I’ve always been baffled by why so few pray-ers appear to be concerned by, or even notice, the incongruity of making direct requests(often aloud, and/or with various ritual additives) of an omniscient deity. Especially an omniscient deity who is commonly said to already have a plan in mind.
I can only assume that the ritualized behavior serves some fairly deeply rooted psychological purpose(quite possibly the one that ends up being categorized as ‘stereotypy’ or ‘stereotyped behaviors’ if you wander too far from normal intensity and duration); but that doesn’t help shake how weird it is.
