Madeline Hicks: Journal 3-The Phenomenology of Prayer (Chapter 2)

Chapter 3 of this book is a deep dive into why people pray and how, or if it helps them. There are multiple reasons why people pray. Some people do it because they want to thank their gods, others do it because they want to ask their gods for something or to forgive their sins. This chapter describes six of these reasons. These reasons are passion, correcting your mistakes or forgiving your sins, escaping everyday life, having a better relationship with God, and making yourself feel better. People who pray because they are passionate pray because they have a passion for their religion, not just happy with everyday life. Praying to correct yourself or to forgive sins is exactly what it sounds like, people pray like this to be liked by God later. Some people just pray because it helps them to escape their ordinary life and this is also common. Others pray because they want to have a better relationship with God, even though this may not be possible. People can pray just to make themselves feel better, both for personal emotional reasons, or to have a better character. This chapter did say that prayer affects each person differently. How each person is affected by prayer is a personal feeling that is very difficult to study or prove.

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