Friendly Atheist Mocks the Ancient Jesus Prayer

I actually like the Friendly Atheist web site. At times it can give some challenging questions Christians must respond too. However we are into day 2 of some rather bad posts at the site . For yesterday see Atheist Takes Pope Francis Out of Context- Pope Says Don't Be Curious My Flock !

Today we have This Is How You Pray Harder, While Accomplishing Nothing which mocks a Catholic blogger post on prayer.

 Hemant Mehta writes :

 the task they’re trying to accomplish. 

Like #1: Close your eyes and just repeat the name of Jesus. 

Our God is a good God… a good, egomaniacal God who wants you to repeat his Son’s name ad nauseam. (Which, by the way, is kind of hard to do. Try it.) 

In the rush to mock the Friendly Atheists appears not take the time to know his subject.

This is a not a problem that is not just limited to Atheist and goodness Christians do it too . Still for the reasoned educated Atheists class as they like to promote themselves it should be called out . Now this is what we call the JESUS PRAYER. It really is an active ancient  tradition  and very much used by Christians in the East  It has nothing to do with a egomania God. IN fact the " JESUS prayer is of some theological deepness that one would hope a educated person would just be aware of .

In reality a good many Christians use the Jesus prayer as centering prayer or contemplative prayer. 

This Eastern Orthodox Web site gives a good review what is going on. 

As that sites says :

 The third and final level is prayer of the heart. At this stage prayer is no longer something we do but who we are. Such prayer, which is a gift of the Spirit, is to return to the Father as did the prodigal son (Luke 15:32). The prayer of the heart is the prayer of adoption, when "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit that cries 'Abba, Father!'" (Gal. 4:6).

This is what is going with the Jesus prayers. It is at essence an intimate prayer with a person that we have real life RELATIONSHIP too. Think at times when we are separated from a loved one ( in most cases a spouse ) and just saying their name brings some peace to us. It makes them present.

This has little to do a pleasing a EGO Driven God that if we repeat his name we get various benefits from the Divine Slot Machine.

 It is in essence a conversation we are having with a person that is we love just as much as our spouse or children. Now I get how many would view that as some fairy tale hogwash  Heck even dangerous mentally ill hogwash. . Regardless that is the intent .