The only television show I watch regularly is the NBC Evening News: I watch the whole thing from 5:30-6, completely ignoring phone calls and other disturbances. Last night the lead story was about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Savannah Guthrie, a well-liked NBC news journalist and co-anchor of the network’s Today show. Mother and daughter were close, with Nancy often appearing on Savannah’s show.
Nancy Guthrie was 84, and simply disappeared from her home in Tucson, Arizona on Sunday. She has limited mobility, and when she didn’t show up for church a friend called the police, who discovered her disappearance. Nancy Guthrie relies on medication that she must take every 24 hours or she might die. An interview with the local sheriff revealed that there were signs of violence, and that Nancy was probably abducted. It’s now Tuesday, so she might already be dead.
The NBC news, both national and local, gave the disappearance not only the lead story, but also lots of air time because Savannah’s a member of the network family. The first paragraph of the NBC national news story is this:
“TODAY” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie is asking for prayers for her mother’s safe return as Arizona authorities continue to investigate her possible abduction.
Savannah also related, on the evening news, that the greatest gift she got from her mother was a deep belief in God, as you see in the plea for prayers above. On the local NBC news, anchor Alison Rosati ended her report on the disappearance by saying that she and other NBCers were also praying for Nancy Guthrie.
This is a tragedy for the Guthrie family, especially because Savannah and her mom were so close, and I won’t be dismissive of the call for prayers by nearly all the reporters. It did, however, get me thinking about people’s views about what prayers are supposed to accomplish, how they’re received by the God people imagine, and how educated people (Savannah has a J.D. from Georgetown Law) come to think that prayers are useful.
It’s clear that all the calls for prayer by newspeople reflect the still-pervasive religiosity of America, though I’m not sure whether, for some, the call for prayer is just a pro forma expression of sympathy. But surely for many prayers are supposed to work: God is supposed to hear them and do something—in this case intercede to help bring Nancy Guthrie back alive. And that got me thinking about how people connect prayer with the listener: God. Religious Jews are, by the way, among the most fervent pray-ers, with prayer serving as a constant connection with God. And, like prayers in other religions. Jews sometimes use prayer to ask for personal benefits or simply to propitiate God.
The train of thought continued. What kind of God is more likely to effect changes requested in prayer? If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and good, wouldn’t He know that people want things, like Nancy Guthrie’s return, and not need their prayers to find out? (He presumably can read people’s minds.) A god who requires prayers to effect change would be dictatorial and mean-spirited, demanding that obsequious people supplicate and propitiate him. But surely that’s not the kind of God most Christians imagine. (My feeling is that Jews envision a somewhat angrier God—the one in the Old Testament.)
Nevertheless, despite quasi-scientific studies showing that intercessory prayers don’t work, people ignore that data, as of course they would; it’s tantamount to admitting that there’s no personal God who has a relationship with you. Sam Harris has suggested that these studies are weak, and Wikipedia quotes him this way:
Harris also criticized existing empirical studies for limiting themselves to prayers for relatively unmiraculous events, such as recovery from heart surgery. He suggested a simple experiment to settle the issue:[32]
Get a billion Christians to pray for a single amputee. Get them to pray that God regrow that missing limb. This happens to salamanders every day, presumably without prayer; this is within the capacity of God. I find it interesting that people of faith only tend to pray for conditions that are self-limiting.
He has a point of course, and that experiment would never work. But it’s intercessory prayer. Perhaps God answers only prayers coming from the afflicted themselves. But that implies that the “thoughts and prayers” of other people, as in the Guthrie case, are useless. In the end, the very idea of petitionary and intercessory prayer being effective implies that God is, as Christopher Hitchens said, like a Celestial Dictator presiding over a divine North Korea, requiring constant propitiation by obsequious believers. How could it be otherwise?
One response by liberal religionists is that one prays not for help, but simply as a form of meditation or rumination. In other words, perhaps putting things into words—even words that nobody is hearing—helps you as a form of therapy, or in sorting out your thoughts and problems. That’s fine, though it’s unclear why rumination alone wouldn’t suffice.
