Prayer works

To those who believe prayer works, ask yourself this:

If you are asking for something just and noble like curing your child of a terrible ailment, why do you have to ask? If God is good, loving and just, would he not do the just and noble thing regardless of whether or not He's asked?

If you ask for something that is not noble and just, isn't it likely that he won't grant it? Does God really care if you have a Mercedes or other forms of "bling"? If God will do the just and noble thing without being asked and he will not grant frivolous wishes, despite being asked, why would you ever bother asking for anything?

If you ask for something on a grander scale than a personal health goal, like reversing global warming or safeguarding a near extinct species, do you think prayer will work? Or do you think that God will leave that up to the actions of humans? If you believe it is up to humans, why do you believe that curing the ailment of one individual is the responsibility of God? Does the hard work of doctors, chemists, and lab technicians play no role? If it plays no role, why do you ever consult a doctor about anything? If it does play a role, to what degree? Before antibiotics, people lived in a world where you could die if you cut yourself shaving. God was prayed to in that world. Thousands of years after creating humans, did God only recently decide that antibiotics would be a good thing for humans to have, or did it have a little something to do with human ingenuity. (a slight tangent here: God created bacteria. Are we angering Him by circumventing his will with antibiotics?)

How long do you think prayer is effective for? You can ask for a child's cancer to go into remission so they can have a long and fruitful life. You can ask again when the child becomes an adult and the cancer comes back. You can ask again when this person is elderly. But is there an age when God stops listening to your prayers. If you keep asking for life, will God grant it. Can this method carry you to age 400? Why does it seem that God stops listening to U.S. citizens at age 78 and citizens of India at age 64? Is is possible that average life spans by country have something to do with availability of modern medical treatment, sanitation, and access to adequate nutrition? Or perhaps it's because Americans pray harder than Indians. What about medieval Europe? The average lifespan was 20-30 years. Is the reason for longer lives around the world today because of, in addition to incredible advancements in medical science, advancements in the efficacy of prayer? Seriously ask yourself if prayer has increased our lifespan.

When you form prayer groups, do you really believe there is power in numbers? What numbers are most powerful? If 39 people ask God to heal little Timmy's cancer, does God say, "sorry, no can do...cancer carries a minimum of 40 people". What if you have a thousand people in your group? Are humans able to browbeat God into doing something he might not otherwise do? If I can gather three billion people to ask God to give me the power to turn lead into gold, do you believe it will happen?

What if God orchestrated a plan that included you dying of heart disease at age 43 (which of course has everything to do with God's plan and nothing to do with the tons of fried food you eat). Months before the event, your doctor tells you that you have months to live, so you start praying. What are you asking for? You are asking God to alter his plan. Your death at 43 will have profound effects on your family, your friends, your workplace. Perhaps your now vacant rent controlled apartment prevents a young family from being homeless. Perhaps one of your children will be so moved by your death that he or she will dedicate their life to, and ultimately discover a cure for heart disease. Perhaps if you were allowed to live to 44, you'd get into a car accident that will kill the person that would have become the world leader to finally bring world peace about. If God has decided you should die, do you really think you can change his mind? He has weighed and measured every action your life will have on the world for a millennium to come and he has made his decision. What use do you think it is to ask him to rethink it?

If you believe in the common concept of a loving and just God that intervenes in human affairs for our benefit, then you must believe that prayer is totally ineffective. Stop praying and start doing. Stop praying for cancer to go away and start raising money for cancer research. Realize that humans are responsible for the shape of our modern world and that our actions, not our private thoughts to an invisible sky fairy, will form our future.