Whoever said to you that prayer is "telepathic communication to God", awaiting a reply which needs interpreting, was not, I am afraid, very knowledgeable in the topic. At least as far as my limited knowledge of these goes, there's no such thing in these religions. Prayer can be many things to many people but it's certainly not an act of conjuring of some spirit and divining some revelations directly from God, like shamans.

Receiving direct messages from God is commonly called prophecy, and, depending on the religion, prophets are extinct since hundreds to thousands years. I don't think any mainstream religion claims to have prophets today - there are, of course, various freaks, but mainstream religious communities never make such claims.

So your description - unless, of course, you can back it up with some sources that contradict what I said - appears inadequate.

"38% of Americans say that they have done something because God told them to"

http://today.yougov.com/news/2013/10/25/god-told-me/

Prayer is absolutely "telepathic communication to God" in at least one direction. Prayer is something you can do in complete silence, and God is still supposed to be able to hear you. In any other context we would call that "telepathy".

The other direction is not quite as clear, but clearly a lot of people believe it. Beyond telepathic responses, there are physical replies to telepathic requests, for example:

http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/if-a-person-asks-in-p...

http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/why-werent-my-prayers...

Note that the answers are not "this is bad and you should definitely not do it", but rather a simple command to trust that God or the lesser beings will do what's best.

>>> Prayer is absolutely "telepathic communication to God" in at least one direction

Which one would that be? If the prayer were God reading your mind, you didn't need to pray - God is omniscient, so He already knows what you're praying about. Moreover, He already knew what you would be praying about before you started. Why they are praying then, you ask? Try to answer this question (honestly, not jumping to the convenient conclusion of "all of them are idiots that couldn't see such a simple thing") and you'll get closer to understanding what prayer is. If they prayer would be you reading God's mind - I don't think any Avraamic religion would adopt such blasphemy as a human reading God's mind and understanding it.

>>> and God is still supposed to be able to hear you

You realize you just assumed God is a human which needs sounds to communicate, right?

>>> In any other context we would call that "telepathy".

Really? I just communicated with you in complete silence, yet it wasn't telepathy ;) Moreover, I simultaneously communicated with thousand other people, and didn't have to shout very hard either. Obviously, I'm some kind of wizard or something :)

I think you'd not get very far if you anthropomorphize God and imagine it's just some bearded dude sitting on a cloud. I, of course, far from prescribing a religion to you - if you want to believe this is how the God is, feel free to. I'm just saying it's probably not what most of the Christians believe in.

>>> a simple command to trust that God or the lesser beings will do what's best.

So where's a divination in that? Where is the fortune telling? I'd say if one of the fortune tellers would tell you "hope for the best and eventually something good would happen" you'd not pay much for that. That's why actual fortune tellers are much more verbose. I wouldn't vouch for the value of any of the verbs, but at least you get what you paid for.

The second answer, btw, explicitly says prayers are not magic - they are not supposed to force God (or any other supernatural being) into doing your bidding (that's basically what magic is about). It says it is a statement of trust, instead.

I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what you're objecting to now. Let me lay out my claims in a simple fashion:

1. Most if not all Abrahamic religions hold that you can effectively pray in silence and without doing anything besides thinking your prayer.

2. Prayer is communicating with God and communicating by pure thought is telepathy.

3. God is expected to reply in some way, and you're encouraged to look for and interpret the reply.

Can you elaborate exactly which one(s) you have trouble with, and why?

1. Depends. E.g. see some Judaic takes on it: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/7872/which-parts-... I'm sure there are different takes on this among Christians and Muslims too.

2. Not really.

3. Not at all.

The idea that you can make God do things by thinking about some stuff sounds strange to me. However, nothing I know about Avraamic religions suggests you can do that. Of course, the scripture contains examples of people - called prophets or Holy Ones, etc. - communicating directly with God and even causing change is God's behavior (the latter is exceedingly rare, but you could find some examples) - but a normal regular person is not expected to do that.

Let's take what I consider to be the most obvious part: #2. You say that communicating with God using pure thought is not "telepathy". Why not? Communicating with pure thought is basically the definition of the word.

I say that the claim that prayer is "communicating with God using pure thought" is your assumption which in no way actually corresponds to what prayer is. Pretty much the only part that is probably correct there is "God", all the rest is assumptions which might be true but usually are not. E.g., actual catholic links above say prayer is an expression of ultimate trust. Not the only definition possible but certainly doesn't fit what you're saying. Repeating it again, it is not possible to reach correct conclusion if you start with wrong assumptions.

Exactly. In mainstream Christianity in the US at least, asking your god or saints for help or advice is totally kosher. It is only when you try to communicate with other sorts of beings or things that all of the "witchcraft" stuff kicks in.

My favorite quote on the matter:

"The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."

(Note: don't take my quoting of Sam Harris as an endorsement of him in general. I have no idea whether he's worth endorsing or not, having read essentially nothing of his beyond that quote.)

"everybody" knows God is omnipotent (and omnipresent). He can hear your prayers without the hairdryer amplification, which the President should surely know. Using a hairdryer to communicate implies that the President believes in a God that cannot hear unamplified prayers; i.e. the President doesn't believe in the "real" God.

Right, so "magic" is acceptable as long as it's "magic we endorse".

Looking at it from the outside, there's no serious difference.

Sure. But now you know how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.

It doesn't make it any more ridiculous, that is the point. It only makes it into a form of magic that is not endorsed by mainstream christians, but it isn't actually any weirder.

If you liked that I urge you to seek out more: it gets even better. I especially recommend his talks that can be found on YouTube - he's a scientist and philosopher with the timing of a standup comedian.