Prayer as the fundamental charactersitic of all religions

[Lark]

What do you think? Is it the fundamental characteristic of all religions or religious practices that there is an element of prayer and petition? Whether of a higher power or of yourself or both?

 

[Andy]

I'm not aware of any religions that don't have some element of at least one of those things. It would be an odd belief, one that allows for the existence of other wordly entities, but precludes any sort of interaction in them. The nearest I can think of is certain religions where the creator of the universe no longer has any interest in it. I think there was a version of that in ancient egypt, but they were polytheistic and had lots of other gods to pray to.

It would have to a religion that went "yeah, that's the supernatural structure of the universe, but there is nothing you can do about it, so get on with farming".

 

[Coriolis]

What do you think? Is it the fundamental characteristic of all religions or religious practices that there is an element of prayer and petition? Whether of a higher power or of yourself or both?

How do you define "prayer"? What range of experiences do you consider it to include?

 

[Lark]

How do you define "prayer"? What range of experiences do you consider it to include?

Prayer and petition.

 

[Coriolis]

This doesn't answer the question. Plus, I always understood petition to be one form of prayer. Some people lump meditation in with prayer, or consider simple work a form of prayer. Do you? Just what does the "prayer" part of "prayer and petition" encompass?

 

[Vilku]

prayer, the activity of gaining will power through communicating with ones uncosncious, intj's are known for their ability to do this without resorting in self delusion, often personalities with developed Se when religious, are more likely to engage in such behaviour. Se, trust in ones senses for a sense of stability, this often on most individuals causes irrational believes which manifest itself in many forms, most famously as racism, atheism and egoism.

in the religion jedi, we, however do not resort into self deluding. i prefer neuroscience and psychology for self understanding. knowing full well what a human mind is capable of with belief, i aim to control mine with scientific means to achieve both happiness and maximum self-efficacy, ultimately making my life tenfold easier than that of others, as well as happier.

popular religions, directed at Se and Fe users, primary mean of convertion: manipulating feelings, manipulating to the abandonement of rational thinking. same applies to religion atheism, most popular amongst istj's, mostly people of sensor preference turn to atheism as an alternative forced thinking/believing mode as a mean for escaping christianity. unfortunately, it seems impossible for sensors to live irreligious, need of sensual stability required and always achieved by one form of belief which explains the superioirity of sensual perception as the only possible way to view the existence on planet earth. tendency to depress heavy sensor believers in schools due the belief of already knowing what you are and what existence is, sensors who are able to avoid such believes tend to mature into levels of intelligence which genuinely amazes intuitors. (i once were amazed of an esfp's ability to actually understand me, without requiring to hold myself back.)

conclusion: belief in not knowing is the best belief, it motivates for curiosity, self understanding and ultimately for happier life as long as understanding of knowledge never being final, and acceptance of this fact to have both stability while not knowing anything for certain, after some time, care to know will fade and happiness in not knowing, living in an unlimited reality is reached.

questions?

oh, and as i mentioned controlling ones own beliefs over accepting knowledge as final, i can by my own experience of existing say i dont care to know if i really even exist, but with the conclusion of logic make the assumption of something having to bound everything i experience together into what we call reality, and we jedi call this the force. controlling our belief of it, we can draw an amount of will power limited only by our ability to control our selves with it.

also would like to point out, related on the topic, life without beliefs is simply not possible. leads to depression, and eventually recovery when belief in something giving life a point is retained or one of the several ways to die due lack of belief as following: suicide, neglecting to death by starvation, drought or some of the many possibilities such as falling a victim of mistake in the state of lowered defences.

it doesnt matter what you call your beliefs, but having control over them is crucial for them to last through time as well as to maintain their morality and overall beneficy. ive witnessed belief in material without any self control, very unhleathy, person in question remained at teenage level of mentality for ever. questioning beliefs not necessary, studying? yes, is.
and beliefs, they are directly related to your cognitive preferance "personality" as they would call it. for example, intj's are the best at naturally controlling their beliefs without necessity to label them with various tags while still having the nerve to know their believes, which is often a belief in will power.

religion, the activity of honing ones beliefs, and the ability to admit all humans require them to live. refusal leads to uncontrolled self destructive beliefs. not to mention, destructive to others as well. while i wouldnt care if you destroyed yourself, but i do care if you destroy innocents with yourself.

before i venture into another stream of thougths, i stop. ask any questions if any arose, i enjoy everything. vilku, out.

