in various forms doesn't mean that he will not show compassion to those who wish for help. Again, it's not as if this can just be done every single time something unfortunate comes about, but that isn't to say that exceptions aren't made. Also, I think it should go without saying that help goes beyond the subject of our mortality. If anything, that help is far more common place and can be given without it interfering with the purpose of physical existence.
To put things in perspective for those who are non believers, as someone who believes in God, lets say I hear of something tragic. Just as an example, we'll call it a car accident that has left someone in critical condition. If I find myself wanting to pray about the situation, I don't really do so with the purpose of asking for the person to miraculously pull through and avoid death. I may give my well wishes, but generally I find myself praying for the family and loved ones of the person in question. I pray that, no matter what happens to the life in question, that the family can be strong and get through whatever adversity that they may face. This is what prayer is about for those of genuine belief. We are understanding of the fact that our physical lives were not made to be infinite, and the fact that tragic things happen does not deter us from prayer what so ever, nor should it.
As I said earlier in this post, that would quite obviously defeat the purpose of having our lives be finite in the first place. If someone were simply to ask God to extend their life every time their death neared, and that wish was granted every single time, they would never die. Believing in God doesn't exempt you from the existence that you are a part of.
I knew this would happen. I called it. We can't have nice things. Mutual respect, fuck that.
My examples weren't about mortality. They were about suffering. You can have an intentionally finite world with mortality without having childhood cancer, ebola, and congenital sociopathy. You can have an imperfect world without having childhood cancer, ebola, and congenital sociopathy. The world we live in is not only finite and imperfect, it is filled with naturally occurring things that inflict immeasurable suffering beyond just making it so we don't live forever.
Again, you're misinterpreting my point to mean "why doesn't God make us live forever," when what I actually said was "why doesn't God cure every instance of cancer?" Old age is already an assurance that none of us will live forever. Why is it also necessary to have cancer assure that some of us don't live past 6? Would the world not be better, yet equally as finite, if no child ever died of cancer? If so, then why don't we live in that world?
You were talking about suffering in terms of it being involved with mortality, though. It ties together, which is why I made the point that I made. It still applies. How many people die from accidents every day? Heart attacks? Some of the other examples that you have already listed? Unfortunately the moment of our death isn't always without some degree of suffering, be it a small or large amount. The only way to avoid this is to remove our ability to feel pain, which of course would be quite a problem of it's own, as I believe you understand.
I wasn't really aware that you were trying to seperate deaths that involve suffering from deaths that don't involve suffering.. because again, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense when considering that death absent of suffering doesn't really happen, whether it's the events preceding the actual death, or the event of death itself. I would admit that obviously there are certain degrees of suffering depending on the type of death, but the point is that there is generally going to be suffering of some kind.
This goes back to what I said in my original post to you. It's not necessarily a matter of God deciding "you know what, I think I'm going to create cancer". It's a simple byproduct of our physical creation. Again, as I said in my original post, atheists love to blindly state that God could have done a better job in our creation if he in fact existed, but such a statement is totally baseless and meaningless. What could God have done differently in forming the physical universe to defy the physical laws of existence as we know them, while still operating within the realm of scientific possibility (as in it has to be physically possible/attainable)? It's not something that we can even fathom. To dwell on it is pointless. Going back to the issue of cancer, the fact of the matter is that we know that our existence is incredibly complicated, and that our bodies are incredibly efficient, despite the fact that there is a very, very, very small chance of mutation any time our cells divide and replicate (which is necessary for our physical existence). Cancer is sometimes an unfortunate by product of our slightly imperfect universe, and is simply another reason why our lives are destined to be finite. Unfortunately, yes, it can impact children just as it impacts adults, but that is simply life. Maybe it'd be great if God just waved his magical wand and made all children totally invulnerable to harm, but obviously this wouldn't make much to any sense at all in terms of science.
