The longer I am out of the church. (Going on 8 months now) I see everything in a new light.

I was thinking of prayer today. I used to look at muslims and think "They are so strange, they have to pray at certain times and face a certain direction" But Mormons do the same thing (well not the direction)

You are told to pray when you get up, pray over breakfast, pray over lunch, pray over dinner and then pray before you go to bed. Sure it's not exact times every day, but its the same sort of thing. It was more rugged as a missionary, but still. It hit me as I was watching that "Meet the Mormons" video. When the missionaries woke up and first thing they "have" to do is get on their knees and pray.

Strange that when you are in the church, fully moving along that these strange things don't seem strange. But once you get out, it's shocking.

Yes, funny how that works huh?

It is not until you are on the outside, that you realise that the inside is pretty weird...

Prayer: How to do nothing and still think you're helping.

Praying for someone is like masturbation: it makes you feel good while doing nothing for the person you are thinking about.

I think prayer is a good opportunity to relax and think about your day and talk to yourself... but When it becomes a NEED it is so annoying.

No one is going to die or get sick if you dont pray over your food.

Prayer was so draining as missionary. Because Mormon prayers are mostly just BS, like "bless this food, keep us safe, help joey feel the spirit" rather than truly introspective thoughts.

Mormons get on their knees and pray??
I thought only Catholics kneeled.

Now let me get this straight ....

God knows all of your thoughts.
When you pray you are telling god your thoughts.

Why pray ?

My thoughts exactly.

Yes and God knew that....

In the younger days I would pray to know the church was true... and never got an answer. Now it is easy to see why. I have a good bs detector.

I can see an advantage to sending thoughts to a being whom you
think can see into your very mind and soul. One one level,
you'd have to look at yourself in a different light.

"Just thinking about it made me shiver. I made up my mind to
start praying that I could stop being wicked and become a
better boy. So I kneeled down—but the words wouldn’t come. Why
not? It was no use to try and hide it from Him, or from ME
either. I knew exactly why those words wouldn’t come. It was
because my heart wasn’t in the right place. It was because I
wasn’t being honest with myself. I was lying to myself and to
HIM. I was saying that I was going to give up doing bad things,
but deep down inside I was doing the worst thing of all. I was
trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right and honest
thing and go write to that n-----’s owner and tell her where he
was. But deep down inside I knew it was a lie, and HE knew it
too. I found out that day that you can’t pray a lie."
--Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.

I believe most prayers serve as affirmation. I know there are the occasional prayers where one has no where else to go, so they plead to their God for heavenly assistance, but most prayers are simple affirmations.

Affirming good things that come to you. Affirming there is a higher power in your life. Affirming you love your family. Affirming you are grateful for numerous things. Affirming you need certain things.

I have always found it comical how TSCC rebuffs "rote prayers" such as the Lord's Prayer or creeds of other churches. As if Mormon's don't ever practice or "fall into the habit" of saying (giving) rote prayers.

Take the typical blessing of food. That's a rote prayer. Mechanical, forced, habitual. Expected. Sounds rote to me.

What about the prayer given at the end of the endowment? The true order of prayer seems pretty rote. Listening to everyone repeat after the person kneeling at the alter sounds VERY rote. Very rote indeed!

Prayer is what you need it to be. Do it. Don't. It's yours.

Here's a great article on mormon's and the Lord's Prayer. Good stuff.

http://janariess.religionnews.com/2013/10/14/dont-mormons-recite-lords-prayer/

Other than the odd time I'm asked to say grace, as a favor and out of respect to the person requesting it, I do not pray. No point. My little sister suffered with CP and Dad, the best man I have ever or will ever know, prayed earnestly from the bottom of his heart every night, thanking God for the gift of this precious child and that his little girl's health might improve...and then she died at age 3-1/2 and broke all our hearts. I was 11 at the time and I hadn't even begun to explore what faith was but that one event killed any chance of my getting any. How could a "loving God" do that to us. Now, granted, at 11 I was pretty naive but the feeling that praying was a complete and utter waste of time and breath has never left me.

Ron Burr

Many of us here have deployed to one of a few Muslim parts of the earth and are really familar with how Muslims pray. even now I work with 4 Muslims, all secular. Even with all the praying and repetition that Muslims do, I think that Mormons are worse because all their silly repetitions are so right out of the 'vain repetition' manner of praying that I was warned against while Mormon. and Muslim prayer sounds beautiful, possibly the only time that Arabic sounds good. there's nothing pretty about Mormon prayer. (nothing like sitting at a nice pool in Dubai having a tall beer while the evening call to prayer is going on. it's very relaxing.)

1. Mormon Prayer

The first principle/ritual that can allow a TBM to see the fraud of the Mormon church without the Internet.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2014 10:06AM by gentlestrength.

I had a funny thing about prayer happen on Fb today. An ex-co worker who had to quit a year ago due to serious medical problems has posted that she is now selling her house (that she lived in all her life with her mother) and contents and moving to a small apartment because it was too hard doing steps, yard work, shoveling snow etc. She asked for prayers and help from anyone who has the time.

Multiple people chimed in with 'sending prayers your way" "praying for you" etc, but only me, the atheist, offered actual physical help. Had a good LOL moment on that one!