 

[Coriolis]

prayer, the activity of gaining will power through communicating with ones uncosncious, intj's are known for their ability to do this without resorting in self delusion,

Brilliant definition!

in the religion jedi, we, however do not resort into self deluding. i prefer neuroscience and psychology for self understanding. knowing full well what a human mind is capable of with belief, i aim to control mine with scientific means to achieve both happiness and maximum self-efficacy, ultimately making my life tenfold easier than that of others, as well as happier.

Exactly how do you control your beliefs through scientific means? Do you see a difference between belief and acceptance through factual evidence?

conclusion: belief in not knowing is the best belief, it motivates for curiosity, self understanding and ultimately for happier life as long as understanding of knowledge never being final, and acceptance of this fact to have both stability while not knowing anything for certain, after some time, care to know will fade and happiness in not knowing, living in an unlimited reality is reached.

Yes. Far too many religions claim to have all the answers, and consider curiosity and rational analysis at best unnecessary and at worst heretical.

questioning beliefs not necessary, studying? yes, is. and beliefs, they are directly related to your cognitive preferance "personality" as they would call it. for example, intj's are the best at naturally controlling their beliefs without necessity to label them with various tags while still having the nerve to know their believes, which is often a belief in will power

The highlighted describes my personal belief system well. I often tell people, "I will discuss my beliefs with you, but won't put labels on them". I don't, however, understand the underlined. Do you mean to say it is not necessary to question one's own (or other people's) beliefs? What sort of studying??

Your post is insightful and to-the-point.

 

[Vilku]

Brilliant definition!


Yes. Far too many religions claim to have all the answers, and consider curiosity and rational analysis at best unnecessary and at worst heretical.

the thing is, belief is evrything. whether its knowledge you believe to be correct, belief in your abilities.. belief in your logic, evrywhere. everywhere belief, everything.

as such, it would come to conclusion, studying ones methods of logic, information processing and evrything which has to do with what makes your life is of utter importance to gain control over your believes, and the act of studying them makes recognizing faults at everything easier.

i have Si, i doubt it works the same way for Ni's. but, i can feel pressures inside my head, and then i can read neuroscience pictures which depict what processes im using, then i combine these feelings with said processes and ti all makes much more sense.

knowing where you gain stability and where is the chaos is very important to define. sensing is the stability, and intuition is the chaos. as such, supporting and figuring ways to maintain motivation for each is the key for gaining said stability and on intuitions case, learn to love not knowing and that should allow you to enjoy developing it to an extense where you say you know nothing yet actually the said acceptance allows much more power to your abilities, as you dont rely your identity with irrational feelings on it. it just is, you just love it and trust the chaos. equally, you must maintain the balance by achieving balance on through the use of Se, as without balance there are quickly negative effects inbound.
without mystery, intelligence dies off.. with too much, you get confused.
luckily, we have them both separate and as such, as long as both are developed in balance, potential is unlimited.

and back on beliefs to answer your question, theres no difference between belief and accepted knowledge. the only difference is, the quality of reasoning used. as such, bad quality reasoning seeds more problems than its worth, and you can never have high quality enough through the fact, that we depend on having equally much chaos as order in our lives. both come with their downsides which have to be maintained constantly, which i mentioned already.