Why? Why is that simply life? Why does it not make sense to give each individual person a chance to reach neurological maturity, experience life, then and decide for themselves whether to accept or reject God? Is that not the point of giving us free will? Why instead are you and I given the opportunity to understand and debate theology, while other lives are snuffed out before they can even pronounce the word?
As I said in my response to your initial post, even if it were physically impossible for God not to have created the world without cancer (a strange notion given that physical impossibility would be itself an invention of God), there is absolutely nothing stopping him from intervening whenever it manifests. You already accept the notion that God does make "exceptions" in terms of intervening on the physical world, so it "not making sense with science" isn't an excuse. Our lives would still be finite. There would still be other forms of suffering. All that would be different is that fewer children would die randomly. And yet he doesn't do it.
Imagine if it were me. I have three buttons in front of me, each of which would cure 1/3 of all childhood cancers. And if I pressed all three buttons, every instance of cancer in children would be cured. What would you think of me if I only pressed one of those buttons?
I have already explained this: "This goes back to what I said in my original post to you. It's not necessarily a matter of God deciding 'you know what, I think I'm going to create cancer'. It's a simple byproduct of our physical creation. Again, as I said in my original post, atheists love to blindly state that God could have done a better job in our creation if he in fact existed, but such a statement is totally baseless and meaningless. What could God have done differently in forming the physical universe to defy the physical laws of existence as we know them, while still operating within the realm of scientific possibility (as in it has to be physically possible/attainable)? It's not something that we can even fathom. To dwell on it is pointless. Going back to the issue of cancer, the fact of the matter is that we know that our existence is incredibly complicated, and that our bodies are incredibly efficient, despite the fact that there is a very, very, very small chance of mutation any time our cells divide and replicate (which is necessary for our physical existence). Cancer is sometimes an unfortunate byproduct of our slightly imperfect universe, and is simply another reason why our lives are destined to be finite."
It isn't a strange notion. As I have said many times now, speaking in terms of God being our creator, the physical world was not meant to be perfect, and in an imperfect world, these complications can arise. God created the universe in a way that makes scientific sense, not just in a way without explanation or reason. Again, it's totally pointless and baseless for us to speculate what could have been done differently to alter the laws of the physical world, especially when it's already so incredible and efficient (which in my opinion gives substance to the idea of intelligent design).
Even in the case of a natural problem such as a cancer, if he just consistently, miraculously made it disappear without explanation, that would defeat the purpose of the way in which he put our physical existence together in the first place. If our physical existence was regulated completely in a spiritual sort of way in the sense that any time a "bad" byproduct of that physical existence arose it would magically be waved away without explanation, that would conflict with creating a physical existence that is meant to be regulated as a physical existence (as in our physical universe obviously adheres to physical laws). Pulling a few strings now and then doesn't change this.
Honestly, we can endlessly go back and forth trying to justify what makes sense for our physical existence and what does not, but ultimately we're not God, and we have no freaking clue. Aside from what we have been discussing, there's even still the argument that suffering exists in the world as a means to provide us with understanding and compassion, to test our character, ect. Again, even if we were to go down that route in addition to what we have already been looking at, we simply do not know why God made our physical universe in the way that he did, and there is simply nothing that for sure points to the fact that his methods are without meaning and purpose. With that said, I don't believe you can accurately state or imply that prayer is an irrational thing to do.
Again, I'm not even asking for an end to all suffering in death. I'm asking for a reduction. It's painful for children to see their parents die of old age, just not quite as painful and unfair as a parent seeing their child dying before their first day of school.
If the idea is to create a physical existence to be governed as a physical existence, then ANY interference with physical reality would subvert that purpose. It's like setting up an experiment and then deciding to tamper with "just a few datapoints" and thinking that that preserves the integrity of the experiment.
It also raises the question of why this experiment is being conducted in the first place. You said God created the universe in a way to make scientific sense. Why? Why create a world that must adhere to physical laws for your creations to live in if it necessitates that immense suffering is visited upon them at random through no fault of their own? Why make it a rule for yourself that you can't save little children from dying in agony? Clearly not for their sake.
Going back to my 3 button scenario, would you have brushed aside my decision not to cure cancer in all children with the same hand-waving? Or would you have condemned my actions as that of a callous, capricious being until I demonstrate to you why that was the right thing to do? Do you look upon a man with a life preserver watching a child drown and assume a noble purpose to his actions? Or do you condemn him for failing to do his part to spare the world a little bit more suffering?
I never really got prayer, even when I was still a Christian. If God is omnipotent, shouldn't he already know what we need?
The concept of having a personal relationship with god always seemed a little silly to me, and I imagine it also does to people from other Abrahamic religions like Judaism and Islam. In Islam particularly, God is seen as terrific (in all senses of the word) and unknowable. Muslims only praise God, they never ask him for help or try to chat with him. To do so would be considered childish at best and very disrespectful at worst. That system makes more sense to me.
Ironically, I'm always chosen to say prayer at Thanksgiving and allegedly do a bang-up job of it.
I'm confused. What did I post that lacked respect?
I do believe that it's certainly possible that the universe(s) was/were created by a higher power, and see the "why doesn't God help us if God exists" question used a lot to try to push against that possibility. I don't see that though. I mean, I can see that the universe could be created by purely science as well (once you begin to wrap your mind around the concept of infinity, in which time fits in, and possibly space, the concept that something has just always been there begins to make a bit of sense). But, there's really no reason that the universe couldn't have been created by a higher power, and scientific laws and non-interference by the higher power don't prevent that (which is why I believe that every religion and science are compatible with each other).
I look at it like this. Look at how far human beings have come in our short time span on Earth. It's certainly possible that at some point, we'll create a small universe of our own. If we're able to evolve into a species that can do that, there's nothing saying that a species didn't evolve at some point before that, and do the same for our universe. It's possible the creative force is outside our universe (by the possibility of multiple universes), it's also possible that force is within our universe, just farther than our reach (or possibly even our level of knowledge about life, as it's possible that higher power could be something other than the carbon based life that we know). The former would lead to a higher power that created the universe and has no control over it, the latter would be a higher power that could still potentially have control over it. No one knows for certain.
But, as I said below, the purpose of prayer isn't to get someone to answer it. It's to put your mind at ease, as prayer has been scientifically proven to reduce stress levels. You can put do so through prayer, prayerful meditation, or meditation without any spiritual basis, but those who pray or meditate have been shown in several studies to be generally healthier and happier than those who don't.
As I have said twice before though, otherwise is not necessarily feasible. Of course children are subject to the same kind of physical laws that adults are. It'd be nice if they were just inexplicably invulnerable to everything, but obviously that doesn't make sense. Why would children be subject to any less mortality than any other human being..? Again, it's just not something that we can comprehend given the knowledge that we have. Its convenient and extremely simple for atheists to claim that a true creator would have done things differently, but there is simply no base for that argument.
I don't really think that is an apt comparison, and I'm not sure what parallels you see there. In any case, its not as if God would have some sort of obligation to run his world 100% one way or the other. As I said before, God is believed to be benevolent and understanding, and he understands the trials that many people face. There is no contradiction of his overall purpose if he chooses to provide favors now and then in order to quietly help some people manage every now and then. This especially makes sense for human created problems.
What you're asking for is like saying that a teacher should not ever give out answers to class questions. Obviously if the teacher just gave out the answers for every single question that would harm the learning process, but if they never gave out answers and just let their students fend for themselves 100% through the course, that could be problematic as well. There is nothing wrong with God taking somewhat of a middle ground in the sense that he has laid out a certain life before us, but is willing to quietly, occasionally provide some help along the way, even if that help isn't always exactly in the form of what was asked for.
I wouldn't really call the universe an experiment, but that may be splitting hairs a little. There are multiple philosophical ideas on why God created a physical existence. Again, an "imperfect" universe was created for a reason. If God had decided to just skip the physical side of things and tossed his entire creation into Heaven where everything is supposed to be perfect and everyone is in the clear presence of God, then it could be debated that we would never have the chance to develop as the people that we are today living in our physical universe. The physical world offers us perspective, passion, and a place where we have uninfluenced choice and the ability to develop through free will. In some ways, just following a pure religious point of view, you could view it as the prerequisite course to Heaven, where again everything is supposed to be perfect, and everyone is in the direct presence of God.
Personally I don't even really know exactly how I feel about the "after life", but even if you were to dismiss the idea of it, the purpose of a physical existence would still stand in the sense of it being created as a place where the human race could grow and learn without direct influence.
Of course I would find that a callous thing for you to do, but it goes without saying that I have no reason to look at your decision making in the same context (with that context being what I have been trying to explain here) that I would God.
I don't have any qualms about the possibility of our universe having been creating by some manner of intelligent force. What I have qualms about is the idea that the universe was created by an intelligent force of perfect compassion, absolute knowledge, and limitless power who still chooses to let random innocents suffer. When I use the term "God," these are the specifications I'm referring to. Any other type of deistic force that isn't all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful wouldn't be subject to my argument.
Prayer has been shown to reduce stress levels...in people who are religious. In other words, people who, by and large, believe that it is possible that someone is there to answer their prayer. Unless prayer can be shown to be effective at reducing stress even in the non-religious, you can't really distinguish between the petitionary aspect of prayer and its ability to reduce stress.
Except the parallel here isn't the teacher giving every student the answers to some test questions and not others. It's the teacher giving answers to some students while letting others fend for themselves 100% through the course. That makes for an unfair test.
Except it doesn't. Not for everyone. Like I said, there are people who are born sociopaths, unable to experience any empathy towards others. What does living in this physical world offer them? Or people born with severe mental disabilities, who literally can't develop. Why is that existence a prerequisite to the existence they would have in heaven? Or, as I mentioned before, children whose lives are snatched away before they had the ability to develop a perspective on anything. If the physical world is meant as a place for humans to develop through free will, why are so many deprived that opportunity?
Theoretically speaking, can we even say for certain that some people receive God's help while others don't receive any help at all? There isn't really any basis for that. On top of that, even if there is a notable difference, it's not as if we could speculate to why that difference exists. I know there are certain Christians out there that would probably chalk it up to God showing favor to those who believe in him, but I don't know if I'm personally of that mind.
In general, I would say it all points back again to the fact that we were created in an imperfect world where things like this can arise, specifically when you think of the science behind some of these problems. It's possible that these problems even serve a purpose of their own, though again, we can't even really reasonably speculate what that could be.
I don't usually pray, but I did today after hearing about Paris...
I don't usually pray, but I understand why people do, it can give people hope. And sometimes hope is all you need to get through the day.
If you're implying that everyone receives God's help, I'd like to hear your argument for how the grace of God has helped this child. If you're implying that no one receives God's help, then we are in agreement.
But the fact that these things that go directly against what you proposed as the purpose behind the creation of the imperfect physical world means that that can't be the actual purpose. You can't say that the world needs to be the way it is in order to "offer us perspective, passion, and a place where we have uninfluenced choice and the ability to develop through free will" when the world being the way it is is the reason why some of us can't have those things.
The bottom line is that there is such an untold amount of random suffering and unfairness in this world, that I can't think of any purpose it could possibly serve. And neither can you, it seems. The only difference between us is your faith that there is a purpose to all of this pain and injustice in the world, even if none of us can ever think of it.
now i'm going to have to find that thread...
A couple days ago there was another thread where there was a post with a picture, that trashed my religion. I made a comment saying that if i made a positive religion thread that it would be trolled, etc etc. I was right, we can't have nice things.
We have what is called this double standard. To be honest, i knew this would happen, and i don't blame anyone, it's just know how these boards are.
