Einstein on Prayer

January 24, 1936 Dear Phyllis, I will attempt to reply to your question as simply as I can. Here is my answer: Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish. However, we must concede that our actual knowledge of these forces is imperfect, so that in the end the belief in the e...

 Representative Juan Mendez Atheist Prayer

Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads. I would like to ask you not to bow your heads. I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people of our state. This room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of fr...

 Prayer is Silent Observation

Learning to pray, then as I understand it, is learning to listen with the mind and the heart – making oneself attentive to each exquisite detail of the world. It is a fearsome exhilarating task, best suited to solitude and silence. Such prayers are answered not with miracles tagged with our names, or those of our loved ones, but with beauty and terror. For the prayerful listener, the world becomes the sublime scripture, full of stories of structure and chaos, law and chance, complexificatio...

 Petitionary Prayer

I was raised in a culture of petition, inculcated from an early age with a repertoire of formulaic prayers addressed to God, his angels, or his saints. All of the prayers assumed a response: Here I am, Lord, deserving of your attention, favor, heating, forgiveness. Never did it pass my mind that my prayers were not heard. My education was hemmed about with a huge body of stories affirming God's intervention in human affairs. Had not every religious person experienced firsthand the power of pr...

 Farm Animals Give Their Lives That We May Eat

One of the greatest metaphors in Western Civilization is that of Christ who gave his life so that others might live, and I don't want to be sacreligious and I don't want to belittle that myth in any way, but a pig is giving its life so that we might eat, a chickent is giving its life so that we might eat, and I think the least that we can do is to think about that chicken, to think about that calf that we're eating. Not neccessarily to be sad for it, but to celebrate it, to be aware of the be...

 Matthew 6:6 - Don't Pray in Public

1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in...

 The Atheist's Prayer

Our brains, which art in our heads treasured be thy name. Thy reasoning come. Thy best you can do be done on earth as it is. Give us this day new insight to help us resolve conflicts and ease pain. And lead us not into supernatural explanations; deliver us from denial of logic. For thine is the kingdom of reason, and even though thy powers are limited, and you're not always glorious, you are the best evolutionary adaptation we have for helping this earth now and forever and ever. So be it.

 Prayer Should Validate Existence

Many films diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of life's experience, and those I consider a form of prayer. Not prayer "to" anyone or anything, but prayer "about" everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone...