Why do people pray?

[Daniel91]

In my opinion, praying is just another way to run away from the problems without resolving them. Someone who prays believe that the "god" will solve the issue for him, rather than he putting some effort in that direction.

I don't pray. But I have the suspicion that praying was never intended as a "fix my problems" type of thing, and more as a means to get people to subconsciously steer their lives into the direction that they want to move towards.
If you constantly focus on what you want, you will base your life around that even without realizing what you're doing. Praying is one way to achieve this for those that run through life mostly unconscious. I do believe that "prophets" and what not actually understood how reality and humans work, but needed a specific way to communicate it to them to make sure that it would be followed.
Unfortunately a lot of greedy shitheads realized that it could be used to manipulate people as well, so religion went down a bad road.

There are a lot of very valuable lessons to be found in any religion though, even if you don't believe in God.

I agree with you.
Prayer is kind of internal reflection, communication with inner self.
It can help us to focus on real issues in our lives and to realize priorities.
Many times, after such internal talks, inspiration comes, or answers to our problems.

[Geraldo]

While the main purpose of prayer may be to help others, it never demonstrably does that. Prayers benefit only those believers who say or hear them. Prayer gives them comfort. It lets them think they have some control over a situation that may be out of their hands. It’s the last resort of people who have run out of ideas, and the first resort of people who never bothered to think about how they could actually fix the problem at hand.

This is not harmless. There’s a very real downside to praying. It lulls believers into a false sense of accomplishment. We cannot solve our problems – much less the world’s – through prayer. We often see people with good intentions praying for victims in the wake of a tragedy, but prayer is useless without action, and those actions make the prayers irrelevant. To paraphrase the great Robert Green Ingersoll, hands that help are far better than lips that pray.

I have no problem with “prayer” as an act of meditation. In fact, many atheists can tell you the benefit of silent self-reflection. The delusion occurs when you think someone else is hearing your thoughts and acting on them.

When it comes down to it, prayer is illogical, even in religious terms. If God has a plan, why try to thwart it? If God can be swayed by prayers, what kind of God would allow the horrors we see in the world? And if two devout believers pray for different things, how does God choose the winner? (I'm sure the San Antonio Spurs would love to know the answer to that.)

Prayer is nothing but a powerful placebo. We’d all be better off accepting that. You are the god of yourself, of you dont do something to change the situation you are in, noone will do it for you.

[yakushev]

Praying is a work that give us strength to do something in our life that we can't do and ask forgiveness in god for do a bad things that happen in our lives. I believe in god that when i pray i feel so bless, i see the presence of god and i'm becoming strong.

You are a true believer. Some pray only because of the habit. Such prayers are empty and useless.
Only that person who truly believes in God can pray sincerely

[jk_14]

While the main purpose of prayer may be to help others, it never demonstrably does that. Prayers benefit only those believers who say or hear them. Prayer gives them comfort. It lets them think they have some control over a situation that may be out of their hands. It’s the last resort of people who have run out of ideas, and the first resort of people who never bothered to think about how they could actually fix the problem at hand.

This is not harmless. There’s a very real downside to praying. It lulls believers into a false sense of accomplishment. We cannot solve our problems – much less the world’s – through prayer. We often see people with good intentions praying for victims in the wake of a tragedy, but prayer is useless without action, and those actions make the prayers irrelevant. To paraphrase the great Robert Green Ingersoll, hands that help are far better than lips that pray.

I have no problem with “prayer” as an act of meditation. In fact, many atheists can tell you the benefit of silent self-reflection. The delusion occurs when you think someone else is hearing your thoughts and acting on them.

When it comes down to it, prayer is illogical, even in religious terms. If God has a plan, why try to thwart it? If God can be swayed by prayers, what kind of God would allow the horrors we see in the world? And if two devout believers pray for different things, how does God choose the winner? (I'm sure the San Antonio Spurs would love to know the answer to that.)

Prayer is nothing but a powerful placebo. We’d all be better off accepting that. You are the god of yourself, of you dont do something to change the situation you are in, noone will do it for you.

To be perfectly fair, logic only holds within fixed boundaries and can never reveal any absolute truth about anything. In order to be able to apply logic, you first need to define a framework. And any sort of conclusion will be limited to that framework, which will always only be a tiny part of the whole picture and thus ultimately break down once you pry deep enough.
Of course that doesn't stop me from loving Mathematics and Science, but it's important to understand that everything a human can create through any method is inherently limited.

I'd also be careful with the "only a powerful placebo" statement. What exactly is a placebo? And why does it work? Some placebos today are more powerful than the pinnacles of modern medication. How is that possible if it's "just a placebo"? What exactly is a placebo and how can it be so powerful?
I do agree with the latter part of that statement though, as in "you are the God of yourself" and would conclude that this is the answer to all the previous questions.

