Is prayer a form of meditation? I meditate with mala beads — something of religious origin — to calm down and focus. It has done wonders for my anxiety and serves no spiritual purpose in my life. Do some people pray with the same intent?
Can you pray without asking for anything?
I’ve always seen prayer as a selfish and confusing act. The “god is good” versus “god is mysterious” outcomes are deceptive. God always gets the credit whether he deserves it or not and if he causes something shitty we turn a blind eye.
Prayer has always seemed so mysterious to me. It seems like a waste of time and mental energy, so I wonder why people continue to do it.
It always feels awkward when I attend an event where a prayer is said. Do they think they’re sending their energy through the air? Are they truly absorbing what is said? Do they really think god hears them? Are they paying attention or just going through the motions? I really do have a lot of questions but I’ll look like an asshole if I ask them.
Have you seen the “spot the atheist” meme on Facebook? It shows a post describing a tragic situation with a long string of comments offering prayers. Then one lone comment says “where can I send money to help?” Seems pretty accurate. What’s the saying? Two hands working can do more than two hands clasped in prayer.
If you have any insight on this topic, please share. I’ve never understood prayer.
The Great Agnostic, Col. Robert Green Ingersol, was born in New York, but started his career in Illinois. The young lawyer raised a regiment for the Civil War. Later, he moved to D.C., across from the White House, and advised Presidents.
During his extremely popular lecture tours around the country, his speeches included many phrases that became well known. One of them was something like this:
Hands that help are better than a thousand lips at prayer.
I’m not sure of the exact phrasing or date, but he died in 1899, so it was several years before that.
So, your similar phrase may have been inspired by atheist / agnostic ideas that have bounced around the Midwest for well over a century. I think it’s great to encounter a connection to an old and noble tradition of thought. Thank you.
Yes, prayer can be a form of meditation, presumably with whatever psychological benefits can be derived from meditating. Other than that, prayer can be a form of virtue signaling; it lets other Believers know that you’re a Believer, too. To a person who Believes in a divine plan, I can see where it might make them feel better to imagine they’ve had a conversation with god.
I grew up in a lukewarm Finnish Lutheran culture. One common platitude taught around here is that prayer has three main purposes:
1) asking help from God*
2) expressing thanks to God
3) just enjoying a connection with God
I suppose this gives some idea of how prayer is experienced by the more devout Finnish Lutherans. Obviously, it doesn’t make much sense to an atheist like me. I once tried bedroom prayer as a kid, and only felt very strongly, unmistakeably, that I was talking to the wall.
I think most people around here would never actually bother with individual prayer. Prayer as a collective ritual appeals to a wider audience, I think, because it feels rousing in a way that doesn’t only depend on your ability to feel God’s presence. People also tend to value collective religious rituals as a part of cultural tradition, just for the sake of tradition. In this context, people tend to not care what words they recite in the prayer, as long as it’s a familiar well-practiced litany.
* Among the less devout, it’s a common stereotype that prayer is only about asking for favors. I sometimes see Lutheran teachers confronted with the question, “Does prayer work?”, and they usually deflect by pointing out that “Prayer isn’t only about asking for things …. three purposes blah blah blah”.
Christian exorcisms employ prayer.
Prayer = formalised wishful thinking.
I always liked this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatures_of_Light_and_Darkness#The_Agnostic%27s_Prayer
@1: Wikiquote says the original phrasing is “The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.”
It can be, sure. Not all prayer is meditation, and not all meditation is prayer, but prayer can definitely be a form of meditation. So…
…yes. I never really did it when I was a Christian, and obviously not as an atheist, but I’ve occasionally done something similar since I ceased to call myself an atheist. I don’t exactly meditate, but occasionally, when my anxiety is overwhelming, I use a song to steady myself. Which song(s) I use depends on a number of factors, but most of them use religious themes and have something of the cadence of prayer about them.
One of my favorites is “As Above, So Below” by Cindergarden, which is about asking yourself who you really are.
Yes. Prayers of thanks are common enough. They’re often part of a prayer of supplication, but not always. Prayers of meditation and prayers of praise are also common. Some people just talk to a deity, sort of like a soliloquy.
When I was a Christian, I prayed continually for forgiveness. I was terrified of going to hell, so I kept up a continuous monologue of “sorries” in my head for everything I did that I thought might potentially be a sin, interspersed with pleas for God to send me some kind of sign that I might be forgiven for my gravest (and possibly unforgivable) sins. I took his silence as a sign that I was probably damned.
When I became an atheist, I talked to God all the time. I didn’t believe anymore, but I was I angry about all the time I spent living in fear, so I cursed the God I no longer believed in. I joyfully sang all the bawdy and blasphemous songs (songs I’d been too afraid to even listen to before) to the heavens, and it felt good. I felt free. That was, I suppose, prayer of a sort.
Now that I consider myself an agnostic theist, I don’t really, truly pray very much at all. That someone may be answering me scares me almost as much as the silence I endured as a child. Don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful, and I don’t consider it a bad thing, but it is… confusing.
Public prayers can serve a lot of different purposes.
At a mixed gathering (i.e. a place where not all those present share the same basic beliefs) it’s often a claiming of territory, not much different that a dog pissing around the edges of the yard. They’re roaring and beating their chests to tell us that they’re in charge. Sometimes in a mixed gathering it can be an attempt at inclusivity, but it’s hard not to step on someone else’s toes in those cases.
In an ostensibly homogenous group of believers, it can help the participants to feel unified as part of a common group. I guess. It never had that effect on me, but it seems to work for others.
As to what the participants believe is happening, that’s as individual as the person you ask. Some people are probably listening, others are going through the motions. Some probably believe a god hears them, some may not believe in gods at all.
When I was a Christian I was usually just going through the motions. I believed, because I was I afraid, but I didn’t see the point in speaking aloud to a being who supposedly knew my most intimate thoughts. I mostly tried to keep out blasphemous thoughts, which was no easy task. As much as I tried to love the Christian God, I never really understood how one could love something/someone of which one was terrified. Of which one was supposed to be terrified.