Heleilu

To all religious people on this board: Why pray? I am especially interested in pagan responses, but I wouldn't mind hearing from monotheists too. I am working on creating a polytheistic culture, and trying to come up with reasons for prayer besides petitionary prayer.

Comquirk

There are but two times in one's life where they may talk to an invisible man and not be declared insane: Childhood, and when praying.

philechat

Prayer can have similar effects to meditation--i.e. some form of mystical experience can come from the intense concentration of an act of prayer. It has nothing to do with God or the supernatural, but is rather psychological in nature. There's nothing wrong with it until we made it petitionary by attaching to it a firm, specific purpose.

And, as a result, it would have an adverse effect--the Buddhist practitioners warn us never to be distracted with our own desires (the desire to achieve a result such as meeting God) in meditation. I think prayer should work the same way if it be practiced.

Psychic

Well I don't think that Prayer can actually transcend to Meditation! people don't usually go that deep in their prayers. well at least not in my life time that I heard of such a thing!! I wonder where can that be found?

I think people start speaking to god in their own rooms or do some bible reading in the chruch, and In Islam prayer is a resciting some versing and other forms of Hadeeth. that's all.

while Meditation is a very powerful mind ability that requires a lot of effort and endurance to learn and to master. so I think putting prayer and meditation in the same sentence is very weird.

I do acknowledge the psychotropic effect of prayer though, but i see more as coming from the belief in a greater creature that has the ability to correct every problem in your life, and you can add to that the calm acceptance of negative life events for being a wise act of god....etc etc.

[edited to fix "....." which were affecting formatting - BJM]

philechat

Actually I agree. I was just saying that for those who did become deeply involved with their religion (nuns, for example), might have similar experiences with those meditation practitioner in the Buddhist schools. I don't agree with most prayers either, thinking most of them petitionary and full of BS "attachment" to God. But maybe among the minority there were people who really can remove the entire "petitionary" issue off their focus and made their prayer into a kind of meditation.

Mystics were a minority even among believers, and mystical experiences do not discriminate between religions (thus even strong atheists could have them). As for the ways to achieve them, the meditation of Buddhist practitioners and the prayers of Catholic nuns (not ordinary believers) both lead to an altered state of consciousness which people then interpreted them along their original religious inclination.

As far as I know, drugs (psychodelics of all kinds) can often have a strong and immediate effect on people, causing these experiences to happen. Some prayers, meditation, magnetic stimulation, sensory deprivation, music, even solving difficult math problems,...etc. can lead to similar experiences.

spurly

Why do I pray? Do I pray to change God? Usually not. Moses was able to change God's mind in Exodus 32, but it is not something that usually happens.

Instead, the reason I pray is not to change God, but to change me. To bring myself more into line with who God is and who he wants me to be. I pray for his will to be done through me. I pray for him to open my eyes to the needs around me that he wants to use me to meet. I pray for comfort and strength and encouragement for people who need it. I pray for healing if it is within God's will, all the while realizing that even Jesus didn't get delivered from death through his prayers.

Kevin

Nowhere357

Here is a thread that explores the subject. I hope you find it helpful.

BTW I'm an atheist.

Psychic

I can't see how praying for these things doesn't fit into "changing god"!

I God's will is taken through you and you happened to help a very poor man on the side of the road, you gave him money, food and shelter.
whom the poor man should thank? You or god?

Psychic

if it gives some momentum to what you are saying, I would add that I am an atheist, and I practice hypnosis trance, autogenic training, and some meditation on daily basis. and I have went through amazing experiences of consciousness. Once I actually heard Music!! our minds are so interact that I think we are only steping in the darkness to understand it so far. books on neuro-correlates of consciousness that I have read show a great advancement, there are lots of working theories now, and It looks very promising, one day we'll be able to compare your pain with mine. and actually now if we the universal pain we talk about, is actaully felt in the same way in different people.

VivaHedone

If there was an omniscient god, of course, there would be no need to pray - he would already know what you wanted.