I pray every single day, usually before I fall asleep.. It makes me feel peaceful and relaxed
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Simply because poor situations exist and bad things happen to people this does not mean that these same people are not given help at any point in their lives. In regards to the picture you posted, obviously we can't begin to discern if that child has ever received God's help or not. There is absolutely no conversation of substance to be had there. Just because that child is living in poor conditions does not mean he is being ignored by God. There is really nothing else to be said there.
They don't necessarily directly go against it at all. Again, this is an imperfect world. It doesn't make much sense to keep bringing up examples of imperfection and then using that as your basis of argument against a world that wasn't meant to be without flaw. You're expecting the agenda to be 100% while adhering to physical laws that are not perfect. Again, you could try and make the case that the physical universe could have been better constructed, but there is no basis for that argument. With that said, it's not as if the purpose of our existence is completely subverted simply because a small percentage of people die shortly after childbirth (or before), or because some are effected by mental disease.
Strange, I could have fooled myself with the amount of time I have spent detailing otherwise. While of course I can't claim to know why God chose to do what he has, sense absolutely can be applied to it.
It's not as if atheists can accurately proclaim that there is not a purpose for the so called "random suffering" in the world. It's simply blind speculation that a creator should have done better.. while of course these people don't have the slightest clue on how that could be accomplished while still abiding by physical laws of nature. I have said from the very beginning of this conversation that it is something beyond our comprehension.
I'm an agnostic atheist, but I used to be a Christian when I was very young, I prayed a few times and found it didn't really do anything for me, I now view it purely as a coping mechanism for theists.
If you can look at that picture and honestly think to yourself "this is a child who has been helped by God," then you're right that there is nothing else to be said.
I expect the agenda to be 100% because that agenda was supposedly the reason why the physical laws needed to exist. What you're suggesting is that God came up with an agenda and then created a world with physical laws that prevent his agenda from being fully fulfilled. What kind of incompetent God is this?
It completely subverts their purpose of existence if that purpose is indeed what you claim it to be. You might shrug your shoulders and going "Well, hey, my purpose is still intact," but I can't do that.
I'm not proclaiming with certainty that there is no purpose. I'm proclaiming that there is no reason to believe that one exists, and thus believing there to be one (especially one you can't define) requires a leap of faith over logic.
I'm just going to go ahead and copy and paste what I said last time, as it still stands. "Simply because poor situations exist and bad things happen to people this does not mean that these same people are not given help at any point in their lives. In regards to the picture you posted, obviously we can't begin to discern if that child has ever received God's help or not. There is absolutely no conversation of substance to be had there. Just because that child is living in poor conditions does not mean he is being ignored by God. There is really nothing else to be said there."
Again: "You could try and make the case that the physical universe could have been better constructed, but there is no basis for that argument."
Feel free to rewrite the laws of our physical creation and come up with something better while still operating within what could be physically/ scientifically attainable. Until then, you're just running with the empty argument of: "But a true creator could have done better!" without having a shred of rationale to back that claim up. For whatever reason, you're stuck on the idea that the purpose has to shine through by example with each and every single being that comes into existence, when logically that makes no sense. Why you think this needs to be an all or nothing type of scenario is beyond me. Just because not everyone ends up getting the chance to live out their lives does not mean the entire purpose of human life is contradicted or thrown off course. Hell, it could be argued that some of these less fortunate individuals provide perspective and compassion in their own right. We can't claim that these examples are without reason, or that a true creator would not have this be a part of their physical creation.
Just as there is no reason to believe that one does not exist, either. Unless you're totally avoiding forming an opinion on the matter, you're taking a leap of faith as well considering there is nothing to back up your personal opinion.
And while I may not be able to use it as legitimate proof for my opinion in regards to trying to sway others, my personal experiences with the matter certainly provide evidence for myself, and they are certainly a factor for why I happen to believe what I do on this topic.