Having been a staunch theist for many years I can try to place an answer from that perspective to the question posed as to why prayer is required by a god. In this article, I am lengthy in the setup, so if you want to skip to the actual argument click here. This argument is basically:
You, the theist posit a god who knows the end from the beginning. If you believe this, how does it make any sense at all to ask him for whatever you might ask for in prayer? It appears that the only proper dialogue with a omniscient god is one of gratitude.
The way I used to see it, prayer in the Mormon religion was designed as a plea for sustainment in all my Mormon activities I was involved with. Many in Mormonism check their activity level in the church with activities such as visiting about four families each month, attending the temple once a month (ideally), attend 12 hours of church each month, serve in a calling, which ends up as a volunteer basis part time job, at least once and many times two and three times a week, read scriptures at least a 1/2 hour a day, go without food thereby skipping 2 meals once a month, attend auxiliary meetings once a week, attend meetings designed solely to plan more meetings, clean the chapel once a quarter on a volunteer basis, perform service projects about once a quarter, attend group social activities once a month...
the list was seemingly endless. In my experience, I was asked to give up a weeks vacation with my family and live as an adult chaperone at a one week scout camp. In my more devout years I would have done so... enthusiastically. This invitation found me in my waning last year as I struggled to buoy up my flailing Mormon testimony of faith.
An augmentation of this list sees much effort and mental capacity was spent in always being ready to bear testimony of the truthfulness of the restored Mormon gospel. Nearly all Mormons spend significant amounts of time in Mormonism declaring to each other how they know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, or how they know that the Mormon church is true. Almost each lesson, sermon, and home visit ends with this statement in one form or another. If you give a lesson or a speech in church, you are expected to tell the audience in one form or another that you know Mormonism and all it stands for is "True". The implication of doing this means that you also are declaring that all other religions are false. There is no wiggle room in this.
Brother (or sister), I just want you to know that I know this church is true.. or.. I know the book of Mormon is true... or I know that Gordon B. Hinckley is a true prophet today.. or.. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.
After I began to investigate the other One and Only True religions of the world, I grew increasingly uncomfortable in declaring that I held the truth while others did not. It is an extremely heavy burden to bear. It wore on me. It became a splinter in my mind that would not purge.
Now, the prayer process was designed as a sort of childlike begging for strength to do it all and be it all within the context of religious activity. Religion is supposed to extend into the most intimate points of a person's lifestyle... if they are truly devoted so therefore, even simple human activities that otherwise might not be construed to be religious can take that connotation quite easily. Prayer assists those in religion to be able to stay in "The Zone". The religious frame of mind takes much mental effort to keep in the fore front. I did not succeed in the higher levels of religiosity. I tried many times to wratchet up my level of commitment but burned out. This is not to say that I was less devout. I dutifully performed my Mormon obligations for years. Prayer worked most times, but also failed many times.
When prayer worked, many times I felt a surge of love flow into my being that I took as a sign from on high. Often times I would weep when I felt it because, to me, I just felt the presence of what I targeted to be the Mormon god singling me out ... kind of touching me on the shoulder you know? Some times I felt impressions of thoughts come into my head that made me feel better or stronger or more committed to the Mormon ideal. Mostly, these experiences usually were the most profound or tangible when I was in some form of personal crisis. The hard line "wins" I got from prayer hardly occurred in my life when things were running smoothly.
Other times I would just kneel down in an act of worship. He was god after all and since I believed in him, and saw him as the supreme entity of the universe having created me and everything I can experience from the microbes to Mount Everest I would revere this being with great awe and wonderment. This too caused me to weep and often times at this weeping moment, I would feel a rush of love flow into me. It was very two way... and I took that also to mean significant and serious communication between me, the lowly human and the all powerful creator was going on. Realizing that often times caused me further to weep or marvel that this god entity would take the time to strengthen me or pay attention to me.
I don't believe in that anymore. I now know that I can replicate these feelings of awe and wonderment. I still watch a sunrise at the beach around these parts and get choked up at the beauty of it all. As a nontheist, I have now had several significant "washing over" experiences where love flowed into me. The most recent was at a family vacation in San Diego three weeks ago in May when I realized the beauty of my wife and kids. I felt so much love coursing through me that I welled up with tears.
