Praying

I remembered just now I used to pray every night before sleep. At home, or camping, or at slumber parties, anywhere. I started at age nine, and I don't know when I stopped. It's odd, because it was such a huge thing for me, that I don't remember how or when it tapered away. It must have been before I decided I was an atheist.

At any rate, I haven't said a prayer in years. If someone said, "Pray for me," as a serious command, I don't think I could act on it. However, it strikes me as quite a profound thing, when done in quiet contrition or communion. For me it was always very lonely – Stevie Wonder sang about "the only free psychiatrist who's known throughout the world," and that's a large part of why I did it. I didn't have any confidantes or a therapist or anything, and it was the only arena I had to express the crushing cruelty of life. I deliberately remember starting this out of frustration at the news, at age nine – starvation in Somalia and lots of floods in the midwestern U.S. All so heartbreaking and all so unchangeable. I still feel that heaviness sometimes. I guess that's when I talk to ILX. lol?

So I know it's a deeply personal thing but it would be interesting to talk about it.

I got a living will to fill out in a finance class, which had a lot of check boxes of various requests if you're in a vegetative state (so to speak). I was very, very pleased to see there were options to select people "not to pray for me." I checked that box hardcore. I mean obviously you can't stop people from praying but it's nice to know my comatose body won't have aging Mormons putting their hands all over my head and "blessing" me. It's things like this that make me think maybe I am a contrarian ass.

Funny -- I was just reading this link a friend posted elsewhere and while the connection's more general, still:

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2009/08/bait-and-switch-of-contemporary.html

I was raised Catholic and believed in god until around the age of 11 or 12 but I have no recollection of every having prayed in earnest.

Recite the Our Father and the Hail Mary? Thousands of times, ever thought about what I was saying? Noooo.

The last thing I prayed for was to be a normal height, because I was the shortest kid in school, and to not feel out of place all of the time, because I was always feeling like I would never be comfortable.

Now I'm an average height but with a bell curve breaking volume, and I feel so flat and dead I can barely stand it. I guess I got what I deserved, and the poetic justice of my life is the only argument for god that I can manage to find.

The idea of "working on a relationship with god" (something I tried very hard at) was always confusing to me. This because you can do all the talking and praying and thinking about it you like & you're never going to hear anything back from god. The relationship stays the same from god's direction no matter what. I should have liked very much for maybe god to try & work on our relationship a bit, eh?

I used to pray really hard, late into night. And looking back, there's something so himan and beautiful about it that I miss.

Himan = human, not hymen

i pray all the time - nothing particularly formalized or addressed to 'god' but more like requests i send out in my mind. i think it gives a feeling of control sometimes in a situation... i mean, feeling like you ~can~ ask for something, for some kind of help, for something specific to happen, gives you that sense that the outcome of a situation is somehow within your power, even though it often isn't. if that makes any sense at all.

i guess that goes for religion in general, tho

My seminary teacher talked about "wrestling" with god in prayer – this visceral trying I used to do.

As a young girl I was quite manipulative with praying, too – if ever my parents were fighting I'd make sure to leave my bedroom door open & pray really audibly. "Dear father in heaven, PLEASE don't let mom and dad get a divorce! Pleeeeaaaasse..."

Timely thread, though. Just yesterday I was thinking about how the only thing I miss from religion is praying.

I was very heavily into AA for several years, which helped me recognize the purpose and utility of prayer in a way religion never had. The idea was to turn over the worries and problems I couldn't control, and to ask for the power and direction to do what needed to be done--basic serenity prayer stuff. Also, no praying for stuff or results, and wrt others, praying only for their happiness (esp. people I was pissed at). And despite my agnosticism, there was some psychological/spiritual/whatever effect--largely of taking myself out of my own way--that I got in return. I haven't prayed like that for a long time, and I feel like I should get back into the swing of it.

