Praying is a Superstitious belief.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH0rFZIqo8A&mode=related&search=

Praying is similar to a Lucky horse shoe nothing but a Superstitious belief.

Enough said.

 

So are self-help and management books such as Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People".

I think it's important to define what you mean by superstitious, and what you mean by prayer. Is it superstitious to pray for personal peace and that prayer making you feel relaxed?

In reality, most people, religous or atheist, are pretty much accepting what others tell them anyway without much personal inquiry.

 

What if you don't ask for anything when you pray? Is that kind of prayer Superstitous?

 

everyone is superstitious, even if they dont admit it...even dogs are superstitious.

 

Parayer does work in some ways, it may not solve your problems in the way you want but can help you come to terms with them.

Its like meditation in a way.

 

sure, but even lucky horse shoes works some of the time.
the implications that there superstition is somehow intrinsicly bad or wrong is the one i find highly questionable at best. at worst it is still mostly harmless.

it is only when belief/superstition becomes a replacement for responsible rationality that it becomes a problem. a problem named fanatacism.

=^^=
.../\...

 

So if superstition is the belief that a magical object is going to influence events, then is the belief that giving your wife flowers will make her happy?

 

when i pray i thank the universe in advance for operating everything from the tiniest nucleus of an atom and the universe inside of it to the expansion of our universe itself, and everything beyond it, and remind myself that nothing will break this perfect cycle, ever. my prayers are always answered in the most cosmically strange ways. praying just helps me remember that there are powers at work, whatever they are, that i can't comprehend, that leave me with a sense of wonder...

it's not superstitious at all. it's actually very scientific when you think about it. it's just appreciation for what we do and don't know, what we can and can't see.

 

multiple studies have shown that plants that are prayed for are substantially more healthy than the neighboring plants that are not prayed for. the more people praying, the better.

if you take the leap into quantum mechanics with me, you'll recall that electrons are nothing more than probabilities; the act of observing them actually changes their location. that is, particles exist in any random spot at any given time and only seem to solidify once scientists look at them. weird. human thoughts have been found to slightly alter the molecular structure of water, causing it to freeze following different patterns, depending on the emotional content of the thought.

i'm not religious and i don't pray. i do, however, believe that our thoughts are far more powerful than we give them credit for. there may be something going on with prayer that we just have not yet been able to explain.

 

Hare Krishna !



"From Gravity :

'Praying is similar to a Lucky horse shoe nothing but a Superstitious belief.

Enough said.' "


Effect of sincere praying is unmistakably felt and understood only when it is sincerely and honestly practised. Now sincere and honest praying means a lot.

Please do not raise doubts in the swaying minds. You will surely know the effect of praying when you honestly and sincerely do it. First of all you must have faith in it. Praying just for the sake of maintaining a daily routine or mere utterances of words does not help.

Love,

Kumar.

 

hare krishna, hare krishna, krishna, krishna, hare, hare, hare rama, hare rama, rama, rama, hare, hare

hooooorah! (that's like amen but more fun)

there are a lot of books that give specific true examples of the power of prayer and positive thinking producing uncanny "coincidences" in peoples lives. what PurpleGel said is completely spot-on true.

 

IMO things like christian prayer which usually ask for something are not on the same level as things like the repitition of mantras such as 'Hare Krishna' etc.

In the latter case, the object is to open oneself to an influx of a higher consciousness, not to ask god for our nutritional requirements, or whatever else.
Mantra meditation is a method of concentrating and focusing the mind and will.
I don't think it has much in common with asking god to look after the queen of england, as xtians do every sunday. (at least in the UK)

 

christianity is big... with a lot of different interpretations. but i think that god isn't judgemental in that it'd not give someone something that was asked for in faith that it would be given. if that makes sense. it wasn't very eloqeunt sorry.

what you said is true, but what about "living by the grace of krishna"? preparing and eating prasadam? i think it's the same as christian prayer; some do it purely out of love for their deity or higher power, and some do it to get the superficial benefits. hopefully the ones doing it selfishly will come to love that higher power through the process and through being submerged in that atmosphere...

there is a quote from one of the conversations with god books... that i can't remember precisely, but it said something like; when you have faith all the material things you've ever wanted will be yours to have, but the irony is that when that time comes they'll be unimportant and you won't want them.

 

Actually, preparation of Prasadam is not something which parallels christian practice at all. Christians ask god for their 'daily bread'. Thats as far as it goes. They also say grace before and after meals.
Prasadam on the other hand, is prepared as an offering to Krishna (or whichever deity). Devotees don't ask for food - there's no need, as nature provides an abundance.
If some seek supeficial benefits from either prasadam or mantra, they are deviating from the path.

The idea is that by eating prasadam, one doesn't accrue karma as would be the case by eating ordinary food. Eating it is said to confer definite spiritual benefits.
I am not aware of any christian idea which corresponds to this.
The consectrated host doesn't fit the bill, as it is not intended as nutrition but purely on a ritualistic level.

I'm afraid I don't get your meaning here. If you mean that all prayers said with faith are answered I'd have to disagree.

I'd just add that there is a huge difference too in the conception of god held by christians and vedantists. In c/anity, there is an absolute difference between the human being and god. Krishna, on the other hand, is a form of the higher self. We are him.
So to serve him is actually to serve one's own higher self, as well as the true interest of all beings, including animals, which c/anity tells us have no soul.

Krishna is not a judgemental god like the jehova of c/anity. A person makes their own existence through their actions, but the thing is all carried out automatically by laws of nature. It is not that god personally 'judges' people. They 'judge' themselves ultimately.

