Even though the person intended to receive these letters is now deceased, I hope that the people who wrote them have all made their peace with God :(


Letters to God end up in ocean, unread By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 2, 10:53 PM ET



ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - Some of the letters are comical (a man asking God to let him win the lottery, twice), others are heartbreaking (a distraught teen asking forgiveness for an abortion, an unwed mother pleading with God to make the baby's father marry her). The letters — about 300 in all, sent to a New Jersey minister — ended up dumped in the ocean, most of them unopened.

http://img276.imageshack.us/img276/340/01mg3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The minister died two years ago at 79. How the letters, some dating to 1973, wound up bobbing in the surf is a mystery.

"There are hundreds of lives here, a lot of struggle, washed up on the beach," said Bill Lacovara, a Ventnor insurance adjuster who was fishing last month with his son when he spotted a flowered plastic shopping bag and waded out to retrieve it. "This is just a hint of what really happens. How many letters like this all over the world aren't being opened or answered?"

Many of the letters were addressed to the Rev. Grady Cooper, though many more simply said "Altar." According to the text of several of them, they were intended to be placed on a church's altar and prayed over by the minister, the congregation or both.

Some were neatly written in script on white-lined paper, others in a feverish scrawl on tattered scraps of parchment or note cards. Many were crinkled from being in the water and then dried out after Lacovara fished them out of the sea.

A dog-eared business card inside one of the letters identified Cooper as associate pastor of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Jersey City. A woman who answered the phone at the church office confirmed Cooper once was a minister there, and had died nearly two years ago. The current pastor did not return several calls from The Associated Press over the past few days.

Other documents in the bag, including bank statements and canceled checks, also listed Cooper's name and an address for him in Jersey City. A death certificate issued in 2004 for a Grady Cooper lists the same address as those on the bank documents and some of the letters.

His wife, Frances, whose name also showed up on some of the letters at the same address, died in 2000, according to Hudson County records.

No one answered the door last week at the address where Cooper once lived, and a neighbor said he did not recall anyone by that name. Attempts to locate Cooper's relatives were unsuccessful.

Lacovara speculated that someone cleaning out Cooper's home found the letters and threw them on the beach in Atlantic City, about 100 miles from Jersey City.

"I guess rather than just throw them in the garbage, maybe they thought they'd set them out to sea to bless these people," he said. "So they made a trip to Atlantic City, maybe went to a casino, and put the letters in the water."

The letters, wrapped in several smaller brown paper bags inside the larger plastic bag, did not appear to have been in the water too long, Lacovara said, though about half were too badly damaged to be legible.

He opened a few with his son, Rocky, on the beach. The first few were humorous.

"I'm still praying to hit the lottery twice: first the $50,000," one man wrote. "Than after some changes have taken place let me hit the millionaire."

Another asked God to make a certain someone "leave me alone and stay off my back," while still another asks God to calm a woman who "call the Internal Revenue on me."

One woman complained that her husband always talks about sex, and another writer anonymously dropped a dime to God on someone cheating on his wife, complete with dates, times and locations.

But those, Lacovara soon found, were the exception.

Many more were written by anguished spouses, children or widows, pouring out their hearts to God, asking for help with relatives who were using drugs, gambling or cheating on them. One man wrote from prison, saying he was innocent and wanted to be back home with his family. A woman wrote that her boyfriend was now closing the door to her daughter's bedroom each night when it used to stay open, and wondered why.

A teenager poured out her heart on yellow-lined paper in the curlicue pencil handwriting of a schoolgirl, begging God to forgive her and asking for a second chance.

"Lord, I know that I have had an abortion and I killed one of your angels," she wrote. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the mistake I made."

One unwed mother wrote that her baby was due in four weeks, and asked God to make the father fall in love with her and marry her so the child would have a father.

Lacovara said he is sad that most of the writers never had their letters read. But he hopes to change that soon: He is putting the collection up for sale on eBay

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/unanswered_prayers

Lacovara said he is sad that most of the writers never had their letters read. But he hopes to change that soon: He is putting the collection up for sale on eBay

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/unanswered_prayers
Okay then, the guy is scum!

I would imagine writing those letters is much akin to posting on this forum. The simple act of writing is the exercise, not the reading. But I have to agree with ~Sal~, selling something of this nature is really low. I seriously doubt any of the writers intended for anyone other than ‘God’ to read the messages, in which I hope they can forgive our little transgression.

The person put them all out to sea and by doing so put them in gods hands, since they were address to him would you not think that it was Gods will that they were found and read leaving the forgiveness up to the world. and as for selling them on Ebay man thats some realy bad karma, have them forgivin by a priest and burn them anything but sell them.

I seriously doubt any of the writers intended for anyone other than ‘God’ to read the messages......

That does not follow.

If that were the case, then why even go to the trouble of writing letters??........they could have just had a psychic conversation with their invisible supernatural Father-in-the-Sky, and cut out the middleman entirely.

"This is just a hint of what really happens. How many letters like this all over the world aren't being opened or answered?"

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

As if it mattered in the slightest.

