On The Inutility of Prayer
Posted by Ray @ 1:18 amI am currently digesting Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Kudos to the National Library of Singapore for having books available for borrowing so quickly after their publication. Whereas I earlier doubted Dawkins’ own fundamentalist-atheist style, I must say his book is turning out to be much more reasonable than I expected it to be.
I have not yet finished, but one section in Chapter 2 reminded me of a pet peeve of mine: the uselessness of prayer. The amusing quote is on page 60:
Remember Ambrose Bierce’s witty definition of the verb ‘to pray’: ‘to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in [sic] behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.’
One thing I’ve always hated is whenever I’m going through a tough time, the only thing my Christian friends can offer me is “I will pray for you.” That’s all I get. I don’t even know if I actually get prayed for; I can only assume I am dutifully added to the prayer diary, sitting right next to your copy of Our Daily Bread and the Bible.
It’s weird. When one of my friends have trouble, I do my best to help. I listen. I give them a call on the phone. Arrange lunches, or dinners, or alcohol-imbibing sessions. Let them know I’m available. Check up on them and make sure they’re okay. You know, being there for your friend.
Surely you, as a moral, caring Christian, can do better? Isn’t “I will pray for you” the equivalent of saying “I’m too lazy to do anything for you, my friend, so I shall assuage my guilt by mouthing empty platitudes”? Now, not all my Christian friends are like this; most of them are actually decent people. But every time I hear those vacuous words, I feel like introducing the speaker to the bottom of my shoe.
And empty they are, you have to admit that. Prayer does not work, and you know it. Every time I hear an anecdotal story about how a prayer was “answered”, I cringe. Prayer and other miracles appear to work because there are external factors that you never noticed at work. I give you two personal anecdotes.
In one, my sunday school teacher was late for an important church event. As she sat there waiting for the bus, she bowed her head in prayer. Lord, please do not let me be late to do Your holy work. When she looked up, lo and behold, the bus was just pulling up into the bay. She got on, and was not late.
In another, a classmate was listening to gospel songs on her discman when her battery ran out. Saddened by the loss, she put her discman away. Later in the day, as she was going back home, she decided to try the discman out; lo and behold, sweet praise for the Lord flowed from the earphones. “Isn’t it an amazing miracle?” she told me, eyes glowing with wonder. “God helps in the smallest ways.”
In neither situation does divine power come into play. The first anecdote is a remarkable exposition on the egocentric nature of prayer, and how it can distort the simplest of events into divine guidance. The second anecdote is easily explained away with science: as batteries are used, chemicals build up around the tips. These chemicals increase a battery’s resistance, and eventually the battery is too weak to overcome it. Let your battery rest for a while, however, and the chemicals dissipate; the battery functions again.
But those are negative examples, I hear you protest. Prayer does work, it’s just that you don’t have enough faith yourself. Or the praying person lacks faith. Or the existence of sin has made God turn away. Or it is not meant to be answered, and some greater path awaits you if you just wait.
I don’t propose to deal with all these protests individually. What I will say is this. Let us assume that prayer actually will help in some measurable fashion. Let us also accept that prayer does not always work.
Why then do you offer me something that may or may not work, instead of showing me more concrete support that’s guaranteed to help?
Why?
You’re lazy, that’s why. Prayer helps you fill that imperceptible twinge the vestiges of your conscience gives you. I really don’t need that kind of person around me when I’m slogging through crap, thank you very much.
So to all of you who have nothing to offer but empty statements: the game is up. We all know you’re only doing it to score brownie points.
But it’s okay. You can carry on muttering ineffectually under your breath for whatever you happen to want for the moment. Just count me out of it.
2 Comments »
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://www.squarebrain.net/2007-01/on-the-inutility-of-prayer/trackback/
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
“The most modest exercise of the intellect, not to say of decency, should certainly be enough to convince these interpreters of the perfect childishness and unworthiness of such a misuse of the divine digital dexterity. However small our piety, if we ever encountered a god who always cured us of a cold in the head at just the right time, or got us into our carriage at the very instant heavy rain began to fall, he would seem so absurd a god that he’d have to be abolished even if he existed. God as a domestic servant, as a letter carrier, as an almanac — man — at bottom, he is’ a mere name for the stupidest sort of chance”
- The Anti-Christ, Friedrich Nietzsche
Comment by Agagooga — Saturday, January 20 2007 @ 11:20 am
Yes, but I like my protests in simple english =P.
Comment by Ray — Saturday, January 20 2007 @ 2:29 pm