What do you think about prayer?

Question

Please watch this short video about prayer and give me your opinion:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BH0rFZIqo8A

Answer 1

I agreed in the first two seconds.

Answer 2

My friend Jim Harris is in extremis and not expected to make it through the night. Juanita went to see him and thought he seemed to recognize her.

There just seems to be a lot of death around. My friend Tom is going through it with his mother, and is rather upset. She is dying of emphysema and CHF, the result of 60 years of heavy smoking. I don't suppose one could ask for a longer life for a smoker, but she could have made this time easier for herself.

Jeff Davis luckily survived the gunshot wound and is now home, but can't work the job he wanted. He has a plate and screws in his arm. One of the perpetrators, a man already wanted for murder, was apprehended; the other remains on the loose.

We die in the night. We say our prayers if we can, and hope for the best. It will be wonderful if there is a far shore where we will meet again. What will Mozart have come up with between then and now? Will Muffin be there to greet me with barks and kisses?

A friend who had finished his PhD in philosophy at Chapel Hill and was leaving for his teaching job on the west coast stuck out his hand and said, "Goodbye forever." Probably true, though we might have run into each other somewhere, someday. But I returned the sentiment, and I don't worry about him often.

An ancient and wizened Shinto priest climbed slowly up a long flight of stairs to a small rustic shrine among very old hillside trees; there he set about lighting eight hundred candles. As the night gathered about him, he sat before that carpet of flickering lights, keeping watch. He became one with the night and the sea of candles, and kept to his work, which was only to be glad to have been able to see a thing of such beauty and rarity.

He watched, and was glad. Maybe he slept a little, and the candles made their silent song under the ancient trees in the faint hillside breeze. The priest's lights repeated the manner of the stars that filled the inaccessible part of the night, far away but visible.

In the first light of day, the candles, imitating the stars, began to flicker and go out, one by one, until the room was a place of shadows and outlines and the aged priest was finally all alone.

Slowly he rose and returned down the long stairs to his hut, where he took a little porridge and lay down to sleep. Later in the day, he would teach.


Job’s Physics

So I went forth into the bitterness of morning
My heart bowed low and full of edges
By reason of the chastisement of Holy Job

To wonder if it matters whether the spider
Spinning its web knows what it is doing
Or if the quantum nature of light argues

For or against divine mercy


--June 25, 2000

Spiritually mature people know about the void out there. Spiritually mature people know that prayer is the time to become quiet and set aside the pressures and furies of the moment, so that you can become attuned, at least temporarily, to the reality that is inside yourself.

Contemplate what can be known. All atoms are made of empty space and electric charges. That is, nothing. Reality exists on a scale we cannot comprehend, and in quantum physical terms, matter does not exist at all.

Thus it is true that we are created in God's image. God is made of empty space and electric charges, and so are we. Thus we are the same as God. Listen to that reality inside your mind. When you have done so, you have become spiritually mature, your expectations have become realistic, and you have engaged in true prayer.

That is how it is possible to pray while acknowledging realistically that the God of the Standard Cultural Religions does not, in fact, exist. God is imaginary. Of course God is imaginary. That is why you have an imagination.

Pray freely, but remember that real prayer is LISTENING, not speaking.

Answer 3

I feel closest to God when my forehead is leaning against the ground...

Call me crazy or wierd or whatever...

But when i pray, i feel close to something far more powerful than anything else i've ever experienced.

That's just me.

Praying is more than superstition in my opinion. It's a method of attaining peace and tranquility within one's self. It provides a few moments of silence that i believe should be savored... Just because your prayers aren't answered does not rule out God or the power of praying. Perhaps... everything happens for a reason. Fate.

Answer 4

I believe that God does not answer prayers. For me praying, which is something I rarely do these days, is done to help us through bad times. I feel better to say it out loud. Is there such a thing as over analyzing to death? I don't question why it makes me feel better because I don't care why. It just does.

Answer 5

Prayer is much more than asking for things.

Prayer is the elevation of the mind and heart to God:
+ In praise of his glory
+ In petition for some desired good
+ In thanksgiving for a good received
+ In intercession for others before God

Through prayer the Christian experiences a communion with God through Christ in the Church.

"For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy." (St. Thérèse of Lisieux)

"Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." (St. John Damascene)

But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? (Ps 130:1)

He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer. Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."

With love in Christ.

Answer 6

I personally cannot see how anyone could watch that video and come away thinking that prayer works.

However, like the video said though ..."normal intelligent people." Christians aren't normal. They are brainwashed.

Answer 7

I personally know prayer works...don't need to watch a video to tell you that.

Answer 8

Prayers are more than just requests of God. Prayer can be moments of introspection and asking God to help us make the right choices. Prayer can be reflecting on aspects of God -- what He does for us and how we can work together with Him.

As we thank Him for wine from the vine, we remember that He created everything that goes into the wine, but His children have worked with him to produce the wine. As we thank Him for bread from the earth, we acknowledge that He created all the ingredients that made the grain to grow, but man working with Him created the bread for our table. And so it goes, on and on throughout the day. God heals the sick, and man, created in His image, must do all he can to heal the sick. God frees the captive, therefore, man must do all he can to free the captives.

Ask not what God can do for you. Ask what you can do for God!

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Answer 9

IT IS SOMETHING WE GET TO DO AND WE SHOULD NOT TAKE IT FOR GRANTED

Answer 10

When I pray, I talk to my Lord.