"The highlighted describes my personal belief system well. I often tell people, "I will discuss my beliefs with you, but won't put labels on them". I don't, however, understand the underlined. Do you mean to say it is not necessary to question one's own (or other people's) beliefs? What sort of studying??"

there is a difference. studying is analyzing, by developing your ability to do so equals for higher chances at not making fatal mistakes. while questioning is outright irrational (also known as the ti tangents, aka why intps... use their time how they do.), you must look at your belief and really analyze, what is this? how came it be? you need to get an innate sense of understanding, and you can really, never understand yourself enough due the fact a machine can process only limited portion, which is never able to reach itself truly.

in my most recent self discoveries on feelings, im starting to understand better how absolutely necessary they are for enjoyment. like discovering past feelings, learning how to appreciate them all, how to make them useful, .. the only thing which makes life worth living are feelings, you better master the art of enjoying them.

with the understanding you gain, you realize how weakest link in your cognitive functions is actually the master of them all.

"Your post is insightful and to-the-point."
hm, yes im trying to fight my inability to write all my thoughts by becoming more efficient at it to compensate for not expressing everything. thanks to having only two fingers not broken on left hand, impairing writing ability permanently.

right now im severely sleep deprived which caused lower quality in my thought stream.. ugh, the art of self control _is_ hard.. -.- ... for my personality. at least when it comes to stopping Ne once it gets started. on convos that means literally 16 hours nonstop talking, something i used to have a tendency for.

never forget, all functions are connected, as such, study them as whole. Te is master of Fi, fi master of se and se master of ni on intj's.
the higher control you overall gain, you realize questioning them is just useless as you gain complete control over each and every one of them. i momentarily have reached complete control for few times, but ended failing due feedback loops, just like how it works for audio equipment, same can happen with human processing at which point you have to severe the complete control to prevent the loop from getting any stronger. (a loop of feelings gone out of control for example, magnifying into unbearable amounts where you lose the control due inexperience caused by making progress too suddenly. well, you know what happens if you give a grenade to a stone ager. same thing here. aka why maturity is slow process, unless one abuses scientific method of self studying to speed things up ^_^)

which is why weakest is the real master of all. not weak in terms of strength, but in terms of understanding. which is why an intuitor can outscore sensor with their weakest function even if sensor is dom of it, cause strength has nothing to do with its quality. (try telling that to istj's who.. um, for some reason "learn".. uh... car symbols, or something utterly ridiculous like flags, cities etc. that, and then you hear them boasting with pride on their achievements of stucking million useless things in their heads instead of using their time productively.)



"Exactly how do you control your beliefs through scientific means? Do you see a difference between belief and acceptance through factual evidence?"

feelings are part of reality, why should we use any other than scientific method there too? for Fi that means having to develop the said methods privately.
and funny enough, im not surprised at all if scientist has stronger, more controlled feelings and ultimately even controlling their curiosity with the use of "faith" outscoring life time faith based religions. when you try to shape something internal to fit an external image like that of a religion, you lose your ability to have all feelings, not to mention ability of controlling them will decrease, with fading control, .. well you rather be the master of your life yourself.

just look at symphony of science videos, they are clearly oozing of happiness they scientiissts..
you could apply scientific method to learn things which are useless to you, but when you apply that method on understanding yourself to maximize your life, it becomes something more than just a way to understand the world.

(the vid link thing didnt work.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZGINaRUEkU

the problem of teaching sanity to popular religions, is in that science has distanced itself from their level in the magnitude of.. well, lets just say its alike comparing one to an animal, not really fair to compare them.

(im losing composition here, with sleep deprivation inability to remember everything ive written in the post, potentially making me into an endless stream of thoughts. alike to the state of sleeping.) i better go sleep >.<...

 

[UniqueMixture]

I think faith, that there is something beyond the physical, and heirarchy of being. I would not say prayer unless you include ritual sacrifice. That is a dark practice and has nothing to do with communion with the devine.

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

What do you think? Is it the fundamental characteristic of all religions or religious practices that there is an element of prayer and petition? Whether of a higher power or of yourself or both?

If you speculate that most old religions evolved around some kind of mystical experience--of God or the Universe, or the Tao, or whatever you want to call it--then you should find some vestige of mystical practice. Meditation, prayer, chanting, and asceticism are all vehicles for mystical experience.

As far as belief in God, it really depends on how you define God.