The 35-member Congressional Prayer Caucus at a press conference on Wednesday launched an initiative to encourage every American to spend five minutes a week praying for the nation. Today's Detroit Free Press reports on the effort. The group has created a "Wall of Prayer Around America" page on the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation website. Using a graphic of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, it seeks individuals to sign up for specific times to pray so that all times are covered. Reacting to the effort, Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said: "Lawmakers should stick to their constitutional duties and leave religious decisions to individuals.... Religion is too important to become a political football." Additional coverage of the story is on Blog from the Capitol and Melissa Rogers websites.It's a simple question, really: why pray?
If God exists, and wants to do something, then God will do it, right? Why does God need your help to do it? Is God lacking confidence? Does God need encouragement? Or is God forgetful, and you're like the helpful pager that goes off before a meeting? He's got Alzheimer's?
Perhaps all prayer is horizontal -- for our own benefit?
Perhaps people think God doesn't really give a shit about things, and they have to raise God's conscientiousness about it...? That little girl dying of leukemia will just have to suffer and die, because God doesn't fu*&ing care...until you pray, that is. God's like a grumpy old uncle whose ties to the family are so weak that he has to be prodded to attend holiday dinners, but, importantly, still cares just enough such that he can still be prodded to do so.
Perhaps they think that God is democratic in nature, and that a tally of votes is necessary for God to act -- God only cares about majority popularity.
And what's up with how prayers get answered?
A priest and his wife gave birth to conjoined twins, who will now possibly die in the separation surgery, and if they do live, it will only be by virtue of advanced surgical technology. No matter how much you prayed 150 years ago, these girls would have died. Were they born in this era by God's will? Does God get the credit for our medical advances, but not for witholding the information from us for thousands of years while people needlessly suffered and died of simple medical ailments (infections and poisons and etc.)? Does God get the credit if the girls live through this, or the surgeons, or both? Does God get the blame for their being this way in the first place, or the devil?
Who made the devil? Why?
Did this happen due to the priest's lack of prayer? His wife's lack of prayer? Did this priest not pray enough, and thus his daughters were born conjoined at the head, but if he prays now, God will fix it?
And if God sees, ahead of time, that people will completely lose faith in God's own existence when seeing pictures like that, why believe that God gives a shit if you believe in God or not?
Here's one stab at answers from some Catholics:
Upon the answer to this enquiry depends the whole business of our success or failure in prayer. Success and failure to be judged in God's terms, not ours.Interesting. Basically, if your prayer gets answered, then praise Gawd! And if it doesn't? Well, it was your fault, of course, since God never fails!
Failure in prayer is related to no personal love for God or mental attitude sins.Now, how can one say something so mean?!?!? That it's your fault!?!?!? Well...they're just quoting the bibble:
21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. (1 John 3:21-22, NIV)So, basically God has the perfect system: getting all the credit for "answers" and none of the blame for "failures"! Think of it this way: heads, God wins; and tails, you lose!
The only answer to these questions that renders coherence to reality at all is the simplest answer, and the most likely to be true: there is no God or gods, and your prayers are you, as a grown-up adult, talking to your invisible magic friend, just like you did when you were a little child. Every empirical study has shown the same thing -- that prayers do nothing. Don't believe me? Find one documented amputee whose limb grew back from prayer. One. Ever. (**update: here are documented cases of the flaws in these studies, and here are some of my thoughts on those studies**)
Grow up and deal with reality.
Wishful thinking doesn't change a goddamned thing.
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