Thanking God After Winning an Award

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I think you are misunderstanding me. I don't have a problem with what they pray for. And I don't see anything wrong with any of the above examples that I quoted. However, that's not the impression that you get when they speak. They make it sound like it was God's Will that they (or their team) won. I think that's wrong (well, maybe not wrong as in incorrect, but wrong as in misguided). I just don't see why God would exert His will on some type of spiritually mundane competition.

Now that IS common. It is common before a lot of sporting events for the team to say a prayer. It's mostly asking for protection against injury, and for fair play. It is NOT asking for God to grant them victory.

Hmmm... Now I find that comment rather odd. There seems to me to be a very fine line between saying you want to win, and you want the other team to lose. It's almost a semantic point. Barring the possibility of a tie, in any competition there is a winner and a loser. While it may be considered nicer to be rooting for your team to win, are you not, for all practical purposes, also rooting for the other team to lose? There's no way that your will to win can be acheived without the other team losing in the process.

EDIT: I liken it to when people had to hunt for food. While it might be NICE to hope for a way to eat without killing the animal, the obvious result if your success in the hunt is that you killed the animal. Similarly, while it is NICER to wish for your victory than an opponent's defeat, the latter is the obvious outcome of the former.

 

Alas, at least in this Bible-belt area, all too often I hear people talk of God's condemnation of the other side in whatever endeavor, including sports. You should hear the appalling rhetoric at election time. And right now public schools are having basketball tournaments, and the "prayers" one hears before and after are enough to make me yank my kid out of school, if I had one and if I were silly enough to send her to a public school around here in the first place.

IMHO, God's not like that. She sends the rain on the just and the unjust, as the Gospel writer says. So I guess I agree there is a certain silliness in public proclamations of gratitude to God for victory over another team/person/candidate - fill in the blank.

Yeah, I'm being provocative with pronouns. But those teary-eyed public prayers provoke me, too.

 

Thanking God for a victor in sports is strange, but what about these bumper stickers?

and

I am still not sure if the above is humour or serious.

 

I hate those bumper stickers. People should not treat God or Jesus or anyother "holy" person like a toy.

IMO they are just offensive.

 

I don't want to worship a God who's so petty as to care about such things.

 

Religious people thank God for everything good that happens to them. There is nothing wrong with that -- it's what they believe.

The very religious people even thank God for the trials they go through. So to answer Sydax, no they don't blame God -- instead they thank him for the opportunity to play/compete and the things they learned in the process.

The God they believe in cares about the individual -- not the outcome. For many to not win is just a sign it was not 'meant to be.'

That said, I view religion as a crutch and would never use such a comment. I also have a pretty pessimistic view of the people receiving such awards and believe they are only saying it as a means to an end -- i.e., their fan base is religious or they wish to seem religious for image purposes.

 

Or it allows them to ignore that their success was predicated upon the suffering (loss) of another.

Since God only has the best of intentions, and since all results are in line with His all-powerful control, then God knows that it is best for the boxer's opponent to be beaten unconscious, and the losers beating was for the greatest Good. God sees farther down the playing field, and can throw longer passes than us as mere humans, hence wherever His balls fall, there is the best place from our trusting perspective.

It is a nice circular feel-good sort of knowing. Works best for those who either have little pain, or have too much that they cannot handle it by rational means.

A crutch.

 

The problem with that thinking is that it leads to the idea of pre-destination and does away with free will.

Now I believe that The First Cause started the ball rolling but expects us to do something with what we have been given. Success or failure is in our hands. If I sit around at the PC all day who do I have to blame for a messy house or flabby muscles?
Rhetorical question.

 

I find it disturbing and would hope that they would keep it to churches, but thus far changing channel hasn't been too much of a bother.

 

@LNT: God has the best intentions but it's not true that whatever happens is directly intended by Him just because He didn't prevent it (unless you want to conclude that God is evil because He gave everyone free will and some people have chosen to do evil). If you pray for victory, on the purely logical level you can either be heard or not and either win or not, giving you three options:

1. Be heard, win. You prayed, you were heard, you won. (Remember we're talking on the logical level, so I'm not implying God grants victory to sportsmen like that.)
2. Not be heard, lose. You prayed, you weren't heard, you lost.
3. Not be heard, win. You prayed, but your prayer didn't change anything, you still won because you were the best or something like that.

Not considering the idea that maybe you prayed and you lost as a punishment for asking God to win the game for you.

The other outcomes are not all the same, as, for example, you could be heard in such a way that you would avoid a humiliating defeat, an injury or something, or give better performance than you normally would have. But since you prayed for victory, you won't likely think about it this way.

 

I wonder how many who thank God for a victory would have a good answer as to what exactly they are thanking Him for. Certainly, for some, it is just a reflex or pandering to a fan base.

By the way, I've seen boxers thank God after losing a bout.

 

You're missing an option, chev.

4. Be heard, lose. God heard your prayer but decided that you weren't worthy/deserving of his graces and your skill wasn't sufficient.

And I must wonder about this 'not being heard' thing. Is there some static or disruption? Because we're back to the whole omni-everything that God apparently is.

 

God wasn't listening. He was boogeying to some beats on his iPod. Unlucky. He should really have an inbox or a voicemail...

 

@ Nakia

Calling God "The First Cause":

Here's the thing, for God to have been a 'First Cause', He would have to be doing it from a location other than what we would call a location. It is like saying, "it was here, but not here". Chev would call that place Heaven. I would call it a non-sensical notion. A place either exists, or it doesn't---it does not do both.

And God watching would effect things. Calling God the "First Cause" implies that he does not have any other causes beyong this first one. But by watching an effect, he is causing other effects. An observer cannot watch in a completely passive manner.

That is, of course, unless God was watching from a magic place (that being the magic place from which he "First Caused"), and to that magic place, all matter sends a magic particle. Then this all would make sense. Magic is nice that way. Magic allows some really awesome books to be written. Think LOTR and the Bible.

 

@Late-Night Thinker, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to respond to your comment but since it would be I won't. If you open an appropriate thread I will respond.

 

@Abomination: "Heard" as in having your prayer granted. You could be partly heard and still lose, but that wouldn't be granting your prayer for victory, strictly speaking. Therefore, I excluded that option.

 

And what about the opponent? Why did God disadvantage them? It seems mighty pitiful to interveene on such an unimportant and often selfish event.

At the end of the day there is no rhyme or reason to anything that God supposedly does. "God works in mysterious ways" my arse, he doesn't work at all.

 

Maybe the opposition teams will sue God for influencing the game?

 

The "Little World of Don Camillo" by Giovanni Guareschi has some great quotes on this subject!

"Then Lord," said Don Camillo, "I thank you for having allowed me to lose. And if I tell you that I accept the defeat as punsihment for my dishonesty, You must believe that I am really penitent. Because, to see a team such as mine who might very well - and I'm not bragging - play in Division B, a team that could, believe me or not, swallow up and digest a couple of thosand Dynamos [the other team] in their stride, to see them beaten... is enough to break one's heart and cry for the vengence of God!"

"Don Camillo!" the Lord admonsihed him,smiling.

"You can't possibly understand me," sighed Don Camillo. "Sport is a thing apart. Either one cares or one doesn't. Do I make myself clear?"

"Only too clear, my poor Don Camillo..."