If that was the most ignorant post you have ever seen, you did a great job of trying to better it.

If God exists then many of our actions dont matter.  If I do a gret and noble thing, such as develop if I develop a life improving drug and give it to everybody on Earth, with God it wouldnt much matter because the same end result would occur.  Furthermore, if I develop a new innovative technology or discover a new physical law, none of this will matter because there is no use for such things in Heaven.

"Religious people dont expect God to give them anything" is probably the most stupid quote I have ever heard.  Have you ever hear of prayer?  Its where people pray that God will help them with a disease, finances, or even a sporting event.  Even the most humble of prayers, asking God for religious guidance, is done so that the person can have a better chance of gaining eternal paradise.

The term ignorant does in fact apply to your post and in fact your views on this issue by your own admission, but you should note I use the term by its actual definition before you get too worked up.  Your interpretation of what prayer is is proof enough that you lack information.  This concept of prayer as a literal request with an expectation of entitled fulfillment is woefully inaccurate to put it mildly.

People who sit around waiting for god to show up and do things for them wait a very long time, and no religion actually advocates this idea which is truly where your argument stumbles.  There may be misguided followers who would follow this indolent path to failure and then look to place the blame for their failure anywhere but themselves but if you intend to hold up these people as an example you should note that your original argument was a broad one and focused on god and thus religion as whole, not individuals who fail to exercise free will.  Sorry but prayer is quite clearly not a valid comparison to the government intervention you support and therefor your statement in your prior post is incorrect.

On the issue of why life would be meaningless your reply is no more coherant than the last post.  Why do you believe that noble acts and inventions are meaningless?  Could it be because you are making assumptions about what god's existence would mean?  For instance you assume that if you fail to invent something it means someone else will simply do it.  What is this assumption based on?  You also assume that inventions and discovery are without purpose if god exists because of their assumed lack of importance in heaven.  Aside from the assumption of no heavenly importance you ignore that they could and likely would still have significant earthly importance.  It's also interesting that you lumped in heavenly importance as part of a reply to explain a lack of importance specifically in life, in heaven you are dead so this line of reasoning is inherently faulty.

So again I ask, what about the existence of god necessarily makes life meaningless?

I dont know what planet you are from, but on this one when you use the English term 'pray' it means you are requesting something.

I pray that you will have a safe journey.  I pray that you will get better.  I pray that I can be closer with God.

Your reasoning is also flawed.  In religion, you do not end with death, you continue on to something else.  If you die and leave Earth and go to Heaven, fundamentally its not different than leaving New York and moving to Los Angeles, in the sense that you take your life experiences from one place to another.

For those who are religious, God has already invented, discovered, and created everything imaginable.  If you develop a new physical law, there is no use for it in Heaven because God already knows about it.  You do not need to strive for innovation, nor do you need to stand up for a social or political belief you have, in Heaven none of this matters.

Think about it this way.  You are a bio-chemical engineer and you desire to challenge yourself as well as to help other people.  Every time you create a new drug you think will improve the lives others, you go to your boss and show him your new innovation.  Everytime you go to your boss he says, "we already discovered that."  In this case God is the boss so you have absolutely no reason to do anything, you might as well sit in a box and stair at the wall because you can never achieve anything.

If (an all knowing) god exists, nothing we do matters because we're just part of the imagination of a self existant being, make sense Sqrl?

I also do think prayers are a literal requests. From my experience in church, people who pray hope god will magically change the circumstances in their lifes with his magic god voodoo. But prayer within some groups, they prayer to listen, not to be heard. Most prayers however are selfish.

On the issue of prayer:  The context of the discussion, as set out by your comments, is people's requests on god (ie prayer) and therefor alternate definitions of the word "pray"/"prayer" are pointless in the discussion.  Additionally you should know that all of the alternate definitions you used to make your point actually express a desire for the outcome specified, not an expectation of entitled fulfillment.  So your argument actually betrays the idea that you support my contention by acknowledging that the word prayer is not used to express an obligation or expectation of future benefits.

This point seems fairly well established now. Prayer is not the same as advocating for a government program that entitles people to benefits.

On the issue of god and meaning in life: As you said, at the end of your life (ie your death) in religion you "continue on to something else". As "something else" it is clearly not life, in fact you will recall the term "afterlife" which specifically refers to life after death as opposed to just life.  The concepts are not the same.

