One often hears of the power of prayer, if one has many christian friends. Yet time and time again, it seems there is something wrong with the power of prayer. It seems that either the connection is not working or that the prayer has been taken out by the divine spam filter. Yet Christians still insist that prayer is an effective and powerful tool. However, before taking a look at prayer and its perceived power, the question firstly is, what is prayer?
Tefilah is the Hebrew word for prayer. It is derived from the root Pe-Lamed-Lamed and the word l'hitpalel, meaning to judge oneself. The Yiddish word meaning "pray" is "daven," which ultimately comes from the same Latin root as the English word "divine" and emphasizes to whom prayer is directed.
Merriam-Webster defines prayer as
a (1) : an address (as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought (2) : a set order of words used in praying b : an earnest request or wish.
The word
pray can be traced back to its Latin roots
precārī which meant "ask for, entreat, pray" and the noun prayer can be traced back to precārius which, interestingly enough, is also the source of the word precarious - depending on chance or caprice. Coincidence?
Anyways, back to prayer and its perceived power. Prayer according to christians is one of the most powerful tools they have. They can pray for souls, pray that traffic will be smooth, pray that eyes will open to see "the truth"(usually through bad things happening), pray for the hamster not to die, pray for less pain, pray for more money. Let's take a step back and look at it objectively. Assuming the existence of such a being, why would a "God" listen? They say he does. Imagine if he really do. Won't he find the human race exceptionally whiny about everything? Who amongst you love listening to whiny people? The christian "God" definitely does not. Just go read the many times he has punished the whinny hebrews in the bible.
How about if, according to the christians, he does what you pray to him for? Suspend the laws of physics? Of entropy? Make others late for work? Take money from others and give it to you? Oh right, "he moves in mysterious way." Seriously? If prayer works, shouldn't all praying ones pray for less poverty in improvised nations? Or how about praying for those who lack the basic necessities such as clean water, food, and shelter? Oh right, "we can't pray for those who won't help themselves and work hard." Then why don't you wake up a little earlier instead of praying for less traffic? Or a little harder for more money? Since, one can pray about the lack of
x, presumably, one can also pray for the abundance of
x. Yet I never hear, "'God', I have much money/comfort/looks/abilities, take some away and give it to the rest."
Still, there are many people who claim that "'God' answers prayers" with the proof of "I prayed and it happened." That begs the question, assuming I subscribe to your premise, 'God' exist, how do you know beyond any reasonable doubt that it was your "God" whom, by answering your prayer, made it happened? Is there one single shred of objective evidence that it was the 'God' you prayed to that did it, and not something that would have happened otherwise? Behavioral Psychologist B. F. Skinner has proven through his studies of the human mind, that it (the human mind) seeks relationships between events and finds them even when they are not present. A person praying for
x and
x happening does not necessarily mean that the event(
x) happened because you prayed. If that be the case, many of the other gods that christians claim are false would be true based on the very same proof the christains claim verifies their prayer answering 'God'.
I think "God's" job to answer prayers is a pretty sweet deal for him and anyone would love to be in a similar position in day-to-day living. Imagine that I have been asked to do a task which, according to all my references and all the paper qualifications I have, is as easy as finding out the sum of 0+0; plus I have promised to do it. If I do it, I get massive amounts of praise and pretty good $$. If I do not do the task or fail at it in some way, I need not find any reasons or excuses as those who requested it from me would come up with their very own. "He moves in mysterious ways." "His thoughts are not my thoughts, neither his ways my ways." "I am unworthy of his help." "He is not a divine vending machine." Does this not describe the "God' that his followers ardently pray to and insist we all do the same? How is it possible that they/we do not see that this is one crazy ramble of an unsound mind?
There are the minority who do more than they pray, but for the vast majority, prayer only seeks to alleviate their guilt and/or laziness. "I prayed for ______, " and they think "so I have done my part." Often are the times one hears the "I prayed that 'God' will_______" said with such self-righteousness that it makes the blood boil and causes one to want to slap them really hard across that "sincerely" smiley mask these "prayer-warriors" put on. And if one were to reply, "I know you prayed, but what have you actually done?" Oh my, puppy eyes will come out, followed by indignation/exasperation, as if their prayers were more than enough already. I was once one. I feel ashamed.
I have, on purpose, not included any of the findings from experiments on the effectiveness of prayer due to the controversy surrounding them. However, if you were so inclined to read the findings, I would suggest reading the findings of the double blind experiment conducted by Harvard Medical School, which is an impartial and objective study of the subject. It was funded by Templeton Foundation and included many christian doctors as investigators. For humor, read the arguments against the findings by fundamentalists. I wonder if they would have raised the same "issues" if it had turned out in their favor.
. Princeton University Press. p. 43.
