Is it normal for a church to pray for people to be harmed?

No it is not normal nor is it a Christian thing to do.

Normal for a dysfunctional Church run by dysfunctional people.

The Church of Satan? That’s what they are, I don’t give a damn what they call themselves.

Not at all. Any church praying for harm, would be abnormal in my area.

What I hear is “Lord show them the error of their ways, so they may turn to you.” Truth is one thing, harm is very different.

There are lots of prayers in the Old Testament Bible that do exactly this, but things changed with the coming of Christ.
Now, we pray for our enemies.

Yes. They did it in the 12th century. And most likely they have continued to this day to do it.

Not for any church that I know of. Prayer can be condescending and patronizing sometimes, but not outright malicious.

During the Civil rights movement many preachers, on both sides, preached anger.

A bit unrelated, but I also notice a lot of resentment in Buddhism practictioners too. They don’t specifically pray for harm, but there are just so many anecdotes of people who just flat out die for no good reason because they were bad people in their previous life circulating around. And the most hilarious and disgusting thing is, most of them don’t even know who they were in their previous life, and some of them are even good people in their current life.

I once came across a YT video supposedly of a Buddhist monk preaching. And right off the bat I heard an anecdote of a man being dragged into Hell and he was facing the Lord of Death. The only crime I could figure out was that he refused to repent aka converted to the religion. They did mention him doing “bad things” but I never for once heard what that was. The man was all horrified during the “trial” and kept begging the Lord to spare him because he knew he was doing “bad things” but he was just too stupid to “repent”. The Lord decided that he should die again because he didn’t repent while he was still living. The story ended with the man being dragged away to the “execution ground”. I was so disgusted that I turned off the video. What the monk said afterwards didn’t matter to me now.

So yeah, I believe that anyone with an ugly enough heart can pray for harm, no matter what religion that is. And anyone who uses religion to wish harm on others deserve a special place in hell.

Well the Christian Church does teach “an eye for an eye”. Don’t know how that fits in with ” love thy neighbour”. Probably means that you should feel love for your neighbour as you are poking his eye out! Hallalula

@omtatsat from what I understand, “an eye for an eye” is mostly an Old Testament thing. “Love your neighbor” is something the New Testament leans onto more. Jesus wanted a gentler and more compassionate view of Christianity, something that the people he was against seemed to lean onto. I notice that many non-violent Christians lean more on the New Testament than the Old one, and doesn’t stand for the “eye for an eye” concept.

FYI, this is a quote from Jesus about the “eye for an eye” thing (Matthew 5:38–40, New International Version):
You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

So yeah, I don’t think I can really agree with your interpretation.

I don’t think Buddhisim is a religion. They don’t have gods.

The church might not. But it’s members for sure.

Buddhism is a supernatural world view, with a core belief of reincarnation. It’s a religion.

Who is the Buddist God?

@Dutchess_III Buddha. In many branches of Buddhism, Buddha is the ultimate God that gets to decide what happens to people. He decides who is to receive the better deal in the reincarnation cycle. People don’t just reincarnate for no reason.

There is a reason why you will come across altars of Buddha in Buddhist temples.

I thought Budda was just a prophet

At least in many Asian countries he is a God and not just a mere prophet.