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Prayers and Calling on the God Card

calamity

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Some people pray over everything. My mom does that. Others never pray at all. I'm sort of one of those people in the middle. I rarely pray, but when the chips are down, and all other options have been exhausted, repeating a good prayer certainly can change the mindset and lead to finding a new solution.

I've played that card maybe five times. Always with a decent amount of success. Three of those times actually led to a highly improbable outcome. So, it's certainly something I would lean on again, if needed.

And, all this gets me thinking. If the ship is sinking, would you pray as she goes down, or would you spend every last breath trying to stay afloat? Me, I'd give it all I had to float. But, while doing that, I might be praying for another boat.
 
I don't pray at all. I try to visualize things I want to accomplish, and I hope for things to work out. But I don't pray that something will happen in the traditional sense of prayer.
 
devildavid said:
I don't pray at all. I try to visualize things I want to accomplish, and I hope for things to work out. But I don't pray that something will happen in the traditional sense of prayer.
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Kinda sounds like a prayer, devildad. Self-reflection.
 
I used to pray. But I don't anymore. However, I have tried to cut deals with God, usually clutching a toilet bowl after a night of tequila shots and bad intentions.
 

The Ruling Class (1972)

Lady Claire Gurney: How do you know you're God?

Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney, 14th Earl of Gurney: Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.
 
calamity said:
...And, all this gets me thinking. If the ship is sinking, would you pray as she goes down, or would you spend every last breath trying to stay afloat? Me, I'd give it all I had to float. But, while doing that, I might be praying for another boat.
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"Sometime around 2.10 a.m. as the Titanic began settling more quickly into the icy North Altantic, the sounds of ragtime, familiar dance tunes and popular waltzes that had floated reassuringly across her decks suddenly stopped as Bandmaster Wallace Hartley tapped his bow against his violin. Hartley and his musicians, all wearing their lifebelts now, were standing back at the base of the second funnel, on the roof of the First Class Lounge, where they had been playing for the better part of an hour. There were a few moments of silence, then the solemn strains of the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee" began drifting across the water. It was with a perhaps unintended irony that Hartley chose a hymn that pleaded for the mercy of the Almighty, as the ultimate material conceit of the Edwardian Age, the ship that "God Himself couldn't sink," foundered beneath his feet. As the band played, the slant of the deck grew steeper, while from within the hull came a rapidly increasing number of thuds, bangs and crashes as interior furnishings broke loose, walls and partitions collapsed--the Titanic was only moments from breaking apart."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCEfqj9pDAI

 
Clearly, this is a time for prayer.
 
devildavid said:
I don't pray at all. I try to visualize things I want to accomplish, and I hope for things to work out. But I don't pray that something will happen in the traditional sense of prayer.
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I never pray for a result. I pray as a chanting meditation, basically a repeating loop of some mantra. It puts my mind at ease. Amazingly well, I might add.
 
can2man said:
I used to pray. But I don't anymore. However, I have tried to cut deals with God, usually clutching a toilet bowl after a night of tequila shots and bad intentions.
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I gave that up years ago, once it occurred to me that I would just do it all over again when I felt better anyway.
 
Prayer is an intentional meditation on the mystery of existence in an attitude of rapport with Divinity, and as such channels the universal metaphysical bond implicit in the earliest religious experience of mankind into the exigencies of present circumstances. Whatever the intention, whether of gratitude or appeal or guidance, the essential element is rapport and its meaning is hope.
 

I'll buy that, for the most part.
 

Just sit!
 
calamity said:
I never pray for a result. I pray as a chanting meditation, basically a repeating loop of some mantra. It puts my mind at ease. Amazingly well, I might add.
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I don't call that prayer. Meditation is not prayer, chants are not prayer.
 
i pray. i go to church sometimes, but mostly i prefer it to be private unless someone has publicly asked for prayers.
 
Prayer is not merely talking or chanting...prayer involves devotion, trust, respect, and a sense of dependence on the one to whom the prayer is directed...the purpose is to convey such ideas as to ask, make a request, petition, entreat, supplicate, plead, beseech, beg, implore favor, seek, inquire of, as well as to praise, thank, and bless...the determining factor to having your prayers heard by God is the heart and what your heart is moving you to do...Psalm 119:145; Lam. 3:41...those who observe God’s commandments and do “the things that are pleasing in his eyes” have the assurance that his “ears” are also open to them...1 John 3:22; Psalm 10:17; Pro. 15:8; 1 Peter 3:12...
 
devildavid said:
I don't call that prayer. Meditation is not prayer, chants are not prayer.
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I disagree. Chants are prayers....in principle. They are an attempt to connect to something abstract, be it a god, the universe, some vibration within, whatever.
 
Angel said:
Padmasana?
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Yes.
I went through a phase in life where I explored Buddhism and in particular - Zen. I went to some retreats and
Sat. Ate vegetables and sat. They discouraged hope, not that hope was evil, just that it took you out of the moment.
I found it wasn't for me but interesting all the same.
 
I've been known to pray from time to time but the movie "Steel Magnolias" tells me that I probably pray the way Ouiser Boudreaux does, even though I'm a man.



What can I say, too many folks in my family who "pray at the drop of a hat".




And we've lost too many "Shelbys" in our family.
 
calamity said:
Some people pray over everything.
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Boy howdy, do I sure know that!
I had a family member run from the room and found them deep in prayer because I said
"God-dangit".
Not even goddammit, I said God-dangit because I didn't want to set them off.
Unfortunately their filter was set to Gosh-Dangit.
I'm sure if I'd said "darn" I'd probably be sent straight to Heck.

It took them twenty minutes, and then I was on the receiving end of a lecture which didn't stop even after I RAN screaming from the room. They followed me all the way down the street.
A friend of mine wanted to go fishing with my family member because he's pretty good at it.
I warned him to NOT say "Oh my God" under ANY circumstances, even if they got a fish hook in their eyeball.

They said it...came back and told me it ruined the fishing trip, and that he started wondering if he could jump out of the boat and swim the 9 miles back to shore.
 

I am living proof there are atheist in fox holes. This boy never prayed during his 2 Iraqi tours. The urge never came over me to bow down to some creator.
 

I hear ya. I'm a praying atheist. It's like a praying mantis, except I don't eat my mates.
 
yankintx said:
I am living proof there are atheist in fox holes. This boy never prayed during his 2 Iraqi tours. The urge never came over me to bow down to some creator.
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Just means that little war didn't really scare ya. Like I said. I maybe prayed five times. I've been in bad spots a few dozen. I'm very selective in my praying moments.

Hence, I'm batting a 1000.
 
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