 

not trying to be a dick but i know what prasadam is. i was comparing it to prayer, to going to church, or confessing your sins, to anything a christian does to show their love for their lord. from the outside, someone may see that they're happy and that it seems like nothing bad happens to this person who loves god, so they think they'll get in on it too.

i think that you're generalizing christians a lot, as, like i said, christianity is BIG and very diverse. the christianity i'm talking about is simply trying to live as christ lived. trying to keep christ within your heart. it is a lot like keeping krishna in your heart.

you understood me, but i guess we disagree. i think that faith and love are all you need and you can do absolutely anything.

i just want to add, my spirituality and religion is a grab bag of about every belief system i've ever heard of, and i believe what i believe with all my heart ...

 

okay, i think the reason we're not agreeing completely is because we see christianity differently. i don't go by the bible...

 

I'm quite familiar with some aspects of c/anity, and I know it's quite diverse in some ways. But only really in terms of practice - the underlying beliefs remain the same.
When you say though that it's all about trying to live as christ lived, I have to question that. The central idea which xtians push over and over is that christ's death and resurection is the only means of obtaining 'salvation'. Thus, it tends to be focused on death, suffering etc too much.

The 'imitation of christ' idea is absurd anyway, as how could we imitate the super-human powers attributed to jesus? Also, presumably, jesus didn't need to be 'saved'.
In the vedic literature it is said that for a human being to seek to imitate the gods is simply foolishness.

In Krishna Consciousness (not BTW my own path) there is no such need for a sacrificial death.
Since there is no 'original sin' it could have no meaning.

 

i have to admit i don't understand the differences in the "branches" of christianity. i have been to a few different churches on a regular basis in the past, but i didn't know "what they were". i think a lot of modern christians, it seems, the ones you're talking about, misunderstood what christ said, or took it too literally. i don't want to call them wrong, but a lot of what they say doesn't make sense to me, and isn't what i believe.

i see jesus as my salvation only as much as i see buddha as my salvation, or any other famous enlightened figure, because they showed humanity what is possible, what we can become. they showed us our true selves, and didn't seperate themselves from us.

there's a thin line between imitating god/s and trying to live like christ. like, in yoga, or meditation, for example. you get (or realize you already had) certain "powers", but you don't become the all of everything, which is god. you are a part of god, which is what you can realize realize through whatever path you take, but you are not all of god because you are still human.

to me, living like christ means love of god, which is everything, and realization of self. if you don't find that, you will "go to hell" because "hell" is seperation from your higher self. so they've got it right, it's just taken too literally.

this is very interesting but getting slightly off subject.

 

Hare Krishna !


From Prismatism...

i think that you're generalizing christians a lot, as, like i said, christianity is BIG and very diverse. the christianity i'm talking about is simply trying to live as christ lived. trying to keep christ within your heart. it is a lot like keeping krishna in your heart.

you understood me, but i guess we disagree. i think that faith and love are all you need and you can do absolutely anything.

i just want to add, my spirituality and religion is a grab bag of about every belief system i've ever heard of, and i believe what i believe with all my heart ...

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Dear brother,

Thank you so much. Your words go deep inside my heart, they are so wonderfully beautiful. It is all about that only.
Keep it up brother.

Love,

Kumar.

 

Since you're finding this interesting......

Your own view is your own view. And I can see where you're coming from. I'm not simply trying to be negative here though - I think there is an important issue.
For an 'orthodox' christian - catholic, anglican, eastern orthodox, even methodists etc, the central thing is christ's death. This is not only true of modern xtians, but is intrinsic to it since the early days of St. Augustine, and through the middle ages. Even the reformation did nothing to change this absolutely central doctrine.

The general line runs something like this: God created adam a perfect being and placed him along with Eve in eden, commanding them to obey him and not eat the fruit, under penalty of death. As we know, they did eat it, and thus commited the 'original sin' with which all of mankind was subsequently tainted.
Instead of death, the punishment was banishment from the garden, and presumably also from the presence of god, to whom they had become abhorent.
Jesus death on the cross is seen by c/anity as the effectual punishment for Adam's sin. In a lot of medieval xtian writing, jesus is referred to as a 'second adam'. Christ died in his stead, and thus for those who believe, the stain of original sin is removed. Those who don't believe are all damned because of original sin.
That is the basis of all xtian theology, other than the works of a few ancient gnostic sects who were persecuted out of existence by the church.

To my mind, it is a primitive myth which justifies a cult of sacrifice which xtians today still believe they carry on, although by proxy, so to speak.
It means that ultimately, one has to believe in a god who is judgemental and demands a bloody sacrifice to appease his wrath. Furthermore, this god of love has built an eternal furnace in which he will punish for ever all who don't believe.

It may be that c/anity once served a useful purpose, but I think that frankly it is just out of tune with the whole mindset of modern times. The surface of it may look ok, but if you delve deeper you'll just encounter more and more medieval nonsense, based mainly on a fearful conception of life, the universe and the divine.

To a Buddhist, it's hard to see what meaning there could be in the crucifixion. Unless you say Christ was a great Bodhisattva - but even then, if so, the message must have become entirely warped, as there is nothing resembling Buddhism in xtian cosmology. 'Sin' in the xtian sense, and 'sin' in the buddhist sense are quite different concepts. Buddhists say sin comes of ignorance, not that it is a kind of inevitable condition based on the actions of a single person or the judgement of god.
Also, the Buddhists in general believe that liberation comes through one's own effort, not the saving grace of a divine being, although that plays a part in some schools.