I can’t help but think of prayer as analogous to the spoilt and selfish child forever pestering his parents for a new bicycle. Let’s ignore the fact (for it is indeed a fact) that there is absolutely no scientific basis for the efficacy of prayer, beyond the psychological or psychosomatic resolution via internal discourse. However, prayer is defended in such wholly intellectually dishonest ways. An unanswered prayer is not seen as proof of its inefficacy; rather, some excuse must be presented: the supplicant is not sincere enough, not deserving enough, not pious enough, or not something else enough. Let’s take a look at an example:
Amputee Adam prayers for a new leg, not a prosthetic leg, of course, but a real flesh & blood leg. Of the trillions of prayers offered up to the gods, never, not once, ever has an amputee received a leg. Why is that? Of all the tricks in his bag, ‘materialising limbs’ is not one of them. Pray to, or rather ask a doctor, and he or she will give you the next best thing. Pray to god, and you get what? Nothing, zero, zilch. How about other, less debilitating ailments? Again, it’s men and women who have devoted years of their life to medical science that come up with the goods. Need a new organ? Who you gonna call?
Another fundamental problem with prayer is that its perceived efficacy is so selective. I have a cold; I pray to god for a solution, a cure. My cold dries up, my head clears, my throat is no longer rasping. Of course god answered my prayer, and cured my cold. Does god, who is obviously pretty busy keeping every subatomic particle on course and in motion, not have better things to do? When it comes to priorities it seems as though god would do well to take an elementary course in GTD. Perhaps he needs to draw up a list of, say, common ailments and diseases and rank them by seriousness. Let’s put brain cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer’s near the top of the list. That same list might trail with, say, the common cold, bruises, scratches, sprained ankles, and broken finger nails.
I have spoken to a great number of people whose faith is mostly founded on a single answered prayer. Can you believe it? Doesn’t that smack of arrogance? Think about it for a moment: god answered your prayer for a new job, a new car, relief from mild arthritis, or asthma. Now, what about that baby born blind, or with missing or deformed limbs? How about the pregnant mother who has AIDS, the rape victim who pleas with god for it to stop? Terribly sorry, but god is busy helping Joe with his CV, and up to his eyes wrangling for the Yankees to win the World Series.
Come on! Let’s stop kidding ourselves with this abject nonsense. Another blatant contradiction: those same people, those who claim that prayers — most importantly their prayers — are answered, also claim that suffering exists as a result of our god-given free will. God does not intervene to end pointless suffering and evil because that would contradict the notion of free will. I wish they’d just make up their minds. Do we have free will, or don’t we? Does god intervene in human affairs or doesn’t he? If he doesn’t, then he doesn’t answer prayers; indeed, he cannot do so without contradicting himself. If he does intervene, then why does he do it so half-heartedly? Why doesn’t he just put a little more effort into his game, and put an end to pointless and unnecessary suffering?
Consider this: god doesn’t answer prayers because god does not exist. This logical solution is without contradiction. Perhaps it’s not quite so consoling, but then where is the consolation for the 5-year old victim of sexual abuse who, incidentally, is raped by a celibate Catholic priest? Ersatz consolation is a pretty weak foundation on which to build one’s entire world view. So, let’s simply stop confessing belief in this nonsense, let’s stop perpetuating these juvenile, arrogant, and pernicious superstitions.
Undoubtedly, some will be offended by the above words, and by the tone in which they’re penned. But that’s not my intention. I only hope and pray (you see, I have a sense of humour too) that you — if you’re a believer — will take a look at your religious convictions, not through the obscuring veil of faith, but whilst standing on the shoulders of reason and common sense.
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5 Comments
There seems to be a belief that, if enough people pray for the same thing, only God will decide to do the right thing — for example, the parents of Madeline McCann asking people to pray for the discovery of their sadly-disappeared daughter. If this is the case, then it means that this God is a ridiculous awful insecure weird person — he needs to have his ego regularly massaged, to be constantly told how much people love him, and only then will he consider doing anything. If that is the case, then we should not be worshipping this nasty self-obsessed character.
I understand your reaction to this superstitious phenomenon but I thought you might be be interested to have the input of someone who believes in reason and logic as much as in God. To me, these are two separate questions. Science is a beautiful thing that fascinates me and that I long considered as a career. Believing that the Universe is driven by some force called God or love, and making efforts to contribute to this is also a beautiful thing. That’s just the way I understand and live my faith.
So, I think that prayer is much more some sort of meditation, something you do to connect you self to your faith. It’s not a mean to ask for something. Praying to obtain something specific is called superstition. Superstition is exactly what science battles against, and superstition drives me mad as much as you because it’s a low-level reduction of what faith and spirituality can be. It’s the tooth-fairy vs. the buddhist monk, you see what I mean?
You say “god doesn’t answer prayers because god does not exist.” I’d say that God doesn’t answer prayers because God is not an old bearded man taking care of his 6 billion children. This childish vision of God as a patriarch is simply a self-centered, anthropomorphic interpretation. That’s also why he lets his creation suffer. God is not a father. We are free to think and make decisions. It’s our job to put an end to suffering. Otherwise, free will is totally pointless.
One last thing: at no point here am I telling you “you’re mistaken, God exists”. I totally respect atheism and have no problem with that. Faith is a very personal experience and certainly not something you should try to convince people about. I just wanted to let you know that religion can be much more that mere superstition.
Hi Mitternacht
I think what you write is pretty reasonable, and not so far removed from my own views. However, I must admit to being a little baffled by such vague notions or definitions of god. I struggle to see how something as amorphous as ‘love’ can sustain the universe, let alone bring it into existence. It also raises the question, why? Why would something, a force, whatever, create a material universe that he-she-it has absolutely no interest in? And, more importantly, what is to be gained from professing faith in, or praying to, something outside of space-time, outside of what is knowable? Surely it’s no different to praying to, say, a piece of rock or a solitary quark that exists in some alternate reality, an alternate space-time, which by definition is unknowable, and which again, by definition, can have no relationship to anything within the space-time we inhabit.
My article is aimed at the hundreds of millions who, unlike you, do obeisance to and have faith in the anthropomorphised psychopath in the sky; many of whom profess belief in a blatant contradiction: on the one hand they claim their faith is a ‘personal thing’, but then they proceed to belie that personal profession of faith by extrapolating and tenuously teasing out the strands to an objective and unassailable universal truth. But it doesn’t end there. The next illogical step is to demand that everyone else subscribe to it (that very thing that started out as a subjective, unfalsifiable, unverifiable, untenable, personal conviction ) — even on pain of death.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Greatly appreciated.
Hello John,
It just occurred to me today that I hadn’t seen an update from you on Facebook for a while. A little digging soon revealed the reason why!
Interesting to read your thoughts on prayer, and on religion generally. It seems you and I have pursued similar paths to similar positions on the whole issue. I think I fully jettisoned the last of it about 5 or 6 years ago, but that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes revisit the discussions with others.
Thank you for an elegant treatment of the subject. You always were a thoughtful chap, and I’m glad to see that hasn’t changed!
Best,
Marc
Hi Marc
Goodness, it’s been a long time. Good to hear from you. We really must keep in touch. My email address is johno{at}ilovetypography.com.
Hope all is well.