Prayer

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Prayer is a significant and universal aspect of religion, whether of primitive peoples or of modern mystics, that expresses the broad range of religious feelings and attitudes that command human relations with the sacred or holy. Described by some scholars as religion’s primary mode of expression, prayer is said to be to religion what rational thought is to philosophy; it is the very expression of living religion. Prayer distinguishes the phenomenon of religion from those phenomena that approach it or resemble it, such as religious and aesthetic feelings.

Historians of religions, theologians, and believers of all faiths agree in recognizing the central position that prayer occupies in religion. According to the American philosopher William James, without prayer there can be no question of religion. An Islamic proverb states that to pray and to be Muslim are synonymous, and Sadhu Sundar Singh, a modern Christian mystic of India, stated that praying is as important as breathing.

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