I was just reading over the exchange between RationalAtheist and tachikoma679 and they brought up an issue that has been pestering me for a while. Whenever you talk to Christians, whether they be Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, non-denominationals... whatever, they all emphasise the importance of prayer. They claim that if you really want to get to know God you've got to talk to him, openly and honestly and ask for guidance, revelation and what have you.
As an Atheist this is a huge stumbling block for me. I have never prayed before in my life yet I dearly want to pursue the question of God's existence with intellectual honesty. If prayer is such a big part of discovering God though then I clearly have a problem with that goal.
The reasons why I've never prayed are fairly simple. First of all I'm a fairly self-conscious kind of guy. I wont sing or dance or do anything of the sort because I feel like a right whilly whenever I do. Prayer is kind of similar in that respect, it just makes me feel silly to carry out a conversation with thin air. For the theists here what is praying like? I presume you don't get audible responses in comprehensible English so do you just get a feeling instead? Do thoughts or intuitions pop into your head or is there some altogether supernatural experience that you can't understand until you do it?
The second reason is a little more serious than simply being self conscious. It seems as if sincere prayer requires that you presuppose the existence of the particular God that you're talking to. Any person can recite a prayer as a series of words, either orally or introspectively but what good is it if you do not believe that God exists or worse still, if you believe that God does not exist? How would a weak atheist understand how to address what he has no conception of and how would a strong atheist avoid being disingenuous?
To the atheists here have you ever had a go at praying? If you have tell me your experiences and if you haven't tell me why not. To the theists, if you had the existence of God revealed to you through prayer how did you pray in the first place? What can you recommend to someone like me who's a self-conscious strong atheist in respect to the Abrahamic version of God?
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