The prayer is an act, and sometimes an attitude, having for goal to communicate with God, God, one or more divinities, a person chosen like mediator of God, according to his own faith.

It can be codified or not, collective or individual. It can be isolated and single in a ritual and even permanent personal history and spontaneous or in large believers.

The Buddhist prayer

In Buddhism, the prayer is made for itself than like an accompaniment of the practices like the meditation or the lesson.

She is spoken or sung and makes it possible to have an altruistic intention and to concentrate on a goal: awakening. To take refuge, one starts in these terms: " In the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, I take refuge until the éveil" , which means that one goes towards the Buddha, his teaching, and the Buddhist community. Then one thanks for other important characters of Buddhism for their contribution in the world. One can also request at the time them meal to thank the Buddhas and the circumstances to have to eat.

The Christian prayer

See also: Christian Prayer

With regard to the Christian Religion - the “Our Father” (Noster Lord's Prayer) is the fundamental prayer which Jesus-Christ taught - (New Testament). For Tertullien, “ the prayer is the spiritual sacrifice which removed the old sacrifices ”.

“Each step on ground should be a prayer” - The prayer is a fundamental Act of the Christian faith, lived like a Thanksgiving and communion with God, a communion of spirits between God and them His. It is " God Père" that the believer requests " in the name of the Jesus-Christ" Lord;. In the Gospel according to Jean, Jesus-Christ indicates how to request with its faithful:

  • (13) and all that you will ask on my behalf, I will do it, so that the Father is glorifié in the Son. (14) If you ask something on my behalf, I will do it. Jean, XIV
  • (23) In this day, you will not question me any more on nothing. In truth, in truth, I say it to you, which you will request from the Father, it will give it to you on my behalf. (24) Until now you did not ask anything on my behalf. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy is perfect. Jean, XVI

Practices of Meditation S, Fast and Veille can be associated with the prayer, just as readings of texts, biblical or not. For the believer, God is everywhere and the prayer can thus take place in any place.

For the Christian, God is alive, sensitive to the prayer of the Christian, and he hopes that he answers in act (sometimes according to the expressed wish, sometimes differently, sometimes immediately, sometimes in a very differed way). Certain Christians have a very burning relation with God, even animated and surging speaking to him as with a close friend, a human father, making him even reproaches and expressing their anger. In the Christian religion, the the Holy Spirit through the Faith, the writings, the other Christians and even of the unbelievers can help the Christian to distinguish the answer of God. It appears sometimes obvious to him and clear, sometimes even marked by God, and more often diffuses, even difficult or impossible to distinguish immediately.

Secondary practices and theological designs differentiate the various Christian currents. In particular in the Churches Catholique S and orthodoxe one recognizes the prayer with the Saint S and the Virgin Mary, which the various currents Protesting S vigorously dispute in the name of the Écritures. The use of objects of Culte S (Crucifix, icon S, Chain S, statues, etc) is also prone to controversies. The cultures and social environments also have a great influence on the manners of requesting.

In the three Christian main components, monks can exclusively devote their life to the prayer. Certain currents evangelic challenge the validity of monastic engagement.

The Saints of the last days follow the following stages when they request: 1. They call upon the Father (example: “Dear celestial Père”). 2. They express their recognition (example: “I thank you for”). 3. They express their needs (example: “I ask you”). 4. They finish “in the name of Jesus-Christ. Amen”. The only fixed prayer (known as word for word) is the Holy-Cène prayer of . Ours Père would be an example of prayer rather than a prayer fixes (“Here thus how you must request” Matt. 6:9).

Examples of Christian prayers

  • Bénédicité

  • Our Father
  • Rosaire
  • I greet you Te Deum Marie
  • Gloire with God
  • Canonical hours
  • Prière of the Good Friday

The Islamic prayer

The Moslem prayer, requires of the believer to rent the size of God (Allah), to be subjected to require Him, and Him to forgive for its sins. It is necessary for that to be purified symbolically by ablutions and to have a purity of the intention (niyya).

  • See the article dedicated Islamic Prayer.

The Jewish prayer

  • Mode Ani

  • Chéma Israel
  • Birkat Hamazone

  • See the article dedicated Jewish Prayers.

The prayer in other religions

  • the prayer of the Druid

Scientific studies

Various studies examined the question of the effectiveness of the prayers of which some medical studies.

An experiment saying is undertaken by Professor Rogerio Lobo, chief of the service of Obstétrique and from Gynécologie of the Columbia University (New York) and published in September 2001 in “The Journal off Reproductive Medicine” concluded with the impact from the prayer. The study was supposed on standby to carry on 199 women Korean S of In vitro fertilization and on prayers made by various Groupes of prayer to the United States, Canada and in Australia, which knew the women only by their photograph. The article affirmed that the researchers had raised a difference between the group of women for whom one requested and that for which one did not request: 50% of pregnancies against 26%. It proved thereafter that this study did not have any scientific base and professor Lobo required that its name be publicly dissociated from this article in which it had not collaborated.

A comparable experiment undertaken in California on 40 patients of the AIDS (remote prayers for 20 patients by Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Indians and Shamans) also indicated positive tests for the group for which he had been requested.

On its side, the American Heart Journal published three studies on the subject. The first, carried out by the cardiologist Mitchell Krucoff (university Duke, Durham, North Carolina) within the framework of a project Mantra related to 150 patients, and showed a positive effect of the prayer and techniques of relieving. Second, carried out by same researcher, was carried out as a blind man (neither the patients, neither the doctors nor the close relations knew which patients were the subject of the prayers) and related to 750 patients. This study did not show any statistical difference between the patients having profited from the prayers and the others.

Lastly, a last study even more important, made public year April 2006 by the American Heart Newspaper , was undertaken on the therapeutic effects of the prayer on the cardiac ones and tends to show that the prayer does not help with the re-establishment of patients having undergone a coronary bridging, but could on the contrary even involve complications.

This study took place of 1998 to 2000 and related to 1.802 patients divided in six American hospitals. The patients were divided into three groups.

  • Group 1: The patients are informed that they perhaps will be the subject of prayers, and they profit from prayers.
  • Group 2: The patients are informed that they perhaps will be the subject of prayers, and they do not profit not from prayers.
  • Group 3: The patients are informed that they will be the subject of prayers, and they profit from it indeed.
Three groups of prayer, two catholics and a Protestant, received the first name and initial name of the patients having to profit from prayers, and were charged to request for " the success of surgical operation and a fast cure without complication " patients.

No difference was found, in the thirty days after bridging, between the patients of groups 1 and 2. On the other hand, curiously, the patients of group 3 had developed more complications that the others (59% against 51%), figure interpreted by the authors of the study like probably resulting from the stress undergone by anxious patients to know " so sick that one had recourse to a group of prière". The American Heart Journal specifies that the study was mainly financed by the religious Foundation John Templeton, that it did not examine the impact of the personal prayer or close relations, and that it was not intended to examine the existence of God or the question of knowing if it exauce or not the prayers.

See too

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