I pray a lot. Not to or for anything specific, but as a way of expressing love and thanks to whatever it is that's made my life possible. The prayers consist of little more than repetitions of "thank you" and "I love you", along with promises to make the best possible use of the opportunities and gifts I've been given. It feels good, and seems to focus me somehow -- makes it easier for me to do what I really want and to avoid self-destructive traps and patterns.

I don't like the idea of praying for things, of prayer as spiritual begging. But I do like the idea of reaching out to/toward something. Weird part is that I'm basically an atheist, but I cultivate this quasi-animist faith in the intrinsic divinity & beauty of everything. I don't know that I really believe in it, but it feels right and seems to work for me.

We got to pray just to make it today

when our first-born was in preemie intensive care for 3 months, i was very aware that it was one of those situations where people who prayed would pray. but since i'm not a pray-er, and don't have anything or anyone in particular to pray to, i just spent a lot of time hoping, in the general direction of the universe. which i suppose is more or less the same thing, without a name.

i've never minded anyone saying they were praying for me -- even when they meant it as an insult. pray for me all you want. can't hurt.

I think that prayer is a very healthy activity as long as it is not your sole recourse to improving your life or others'. I know that sometimes when I am really in the depths of a deep depression I will remember to pray and pray something like "God, please let me feel less fucking miserable," and it has always helped me; like as if instantly after I say something like that I feel a huge sense of relief and stability. I have talked to others with depression and for some prayer doesn't do much, though so, YMMV...

You've talked to....YOUR WIFE????

you're not the only godless sad-sack I know!

aww

i really never prayed in earnest and whenever anyone says that they are praying for me, it makes me want to puke.

basically, i think prayer should be kept to oneself, as it is supposedly a very personal thing from what i remember hearing in church.

"don't tell me about your religion and i will be happy to keep my atheism to myself"

i prayed a lot as a young fundie. took 'prayer warrior' seminars &c

days like today i consider prayer but end up muttering into the bottle instead. if i'm gonna talk to myself i might as well do something to make me better company.

Lately I have mellowed about religion. It scares me, honestly, because being a mouth frothing atheist defined me as much as being an insecure pessimist depressed woman. I can see how much religion can be a strength in your life. I see it in my grandmother: teetering on the edge of deep depression because she can't cope with aging but remaining alive and strong thanks to prayer and God. And maybe that's what religion is ultimately: giving you guidance in life, being there as a constant reminder, never letting you down. But at the end of the day I fight this feeling because it's a lie, a scam; I do not believe there's anything out there. Although I doubt: maybe it's not about something"out there" but as a "force" to be there when things are good and bad.

Did I ever pray? Fuck no. I loved the stories in the New Testament but did I ever think about God? No. Of course I realize it's a bit of rewriting my personal history when I say I never ever believed. I would have probably said that God existed when I was six but somehow I can't recall any moment in my life where I honestly did.

I know my atheism is also rooted in personal clashes with various people: seeing how bad my grandparents were and thinknig that was so fucked up as they were deeply Catholic.

I realize my atheism and... inclination to be down are very much tied together/

I pray the rosary still even though I don't believe. I will pray any religion's repeated-prayer-on-beads. It helps me for lack of a better way of putting it "get outside myself." And also, I wish I believed, I miss the me-who-believed (i.e., the child who had no doubt), so acting as though I did feels very comforting and centering to me.

Spot on.

i've never been religious and my parents never had us pray, but when i was in 8th grade i had a crush on a boy and i didn't know what to do and i thought i'd do ANYTHING to make him like me back (except like, talk to him) so i prayed to jesus about it just in case it might work, even though i didn't believe he had any magical powers. it didn't work, which is a good thing because that kid was a jerk.

I am a certified nonbeliever, but I went through a period not long ago when I was praying the Lord's Prayer and trying to learn other xtian prayers. I prayed (silently) on these long bus rides I had to take into the city. The Lord's Prayer, The Lord is My Shepard, like dozens of times each.

I guess I was experimenting with the benefits of repeating something over and over to yourself. I liked it, but eventually I got fed up with the presence of the mythical being in there. I guess I could write my own humanist prayers. That might be an upcoming project for the commute.

