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Prayer and selfabuse does it brainwash you?

I want to try praying and not eating like everyone says is good to do but I have a concern about it.
If you repeatedly pray and selfabuse by not eating for a month does this make your brain expect something and make you think it is all true?

What if it is all brainwashing?
Why is it not brainwashing yourself?
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
I want to try praying and not eating like everyone says is good to do but I have a concern about it.
If you repeatedly pray and selfabuse by not eating for a month does this make your brain expect something and make you think it is all true?

What if it is all brainwashing?
Why is it not brainwashing yourself?

Okay so firstly, if you've never fasted before, do not try it for a month. Try it for a meal. Baby steps. See how it goes. No self abuse required.

What is motivating you to want to try these things?
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
I want to try praying and not eating like everyone says is good to do but I have a concern about it.
If you repeatedly pray and selfabuse by not eating for a month does this make your brain expect something and make you think it is all true?

What if it is all brainwashing?
Why is it not brainwashing yourself?

I believe fasting never worked for me other than to exert control over the body which is a good thing to learn.

I am not much for praying. I tend to pray when there is a need. At present God is in my consciousness all the time so prayer is not necessary but I do it anyway.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
Okay so firstly, if you've never fasted before, do not try it for a month. Try it for a meal. Baby steps. See how it goes. No self abuse required.

What is motivating you to want to try these things?

I believe my experience was that the body complains for three days then realizes complaining doesn't do any good. so I suggest four days to realize that you have defeated the body.
 
Okay so firstly, if you've never fasted before, do not try it for a month. Try it for a meal. Baby steps. See how it goes. No self abuse required.

What is motivating you to want to try these things?

If God is real then I think I should test it by going up the way their followers who can see them did

When I talk to people who pray and fast a lot all of them seem to have got the same kind of things happen, a vision
Why look at a debate on YouTube if it can be tried for me?
 
I believe fasting never worked for me other than to exert control over the body which is a good thing to learn.

I am not much for praying. I tend to pray when there is a need. At present God is in my consciousness all the time so prayer is not necessary but I do it anyway.

How did God get there?
 

Lain

Well-Known Member
I want to try praying and not eating like everyone says is good to do but I have a concern about it.
If you repeatedly pray and selfabuse by not eating for a month does this make your brain expect something and make you think it is all true?

What if it is all brainwashing?
Why is it not brainwashing yourself?

Practicing anything and using any tool makes it part of your mind and how you think/live. Reading anything likewise does the same. I do not believe anyone wills an act without some degree of hoping that it will work. If all of that (which I just said) is what you mean by "brainwashing" then it is indeed that but so are innumerable other things in life.
 

Lain

Well-Known Member
I believe my experience was that the body complains for three days then realizes complaining doesn't do any good. so I suggest four days to realize that you have defeated the body.

Very good advice, all regular fasters that I know of who train their bodies to submit to reason do or have done similar periods of time. The world, the flesh, and the devil harass the soul and desire for it to go into sin and death, therefore it says in the Psalter "but as for me, when they were harassing me, I was clothed with haircloth. I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer will become my sinews." All in my opinion of course.
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
I want to try praying and not eating like everyone says is good to do but I have a concern about it.
If you repeatedly pray and selfabuse by not eating for a month does this make your brain expect something and make you think it is all true?

What if it is all brainwashing?
Why is it not brainwashing yourself?

If you didn't eat for a month and have never fasted, I think brainwashing would be the least of your concerns.
 

The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member
I want to try praying and not eating like everyone says is good to do but I have a concern about it.
If you repeatedly pray and selfabuse by not eating for a month does this make your brain expect something and make you think it is all true?

What if it is all brainwashing?
Why is it not brainwashing yourself?

Keep the praying, skip the food rationing. Not eating isn't very healthy.

And it doesn't seem like brainwashing to me, if you're choosing to do it. Brainwashing applies against one's own Will.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm a faster, but I've never gone a month... nor would I want to.

I think people with all their 'must eat this way' rules tend to be a bit more brainwashed, regardless of what their own eating 'rules' are. Fasting is a way to step out of that. One builds the discipline to step away from mere comfort for a higher purpose(that purpose being different per each faster).

I'm not sure how prayer is brainwashing. Perhaps if someone else is telling you that you must repeat so much and in such a such way... But I find it hard to view spontaneous prayer or a specific path of prayer of one's own choosing to be brainwashing.
 

74x12

Well-Known Member
I want to try praying and not eating like everyone says is good to do but I have a concern about it.
If you repeatedly pray and selfabuse by not eating for a month does this make your brain expect something and make you think it is all true?

What if it is all brainwashing?
Why is it not brainwashing yourself?
I guess you need faith that God is real and listening; if you do then how is it brainwashing? How is it brainwashing yourself if you're in control the whole time? Is it that scary to change your perspective a little bit and try something new?

As for not eating it's good for you if you do it sometimes. Unless you have some health concerns that prevent fasting.

In any case for the average person going without food occasionally is beneficial for their health and could help them spiritually as well. I wouldn't suggest doing it for a month straight though. If that's really important to you then you could build up to that.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
If God is real then I think I should test it by going up the way their followers who can see them did

When I talk to people who pray and fast a lot all of them seem to have got the same kind of things happen, a vision
Why look at a debate on YouTube if it can be tried for me?

Visions may be a function of altered mental status resulting from being dehydrated or hungry. How would you distinguish a vision that's really of God and one that's just a function of your brain playing tricks?
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I want to try praying and not eating like everyone says is good to do but I have a concern about it. If you repeatedly pray and selfabuse by not eating for a month does this make your brain expect something and make you think it is all true?

I used to fast for three or more days fairly frequently. It helps one achieve an altered mental state that is conducive to self-exploration. It is no doubt due to the induction of starvation ketosis. This occurs once hepatic stores of glycogen (glucose storage form) are exhausted, when the body begins metabolizing fats for energy, a process that generates ketones, and later, acidosis (low blood pH). Acidosis potentially dangerous (ketoacidosis can cause death in type I diabetics, but these people are very sick unlike the fasting person). Acidosis from starvation is much less likely to generate an acidosis than that due to insulin deficiency.

Incidentally, when the ketosis appears is about when the hunger ceases.

When I was doing this, I would monitor my urine for acidity and the presence of ketones using urine dipsticks to determine when I was there. In that state, I was more contemplative, and things seemed more profound, like some other drug-induced mental states. And I don't think of it in terms of self-abuse. How about self control and self-exploration?
 
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