I'm betting it's Jay with a hatchet.

"The whole world lies waiting behind door number three," Jimmy Buffet.

@skado This ^^^^

( Other meditation substitutes are available. )

I read somewhere that mediation is simply done for the sake of meditation and that there is no goal, nothing to be achieved.

@ASTRALMAX Clearing the mind of the emotion that accompanies a problem can help in understanding and potentially seeing possible solutions. Creating your own manta to help you relax is better than the abusive one religions offer.

@Betty I agree and some would say that very attempt to achieve peace of mind is the very reason for its absence.

Booooooo Hisssssss

Eastern meditation works better, IMO.

@rainmanjr Meditation, especially with breathing techniques, can help the body along with the mind. Xtion b.s. just is b.s.

I agree. There is a perfect being that loves me, so I must be perfect too. (and when I'm not..it forgives me). I feel so good inside !!

@Leetx Like an addictive narcotic…..once it gets you, it has you for life, unless you have the willpower to,break away from it or to resist it.

Except in practice literally almost zero people use prayer in your apologetic way.

@ChestRockfield
It may not matter what their conscious intentions are, as long as it has a useful psychological effect. Placebos are known to have measurable therapeutic effect.

@skado and when it doesn't have useful psychological effects....
[independent.co.uk]

@MacStriker
The mistake this study makes is the same one religious literalists, theist and atheist alike, make - the assumption that the purpose of prayer is to change something in the material world, be it for oneself or others.

But if it has a real influence it would be on the psychology of the person doing the praying. This study did not measure that. It measured, or tried to measure, the influence of one person, or group of persons’ prayers on other people’s health. The results were not surprising, or counter to what I have claimed.

@skado And the supposition that there's a psychological benefit to the one praying also fails to measure any negative effects one suffers from praying instead of doing something useful to actually improve their condition in the material world. Again, we see @Skado's apologetics only letting him see the beneficial side of religion...

@ChestRockfield
I see the negative too, Chest. I figure that part doesn't need pointing out on this site.

But no living species maintains a costly behavior for 60 thousand years that has nothing but negative effects. The negative effects of a heritable disorder like sickle cell trait are easy for anyone to see. But to understand why nature selected that negative feature requires a deeper study.

@skado you assumption of what you think I feel prayer is for is incorrect. I posted earlier what I was taught. I'll tag you in it

@skado Do you see what you did there though? You're excusing a likely net negative behavior, done most often with the wrong intentions (as you admitted yourself, with literalism ruining it) by saying there's some other possible fringe benefit they could be getting they're not aware of, and then when you get called on it, you say you see the negative too even though you don't say it at first or temper your response with it. It's all positive about religion, all the way, until you're backed into a corner and reluctantly admit there's negatives. This. This is why people on here correctly assume and label you an apologist.

@ChestRockfield
I don't expect anyone on here to remember anything I've posted in the past, but if you happened to, you would know that since I joined in 2017, I have spoken clearly, consistently, and firmly against religious literalism and fundamentalism. I have never needed to be "backed into a corner" in order to say what I have been proudly saying from day one. But no one on this site needs to be reminded of what they so clearly already know.

What I talk about here is the stuff so many apparently don't yet know much about or want to acknowledge - the evolutionary science behind religious behavior.

What you admit, by using the word "likely" is that you don't know whether religion is a net negative behavior or not. I don't see how that could ever be reliably measured quantitatively, but there is, at minimum, good scientific reason to suspect a net benefit toward reproductive fitness for our species based on all the known evidence, not the least of which is that it perfectly fits the scientific rule of thumb for adaptiveness - the fact that it is found in all human societies and in all time periods and places where human populations have ever existed.

If you or anyone here thinks I am an apologist for religious literalism, all I can say is either they haven't read anything I've ever written on the subject, or they have not understood it.

I'm neither excusing sickle cell trait nor condemning it - I'm simply describing its relationship to human adaptedness. Likewise I'm not making a value judgement about religion one way or the other, but simply pointing out its known relationship to human history and how exceedingly well it conforms to known principles of adaptive behavior.

@MacStriker
Fine, but the article from the Independent doesn't address that either. It only addresses people praying for other people, not people praying for strength to endure reality. Asking rank&file Christians what prayer is for is like asking a peacock what his tail is for - he doesn't know. But scientists know he uses it as a fitness display. Better to ask a scientist why people pray. You are asking people you think are delusional to tell you why they are behaving delusionally. Better ask a psychologist.

@skado The sickle cell analogy is indeed a true one. Especially since it should be remembered, that we now live in an age when there are better ways to combat malaria available, and whatever benefits sickle cell anaemia may have had in the past, it is now today a wholly harmful disease, which will hopefully be eradicated soon.

Theist religion, of the sort most people here reject, has not been around for sixty thousand years. In fact it is quite a new thing in religion, and goes back perhaps twenty thousand years or so plus, in a very few cultures if that. In many western cultures perhaps ten thousand, about the same length of time as piracy in fact. I now long to hear your explainations for the continuation of piracy, and it benefits to humanity.

@skado I do remember nearly all of what you have posted on here, and I would never say that you are an apologist for literal belief in god. But to be an apologist for belief in theist religion, with all its evils and limitations, as if it were itself a god, and to be blind to the many better ways of achieving all of its doubtful benefits, which are available today, because of that. Without even the poor excuse of a literal belief in the god superstition, that is indeed fundamentalism of the worst sort.