Study: Third party prayer had no effect on bypass patients, except that patients who were informed they were being prayed for had more complications. Upshot, if you are praying for someone's recovery, don't tell them.

My mom just reminded me that she prays for me every day -- she's one of those people who thinks highly of "laying out fleeces", ie doing the groundwork in prayer and thanksgiving to feel like you've earned the right occasionally to say "OK GOD, YOU'VE GOT TWO WEEKS. MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN." And she's gotten quite dramatic results from that enough times to be absolutely sure that it works.

Given that the results of the "making something happen" are often the opposite of what one expected, I'm a little nervous. It gets the job done, I guess.

The idea of "working on a relationship with god" (something I tried very hard at) was always confusing to me. This because you can do all the talking and praying and thinking about it you like & you're never going to hear anything back from god. The relationship stays the same from god's direction no matter what. I should have liked very much for maybe god to try & work on our relationship a bit, eh?

― we are normal and we want our freedom (Abbott), Wednesday, 28 October 2009 04:10 (10 hours ago)

Yes, quite...I try to pray daily, but I find it hard to believe that it's not just me speaking into the air. I think of it partly as a discipline, that by trying to talk to God and think about how I feel and how I should relate and the things and people I worry about, I will perhaps gain some wisdom and understanding about them, and that is one way God "answers," through growth. My understanding of Christianity has a lot more to do with practice and transformation and hoping than it does with belief and confidence, I guess.

Also, I like when I can pray for someone I'm worried about, when they're okay with it, because when you feel like everything you can do to help is not enough at least that's something more.

i chant the heart sutra once a week or so

I prayed to the Christian God before sleep from age, ooh, eight? till long after I stopped believing in said God (maybe till sixteen or so? Which was a few years after disappointing some family members by saying I had come to a reasoned disbelief). My prayer involved asking for the blessing and protection of my individually named loved ones and nothing else I can recall, probably because for as long as I remember I was terrified at the thought of any of them dying (so I guess in the years of praying as a non-believer I was just being a bit of a Pascal Jr.). I'm still terrified by that thought, but I guess at some point the emotional aspect of the non-efficacy of prayer caught up with the rational one.

I pray early every day. I don't find it lonely at all. If nothing else, it's a time when I pause to remind myself how unbelievably fortunate my life is.

it's weird, my mom was raised catholic (lol oirish) but is pretty much not these days, but will still, when things are dicey, actually call a friend of the family who is Hard Catholic and v virtuous and get her to put some rosaries in.

you know just in case

Have never prayed and find the idea of it fucking bizarre.

Really? Bizarre? I mean, its got a long history to it -- its not like a scrote piercing or something.

My mom is praying for God to produce a husband for me in this calendar year. I'm like, you do realize it's almost November, right? Should I be concerned y/n?

tbf there is also a long history behind scrote piercing

Have never prayed and find the idea of it fucking bizarre.

― paulhw, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:48 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

which is more difficult for you to countenance: poor ppl in libraries or idiots praying?

oh this will end well

i only ever pray while getting my scrote pierced

i can understand why poor people go into libraries- they're warm, for a start.

:D

I got baptized when I was five because I had a life-threatening illness and grand/parents were superstitious about potential dead child heathen etc. At some point my dad wanted to return to Episcopal church so we said grace and 'now I lay me down to sleep' for about a week when I was 10 but all participants lost interest quickly, especially my dad when he figured out that church in question was EXPENSIVE. My mom's family had a few years pretending to be JWs (her mother had a mental illness and they needed home help in the '50s, JWs offered it but you had to join church) so when they turned up to eulogize grandma at her funeral and went over the top, believing members of my family abandoned any particular faith because they were just plain dissatisfied with organized religion and/or God's earthly reps. I went a bit more atheist than my family, who are agnostic until they want to use God rhetoric to gain compliance.

