Meditation vs Prayer - Page 5

Prayer is talking to God...

Meditation, (Although there are many kinds of meditation) most religious people would classify as listening to God...

from the people i have spoken to that are into these things it seems historically prayer and meditation were conducted and used for much the same goals, more recently in history meditation was undermined by religionists mainly christian as a more sinister ungodly thing. prayer was taken out of the home and put up as something to be led by the self appointed experts in these matters in the forum of a physical bricks and mortar church. the idea i guess was increase dependency on figureheads of the church be more subject to their control. professionals that pray for you for a fee  cos they have a better connection with god have always existed, of course the more you pay the better chance of your prayers getting asnwered.

corporations have embraced meditation on a purely cost benefit analysis cos it does improve productivity and they have implemented the infra-structure and training to enable meditation to occur.

prayer has been subject to expensive and time wasting scientific studies and there is zero evidence that has any effect on the outcome of anything. it can bring hope i guess for people in desperate situations. two famous studies was the power of prayer to reduce crime in DC, the prayer group locked on to some data that showed a dip in crime as proof, the data set had many fluctuations with or without paryer all ignored except the bit that suited their argument. another study was on cancer patients and other terminally and chronically  ill same again tumours progressed pretty much the way oncologists predicted with the natural fluctuations present in any biological study.

personally to me prayer is totally selfish mostly how it is used like god listens to your concerns about that job interview or if some footballer idiot tebo scores that goal whatever, LMAO. like most things in religions the believers completely miss the point. 

some are so delude that they think they are somehow special humans chosen like the pope and the watchman, whats more stupid is others believe them.

just my take on it, whatever floats yr boat. got some dramas - plan don't pray.

 I have never heard a word from God, myself. But I have had prayers answered! And there was a feeling I would describe as a sense of relief, joy and well being when I made that connection.

   Bingo

gouda

Hi be

I have had that connection,while I,m praying.

p.s  Now look what you have done,you have dragged me into  a religious post .
Shame on you.

  gouda
 

Hi  Bee.

Hey Bee  If you are having problems with things running through your mind
that keep you from keeping on subject,go for a walk in the forest and talk to God out loud.
When you talk out loud  other things wont run through your mind,but dont
expect God to reply out loud.  Unless you hear voices all the time, HA,HA.

   gouda

You think I am off subject? I hear an inner voice that is not God, all the time. I think we can call that my "Jimminy Cricket".

↵vk4, 

It is hard to tell which parts are cut and paste from your assorted assertions. It will take some time for me to wade through it all. But I thank you for your participation, nonetheless. I did pick this out at a glance and I totally agree: 

corporations have embraced meditation on a purely cost benefit analysis cos it does improve productivity and they have implemented the infra-structure and training to enable meditation to occur.

Mindhunt, 

You are correct, one is not to stress when our thoughts show up unexpectedly during meditation, but to acknowledge and release them. That wisdom was often repeated.

Bee, I was attempting to say that meditation decreases peoples' power to
think about, and struggle for, the needs of others. If one is too 'chilled' it e.g.
becomes harder to summon the energy and anger to fight injustice.

Certainly not advocating a pro meditation position.  I understand the idea of
demarcation between different sorts of meditation, i.e.  proactive as part of
religious belief &/or striving for nirvana  vs. just doing it on an ad hoc basis
like people do sunbeds or (some) yoga.  I am not convinced the effect is all
that different, whichever way one meditates.  I have not felt it particularly
life-enhancing or productive when I tried it for myself.  I don't know if it actually
makes people more selfish (though I suppose one might argue that, where
business people claim it does make them more productive at what they do,
it does seem to work in some cases;  I don't know what other factors might
be involved in that.)  I am just concerned that I've seen & felt it sap all the
'fight' out of the impetus to do the sorts of non-profit making things with life
that I am talking about.  In short, to be UNselfish.

I have no comment to make on the matter of 'prayer'  as I cannot remember
back far enough, to the time when that meant anything at all to me.

to me prayer assumes the existence of a supernatural being that you talk to on a personal level, that being incidentally already knows ALL your thoughts and feelings and actions anyway so speaking to them is either groveling, begging or just plain redundant, even more so if that supernatural being has individual plan for you anyways.

OTH meditation neither assumes, presupposes or requires an appeal to any supernatural being, it has physically measurable physiological changes that can be observed and measured and appears unambiguously to have many preictable benefits if used in the right context by a competent user.