Bön utan tro. Bönens funktion för personer som ber till högre makt utan att tro på högre makt

Abstract

This interview study explore the meaning of prayer for people who pray to a higher power without believing in any higher power. While the act of praying is often assumed to be done by persons who have a religious identity and a belief in a higher power, this does not have to actually be the case. Praying without belief may be quite common, being 10% of the respondents of a survey study in Finland. Such prayers fill several different kinds of meaningful functions. Four such functions can be clearly discerned from the interviews in this study: Prayer as a cultural act, prayer as self-help, prayer as inner strength and prayer as experiment. Some functions, especially Prayer as self-help, seem to work through a mental performativity: A way of going through the act of having a deep conversation, although within one's own mental reality. The study also shows that people who pray without being religious sometimes suffer from midclusion, being seen as ”the other” both among religious people and among atheists.