I won’t deny anybody their belief in God, but I don’t want people forcing their beliefs on me, which is what occurs when newspeople ask for my prayers. I have none to give, though I wish people in trouble well, and hope that Nancy Guthrie returns.
These thoughts may sound cold-hearted, but they’re similar to what Dan Dennett wrote in his wonderful essay, “Thank Goodness“, describing who should really have been thanked for saving his life after a near-fatal aortic dissection:
What, though, do I say to those of my religious friends (and yes, I have quite a few religious friends) who have had the courage and honesty to tell me that they have been praying for me? I have gladly forgiven them, for there are few circumstances more frustrating than not being able to help a loved one in any more direct way. I confess to regretting that I could not pray (sincerely) for my friends and family in time of need, so I appreciate the urge, however clearly I recognize its futility. I translate my religious friends’ remarks readily enough into one version or another of what my fellow brights have been telling me: “I’ve been thinking about you, and wishing with all my heart [another ineffective but irresistible self-indulgence] that you come through this OK.” The fact that these dear friends have been thinking of me in this way, and have taken an effort to let me know, is in itself, without any need for a supernatural supplement, a wonderful tonic. These messages from my family and from friends around the world have been literally heart-warming in my case, and I am grateful for the boost in morale (to truly manic heights, I fear!) that it has produced in me. But I am not joking when I say that I have had to forgive my friends who said that they were praying for me. I have resisted the temptation to respond “Thanks, I appreciate it, but did you also sacrifice a goat?” I feel about this the same way I would feel if one of them said “I just paid a voodoo doctor to cast a spell for your health.” What a gullible waste of money that could have been spent on more important projects! Don’t expect me to be grateful, or even indifferent. I do appreciate the affection and generosity of spirit that motivated you, but wish you had found a more reasonable way of expressing it.
In other words, “thoughts” are fine; “prayers,” not so much.
I’m writing this simply to work out my own thoughts about prayer and its ubiquity, but I would appreciate hearing from readers about this issue. What do you think when you hear others asking for prayers. Is prayer a good thing, and what does it presume about God? Any thoughts (but no prayers) are welcome, and put them below.
Ooo, another good topic – tryin’ to be brief :
Think about the outcomes, as in a probabilistic model. To get to the point :
If they find her, there’s a huge emotional boost for the honestly praying group. And maybe the relevant people involved will pick up on it (through the “news”) and have a change of heart, .. listen to their conscience. Like a dramatic story or movie.
That goes back millennia. So it has all that reinforcement. I’m sure many have covered that before.
A negative outcome won’t matter. That is another topic IMHO… “Then it was written.” (As Anthony Quinn’s Auda said in Lawrence of Arabia, as the counter to what Lawrence said earlier. Really powerful story element.).
Personally, lately I’ve been getting back to Tao – the way – as in, a story that unfolds outside your power. It unfolds according to the way. We follow the way, whether we like it or not.
Notions of “God” started off as an idealised, disembodied tribal leader. And of course a tribal leader can be petitioned. Hence prayer. From there, God got abstracted into some sort of apophatic who knows what? But folk theology has not caught up. Hence people still pray because, in their minds, they are still thinking of God as an idealised tribal leader.
Of course theology can never be made consistent and coherent. Just as one example, either God knows, long before you are born, whether you’ll end up in heaven or in hell, or God is not omniscient. The only theologian to have thought that one through is Calvin, who went for the former. But this turns God into the worst sort of monster, someone who would create a sentient being capable of suffering in the full knowledge that he would then subject that being to eternal and extreme suffering. So this God cannot be benevolent. Oops, .. umm .. tricky stuff this theology isn’t it?
“The only theologian to have thought that one through is Calvin, who went for the former.”
Great point. I remember arguing with a religious friend on this. He thought that Calvin was a crank. So I asked him, doesn’t God clearly know the exact number of souls that are going to heaven? Yes or no? He’s all-knowing so it must be “Yes”.
