Methods of Prayer

sometime sun wrote:

Please give a distinction between meditation and prayer, please so I know clearer where you sit and pose.

sometime sun,

Prayer is a conversation with a god and meditation is a conversation with yourself. Over the years, I have decided that position of mind is more important than position of body, so I long ago stopped meditating while sitting on a pillow in some excruciatingly painful position. Instead, I meditate while I'm hiking or running the trails around my home. As a native American once told me "Spirituality is simply a walk in the woods..."

I do not pray, because I have no reason to think, feel or believe that any gods exist. And if I did think they exist, I would not ask them for any favors or tell them what to do. Years ago, after my son was murdered, I attended prayer meetings at a local church. One night, after an hour of listening to those people telling god to go here, go there, do this, do that, I stood and told them they weren't smart enough to pray, that they should go into the real world and answer their own !@#$ prayers. I was asked to leave. I did.

In the first few months after my wife of 40 years died, I talked to her. But I didn't call it prayer. She couldn't hear me. She was dead. If anybody had heard me talking to her, they would have thought I was crazy, but I like to think that my "conversations" with her prevented me from losing my mind. As others have said, prayer isn't something I resist. I'm not crazy. So I don't do it.

--Bill

You're making this waaaaaaaay too hard. It's quite simple, and a reasonable request. I'll demonstrate. Perhaps an example will help you compose my burden.

For you to convince me that (1) everyone prays, and (2) those who don't have to suppress it here's what I'd need you to demonstrate.

A - You'd have to provide a definition of "prayer" that is agreed upon. I'd accept that prayers are a person's attempt (successful or not) at communicating with any supernatural construct (a god, a fairy, a ghost) by either orating or by the idea that one's thoughts can be transmitted mentally.

Similarly...I would not accept a definition of prayer that defines it as any oration or internal thought. You need to define prayer such that it is a specific thing away from other concepts. In other words, defining prayer as meditation only convolute the two concepts and projects your notion of what meditation is onto others.

B - You'd have to demonstrate that individuals that might pray "accidentally" are not doing so out of some cultural specific habit. For instance, I don't believe in a god, but I use phrases like "Oh, my god" because they are common language that expresses meaning outside of the religious context. So if you can demonstrate that people habitually do this universally (and that you're not simply projecting onto the world through your own cultural lens), then you'll demonstrate that whatever the habit of prayer is that it happens in all cultures (keep in mind your original claim).

C - Lastly, you'd need to demonstrate that a person with no concept of prayer or of any supernatural abstract, would pray as defined in 'A' above.

A
R
T

Oops, sorry, I lost track of this thread. I'm afraid my attention on this forum has been a bit haphazard over the last week.

As to your questions (I didn't take any of the above as sarcastic, I've read enough of your posts to trust in your sincerity.):

I don't know that there is a lot more for me to say regarding my prayer activity. Neither the first prayer nor its thankful echo really make me feel more secure. The first just arises from a sense that I have reached the limits of what I am practically able to do in a certain situation, and I pray to exhaust my possibilities. It might imply desperation, but sometimes I do it when I do something as simple as drop someone off at the airport. The strictures placed on the prayer are not something I thought out a lot, they developed organically over time. They are an attempt at intellectual honesty. The last prayer of thanks just seems polite, but I sometimes apologize to chairs I bump into. It would be difficult for me to say whether I am contented or discontented, for I feel both ways quite often. I don't know that either dominates. Likewise, I do not feel any more guilty for praying when I do, than I do for not praying when I don't.

err...Perhaps a bit of background? Like I said, I was raised in a religious household in the US, by two parents of the same faith. Although I think they are both devout, they are also reasonable people who do not tend to moral or metaphysical absolutes. I maintain a very good relationship with both of them in adulthood, and I think they did as good a job raising their children as it is possible to do. I began to have serious religious doubts as an adolescent, quite the norm I'm sure. As my limited, hormone-addled intelligence developed certain inconsistencies within my parents' religion became increasingly obvious, and friction between my personal perceptions and the religion's dogmas slowly wore away my childhood faith. Of course, I make this sound simple, but it was emotionally complex. By this time, I think that it would be simple enough to classify me as an atheist, because I do not find reason to believe in nor figure for god in my daily life or in my philosophy. Any tendency towards militant atheism has long since left me, however, and I see such activity, anti-clericalism and priest-baiting and the like, as the activity of the newly converted or the immature. I see a plethora of asshole-ish activity undertaken in some god's name, but this does not really make me angry at religions much. First, there is no god to blame; and second, every group has its asshole faction to contend with. But by the same token, every group also contains reasonable people like my parents. I just satisfy myself by being angry at the assholes, and it is enough.

Are my prayers mistakes? No, I do them quite deliberately. In fact, I word them as carefully as I would a wish from a cartoon, Americanized djinn, watching for loopholes. Nonetheless, I regard them as about as meaningful as the "Eh!" with which they are often followed instead of an "Amen". They do not imply a belief in anything, just a lot of hope in the moment.

PS: I sometimes refer to myself as an agnostic, usually when I am talking to someone who is religious, to make whatever I am saying seem less hostile. For me there are about as many "good" reasons for believing in a deity or divine principle as there are "good" reasons for disbelieving. (There are multiple meanings of "good" colliding and colluding here.) Faith is a choice. But whichever way it goes, its actual effects are minor at best, and only affect one's actions to the extent to which one allows them to. Sometimes, I refer to myself as an agnostic simply out of respect to my parents. A logical inconsistency? Undoubtedly, but a tolerable one for me.

tears can also be a prayer...both happy for thank you and sad for help

i was sitting with mummy yesterday, whose recovery is coming along well now, and that enough can inspire a silent prayer, when the rain came pouring down in crazy swirling cascades like in a movie...surrealistic, after four months of waiting for relief. it came too late for the last five of us, who died just the day before in our own city. summer started early this year and by the first week of march the sun was already blazing down on us. humidity started earlier than ever before, making it all not only potentially fatal but unbearable for the survivors.

so i said to mummy (in her language, because i speak to muslims as a muslim, to atheists as an atheist, to materialists as a materialist, etc etc...because if you dont know someone's language it is a lot slower), 'Allah has saved us!'...and while the rain began to reach above the ankles of the children playing in the street, washing the dirt into a river of mud, i felt tears trying to come out...how amazing that a rain shower can be such a blessing and save so many lives and livelihoods, while all the rainstorms of my past life went by virtually unnoticed!

whether it was the rain or mummy's laugh, that had been stifled for over a month by a killer disease, long forgotten in the old new world...or the rain;
the entire evening turned into a prayer for both of us.

good luck to you james...you are also in my prayers
salima