JWs

thought this was some bizarre shorthand for jews for a second.

church in question was EXPENSIVE

Thought churches were free.

never had to build one, i'm guessing

Broke dad and church tithe tango, UH /markesmith

you are writing about love!

jenny you should just hang out with me more
i am v sincere and positive

The place we sing is pretty much "psst don't tell but we're really Episcopalian/Anglican" type of UU church, which is pretty much the best of all worlds afaic

the rev at my uu church is buddhist and was in the air force and has namedropped black flag in service (i may have mentioned this in another thread that devolved into uu talk).

A friend from college messaged me on facebook today to tell me that he has been spending every day praying for one of his facebook friends, and tomorrow would be my day.

I am supposed to tell him what, if anything, I would like him to pray for, or he will just go ahead and pray for me "in general"

What do I say?! I have no idea how to handle this situation. If he would bother to do this, he must take it pretty seriously and I don't want to hurt his feelings.

If you want him to pray for you about something specific, tell him the specifics. If you feel uncomfortable with him praying for you, ask him not to. If you don't feel uncomfortable but you don't have anything specific you want him to pray about, tell him to pray 'in general.' I don't think you need to make it into a big deal.

Ok. I was thinking of just ignoring it and then if he writes again to say he prayed for me in general, I'll just say thanks. The end.

The whole thing kinda weirds me out, but there's definitely no need to make a big deal out of it.

Yeah, it's definitely a weird thing. I've - uh - 'prayed' for people before but I've never told them about it. It seems like a very personal + private thing to me, but I guess there are a lot of religious people who like to wear their piety on their sleeves?

That's pretty much how I feel about it. If there were something I wanted him to pray about, it would NOT be likely to be something I would tell someone who I haven't talked to AT ALL in 15 years. He is a nice person, but I would like to continue to exclude him from my personal private business, please.

I'm not doing a lot of serious 'prayer' these days (sometimes when I go to synagogue I'll pray a little) but I have started wearing tefillin again after a long break. idk, it makes me feel a little better momentarily about all the things i have anxiety about.

how d'you deal with ppl claiming that prayers cured them of shit and shit, i never know how to deal

"yeah the placebo effect is totally awesome"

i prayed for a friend at Lourdes once and my request was granted.

not reading anything into it, like.

nah i'm not out to zing hipsters here this is like seafaring grandaunts and shit that i don't need to keel over or anything

oh and re: what Mordy said i wdn't dream of telling the person concerned

they're smart and tough, i don't look down on em intellectually (doctorates abound tbh) but they believe in gods and keep tryin at me

Part of our awkward thanksgiving dinner was my grandpa responding to my dad's formal announcement that he was gung ho about a new religious movement (founded by my uncle) by giving his own long speech about how PRAYER WORKS. IT REALLY WORKS.

yeah it seems a little bit self-serving/crass to announce the praying at all. Telling me would make me think a whole lot less of your spirtuality, I think.

"Oh no I'm just over here PRAYING for you, nbd, you go on and have a nice day..."

In elementary school, they told us to begin and end our prayers with the "sign of the cross." I would lay in bed at night, wondering if I'd accidentally made the sign of the cross at any point in my life. If I'd done this an odd number of times, I'd be praying most of the day. Every time I thought I was beginning a prayer, I was actually ending an overly long and boring prayer that featured me eating lunch, going to the bathroom, etc. Even worse, I could have been sinning while praying. This thought filled most of my bedtime prayers with dread.

I like praying though, and the idea that a spiritual friend or family member might pray for me is kind of comforting but it would weird me out to be told about it...like why, am I ill and dont' know it? am I a terrible person? do I need saving? it would make me paranoid

if it were me i think i'd wait two months and then give a real short "Hey, sorry I missed this somehow, thanks for praying for me" kind of response. because hey, even if you don't believe in prayer (i sure as hell don't) i guess it's kind of thoughtful of him, albeit in a bizarre way, to be trying to improve your life from afar.

yeah, see, that shit there. angels, positivity, prayers, dreamcatchers, all that fuckin malarkey, what do you do with that? i'm not mr kid gloves with these folks, they're my folks, but it's tough to zing em with this area. They just nod forgivingly and understandingly and tell me i'll 'get there' and deep down i know they think i'll be EVEN MORE DELICIOUS for all my struggling