Additionally, you didn't address the issue of inventions having meaning here on earth but instead only repeated their lack of heavenly importance.  Even if we accept that this idea (ie being alive in heaven) is valid it still doesn't address why these inventions would lack importance here and now.  These inventions and noble deeds make life here on earth better and thus clearly have importance and meaning to those that benefit from them.  Their assumed lack of heavenly value (which again is an assumption as neither of us have reliable knowledge of heaven) does not diminish their earthly value and there your argument falls flat.

You also assume that god having discovered something before someone makes any future discovery meaningless.  But the act of discovery is not the meaningful bit, it is the act of sharing the knowledge that gives meaning to the discovery and its process.  If you knew the secrets of the universe but cannot share or reveal them to anyone, that would actually be very meaningless.  It could be argued that it might have meaning to that individual but it would quite obviously be meaningless to others and thus it is the same for knowledge god may have that we are unaware of.  The only thing god having found knowledge first would ruin is those wishing to discover things first.

I'm very familiar with the philisophical argument of simulism.  But you are assuming that the existence of god necessarily implies that we are imagined and not actually existant. The assumption cannot be made because we have no direct knowledge of the nature of reality.

As for prayer I would ask if the people who have selfish prayers then sit and wait for god to perform these miracles while doing nothing to help themselves?  I think you should refer to my last address to this point:

People who sit around waiting for god to show up and do things for them wait a very long time, and no religion actually advocates this idea which is truly where your argument stumbles.  There may be misguided followers who would follow this indolent path to failure and then look to place the blame for their failure anywhere but themselves but if you intend to hold up these people as an example you should note that your original argument was a broad one and focused on god and thus religion as whole, not individuals who fail to exercise free will.

The discussion is a broad one dealing with god and religions so the abuse of prayer by individuals isn't relevant.  There is a difference between praying and hoping that the prayer is answered and praying expecting that god is required to answer it simply because you prayed.  Further you only used part of what I said, what I said was:

"The concept of prayer as a literal request with an expectation of entitled fulfillment is woefully inaccurate to put it mildly."

The bolded bit is the portion to focus on.  I'm not saying people aren't making a request on god, I'm saying they aren't making a request and believing that god must answer it as if it were his sole purpose.  The comparison is made because the original reason the issue was raised was a comparison of prayer to government entitlement programs by Manus.  

Your idea of prayer is ridiculous.  I'm not going to argue it anymore since the word 'pray' itself means to ask for something.  If you have issues with this take it up with Webster.

In religion, you go from life to afterlife and in doing so carry your life experiences with you.  The word afterlife implies that life has no end, there is something after it, which is precisely what I am getting at.

Yes, if I discover something that has been discovered before or there is no use for, it is practically meaningless.  If I discover a method of limiting CO2 output from burning fossil fuels, then I go to the media or a company and tell them about it and find out that it has already been discovered and is already being used, then my discovery was meaningless.

In Heaven there is no use for innovation or improvement.  There is no reason to invent a new method to provide energy, or invent a new drug, or to try to answer the mysteries of science, or champion a social or political cause, because nothing you do matters.

Okay, we don't know the nature of reality. I don't know if a god exists or know if their existance matters when it comes to purpose. I don't think a gods existance matters when it comes to purpose, unless you have a problem with your purpose being finite. But, when it comes to an all powerful god, they can do anything and thus all we're pawns for the gods amusement... Unless the god limited his power and knowledge in some way, to give us free will.

As for prayer... I've been around too much faith healing. All they do is prayer, lay on hands, dash holy water, and wait. Useless. You're right though, I shouldn't generalize... But I did say, 'from my experience' did I not? :P

I don't see why you can't understand what I wrote.  I don't disagree that prayer is asking for something.  Try re-reading everything I written here on the subject and notice that it is the expectation that it must be fulfilled that makes your initial statement incorrect.

On the issue of discovering that someone else has beaten you to a discovery you fail to note the difference and the flaw in your logic.  In your example someone else has found and shared the discovery, as far as I know god has not shared all of his discoveries with us.  As I said it is that act of sharing the discovery that gives it meaning, not simply discovering it and being unable or unwilling to share it.

Your last paragraph is a logical contradiction, specifically it begs the question.

On the first point we seem to agree.

On the second point you certainly did and I agree that some people misuse prayer but I was pointing out that this discussion is more specific in scope (trying to prevent an endless discussion is all).

PS - I did make an edit after your reply.