Featuring Thursday Thirteen. Have you had a go yet?
13. This time I’m writing about prayer – how it could possibly work. Of course, many believe it is all to do with God, but many now argue that God works through natural ‘mechanisms’ which can be reasoned. So there is still a place for God in my ideas.
12. We often pray when we don’t know what to do. This is because it can relate to destiny. And by praying, you can open your mind to new realizations about yourself and the world about you. Hence, prayer can open up a path to the future.
11. People can be optimistic or pessimistic in life.
We also see only what we want to see. Known as selective attention, the optimist sees the best, the pessimist the worst. Hence, your mind-set can be the most important element in your perception.
10. Prayer allows the person to connect with an idea of spirituality. This means you are never really alone – there is something within, assisting you. This improves optimism. Hence, selective attention kicks in to your advantage.
9. The true optimist is often thought of as lucky.
This is so for a reason. Tests have shown that he is better at calculating odds. The result is he can intuit obstacles that can arise, and successfully negotiate around them.
8. Synchronicity can be important here. This is the idea that coincidences can be meaningful. Now coincidences always seem to happen, but they are thought to be produced by chance. But chance offers another possibility.
7. The lucky gambler is said to manipulate chance.
He can be seen as lucky for his ability to calculate odds. Can we see this process – and, by implication, prayer – as a means of optimism being a process of manipulating coincidence to your advantage?
6. If we place all these elements together, we have a strong possibility that prayer can actually affect reality to your advantage. And I think a reason why can be found in a rationalization of faith as a social phenomenon.
5. It’s all about belief in God.
If you believe that God exists, and live your life as if He does, could your actions confirm His existence? By yourself, possibly not. But if you belonged to a society where all believed, then that society would be as if He did exist. A consensual idea has produced an actual reality.
4. In praying, you would tap the entire communal belief that it COULD work, thus amplifying the personal mechanisms highlighted above. Basically, psychology has become sociology, and belief moves closer to a reality.
3. This is hinted at in quantum theory. Due to the math involved, an event in the subatomic world is probabilistic, in that any outcome is equally possible. So how does a definite reality form? In the ‘observer effect’ it is argued that the reality we experience is so because a definite outcome has been observed by a consciousness capable of defining it.
2. Such ideas give a real possibility of prayer working. However, it is very much dependent upon the sociology providing a consensual reality to give it power. Hence, it is also arguable that as belief in God wanes, so does the power of prayer.
1. The ability of prayer to work is, I’m convinced, tied in with the consensual realities we create from our beliefs. So, do YOU believe it is possible?
© Anthony North, August 2008
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