Sometimes I miss the innocence of believing that there was a god who cared about me. It took so much effort and devotion to feel anything that could qualify as sustainment during prayer. So much humility was required that eventually I practically found myself debasing my humaness in an attempt to find another visit from this feeling during prayer. After awhile, I noted that I always felt like, well, a schmuck. In order to feel the two way communication I had to prostrate myself on the floor and kind of convince this entity that I recognized his greatness and state of perfectness and my nothingness before him. That is usually what set the stage for the feelings to materialize. Humility is a good thing, but I have yet to see the value found in the prerequisite of lowering ones self in this fashion in order for another entity to begin communicating.
I had some significant occurrences happen to convince me that I was fabricating the feelings. I woke up from my theism to find that, yes, the world is an amazing place. Yes, there is plenty to be in awe of, and yes I can still feel reverence for it all. I can still feel small and insignificant as I admire the cosmos and intricacies of our planet. I can feel my place in this world without having to debase myself three times a day.
And wouldn't you know it? The feelings of love, gratitude, humility, and joy seem to wash into my life at about the exact same frequency as they did when I staunchly believed in a god. Amazing.
But why would a god require humans to pray at all? Isn't he omnipotent? Does he not know the end from the beginning? Is he not in tune with what we need? If I have studied theology well enough, I have learned that the god concept denotes a perfect omni-max entity capable of knowing what is what with our puny lives. When we pray in crisis, for example, if a father's son is in a coma at the hospital and a group of theists gather together to pray we might hear the prayers resounding something to the taste of
Please dear god... make little Johnny well.
(in Mormonism, we were taught to insert the qualifier, if it be thy will please make little Johnny well. Kind of a nice excuse to use after Little Johnny dies... Well, I guess it was god's will that he die... and countless of other Little Johnnies in the same scenario live)
But let's posit a god's existence for a minute. What is he, the entity who already knows the end from the beginning, doing up there listening to these prayers? It is odd to think that prayer would even enter into little Johnny's healing equation. What? Is god up there with balance scales? Do the prayers amount to a tipping point in the decision making process of a god with respect to little Johnny's plight? Benevolence is benevolence and it should not matter or be found actuating on account of popular vote. I guess I am trying to say that benevolence should not have any attached democracy weighing in. What about the homeless man who is in a coma? Nobody is praying for him. Yet homeless people find healing too.
Does Little Johnny die because only 99 people prayed for him to get well when god was needing that 100th prayer to push the weight in little Johnny's favor? I say that is preposterous. God calls the shots if he truly is god. So what is the purpose of praying over Little Jonny then?
Oh dang, says god. Oh dang, dang, dang. Little Johnny needed 100 prayers.. got 99.. Ewwww so close! Sorry... flatline it is then.
Nah. Remember. God, by his own perfect design, is supposed to know the end from the beginning. Prayer is not going to change what happens to life's results. So why then do theists pray? What is the point?
Is prayer merely a man made salve to calm our troubling existential fears? Is it the romanticizing ingredient of the potion that theists drink each day for the convincing that they will live beyond death and their existence does have meaning and purpose?
Before one devotes a significant portion of his life to praying.. i.e. attempting to communicate with some supreme being, shouldn't one try their best to determine if there is even an entity at the end on the other line listening to them? Am I the crazy one for thinking this way? Nobody I know in my family thinks this way. They were programmed to "know" that by default a god exists. It appears that not one of them even stops to think the concept through.
Therefore, if god might be made in man's image, perhaps the makers of the gods formatted prayer into the ceremony to keep this god powerful. Because, as I have found, the feelings of love, joy and elation coupled with humility and sense of purpose and a general overall tangible connection to the living occur in the lives of non theists at about the same frequency as the theist. What if we all simultaneously stopped praying to any god? Would the world implode?
Why does any god require prayer? Good question. The answer my old theist brain would give me might be quite unsatisfactory to my non-theist brain, but that the answer would consist of words like humility, faith, connection to deity etc...
Noggin
