Does Prayer Really Work? Does God Even Care?

[Michael]

Yes, I understood that. But I didn't cede anything, other than the mechanism of prayer could be debated, but that the fact that prayer can have beneficial effects is pretty much indisputable, especially with someone who has experienced those benefits. As for 'sad', no drug-free benefits are ever sad, be they from prayer, meditation, mindfulness, etc. What is more sad, in my opinion, is closing oneself off to beneficial practices.

I can totally agree on the meditation/mindfulness/prayer being beneficial to the practictioner. I'm just not wired to be able to really 'clear my mind' or engage in meditation in any real way (just not my scene), and I don't pray for obvious reasons, but having positive thoughts and helpful ideas can certainly help out the folks that experience them. It's the mechanism of the experience that needs to be examined, and since you didn't claim "god did it" or anything, I'm in agreement with you.

I think it's also worth noting that 'prayer' covers a wide range of activities. For example I join with Buddhists once a week and sometimes we practice Metta meditation. In this type of mediation we hold different people in mind and say "May x be at peace. May x be free from suffering. May x be happy". Some believe there may be a metaphysical effect, and others don't, but what is clear is that regular practice of this type of mediation (which I consider a type of prayer) focusses our minds on the needs of others. We are more likely then to take action to help them be happy, to be at peace, to be at suffering. This can be especially true if we mediate with people in mind who we're having problems with; it can 'heal' our bad attitudes towards other people. The focus of metta mediation then often broadens out, encompassing all animals, and that practice really helped to reconnect me to my 'stewardship' (as Christians tend to call it) for all of nature. It was key to me becoming vegetarian. So another effect of prayer for me has been a heightened sense of responsibility for the Earth, in so far as I am able in my very little corner of it. Alternatively it could be just as my wife says, that I hang out with too many hippies :-)

My Buddhist friends consider this mediation rather than prayer, but to me it is very prayerful. I see that type of prayer as much more aligned to what Christ taught than the 'shopping list' type of prayer that treats God as some kind of cosmic servant to us. I relate very much to meditative prayer.