[Xester]

In my opinion, praying is just another way to run away from the problems without resolving them. Someone who prays believe that the "god" will solve the issue for him, rather than he putting some effort in that direction.

I don't pray. But I have the suspicion that praying was never intended as a "fix my problems" type of thing, and more as a means to get people to subconsciously steer their lives into the direction that they want to move towards.
If you constantly focus on what you want, you will base your life around that even without realizing what you're doing. Praying is one way to achieve this for those that run through life mostly unconscious. I do believe that "prophets" and what not actually understood how reality and humans work, but needed a specific way to communicate it to them to make sure that it would be followed.
Unfortunately a lot of greedy shitheads realized that it could be used to manipulate people as well, so religion went down a bad road.

There are a lot of very valuable lessons to be found in any religion though, even if you don't believe in God.

I agree with you.
Prayer is kind of internal reflection, communication with inner self.
It can help us to focus on real issues in our lives and to realize priorities.
Many times, after such internal talks, inspiration comes, or answers to our problems.

Yes I agree it just means that we need to reflect and have some quiet times.  Quiet times that we used to talk with our creator God.  It is good to talk to Him on whatever we want to say like things that happened in your life the whole day.  Thank Him for all the blessings and ask Him for whatever we want and facing.

[Clover_Faith]

God gives us hardships in life so that we people will seek his help, God is just trying to know who among us is the right one to go in his home in heaven. Praying is not actually a waste of time, research says that praying is actually good for health, it's like counseling but instead of saying your problems to the counselor you say it God.

They pray because they believe in God. This is the sign that we love and owe him. We pray to guide us in every moment and every second in our daily activities in every day. We pray him to thanks for what have he done to us for good. We pray him to forgive our daily sin eventhough we do it again and again but he cant tired to forvgive us thats why we owed him and we believe.

[levi11]

If you really think about it, you are being a total douche when you pray for anything

You are basically telling god... that you know what is best, more than god does

By praying, you are saying...
"Hey god, I know you don't want to give me a new car, but I want it anyway"
"Screw your perfect/divine plan god, I want a new car... me me me me me me, it's all about me"

If it is god's will... why are you trying to change god's will?

Do you really think you know better than god does?

Or, are people just selfish and don't care what god has planned?

 Well people pray because basically they acknowledge that there's a supreme among everyone , God. Those reason why we pray is that we ask for anything. To ask for forgiveness, for intervention and much more. It is because our soul and conscience dictates us there's a divine one, that we must love

[msarro]

People pray because they have a hope that God will help them and will fulfill their wishes but the fact is people pray only when they have some difficulties in their life and going through bad phase and when everything is going good for them they will forget to pray.

[Westinhome]

We know prayer its the only weapon for us, Because wherever we go we always pray for our safe. Even in our family we pray for goodness and safety of our family. And also in bitcoin we pray that we can earn more bitcoin so that we have money for ourself and it can help for our needs in everyday.

[memyselfandi]

Because we have faith that God really exist and He always listen to our prayers. Through praying, you can share to God what ever you want to say. If God hear your problems, difficulties in life and situations that will challenge you, He will help you in order for you to make more stronger.

[cyclotronmajesty]

People pray because they have faith in god and they hope that god will help them out and take them out from their difficulties as no one knows whether god exists or not but its a hope that makes people going and hoping that everything will be fine in the end.

[Lancusters]

People pray because they have faith in god and they hope that god will help them out and take them out from their difficulties as no one knows whether god exists or not but its a hope that makes people going and hoping that everything will be fine in the end.

It seems to me that if people spent more time independent solution to their problems then they would have more opportunities to overcome them. Prayers are only distractions. Who can prove that prayer helped at least one person?

[shakeeup]

Reasons why people pray:
- asking god for something(material, safety, guidance, cure, forgiveness, love life, high grades, answers to problems, etc.)
- giving thanks to god for the blessings
- just to show off that they are religious ones
- some are just copycat because they really don't know the meaning of what they're doing

[Pancho95]

In those days when there is much more stress and everything the only exit is God. It is way of living and getting strenght for free maybe. You just asking God to get better in something and trying or trying to get over something. The God already knows our wills and what we want so or He is going to give us that or He will make that we do not want something anymore. It is healthy for our minds if we believe in God and when something happens bad for us we know that there is Someone behind us giving us strength and faith in better time.

[IVNAY ALBIN FAHAD 150]

I think prayer is a way we become aware of and experience God's presence and character. through prayer we meet and connect with God. one key reason to pray is because God has commanded us to pray. do we pray for utilitarian reason because it benefits our physical or can we asy the same thing about our relationship with God.

[savecoin]

to seek the face of God

[ruslangitelman223]

Well, because they believe in God and wait.Something from him and some of the good things in life

[killgald]

To recieved god blessing and good fortune.

[Moloch]

Another lost cause thread

People just see the title, and don't bother to read the OP, even the people who quote it clearly did not read it

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