Comments on: My Look at Prayer http://www.shanebrady.com/2006/02/11/my-look-at-prayer/ Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 5 Dec 2008 10:36:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Patrick http://www.shanebrady.com/2006/02/11/my-look-at-prayer/#comment-33 Patrick Fri, 05 May 2006 17:12:46 +0000 http://www.shanebrady.com/2006/02/11/my-look-at-prayer/#comment-33 Consider prayer in a different light, that perhaps prayer is an exercise for its own sake, rather than intended to produce some effect. For many people-both faithful and not-the challenge of faith is exactly reconciling the desire for a personal relationship with the divine, with a god who is, exactly as you have articulated, beyond the possibility of being swayed or effected in real time. Just as your catholic friends all believed god to be all-knowing, most would agree that his ways are incomprehensible to man: prayer is a personal connection to an otherwise distant god, and its mechanics are beyond our comprehension. A second response to the problem of god's unswayability, is with respect to time. Our prayers and pleas cannot effect a decision that is already made. However, this process of decion-making relies on a linear conception of time. We as humans are bound by time: we hear pleas, then we decide, then it is done. God, theoretically, is not subject to these restrictions; for him there is no past, present or future... no time-conception at all. This obstacle eliminated, it is not so difficult to imagine that what we do in the limited context of here and now, forms merely a piece of the single universal understanding which God has unique access to. There's an infinite number of explanations of prayer and the human relationship to god. I've only mentioned two: the first reflects both one christian perception and an aspect of vedic hinduism (8000 years old...). The second is largely stolen from C.S. Lewis. Americans are among the most religious people in the world, and among the least informed about their own religious beliefs. It's a sad state of affairs. Any position at all, atheistic or religious, is a good one as long as it is informed. Any position taken up ignorantly (even, perhaps, the correct one) is towards no great end. Consider prayer in a different light, that perhaps prayer is an exercise for its own sake, rather than intended to produce some effect. For many people-both faithful and not-the challenge of faith is exactly reconciling the desire for a personal relationship with the divine, with a god who is, exactly as you have articulated, beyond the possibility of being swayed or effected in real time. Just as your catholic friends all believed god to be all-knowing, most would agree that his ways are incomprehensible to man: prayer is a personal connection to an otherwise distant god, and its mechanics are beyond our comprehension.

A second response to the problem of god’s unswayability, is with respect to time. Our prayers and pleas cannot effect a decision that is already made. However, this process of decion-making relies on a linear conception of time. We as humans are bound by time: we hear pleas, then we decide, then it is done. God, theoretically, is not subject to these restrictions; for him there is no past, present or future… no time-conception at all. This obstacle eliminated, it is not so difficult to imagine that what we do in the limited context of here and now, forms merely a piece of the single universal understanding which God has unique access to.

There’s an infinite number of explanations of prayer and the human relationship to god. I’ve only mentioned two: the first reflects both one christian perception and an aspect of vedic hinduism (8000 years old…). The second is largely stolen from C.S. Lewis.

Americans are among the most religious people in the world, and among the least informed about their own religious beliefs. It’s a sad state of affairs. Any position at all, atheistic or religious, is a good one as long as it is informed. Any position taken up ignorantly (even, perhaps, the correct one) is towards no great end.

]]> By: Cadmusings » Blog Archive » GOD or NOT - VIII: Faith http://www.shanebrady.com/2006/02/11/my-look-at-prayer/#comment-10 Cadmusings » Blog Archive » GOD or NOT - VIII: Faith Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:20:08 +0000 http://www.shanebrady.com/2006/02/11/my-look-at-prayer/#comment-10 [...] Shane P. Brady, NOT, My Look at Prayer While twelve miners were trapped in a mine in Tallmansville, West Virginia, family and friends of the miners, as well as the national news outlets, all camped out at the Sago Baptist Church to do what many Americans do during crises: pray. [...] [...] Shane P. Brady, NOT, My Look at Prayer While twelve miners were trapped in a mine in Tallmansville, West Virginia, family and friends of the miners, as well as the national news outlets, all camped out at the Sago Baptist Church to do what many Americans do during crises: pray. [...]

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