“Uh, sure I guess.”
“Ok then, so what exactly did Calvin get wrong?”
Rest assured my friend nonetheless did not become a Calvinist.
I don’t think that this stuff is supposed to make sense. In fact, it is probably an evolved signal of loyalty to a group to believe in stuff that doesn’t make sense…
Or, as Maarten Boudry recently put it: “the “Gaza genocide” calumny has become the Left’s equivalent of the “stolen election” hoax on the American Right—a baseless accusation that signals ideological allegiance precisely because it defies logic and evidence.” (sourced at his Wikiquote page)
“it is probably an evolved signal of loyalty to a group to believe in stuff that doesn’t make sense…” Yeah, this explains a lot of otherwise unexplainable phenomena, and is terminally annoying.
“Of course theology can never be made consistent and coherent.”
Well, I guess you could, at least in principle. But then it wouldn’t be very appealing to the masses.
They pretty much prefer frolicking in the meadowy baily instead of being confined to the stuffy motte for the rest of their lives.
I mean not even Sophisticated Theology™ is preached very much in churches (especially not in the more popular ones).
My father, a devout believer, once asked his minister why he should pray (when both his wife and a daughter had cancer); that he felt it was selfish to ask God to pay attention to his worries when there were so many more terrible things in the world that God should be tending to- and she said “because it opens you up to all possibilities. You are saying out loud what’s written on your heart.” As a non-believer myself, this has stayed with me, brings me comfort, and informs my prayers. It also comforted my dad, for which I am grateful!
PS Hello Jerry- I am Betsy McAlister Groves’ sister. I thoroughly enjoy your posts as do both of my sons. I/we don’t always agree with your views, but keep up the good work!
Hi Margaret! Who else could it be but you? And of course I knew both Cynty and Eugenia. The comment the minister made was good, but I do not quite get how saying something in a prayer opens one up to all the possibilities. If he meant that you are aware of how other things can be worse, that would give me no comfort. Pity that Big John is not around to ask!
Thanks for commenting!
Hi Jerry! I know you have such a following…I wasn’t sure my name would stand out! Good question…and I can only answer for myself, but I do believe that Daddy & I discussed & we took it to mean that she (minister) was saying that praying helps us face all possibilities. So it’s more an act of self care (giving voice to what is written on our hearts) rather than asking God or whomever to intercede.
Yes, praying lives in an emotional space, a space in which the person uttering the plea is sending a fervent wish into the universe that someone will heal, that life will improve. The desired outcome may or may not occur but that is less the point than sending your own personal emotional energy into the ethers on behalf of the object of your prayers.
Some great quotes on the topic of prayer:
Prayer is a way to say to your God… “I know you have a plan, but I have a better idea”.
Praying is like a rocking chair – it will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere. (Gypsy Rose Lee)
Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself. (Peter O’Toole)
“I’ll pray for you” means: I’ll report your situation to my imaginary friend.
I prayed for freedom for 20 years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. (Frederick Douglass)
On “Thoughts & Prayers”: Thoughts might help because they lead to worries which might produce action. But the idea with prayers is that a third party will take care of things, and since there is no third party, nothing gets done.
People who pray think god has arranged matters all wrong, and think they can instruct him on how to make them right. (Christopher Hitchens)
If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why even erect temples to him? (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish.
He who has made great moral progress ceases to pray. (Immanuelle Kant)
As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools.
It is best to read the weather forecast before we pray for rain. (Mark Twain)
Man is a marvelous curiosity. He thinks he is the creator’s pet. He even believes the creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him, and thinks he listens. Isn’t it a quaint idea? (Mark Twain)
Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end. (George Santayana)
The inventor of the plow did more good than the maker of the first rosary, because, say what you will, plowing is better than praying. (Robert Ingersoll)
The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray. (Robert Ingersoll)
Labor is the only prayer that nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer; good, honest, noble work. (Robert Ingersoll)
It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good, and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring. (Robert Ingersoll)
Prayer has no place in public school, just like facts have no place in organized religion.
