Prayer

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apexcone

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Some thoughts on prayer

"If" God responds and intervenes on our behalf,does he do this because we prayed or would he intervene without us praying. If he only intervenes because we asked, he would be a bit like a father who observed his child struggling but failed to respond to the child's needs until he was asked. What sort of father would he be?
 
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Belief and spirituality... All thoughts welcome and correct based on your personal beliefs and spiritual thought....no text or dogma or discipline rules.
 
Having no gods, I understand the act of prayer itself as the intervention, the answer: Surrender to uncertainty, acknowledging my limits, reflecting and contemplating my situation.
 
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Um! Isn’t prayer action, concern, involment, compassion, support and being there....
 
wil said:
Belief and spirituality... All thoughts welcome and correct based on your personal beliefs and spiritual thought....no text or dogma or discipline rules.
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More rules
 
apexcone said:
Um! Isn’t prayer action, concern, involment, compassion, support and being there....
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Sure, why not. If it works like that for someone, more power to them.

Action is something I would place outside the realm of prayer. Prayer is not about me or anyone else.

But involvement, action, support, and so on, are about me and fellow human beings. I pray in solitude. Maybe that's where I differ from you? I can imagine all of these being part of communal prayer.
 
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apexcone said:
Some thoughts on prayer

"If" God responds and intervenes on our behalf,does he do this because we prayed or would he intervene without us praying. If he only intervenes because we asked, he would be a bit like a father who observed his child struggling but failed to respond to the child's needs until he was asked. What sort of father would he be?
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Because I have free-will. God cannot intervene unless I invite 'him' to. It's a spitual law. May not like it, but that is the way it is: God makes the laws, not man. They don't have to rational to man.

And the response may not be what I immediately desire or expect. The response may be to start helping me strip away a lot of of the weight of physical and emotional baggage that's hindering my soul. It can be quite a painful process. But God wants my spirit free.

God will help me a lot, very much, in this world if I ask but it's always my soul 'he' is concerned with. All religions tell man to turn away from material things to gain freedom of soul.

So the angels may weep for me if I do not invite them to my aid but they won't be able to do anything for me.

IMO.

*post edited
 
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Cino said:
Sure, why not. If it works like that for someone, more power to them.

Action is something I would place outside the realm of prayer. Prayer is not about me or anyone else.

But involvement, action, support, and so on, are about me and fellow human beings. I pray in solitude. Maybe that's where I differ from you? I can imagine all of these being part of communal prayer.
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Prayer is not about me or anyone else.

I agree with everything else, except that. Prayer is me reaching out to God?
 
RJM Corbet said:
Prayer is not about me or anyone else.

I agree with everything else, except that. Prayer is me reaching out to God?
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Surely you are.

I have no god to reach out to.
 
It just occurred to me that free will and surrender are the proverbial two sides of the same coin.
 
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RJM Corbet said:
Oh, now I understand. ;)

EDIT: IMO you do. When you do.
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It is more like paying respect, paying attention, devoting myself to acknowledging the contingency of existence. That kind of outreach. So if that's the spiritual gesture you mean, then that's what I mean as well.
 
Cino said:
It is more like paying respect, paying attention, devoting myself to acknowledging the contingency of existence. That kind of outreach. So if that's the spiritual gesture you mean, then that's what I mean as well.
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Not really.

'... paying respect, paying attention, devoting myself to acknowledging the contingency of existence. That kind of outreach ...' to the bank manager isn't going to get me a loan, lol.

From another thread:

RJM Corbet said:
"... who constantly thinks of the joy of God, who constantly prays to Him ... once you have heard the voice of God you ... will know God as immanent and transcendent, personal and impersonal. You will worship Him as Spirit, and love Him in manifest form as the Nearest of the near."
Yogananda Paramahansa: Personal and Impersonal God (The Divine Romance)

"... True prayer is an expression of the soul, an urge from the soul. It is a hunger for God that arises from within, expressing itself to Him ardently, silently ..."
http://yogananda.com.au/pyr/pyr_prayer.html
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RJM Corbet said:
Not really.

'... paying respect, paying attention, devoting myself to acknowledging the contingency of existence. That kind of outreach ...' to the bank manager isn't going to get me a loan, lol.

From another thread:
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I don't pray to bank managers! It would only encourage them.

The soul hunger ... yeah. But for the past several years now, I've been doing the dishes. Time will tell if the hunger returns.
 
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Im sure prayer means many different things to many people. From what I can gather in this post it would appear that many folks believe in a Theistic God who gets personally involved when asked. Surely that must mean that God's power is in the hands of people and his movements are subject to us. I'm struggling with the concept that this Theistic God who wants to get involved but doesn't until we asked, is in my opinion a week argument. As I understand it the christian doctrine suggests that God is a father, what sort of father only gets involved when he's asked, so he sits back and observes evil happening knowing he could do something about it and chooses not to, and people believe this stuff. Fortunately for us Newton & Darwin proved based on the laws of the universe that no such Theistic God exists, let alone one who steps in and out of a multi dimensional universe.

No, for me prayer is much more than that, and doesn't include a Theistic God who may or may not show up.
 
apexcone said:
No, for me prayer is much more than that, and doesn't include a Theistic God who may or may not show up.
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There is prayer with the intention to worship.

There is prayer with the intention to encounter.

There is prayer with the intention to petition.

Maybe more types, those are the ones that came to my mind.

In my experience, very much subjective, they don't mix very well, i.e. petitioning God for an encounter with him won't work.

So what is prayer to you? I understand the Father aspect of God is not your favorite one. If you do, whom do you pray to, and how?
 
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Cino said:
There is prayer with the intention to worship.

There is prayer with the intention to encounter.

There is prayer with the intention to petition.

Maybe more types, those are the ones that came to my mind.

In my experience, very much subjective, they don't mix very well, i.e. petitioning God for an encounter with him won't work.

So what is prayer to you? I understand the Father aspect of God is not your favorite one. If you do, whom do you pray to, and how?
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Great question. Prayer to me a place of transcendence and meditation it's a place of seeing beyond my own human weaknesses, prayer for me a place of aligning myself with a greater consciousness. Being alone, shutting out the noise of the day are great places to start. I dont pray to a "whom" as you asked, to do so what indicate I embraced the Theistic God which as you know I consider a myth invented by men seeking validation and a sense of purpose.
 
apexcone said:
Fortunately for us Newton & Darwin proved based on the laws of the universe that no such Theistic God exists, let alone one who steps in and out of a multi dimensional universe.
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Hang on. Newton was a staunch believer to the day he died. Darwin's natural selection does not disprove 'a theistic God'. It just suggests how God got it done. The Catholic Church accepts both Newton and Darwin. And where did these 'laws of the universe' originate anyway?

apexcone said:
From what I can gather in this post it would appear that many folks believe in a Theistic God who gets personally involved when asked. Surely that must mean that God's power is in the hands of people and his movements are subject to us
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How do you figure this?
 
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apexcone said:
what sort of father only gets involved when he's asked, so he sits back and observes evil happening knowing he could do something about it and chooses not to, and people believe this stuff...
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These are spiritual laws. We perceive via nature. Through a glass darkly. Plato's cave, etc.

All our senses and capabilities are natural. You can't reason what the divine might or might not do, via natural judgement. It's like reasoning from a flat two-dimensional page what might happen in a three-dimensional room, etc.

Anyway he wouldn't put his children in a cage to prevent them coming to any hurt by exercising their free-will out in the in the world.

*post edited
 
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