Believers: of what virtue is prayer in your life?

Great Debates
21

Highly practicing Jewish atheist here; I still have a slight issue with characterising all religious practitioners as “believers” but I have gotten over it as shorthand for, well, religious practitioners. Jewish prayer doesn’t have as much of a tradition of spontaneous/self-worded prayer as Christianity does (I’ve never experienced it myself although the rabbis say it can be created at any time), and the most value I’ve gotten from prayer has been from the daily and Shabbat liturgies and the berakhot.

  1. A friend once described my approach to prayer as “a mechanism for mindfulness” and that’s the best summary of its function I can think of. Prayer is a reminder for me to be constantly and specifically attentive to the needs of all other people. The words of the liturgy are the same, but nearly every time I go through them I find a different part resonates with me about a friend or acquaintance’s situation, and reminds me to think about what they may need from me (comfort, reassurance that I have their back if they need it, or even something like space and time off). It is also a reminder to appreciate and truly value the beautiful and enjoyable things in life, especially the blessings, which are said over things like food, flowers and unusual/strange-looking people. They are small, everyday things that I might not always stop to appreciate if I didn’t have the vocabulary of the berakhot at my mental fingertips.

  2. Sense of community, not just with my own congregation/movement (which I know uses the exact same words) but the broader global Jewish community (which I know is based on the same liturgy, uses many of the exact same words). This may be less important to more populous religions but for me the feeling of “we’re still here and we’re still doing our thing” is important to feel and reflect on. It is very important and resonant to me to know that I am saying the same prayers on Rosh Chodesh as are the Women of the Wall in Israel, for example. This is especially strong with The Big Ones like Avinu Malkeinu and Kol Nidre on the High Holy Days, the matriarchs and patriarchs in the Amidah, and the Shma.

  3. Aesthetic appreciation. The poetry of the liturgy is very beautiful. There are a lot of ugly and unpleasant things in life – concrete 1960s buildings, delayed trains, bank payments, rush hour traffic – and it is refreshing and lovely to step into that poetry for 15 minutes a weekday and 3 hours on Shabbat. It’s relaxing and beautiful and helps me feel less stressed and anxious about the everyday life-stuff grind.

  4. (related to 1 and 2) The festival calendar contains a lot of seasonally relevant prayers, especially the harvest/pilgrim ones (Pesach/Shavuot/Sukkot). These both help me feel the seasons and rhythym of the year in an emotionally relevant way, and keep me attuned to my relationships with my friends, husband and religious community in a way that constantly reminds me I’m in it for the long haul and need to be attentive to maintaining those relationships in a loving and positive way, or prune those that aren’t making my life better in the long run.

22

It is happening, right here, right now, and its the worst kind of threadshitting.

“I could so easily devour this crowd but look at the restraint I [we] are showing.”

You don’t need your keyboard to pat yourself on the back.

23

I’m a Deist.

Even if there wasn’t something there, praying expresses your hopes and fears and clarifies your mind which if you hadn’t prayed might still stay as subconscious, undirected currents.

As such it can give you psychological relief.
Also it could stop you feeling lonely if you’re on your own.

It puts the world and yourself into perspective, we have compared to ourselves a huge planet swarming with a huge amount of varities of life, huge amounts of power (as in Earthquakes, Hurricanes etc.)…and then you look at the collosal energies and distances of the universe.

And then you think of the invisible, inaudable, undetectable, forces built into the very fabric of the cosmos without which nothing would exist, nothing would happen.
I am of course referring to the laws of Physics/nature/chemistry/evolution/whatever.
And even if you are still really undecided whether or not there is something over and above our universe at least you’ve had a go, something might or might not come of it.
At least you’ve had a go and who knows you might get lucky.

And for all of the Atheists who are going to pipe up with their anthromorphic arguments against there being a god, save your breath.

If there IS a god then its an IT, not a superhuman and ITS viewpoint will be a little more cosmic in outlook then your tired old arguments based on established religions.

If you’re undec