(Superintendent Chalmers – The Simpsons)
Don’t pray in my school, and I won’t think in your church.
The sailor does not pray for wind, he learns to sail. (Gustaf Lindborg)
Praying is politically correct schizophrenia.
The family that prays together, is brainwashing the children.
Atheism is not a conscious act of turning away from all gods. It is simply the final destination for those who think. You will be pleased to discover that the sky does not fall down on your head. If you still want to pray, you can; the success rate of your prayers is unlikely to change. (Guy P. Harrison)
Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not without use and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously. (Samuel Butler)
All prayers die in the air which they uselessly agitate. (Robert G. Ingersoll)
When we talk to God, we’re praying. When God talks to us, we’re schizophrenic. (Lily Tomlin)
What’s the point of praying in the first place? If God has a divine plan, what’s the point of praying? If what you want is in the divine plan, you will get it anyways; and if it’s not, you won’t get it because it’s not in the divine plan. (George Carlin)
Interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to God are all answered at about the same 50% rate. (George Carlin)
Prayers never bring anything. They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy, but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas. (W. C. Fields)
How come God always drops in for GOOD publicity? I’ve never known God get BAD publicity. After any disaster – natural or otherwise – the few fortunate survivors will always be there spouting off about their prayers to God being answered and in so doing give credence to God. However, I have yet to read or hear anything from any of those whose prayers were completely ignored and who subsequently perished. It’s a win win situation as far as God is concerned. (Anthony W, Allsop)
Watch people pray. Most people do it with their eyes closed, and this should tell you something.
Prayer – how to feel like you’re contributing by doing nothing.
Prayer: When you care enough to do the very least.
In a dangerous world there will always be more people around whose prayers for their own safety have been answered than those whose prayers have not. (Nicholas Humphrey)
Before you pray for that second coming, you should at least prove the first one.
You can pray all you want for god to move a mountain but until you bring a shovel and do all the work, it will never happen. All prayers are unanswered.
If prayer worked, amputees would grow limbs.
When a believer prays to a god to stop a wrong, is it because the deity doesn’t know what’s happening, or because it doesn’t know it’s wrong?
Prayer of desperation is the adult manifestation of infantile crying. (John C. Wathey)
Hands that help are holier than lips that pray.
Some quotes are good, but this is over a thousand words–way over the word limit (see the Roolz). Please keep your comments shorter in the future. Thanks.
She might well have appreciated the racier version, “Prayer is like masturbation — it might make you feel good, but it doesn’t do anything for the person you’re thinking about.”
And my personal favorite, from Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary: “PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.”
The crude version I first heard may years ago:
Pray in one hand, and crap in the other, and see which one fills up first.
Great stuff! Here are some from me (well, from memes I’ve seen posted on Twitter and Bluesky):
“When a believer prays to a god to stop a wrong, is it because the deity doesn’t know what’s happening or because it doesn’t know it’s wrong?” – David McAfee
“Prayer—like chronic gambling, you never talk about your losses.”
“Prayer, in my opinion, is an act of doubt, not an act of faith. For if you truly trusted your god’s plan, surely you wouldn’t pray for anything.” – Michael Sherlock
Wonderful!
Too long, to be sure, but a rich anthology for the enjoyment of us who are Calvinists of the Calvin-and-Hobbes tendency.
Re the Samuel Butler quote, his Victorian utopian satire Erewhon is IMO an under-appreciated classic. Its fairly well known “Book of the Machines”, applying Darwin’s then-new theory to the industrial revolution, is plausibly the first sensible critique of AI¹.
Its much less well known “Musical Bank” chapter is relevant to the issue of prayer. The chapter is short, rather subtle for a satire, and IMO very worthwhile reading; I remember it from over 50 years ago.
