Comments about ‘Cardinal Dolan prayer at DNC gets picked apart and praised’

This is why prayers are between you and god and nobody else.

Sorry RanchHand,

Jefferson wrote the first statute guaranteeing religious freedom to prevent religion from being excluded from the public square.

Re: RanchHand Huntsville, UT
"This is why prayers are between you and god and nobody else."

Probably why atheists pray vocally and loudly as their airplane is headed directly into a cliff. There are, after all, no atheists in fox holes.

Rifle, that's one take, another is that they would be cursing the pilot's god.

Rifleman:
[Probably why atheists pray vocally and loudly as their airplane is headed directly into a cliff.]

Well, its a good thing you survived the crash, otherwise you wouldn't be here to relate this, undoubtedly true, story.

[There are, after all, no atheists in fox holes.]

Or Christians in Academia...

Neither statement is true, of course, but if you can say your lie, I can say mine.

I may be a stuffy traditionalist but these 'prayers' that are offered at such gatherings are more like orations than prayers. If it's a performance for an audience, it's not really an earnest supplication to God, now is it?

Isn't it interesting how those who disobey the Lord get incensed by someone who respects Jesus? Yes, it's interesting how they recognized condemnation of themselves in Cardinal Timothy Dolan's innocuous prayer. "Thus do we praise you for the gift of life," Dolan said. "Grant us to defend it. Life, without which no other rights are secure. We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected." What should Christians do, defend innocent life, or take it? Timothy Dolan would make a much better President than Obama. In fact, I'd vote for him if he were running, because he has the sense to humble himself before God.

Responding to Craig Clark: I agree that prayers should be directed to the Lord, not the audience, but there's nothing wrong with chastising the audience, especially when the members thereof so richly deserve it.

God bless you Cardinal Dolan.

@ lost in DC 12:16 p.m. Sept. 7, 2012

Would that be the letter to the Danbury Baptists which essentially says there is a wall preventing traffic in both directions?

re: Craig Clark 2:47 p.m. Sept. 7, 2012

Agreed. You have hit the nail on the head.

sallys,

".....I agree that prayers should be directed to the Lord, not the audience, but there's nothing wrong with chastising the audience, especially when the members thereof so richly deserve it."

If his intent is chastising people for not holding the same view he holds, posting in an Internet discussion site would be a more appropriate venue for that effort. Cardinal Dolan is intelligent enough to know that.

Hmmmm. Reminds me of an equally challenged comment by another religious leader. Congratulations to both for having the courage to stand up and be counted for their beliefs.

In fairness to Cardinal Dolan, there's a bit of a religious culture gap here. In many Christian churches, a prayer from the pulpit is as much homily as it is prayer. In Mormon worship, one who offers the invocation or the benediction prays on behalf of the assembled congregation, with the Amens added by each individual to signify that the uttered prayer is their prayer as well.

The LDS Churches’ positions on abortion and same-sex marriage is indistinguishable from those of the Catholic Church. But these issues are rarely if ever even alluded to in prayer at an LDS meeting.

There can be religious liberals, but liberalism is opposed to religion.

The modern liberalism that developed from the Progressive movement is Nietzschean, positivist, and pragmatist. We tend to think that word has a more positive meaning than it does. The philosophical school of Pragmatism holds that there is no objective, transcendent source of values, truth, or natural law. Law is what we, the people, choose to call law -- nothing more nor less. One man's dogma is another man's absurdity. To the extent there exists anything resembling an objective moral standard, it results from a cold utilitarian calculus -- the greatest good for the greatest number -- because man is the measure of all things, and since God is dead, making the lives of as many people as physically pleasant as we can is all we can hope to manage.

Most garden-variety liberals don't necessarily think their beliefs all the way down to this bleak and Godless foundation, but it *is* the foundation under all the cliches. I would love to see a reborn liberalism that affirms natural law, and hope there are enough liberals of good will to bring it about.