IS PRAYER USEFUL?

Pick out someone you love -- and who loves you. The greater the bond that exists between you and the other person, the better.

Next time that person gives you a present -- thank them as you usually do...BUT...

...call them the next morning and thank him/her for the gift again.

And the next morning also.

Every time you see the person -- thank them for the gift.

Call them every morning -- and then start calling them every evening -- and each time, start your conversation with this person you love very much and who loves you very much in return -- by thanking them for the present - and for all the other presents they've given you throughout the years.

See what happens.

I don't "ask" for things in prayer any longer but see no thing wrong with that. It's just that some people are so timid, as in begging. Would suggest the asking but also do somethng for yourself. It's also necessary to "take on the feeling" that you already have what you ask for, then let it go. Might have to do this one thousand times, however, but could also learn somethng about mind control.

I meditate because without this exercise all my hates and dislikes march through my mind and I get ANGRY (and all other negatives) and/or stressed out in general. I happen to think people must find answers to these questions themselves. Some people find "meditation" understandable by seeing all of our minds connected and the whole of that connected with the Master Mind, God, whatever. We can commune with this positive force but it does take some practice. Read books.

We can't simply answer your question because we don't know what you know, or do. Tons of books have been written on this subject.

I guess if we all simutaneously prayed for world peace, something might happen just from the mental energy created. If someone is up there, they obviously could care less.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Pick out someone you love -- and who loves you. The greater the bond that exists between you and the other person, the better.

Next time that person gives you a present -- thank them as you usually do...BUT...

...call them the next morning and thank him/her for the gift again.

And the next morning also.

Every time you see the person -- thank them for the gift.

Call them every morning -- and then start calling them every evening -- and each time, start your conversation with this person you love very much and who loves you very much in return -- by thanking them for the present - and for all the other presents they've given you throughout the years.

See what happens.

What if the gift is their presence in your life-- just their beauty, intelligence, and joy?
Thanking them twice a day could mean appreciating something nice about them, or saying "I love you" out loud. Not a terrible thing, that. They are a gift. Every day the gifts in our life are new and different.

Appreciating someone every day can train ones mind towards the positive,
whereas saying "I hate your guts you ugly slime" twice a day would emphasize and accumulate negative strategies in your mind. I think it would drag a relationship down.

If anything is worth repeating to ones self (training through habit) I would choose gratitude. It gets me more of the good stuff.

An atheist who prays may sound odd, but I'm not joking. It's useful!
Not everybody takes steps to determine their own mental state,
but some do. An attitude of gratitude doesn't occur by chance.
It's a choice and it takes work.

Okay, try it.

Thank 'em for whatever you want -- but be sure to thank them the way I said. See what happens after you thank them for the 200th time.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Okay, try it.

Thank 'em for whatever you want -- but be sure to thank them the way I said. See what happens after you thank them for the 200th time.

Do you mean thank them by phone only? What is your condition here? What element are you clinging to specifically? Let's be direct and name it. The sameness? The sameness of a prayer judged from your perspective on the outside? That's your assumption about what's happening inside somebody else.


SAME PRAYER, DIFFERENT WORDS
I have thanked people many times a day for their gift -- for them just being real.
I ask them how they are. That is a thank you.
I say "Wow, that sounds tough". That is a thank you.
"Hey, that's cool!". That is a thank you.
"What happened next?" That is a thank you.
I've thanked people 200 times in one hour and they just open up and spill their whole life to the world -- and come away with so much contentment, happiness and energy!

Is that a non-existent, ineffective, or bad thing?
They gave me a gift, and I thanked them over 200 times, with words that reflect all the things I see and appreciate.


DIFFERENT PRAYER, SAME WORDS
You can restrict a prayer to use certain phrases over and over, morning, noon, and night. The thank you can be repeated a thousand times, but it's impossible for it to be the same twice. Each moment is different. Each time, you are slightly different. Each situation is also different.

As a musician, every time I play the same phrase it varies in subtle and very cool ways. The rhythm is hypnotic and transcending. A prayer phrase repeated a thousand times can take someone places they've never been. The slight differences are revealing. Listening to it can be quite pleasurable, at least the times I've heard something 1000 times.

