Phenomenology of Prayer 1

 Prayer as Kenosis 

After reading this passage and having our class discussions I absolutely agree that prayer is the act of “emptying” oneself in the presence of god. It speaks about how majority of people tend to pray in petitionary sense. Which the book describes as if one give up one thing then one should be rewarded with another. I would agree with this, however I think this is not due to human selfishness, however do to how humans have created society. I believe humans only pray like this because we have been conditioned due to western philosophy and religion to think that all things have to be conditioned. I say this because in majority of western culture we judge everything as good and bad and almost always in terms for ourselves. I think if more of civilization practiced good deeds with the mindset that what they are doing isn’t for themselves but the greater good of all which would then in effect makes themselves better off also. Only then would I think the masses could be changed on how they not only look at prayer but how to go about it.