:hahanot:

Psychologically speaking, it does follow, because it is an act of closure. Again, you cannot assume, just because something was written, that it was intended to be read. It’s really only the advent of the net that has turned such things as diaries in to narcissistic fantasies.

Psychologically speaking, it does follow, because it is an act of closure. Again, you cannot assume, just because something was written, that it was intended to be read.

Again, that does not follow.

Check the picture. The letters have postmarks. IOW, the writer took the effort of mailing them.

Ipso facto, they intended someone else to receive and open them.

Why? Do you belong to a gym? At the beginning of the year, a lot of people join gyms, but do they intended to go? Sure, some do. Many do not. It’s the whole reason Bally created that whole ‘sign your life over now, not later’ mode of business. Another reality is that people join a gym to address a feeling of whether or not they are doing something ‘healthy’ for themselves. Whether or not they go, is irrelevant.

I believe they were mailed to a specific minister probably for his eyes only.

I believe they were mailed to a specific minister probably for his eyes only.

I agree.

Which reinforces the fact that --contrary to what ShadowWalker is asserting--, the writers of the letters in question DID intend for the letters to be read. That conclusion is inescapable.

What "belonging to a gym" has to do with people who wrote letters --and then mailed them-- were or were not expecting them to be read by the recipient, I have NO clue.

Perhaps by stamping and addressing the letters it somehow made the people feel the letters were more "official" and had a better chance of being delivered.

And even THEN the Post Office will most likely screw up the delivery somehow.

I find the letters sad and disturbing. Whether they were "read" or not makes little difference. It was probably therapeutic to write down their thoughts and mail them away to the Great Unknown.

For all we know, perhaps some of them were even answered.

Not for us to say.

I find the letters sad and disturbing.

Well, I certainly find it *sad* and *disturbing* --to put it mildly-- that such a large portion of the populace in the United States has such a tenuous grip on reality that they imagine that some invisible supernatural force can be psychically summoned to grant them a lottery win, or to help them with relatives who are using drugs or gambling, or to get the Internal Revenue Service off their backs.

For all we know, perhaps some of them were even answered. Not for us to say.

Yeah........"not for us to say". :rolleyes:

IOW, we can assign exactly the same degree of possibility that a pink unicorn is sitting behind our chair as we speak.

What none of us knows with any certainty is IF their prayers were answered.

What IS certain is that it is the greatest sin to presume to know the mind of God, and who He chooses to answer or not.

He is God. I stopped trying to figure Him out a long time ago. But I will NEVER say that there is no God, or that He does not answer a heartfelt prayer for help.

He is God. I stopped trying to figure Him out a long time ago. But I will NEVER say that there is no God, or that He does not answer a heartfelt prayer for help.
If you don't presume to know the mind of God, why do you make the assumption that He hears and answers prayers?

Why would you never say there is no God? There is no evidence to support his existence. Have you ever made a prayer to God that has been answered? When I was younger I used to make these "heartfelt prayers", and they went unnoticed and unaddressed. Why would He help some of the faithful, and not others?

If you don't presume to know the mind of God, why do you make the assumption that He hears and answers prayers?

Why would you never say there is no God? There is no evidence to support his existence. Have you ever made a prayer to God that has been answered? When I was younger I used to make these "heartfelt prayers", and they went unnoticed and unaddressed. Why would He help some of the faithful, and not others?

1. I have seen it. He answers through the mind of man as well.

2. I would never say there is no God because to deny Him would make me unhappy. God has been good to me. I know I risk being ridiculed for that statement by some on this board. I will say it anyway. God has been good to me and my family and I am grateful.

3. Evak, I don't know. I don't know why He does some of the things he does.

Why would He help some of the faithful, and not others?

Some people He wants to be believers, some, He doesn't.

I agree.

Which reinforces the fact that --contrary to what ShadowWalker is asserting--, the writers of the letters in question DID intend for the letters to be read. That conclusion is inescapable.

What "belonging to a gym" has to do with people who wrote letters --and then mailed them-- were or were not expecting them to be read by the recipient, I have NO clue.


It’s an analogy to a situation in which something is done for secondary reasons, rather than primary. If you prefer a more direct example, how about parents that address letters to Santa, and then deliberately mail the letters? Do their actions suggest that they intend for Santa to not only receive the mail, but read it? Does that make any more sense?

2. I would never say there is no God because to deny Him would make me unhappy. God has been good to me. I know I risk being ridiculed for that stement by some on this board. I will say it anyway. God has been good to me and my family and I am grateful.

No ridicule here, just a question. Had you been one of the ones left behind by God, had he indeed skipped out on answering your prayers as he did Evakian, would you still believe in Him?

Good question, Nap--I would answer, yes, even tho many (most ) of my own prayers have either been "unanswered" in my reality, or not "answered" as I thought they should.

I would still believe merely because I have life, can see, walk, think, and love.

It’s an analogy to a situation in which something is done for secondary reasons, rather than primary. If you prefer a more direct example, how about parents that address letters to Santa....

Your Santa analogy is flawed.....BADLY.

One case --the one this thread is about-- has people sending letters ---written by people who are dead serious about what they are putting to paper--to an actual person with a real address (in care of an imaginary being, but one who they actually believe exists).

