Prayer

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m ("prayer isn't asking" billboard i saw today prompted this.)
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''"The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."''
 
''"The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."''
 
:-[[Sam Harris]], ''Letter to a Christian Nation''
 
:-[[Sam Harris]], ''Letter to a Christian Nation''
 +
 +
''"do you know how useless prayer is? Chanting and singing and mucking about with half-remembered lines of bad poetry, and do you know what it gets you? Exactly nothing."''
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:-Priest Cavil, ''Battlestar Galactica''
  
 
==Automated prayer==
 
==Automated prayer==

Revision as of 11:08, 22 June 2010

Prayer: How to do nothing and still think you're helping.
—Common "de-motivator" poster

A prayer (from Latin precari "ask earnestly, beg") is a form of spell or incantation, usually cast or recited to a specific god or demon. Believers assert that their "god" hears their prayers and might even, in a good mood, grant the requests contained within prayers. This even extends to silent prayers, indicating prayers might be an attempt at telepathic communication. Some believers, however, claim that God ignores silent prayers and only listens when groups pray together in an organised way.[1]

On occasion prayers are made to some third party who is believed to have the power to intercede on behalf of the petitioner such as a saint or "The Lord's anointed" (royalty, religious leaders etc.).

There is no evidence of divine intercession actually occurring, other than occasional applications of the Texas sharpshooter logical fallacy.

Generic "prayers" are often offered by public figures, or people who run websites, or people who wish they did, in order to suck up to the vaguely religious majority of the population, thinking that they're free, and, who knows, they might help.

Contents

Quantity of prayer

Bouncywikilogo.gif
There is a broader, perhaps slightly less biased, article on Wikipedia about Prayer

Congregations are frequently exhorted to pray for something or someone. The idea apparently being that if entire groups of people pray for something, then the being being prayed to is more likely to perform miracles.

Exactly why they believe this is not clear. Possibilities include:

  • They believe their supreme being is a little deaf.
  • They believe that as the being has to listen to all the prayers it simply gets bored and performs a miracle to shut the believers up.
  • They believe that if more people demonstrate faith then their god will be more impressed than if only one person demonstrates it.
  • They believe that a certain number of "prayer hours" are necessary for each miracle and consequently collective action gets things done more quickly.
  • They believe that prayer is like a lottery, one gets picked out of the hat each day so the more entries you have the more likely thy will be done.
  • It is a classic example of magical thought, and they think the more people who perform the prayer, the more power it has. This implies that they don't really believe in an omniscient deity at all.

Double-blind tests

There have been attempts to carry out double-blind experiments to prove the value of prayer most notably by the Templeton Foundation.[2] Not surprisingly, these have shown that prayer has no noticeable effect.[3]

Paradox of prayer

A strange aspect of prayer is that the deed being prayed for has often been rendered necessary by the actions of the deity prayed to. A natural disaster or "act of God" often leads to prayers to the same God to alleviate the consequent harm. It would seem to give more bangs for the prayer bucks to pray for there to be a reduction in such disasters.

Quotes

"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays."

-Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher and theologian (1813-55).

"Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes, for some people - because God is mute, and he doesn't give advice or try to fix things. God just listens and lets you work it out for yourself."

-From the poem Listen, author anonymous.

"I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman!"

-Homer Simpson.

"The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."

-Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

"do you know how useless prayer is? Chanting and singing and mucking about with half-remembered lines of bad poetry, and do you know what it gets you? Exactly nothing."

-Priest Cavil, Battlestar Galactica

Automated prayer

Mechanized prayer

Prayer flags in La Bolsa

The Tibetans have actually brought prayer into the Industrial Age by mechanizing it in the form of prayer wheels that turn a scripture on a scroll inside a drum, acting as an automatic prayer.

Prayer flags

Let's not forget prayer flags. Every time the wind flutters them the prayers get sent off into the universe.


See also

Literature

  • Heiler, Friedrich: Prayer. A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion. (1997)

ISBN 1851681434

External links

Footnotes

  1. Andrew Schlafly, commenting on classroom prayer and mental illness, at Conservapedia.
  2. Templeton Foundation - Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer
  3. http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msciprayer.html
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