Z_S, that is exactly what I was going to do. He is a nice person and he's doing this because he thinks it's a good thing to do, I guess. I just hope that praying for me "in general" doesn't include praying for me to be saved because that is so not gonna happen.

pray for u to find a fabulous thing at your next thrift store trip, lol

ask that he pray for your gastrointestinal fortitude

pray for lovely crema on my espresso shots in the morning

make sure that your Prayers are S.M.A.R.T. prayers!

Specific! I would like for the sun to go down again today!
Measurable! When the sun disappears beneath the horizon, it has "gone down"
Attainable! I have seen it happen before and am confident that with the power of God it can happen again!
Relevant! If the sun does not go down, midnight screenings of Teen Wolf could become sub-optimal!
Time-bound! Tonight God, tonight!

so praying for a unicorn with the face of ryan gosling to vaccuum my house or I will die is probably a bad idea

When the sun disappears beneath the horizon, it has "gone down"

can i just Further, because the light from the Sun is refracted as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere, the Sun is still visible after it is geometrically below the horizon.

and the LORD said, 'son you have forgotten the tps report on this prayer mmkay'

i wonder if non-SMART prayers are like god's spam

like he make St Peter sift through them every morning to see if he's missed anything important

LL, as best I can make out prayer is just another form of meditation, where an idea or emotion is made the focus of one's concentration and given concentrated weight and importance. Your friend praying for you is another expression of your friend's wishing you well.

I'd only worry about it if your friend tried to change your mind about religion, or asked you to get on your knees and pray along.

Update: he never wrote back or gave me a prayer update. I'm going to assume he didn't wish for me to be saved and just sent out positive vibes into the universe on my behalf.

This remains hilarious
i wonder if non-SMART prayers are like god's spam

yeah yeah, you want health and prosperity for yourself and your loved ones DE-LEET

"Dear God, get enlargement on your 'church organ' with these pills!"

in a private moment of anguish, god mutters to himself "I fucking hate these people!"

god prays to His god to relieve Him from the terrible burden of humanity

<phone rings>
recorded message: "Hello, this is Mount Olympus Tech Support. We put the IT into deity. Unfortunately all our operators are busy. You are being held in a queue, and are in FORTY FIFTH place. Your call is important to us..."

I'm a pronounced Atheist, yet there was one weird moment in my life involving Prayer. It was when I was living briefly in Brooklyn many years ago. I'd just had a rough week, dealing with intense personal issues (that I shant repeat), and decided to go for a Walk to cleanse my head and stop from crying.

Sidewalks were empty, but kept feeling like someone was following me, so I started walking faster, and faster, and then suddenly I could see someone's shadow behind me. Whirled around to scream "what the Fuq?" at the guy, but he didn't look startled and he said "God loves you. I just wanted you to know...God loves you. He sees what you're going through right now, the pain you're feeling". And then he left.

Now obv I didn't take that to mean anything other than a devout religious guy saw the look of pain on my face and used his spirituality to try and cheer me up, but...damned if it didn't work.

^ the lord working in creepy ass ways, imo. i'm glad it worked for you though!

of course you realize that when you're in hell that same creepy person is going is going to be there in your burning prison hell cell, moaning "we gaaaaaaave you a chaaaaaance to aaaaccepttt the looooooooord, aaaaand nooooow you're baaaaaarfing for eeeterrrnittty...moooooooooaaaaann"

alec baldwin gave him some serious shit that night for not closing

I'm on someone's prayer list.

Braggin. Unless it's a "swift judgement upon my enemies" prayer list. Most Catholics keep one of those, you know.

the only list I keep tbh

I do not pray but I hope, vehemently and out loud. Same diff AFAIC.

I just crush a lot.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/01/21/ask_metafilter_a_decades_long_mystery_over_a_series_of_index_cards_with.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FeD4NlT2Ds