Comments on: Do You Accept Prayer from Others?

By: Polly

Polly — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:43:17 +0000

I seem to remember answering this exact question in another thread.
So, I’ll just tack on my lame attempt at humor, instead. (rhyme not intended)

His second e-mail, once we knew my daughter was OK, praised God for this happy outcome.

My 2 word response to such an e-mail would’ve been a reiteration of his sentiment translated into another language:
“Allah Akbar”

That should keep him at bay.

By: Alice

Alice — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:30:46 +0000

If someone asks if they can pray for me, I usually say, “If you want.” I’m not sure why they need my permission… I mean, they don’t. So I suppose they just want me to be aware that I am being prayed for. Do you think it would be rude for me to respond, “Well, if you REALLY want to help, you can bring over supper some time this week,” or something similar?

By: N

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:48:28 +0000

You are absolutely right, hoverFrog. I think that when I pray (or meditate) for someone else, it is 1) out of habit (I believed wholeheartedly in prayer for a looooong time), and 2) focusing on my hopes, or gathering my concerns so as to better deal with them. It surely does no good for the person for whom I’m praying, except maybe to lift their spirits to know someone is concerned and thinking about them.

By: hoverFrog

hoverFrog — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:37:37 +0000

Pray = meditation then N? You meditate for yourself to order your own thoughts. Meditating (praying) for another is pointless.

By: N

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 03:49:19 +0000

This will seem very self-centered and relatively unrelated to the original post. But, I am going to share it anyway. I hope you don’t mind.

As one who is teetering on the uncertainty between faith and reason:

As a Christian, all my life I believed that prayer had a very real affect on what happened in this world and how things in our lives would turn out. There have recently been many things that have caused me to seriously question that sentiment.

For instance: the little girl with cancer that everybody prays for. The church prays for her desparately, and she gets well. Okay, so this all-powerful God heals this little girl because we asked for it hard enough. If he had the power to heal this innocent, precious little girl (whose healing I am IMMENSELY grateful for – to the doctors and scientists who developed the treatments which led to her cure; but I digress), then why on Earth would he hesitate to heal her if WE didn’t pray enough for her?? You’re kidding me, right? God won’t heal unless we pray? Even though he is all-knowing and all-powerful, we still have to ask? That makes no freaking sense to me.

So, that being said, here are my thoughts on prayer.

Even after the last thread of faith is ripped from me (and it’s going fast…), I believe I will still pray.

Prayer, to me, is a time to reflect on the things in this life for which I am grateful. I am very blessed (whether that blessing comes from a God or from a combination of happenstance and life choices). I have many, many things that I don’t deserve. For those things, I will always take a moment at night, before I sleep, to reflect. I think that is healthy.

Also, prayer is a time for me to reflect on those things in life for which I hope. Some of those things I have control over, and prayer helps me focus on them and prepares me to do the things necesarry to achieve them. Some of those things, I have no control over. Prayer simply allows me to gather my concerns together in my mind, and contain them so I can manage the concern.

So, whether a higher being hears my prayers, or whether they are simply a series of chemicals passing through the synapses in my nervous system, they serve a purpose for me. Therefore, even after I have crossed the line from agnostic to atheist (if that day comes), I believe I will still pray.

By: Aimee

Aimee — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:39:15 +0000

Unspeakably Violent Jane said, I don’t mind that nearly as much as some joker thanking God for a meal in the presence of the person that slaved away to prepare it. Now THAT pisses me off.

You and me both. I can’t stand that! That is the part I dread when it comes to big dinners and holidays with the in-laws. I’m thinking, “WTF”, I didn’t see jeebus in here basting the turkey or mashing the freakin’ potatoes!”

By: Aimee

Aimee — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:32:27 +0000

My grandma just died yesterday and have already been told by my mother in law that she will keep me and my family in her prayers. I just say thank you even though she knows I don’t buy into any of that. More or less “It’s the thought that counts” kind of mentality.

*Sort of along the same lines:

Almost 2 years ago now my son was riding an ATV, took the corner to sharp, slid and hit a barbed wire fence. Another half a milimeter, he wouldn’t be here. His neck was cut open by the fence, he had on a helmet, and a leather coat with a high collar. This was in a small town that didn’t have a surgeon that would have been able to help him had he cut his artery. If you tell this to a religious person, they automatically say that a guardian angel, or god was looking out for him. IMHO, he was just especially damn lucky that day.

By: Miss Poppy Dixon

Miss Poppy Dixon — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:49:08 +0000

Often when something bad happens, and I’m discussing the issue with someone in my family, there will be a long pause, and I’m pretty sure they’re waiting for me to say “I’ll pray for you.” I’ll say, “I’ll keep you in my thoughts,” or ask if there’s anything I can do to help, or in one case when the circumstances were especially ridiculous and self-inflicted, I told my Bible-banging cousin I’d drink to the success of her procedure. Talk about a long, awkward silence.

By: seebrentwrite

seebrentwrite — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:20:48 +0000

Spirit found me. I cannot explain what it is, only where it has taken me. I can no longer return to the hollow place.

By: Jeff Satterley

Jeff Satterley — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 05:25:17 +0000

A lot of people have made this point, and I think it’s very interesting. It’s obvious that the real value of prayer is that it helps the pray-er, not the pray-ee. It helps that person deal with the fact that they can’t do anything to directly help those for whom he is praying (or at least they don’t know of anything they can do which actually helps). It’s one of many psychological responses to the fact that we humans are helpless to do anything to escape all of the reminders of our mortality in the world.

This is my basis for taking most offers of prayer in stride, because I know that everyone, the religious and secular, submit to these psychological urges, even though they are generally irrational and unhelpful to everyone else. I am not immune from this, although I do believe that studying psychology and these phenomena, which I have, allows me to be aware of some cases when I am acting this way, and curtailing this if it somehow harmful. So I try not to blame others for their subconscious actions.