This is pretty freaking brilliant. Did you come up with it by yourself?

Yeah. I used to listen to music and sing along as a way to de-stress and calm myself down, and then I noticed that I always started by having to think a lot about the phrasing and messing up a lot of things, but by the time I got to the end of an album, it was much less difficult, and the effect would carry over into regular speaking for at least a little while. It doesn't last long, though, and in order to keep it going for a little while, I usually have to kind of run the songs through my head while breathing as if I were singing them, until it's my turn to talk.

I used to recite the Lord's prayer often at the appopriate time and place. I was never praying. Just going along with the flow until I got ornery/old/resilient enough to stand there silently.

This is where I see religious practice being very close to magical practice. Standing with a bunch of people chanting the Lord's Prayer is no different, to my mind, to people standing in a circle chanting an invocation to the Goddess. A power is being invoked, and it may go nowhere resembling the ear of a diety, but directed purpose and awareness is there.

Yeah, I really hope no one is feeling piled on or not listened to in this.

In this sense, belief is acceptance of something as true that is unseen and unprovable;

And religion is the only thing I can think of where the general thinking is "and that's okay." Regardless of your take on why that is or if it's good, bad, or indifferent, I think it's at the heart of why this conversation is so hard to have. Because most of the words we use to discuss things that are not or cannot be proven or demonstrated, and yet are asked to take as fact (or real or something non-judgy, please) do have a negative connotation, in varying degrees. So then we try to shift them over to this discussion and things that are meant neutrally or questioningly come across as far more pointed and direct than they ought, on both ends, I think.

I have a friend who has a bit of a stutter. It's usually only around people she doesn't know well, but it ends up being a cycle of her not knowing people well and not talking because of the stutter and not getting to know people because she's not talking, and it's a damn shame 'cause she's awesome. I may mention this to her, if that's ok.

Standing with a bunch of people chanting the Lord's Prayer is no different, to my mind, to people standing in a circle chanting an invocation to the Goddess. A power is being invoked, and it may go nowhere resembling the ear of a diety, but directed purpose and awareness is there.

Absolutely. I don't think there's any difference, either. The communal and ritual aspects are the most important parts for me.

I think it's at the heart of why this conversation is so hard to have. Because most of the words we use to discuss things that are not or cannot be proven or demonstrated, and yet are asked to take as fact (or real or something non-judgy, please) do have a negative connotation, in varying degrees. So then we try to shift them over to this discussion and things that are meant neutrally or questioningly come across as far more pointed and direct than they ought, on both ends, I think.

This is a very good point.

Ritual sacrifice with pie.

Oh, and speaking of prayer, the email list from my synagogue is driving me nuts. There are certain prayers that are supposed to be said as a community, not as individuals, and what counts as "community" in an Orthodox synagogue is ten Jewish men. (For various complicated and boring reasons, the synagogue I usually go to is an Orthodox one, even though I don't really consider myself Orthodox.) The past week, someone has sent out an email to the mailing list each morning telling us how many people were at the morning service. No commentary, no explanation for why it's being sent out, just, each morning, something like, "At today's Shacharit service, there were nine men, three women, one boy, and two girls present at 7. A tenth man arrived at 7:15. The service begins at 7." Or, "At today's Shacharit service, there were eight men, two women, and one boy." One of the prayers that needs to be said as a community is a prayer for the dead that people recite every day for a year after a close relative dies. It's generally considered a good thing to go to the morning service whenever you can, even if you don't have a particular reason to go, so that the people in mourning will be able to say their prayer properly. And these emails are clearly meant to remind people of that, and to try to get more people coming so that there will be ten men each day. But they don't say that. They don't say anything. Just a daily report of how many people were at synagogue, and letting us decide what to do with that information.

She honestly believed until she slipped into her coma that she didn't beat her ovarian cancer because she didn't pray hard enough. She died thinking that her cancer was proof that she was a bad Christian.

I'm currently reading Barbara Ehrenreich Bright-Sided, and she talks about something that I really bothered me during my cancer treatment: the idea that if you just believe hard enough or have a good enough attitude or work hard enough, you can beat cancer. It's why phrases like "after a long battle with cancer" make me twitch. That implies the person didn't fight hard enough. I'm so sorry that you and she had to have that additional suffering. One of the only books sometimes found in the "self help" section that I ever recommend is When Bad Things Happen to Good People, which was written by a rabbi who secretly thought people must of done something to deserve the bad things that happen to him, until his son was born with progeria.

I also think that picture of the Christian God is not supported in the text. The Bible says God sees every sparrow who falls. But they still fall.

There was a lovely line in the movie Deep Impact, when Morgan Freeman, as president, says, "I believe that god hears all prayers, but that sometimes the answer is no."

Bookmark post to say I'm fascinated by this conversation and have something I'd like to add about the definition of "myth" and how I approach that sensitive topic when teaching everything from Jason and the Argonauts to Jesus with my ninth grade students.

But right now I have to grade two more essays and run a study session and go to a meeting and hopefully get home before my poor dog has an accident.