Perhaps it has to do with the listener not participating in what the speaker is saying.


GOD ISN'T JUST A PERSON
If the listener doesn't want to hear, then anything would be annoying. But if God was as distracted as most people, He'd probably *be* a person. It's bigger than that. There is rhythm and repetition in nature all around us, and these are not annoying things. Do you think the universe gets impatient and bored? Does the entire universe as a whole speaks English, eats pizza, or scratches it's butt? Aren't we anthropomorphizing God, to say if your loved one can't listen to a thousand thank you's then God can't listen to a million?

I think the universe can handle receiving a few trillion prayers per second. With one hand behind it's back, and it won't even break a sweat. I guess it takes faith in poetry to believe that.


APPLES AND ORANGES
Spiritual statements shouldn't be taken physically, and vice versa. Maybe that's the issue here.

Prayer takes me places. No, not to a city on a map! I can't point to the spot and stand on it. "Takes me places" is a spiritual phrase with deep poetic meaning. No, not deep like a hole in the ground. I can't measure how many feet deep a poem is. That'd be mountains of trouble for us to do. No, not a hill we can climb in Montana. We can't stand around a physical mountain of trouble and levitate it. Trouble is just a spiritual and emotional concept. A state of mind altered by meditation, prayer, or simply focussing with intention.

Do people believe in focussing anymore? Are various forms of poetry considered anti-agnostic, if they resemble focussed prayer?

Also, how many cub scouts with spoons would it take to build contentment, happiness, satisfaction, or personal energy? Those are spiritual qualities! Even a thousand scouts with shovels can't move a spiritual mountain one bit -- unless they use conscious intent, focus, and exercise: prayer.

One prayer from a mildly focussed person would outperform all the shovels in the world.

The cub scout argument is like a fisherman saying two plus two does not equal trout, and therefore we're certain math is silly and useless. Praying isn't about moving physical mountains. The application and test must be spiritual.



Nagging somebody three times a day seems like a straw-man argument.
Spiritual work rarely operates like that.
Religion on the other hand, who knows? I don't really follow religion.


----------
"Pray for rain. You won't get any extra, but your appreciation, satisfaction and plan for when it comes will be full and rich. The extra won't be needed as much."

No wonder you're sour on both prayer and thankfulness.
To me, every time you smile at something you are thanking it, and the universe. It's called enjoying life! ... So, thanking (in my head) anything in the universe, is a prayer of thanks to God.

CodeBorg wrote:

No wonder you're sour on both prayer and thankfulness.
To me, every time you smile at something you are thanking it, and the universe. It's called enjoying life! ... So, thanking (in my head) anything in the universe, is a prayer of thanks to God.

Good point. But then again, others may still think that, deep inside, fear is your root motivation. And nothing you say may shake their conviction that, somewhere deep inside your psyche, without you even realizing it, fear is the source of everything. That's the problem with pop-psych interpretations of religion: A reductionism that doesn't feel obligated to listen... for it is always possible that we are deluding ourselves.

Of course, one could always turn their argument against their views, and ask them if one particularly strong emotion (fear, anger, frustration, exhaustion, disappointment, lust, etc.) is at the root of their (usually visceral) rejection of God and religion.

And the more interesting question is: Why would "fear" disqualify religion?

Faith occurs in the midst of all sorts of human experiences (pain, happiness, illness, love, marriage, having children, death, finding a career path, etc.). Why would some of those experiences disqualify faith?

Everyone who has spoken about "fear disqualifying religion" please raise your hand.

My Guess: Most humans do all this prayer of thanksgiving stuff because they are terrified of their gods.

Let's look at the reality.

Most of the people discussing this subject on A2K are people who do all this praying to the god of the Bible -- who is arguably the most ferocious, barbaric, murderous, vindictive, vengeful, quick to anger, slow to forgive, petty gods ever invented. Most of the people "believe" that if they do not satisfy this god - the punishment will be horrendous - for some, it means going to Hell where the god will inflict excruciating torture on them for all the rest of eternity.

Anyone who "believes" the god of the Bible is the entity with which we all must eventually deal -- either is terrified of the god or is an idiot.