Prayer… WTF?

September 14, 2006 on 3:13 pm |

Random Christian prays for X.
X happens.
Answered prayer!

Same Christian prays for Y.
Y does not happen.
Y was not in God’s plan.

I guess I am just gifted with too much logic, but how does that not reveal to the entire praying population that what they are doing is pointless? Some would argue that it’s the good feelings that you have that can make a difference for yourself. That’s fine. Think good thoughts. Don’t try to say those thoughts aloud to a classroom though.

Time and time again, prayer has been clinically shown to have no connection to the recovery process. What was the response I read to this? “God stepped in on this one. He won’t stand by while you tear him down ‘fact by fact’.”

Christians are so absorbed in their mythology that they will do or say absolutely anything to remain in their comfortable bubble. Try speaking your mind to a state full of these mindless folks. It’s not easy.

One of my friends knows that I am an atheist. She knows a child that is very ill. Instead of asking me to pray for him, she said, “Please keep him in your thoughts.” I respect not only her acceptance of my beliefs, but the profound amount of logic that this course of action displays over prayer. Keeping someone “in my thoughts” will not beam magic healing beams to them, but it will serve as a way for me to keep those less fortunate in the forefront of my mind. It will keep me in closer touch with his condition, and ultimately have much more beneficial results than looking upward with hands clasped and jibbering to the sky.

Why do people even bother to pray before meals anymore? It’s a waste of time. Whenever I find myself eating out with a group of Christians, I find myself waiting for every last one of them to be seated and words to be jibbered before I can tie into my food. Of course, I could just start eating, but I wish to respect their practice, pointless as it is, just as some few respect mine. It’s not even like these prayers contain anything of substance either. Every blessing is the exact same.

“Dear Lord. Thank you for this meal. Please bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies so that we may live through you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

Give or take a few words, that is every single meal blessing you will likely ever hear. You think they could just print it on an index card, lay it on the table, and accept the minutes as read in true Robert’s Rules fashion. It would be a lot quicker and would display the same amount of creativity with each new prayer.

I think I remember praying a couple times when I was young. I even remember that time when I desperately sought Jesus Christ in my early-mid teens. None of those prayers was even remotely answered. If they had been, I wouldn’t be on this blog right now exposing the ludicrousness of the Christian faith.

I came to the conclusion that others are either to scared or stupid to take. I realized that I was pursuing the ultimate tooth fairy and that if anyone was going to lead my life in a positive direction, it would be me. Sure enough, trials and tribulations abound, I have pressed on to become a much more focused and goal-oriented person than I was last year. While my Christian counterparts might say “God was there with me through the hard times” or “I owe my successes to Him”, I say “While I didn’t do it on my own, I sure as hell didn’t enlist the help of the boogeyman.”

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  1. A few more things that suck about prayer:

    1) When people ask you to say the blessing before the meal. I hate this, because they automatically assume that you are the same religion as them, which puts you in a rather awkward situation. If this ever happens to you, I have found it is best to politely decline without giving any sort of detailed explanation as to why. It is not good, however, to try to fake it. If I recall correctly, my “rub-a-dub-dub thanks for the grub” didn’t go over very well last Thanksgiving.

    2) When people offer to pray for you. Now, I will occasionally say “I’ll pray for ya,” in jest, but I don’t actually mean that any sort of prayer is going to happen. I hate when people offer to pray for me (ask me about my TAG retreat) because I personally think that is a bit presumptuous. Even if your invisible friend in the sky exists, who says I want his input? What is even worse than this is when people tell you they will pray for your salvation. My salvation is none of anyone else’s business.

    3) When people say stuff like “I didn’t know what to do about XYZ situation, so I went home and prayed about it.” What the fuck does that accomplish? In the time it took to “pray about it” I’m sure that person could have taken some kind of action to rectify XYZ situation. I see prayer as a sign of weakness. It is basically someone saying “I can’t handle my own shit, so I am going to beg the invisible man in the sky to take care of things for me so I don’t have to deal with it.” Bullshit.

    Comment by Megan — September 17, 2006 #

  2. First of all, yaay for the post Corey! Looking forward to the next one. :)

    Just to play devil’s advocate (so to speak) for a second: I think that prayer on an individual basis can sometimes be constructive. In your example Megan, the person isn’t necessarily praying for some miracle to occur and fix their problem. Rather, they’re searching for a solution. This would be kind of like me saying “I didn’t know what to do about XYZ situation, so I slept on it / called my sister / went for a long hike.” It’s just allowing your brain to process your dilemma, really. I don’t have a problem with that at all.

    What really gets me is the stupidity of the faithful in large groups. Imagine this: your town is going through a serious drought. The city council declares a “day of prayer and fasting” and asks all the townspeople to pray for rain. Then, lo and behold, it starts raining! In fact, it even starts flooding in places! Thanks Jesus, you rock! The citizens are in awe at the generosity of the great and powerful Lord.

    Ok, believe it or not this actually happened two months ago in Lubbock, Texas. The city council then declared today, Sept. 17, a day of “prayer and thanksgiving” to avoid another such mishap next year. Read the article here:

    This truly boggles my mind. If it rains in Lubbock on any random day, it’s just rain. But if it rains after the Day of Prayer, it’s Jesus rain! It’s a miracle! Just further evidence to me that in order to be religious, you have to suspend all logical thought processes.

    The worst part of all this is that it was instigated by the city government. I shudder to think that MY tax dollars could someday be spent on ridiculous crap like this.

    Comment by andrea — September 17, 2006 #

  3. sorry, not good at this hyperlink stuff. here’s the URL:

    http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/
    article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51985

    Comment by andrea — September 17, 2006 #

  4. True, prayer can be constructive in a “let me sleep on it” kind of way, but I feel that people don’t so much pray “about” something, rather “for” it. Now, if someone is in a situation where they have decided on some course of action and they pray about it to God for spiritual support, that’s cool. Also, if someone uses prayer as a means to mull things over and arrive at a solution, then that is cool too. The people I have a problem with are the ones waste valuable time on prayers such as “Dear God, today I lost my job and I can’t feed my family. Please send a large bundle of cash hurtling down from the sky. Meanwhile, I will be here at home praying until it happens. Amen.”

    Also, I am dumbfounded by that article. I am so glad those people are taking an entire day to thank God for the sudden flash flooding. Thank you Lord, for ruining my yard and sending my only car floating down the street! You are almighty and wonderful!

    Comment by Megan — September 17, 2006 #

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