The Santa example has people sending letters --whose contents are pure fantasy-- to a phony address in care of an entity they are fully aware is nonexistent for no other purpose but to humor/placate their small children.

Good question, Nap--I would answer, yes, even tho many (most ) of my own prayers have either been "unanswered" in my reality, or not "answered" as I thought they should.

I would still believe merely because I have life, can see, walk, think, and love.

Which brings me to my next question: Can you think of any circumstances, any at all, that would leave you without your belief?

In all honesty, yes.
To quote from the great Hoosier poet Max Ehrmann--

"For all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world."

Desiderata

I'm going to take that yes to mean that you couldn't ever bring yourself to disbelieve in God.

Now, recent scientific experimentation has brought up the possibility that the human religious experience is controlled by a certain part of the brain. By turning off that part of the brain, you might find yourself without the constant reassurance you get every day that God is there, watching over you. There is a very good chance that after, say, a few years of that, you may well begin questioning your faith.

There's also the possibility, again experimented on, and failed to be disproven, that religious belief is in fact heritable, that those parts of the brain that give rise to religious belief are in fact more active in certain parts of the population.

How would it make you feel should these things become general knowledge? Quite naturally, as you said, you would hold on to dear life to your faith, even under what you would perceive as a constant attack to your faith. How would you plan on holding on? Would you get more and more radical and hardline religious? Would you bow to conventional pressure and keep your faith to yourself?

Also studies have shown a negative correllation between religious thought and IQ. Should again, such a thing become generally accepted, would you encourage parents to select against religious thought in the genes of their offspring, in order to increase the possibility of them being highly intelligent? Could you even bring yourself to accept the idea that IQ is in fact negatively correlated with religiousness?

Hmmm...interesting stuff.
Can you please provide some links to websites (or books) where I can read up further on this?
Thanks.

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"Also studies have shown a negative correllation between religious thought and IQ. Should again, such a thing become generally accepted, would you encourage parents to select against religious thought in the genes of their offspring, in order to increase the possibility of them being highly intelligent? Could you even bring yourself to accept the idea that IQ is in fact negatively correlated with religiousness?"
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Would I encourage parents to follow that suggestion?
No.

Heh---Knowledge may be power, but ignorance is bliss.

'tis better to be (or appear) dumb and happy, than smart and miserable, as I believe Shakespeare said once ( or something along those lines). Speaking personally, I know many highly intelligent atheists, but few seem happy. This is from my own personal viewpoint. I'm sure there's many a happy atheist out there somewhere.

IQ and religion negatively correlated: (http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001527.html)


The blog I've been reading to keep up on this stuff: (http://futurepundit.com)

Adult religiosity heritable: (http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002666.html)

Religiosity genetic (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7147)


Evidence for a God part of the brain: (http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003848.html)

Your Santa analogy is flawed.....BADLY.

One case --the one this thread is about-- has people sending letters ---written by people who are dead serious about what they are putting to paper--to an actual person with a real address (in care of an imaginary being, but one who they actually believe exists).

The Santa example has people sending letters --whose contents are pure fantasy-- to a phony address in care of an entity they are fully aware is nonexistent for no other purpose but to humor/placate their small children.


Of course it’s flawed, it’s a bad analogy, I gave you what I thought was a better one, but you didn’t like it. In either event, it’s not really that big a deal.

That is one way to look at it, you could also be a realist A consider the A typical other options of alcohol, addiction, desperation, or the barrel end of a gun. Can you really fault them for turning to ‘God’? After all, that probably best defines the ‘God’ that everyone believes in, rather than the more controversial ones of personification.

IQ and religion negatively correlated: (http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001527.html)


The blog I've been reading to keep up on this stuff: (http://futurepundit.com)

Adult religiosity heritable: (http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002666.html)

Religiosity genetic (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7147)


Evidence for a God part of the brain: (http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003848.html)


IQ is an overstated assessment of what most people would like to refer to as ‘intelligence’, and I am excluding the concept of ‘wisdom’. Specifically, the higher the IQ deviation, the greater the incoherence between the individuals. It is also an incorrect assertion to assume that two individuals with higher than average IQ’s could lessen the deviation. In fact, the single greatest flaw to the whole concept of IQ, is the standardization of the testing.

I'm not a big fan of the concept of IQ either, but it's what we as a society have to work with.

It doesn't really matter what is true and what isn't true. What matters is public perception. If scientists can show that IQ, whatever it means, is positively correlated with economic success, and negatively correlated with religiousness, then once genetic selection of offspring becomes widespread, people may well have a choice between religiousness and whatever it is IQ measures.

As it is, I doubt the highly religious will take much advantage of genetic selection. They'll just have their kids like they always have. Religious populations are by far outbreeding the irreligious ones. Society may well organize itself into a two-class society where the smart, areligious people are ruling over the masses of happy, ignorant religious folk.

Who knows, both classes may well be happy with that lot.

whether or not the people wanted their letters to be read... they were read... so oh well.. life goes on.. I dont see how all these other arguments spawned out of this thread...