The Power of Prayer
All the contradictions, suspension of disbelief, and platitudes so common to Christianity, rolled up in a neat bundle.
Christians pray. Christians also prey, but I’ll leave that for another article. Prayer is an integral part of Christian living. However, as with most beliefs of most religions (just because it’s a generalization doesn’t mean it isn’t true), a closer look reveals the absurdities and contradictions in the belief about, and the practice of, prayer.
Christians are told to pray for what they need. They are told that “prayer changes things.” However, they are also told that god is not changed by prayers — that would imply that the prayer had some control or power over god, but that’s not possible if god is in fact omnipotent. So, prayer changes things, but only if god had already decided to change things. Or as the U.S. President says in Love, Actually: “I’ll give you anything you ask for — as long as it’s not something I don’t want to give.” Or put even more succinctly, prayer does nothing.
Christians are told that god answers prayers. The many fervent and seemingly reasonable prayers that don’t achieve the desired outcome are explained by saying that god always answers prayers, but sometimes the answer is “no.” Other times unsuccessful supplicants are told that they didn’t pray “hard enough,” or made their requests with impure motives, or had unrepented sin that blocked their access to god (so god always answers prayers *if* the person praying passes some holiness test — be careful who you ask to pray for you!).
Another popular response to failed prayers is to say that god had a better plan. Sure, it seems like taking the mother of six young children by some horrible disease is a tragedy, but god had a reason, and it will all turn out to be better for all involved. If the Christian conception of god was true, I’d have to admit that god landed the best gig ever. He gets full credit for every good thing that happens to his followers, and is absolved of all blame for any bad thing. The fact that this absurdity is embraced without question by many Christians would be shocking if it weren’t so typical.
It always bothered me, when I called myself a Christian, to hear people telling stories about how they were going to the store and couldn’t find a parking place until they asked god to give them one, whereupon an open space miraculously appeared just ahead. Or they prayed for a new job because they didn’t like their current job, and god gave them a better job. What it might say about a supreme being who granted prayers for parking spaces or a boost up the corporate ladder but not for healing of mothers or children never seemed to occur to those people (oh, I forgot — god had a better plan). Again, if this is shocking it’s only because we haven’t been paying attention.
I’ve never quite felt right about telling someone who is about to go through a difficult circumstance that I’ll be thinking of them. It seems so vapid. But the religious alternative — “I’ll be praying for you” — is no less vapid, and the implied power to control how things transpire is delusional and offensive. It also, I suppose, could be interpreted as saying that the person offering to pray is better than the person “in need of” prayer (more likely to have prayers answered, i.e., holier.) Or perhaps it’s just the power of numbers. Having more people engage in fruitless exercises on one’s behalf has to be better, right? Sort of like the old joke about setting my prices so low that I’m losing money on every unit sold, but I plan to make it up in volume.
Prayer does nothing concrete. It doesn’t change circumstances. If a person is willing to ignore all the facts, history, and the obvious and multiple contradictions even within the myth on which is based the belief in prayer, praying may allow them to feel like they are doing something about situations over which they have no control, or make them feel like there is hope in the face of hopeless circumstances. However, given the reality that nothing is going to be changed by prayer, praying is not the selfless, loving act it is made out to be, but rather an act whose entire focus is on the self (as is true for much of Christianity and religion in general.) Prayer is an exercise in futility. Prayer is talking into an empty abyss. The “power of prayer” is the power of self-deception. Nothing else.
