Assalamu Aleykum Wa Rhametulahi Wa Berekatu,
With regard to the first poster's question, first I would like to say, Hi and welcome, I have not seen you around before and I hope to gain knowledge from you, InshaAllah, God Willing.
Personally, the 'Lord's Prayer'
I would object using it, for the reason that it commences, 'Our Father' in Islam there is a Pricinple of Tawheed, it is like recognising the UNITY of Almighty God, and part of the Tawheed system, is a catagory named, 'Names and Attributes' and it encorperates that we, God's creation, should call to God with names he has ascribed to Himself, names He has told us and described Himself by, Such as Most Merciful, and so forth, I don't think 'Father' is one of those names in the Qu'ran And Sunnah, prophetic sayings, and because the Bible is not the same as when Jesus peace be upon him was there, and is not authenticated by HIM, we cannot say this is a name of God, thus we cannot, or rather I should say, Should Not, say Our Father, when refering to God, since He never, or His last Prophet never said it.
Quite Contrary God, tells us, 'Lam Yulid wa Lam Yulad' roughly translated as, He Begets not nor is he Begotten, for me to say God is our Father, in a spiritual type of way, would or may lead to people later thinking I meant maybe that God Begot us. That's another reason I would not say it.
With Regards to the Formal and Informal Prayers,
The Formal, are I believe also described as someething like a prevention or something, where a Muslim, maybe a weak one, or any normal human, who maybe wants to do something bad, for example commit fornication, if he knows he has to pray, he knows he has to wash after the fornication, so he may think, let me meet the girl early in the Morning, then he remembers he has Fajr prayer, and he cant wash and meet and then wash again to pray and so on, and then he thinks I will finish work or take my lunch break soon, let me meet the girl, then he realises at lunch he has another prayer and he cant have a bath at work, so he leaves it, and so on throught the day.
Before people scream at me and tell me, 'Oh muslim, or good people dont sleep around' I agree, but some who are weak and so forth find it hard, but through the formal prayer and keeping to it they are saved by this, Alhamdulilah, THAT IS A BENEFIT, NOT A REASON WHY WE DO IT.
The prayer is not formal neither, there are du'as in the prayer, supplications, where you can ask for anything, when the Muslim is in postration with his head to the ground this is the best time to supplicate and ask God for anything, different people have different desires so they can ask for different things from what I have read.
Also, a Muslim recites part of the Qu'ran, they can choose any part, (surah Fatiha has to be included) Big or Small, same or different, so it does vary, and they get another blessing, they not only are praying to their God, but also learning and revising their scripture in their prayer, for this reason Dr. Zakir Naik calls Salah, nor Prayer, but Programming!
But yes this prayer is constructed in a way which is or may seem repetative.
Also, Du'as/Supplications, as done by the Prophet peace be upon him, are with us, for almost any action you can think of, Alhamdulilah for that!
Plus you can ask for anything you want.
So in ISlam there is the """"Formal"""" and Informal, I guess thats what they are reffered to here.