…………
¹ Which is why in Frank Herbert’s Dune the destruction and prohibition of thinking machines is called the Butlerian jihad. Some would-be sequels by lesser authors tried to retcon this origin to be something else; harrumph.
Thanks for the collection Colin
They went down a treat on my Football forum (soccer)
I haven’t read today’s news, but I sincerely hope that Nancy Guthrie is found alive.
I don’t think that prayer can possibly help, but it probably can’t hurt, either, at least in this case, unless it is used as a substitute for actually looking for Nancy Guthrie. When prayer becomes a substitute for action, it can end up making things worse, or at least preventing them from being better.
Is the God of the Jews an angry and vengeful God? Well, the Jewish conception of God has changed over the millennia. Broadly speaking, he has become nicer over time, as Jewish writers have remade God in their own image via Talmud and so much else. Much interpretation of the actions of the God of the Torah (the “Old Testament”) holds that God is not vengeful, but that he has high expectations. As with everything Jewish, it’s complicated.
Required throat-clearing: I am an atheist, but I am still a Jew.
“Broadly speaking, he has become nicer over time.”
He’s mellowed a bit since the Flood, and the slaughtering and what not.
Imagine God being interviewed now, perhaps on 60 minutes.
“Was is necessary to destroy all life on Earth?”
“In hindsight, perhaps it was overkill. I was younger then…yes infinitely old but still younger than now. I was just getting used to this Creator thing. It’s a process man.”
Hi Norman,
I’d just add two quick notes to your observations:
The “god” of the Jewish Bible is legion, for they are many. The Bible is an anthology of miscellaneous Iron Age literature, and the scribes who gathered it were the ancient equivalent of librarians, not theologians. As a result, one can find just about any divine personality in the Bible that one hopes to find. (I wrote a journal article once called “The Kaleidoscopic Nature of Divine Personality in the Hebrew Bible.”)
And, you are quite right, the Rabbis from the Talmud onward stressed a god who is a conversation partner with the Jewish people. They retained all the divine “king” rhetoric they inherited from Iron Age literature, but they made a real effort to transform the divine personality, and they allowed for diversity in their sacred texts. “These and these are the words of the living god” (b. Erubin 13b).
Hi Kurt. I found an abstract of your article, and a list of key takeaways, but the article in its entirety is not freely available. I have no doubt that you are right about the origins of those many personalities.
I think you will be able to access a PDF of the article on academia.edu. Try this: https://brandonu.academia.edu/KLNoll
You’d think Christians would realize the futility of intercessionary prayer or supplication prayer when, according to their own myth, even Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, asked God to take the cup away from him. But God did not change his mind, and Jesus said just, “Thy will be done.” It’s all nonsense, of course, but J C seems to make such things pretty clear. Even “The Lord’s Prayer” is just a prayer for one’s daily bread that day, and for general guidance and forgiveness, not for any magic wish-granting.
Even the introduction to the Lord’s prayer basically instructs Christians not to waste time asking God for things:
“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
Exactly!
I sometimes feel a bit cold hearted when I am disgusted by comments following a disaster with survivors. According to some, God saved the survivors because He loved them. What then are we to think of those who died? God hated them?
That has always been my reaction. People think that it was so nice of this god creature to save these people but never think beyond that. Yes, it loved these but it must have hated them!
I remember when Elizabeth Smart was found. Her parents were on television saying that their prayers had clearly been answered. I wondered how the parents of children who were never found, or were found dead in a ditch, felt about that.
Right. I know that prayer is effective because my child recovered from leukemia. I got through when the other parents at the children’s hospital couldn’t. Score.
If a god had the power to answer their prayers to free her, then that god must also have allowed the abduction, torture, and captivity to begin with.
I have similar thoughts every time something bad happens somewhere, and Twitter is flooded with “Pray for [X]!” messages. I want to query these people–what, exactly, do you think that such prayers will accomplish, versus the situation in which nobody prays for X? Does the supernatural being you pray to count up how many prayers are being offered, and decide whether to intervene based on volume? On sincerity? On the righteousness of the people praying? Explain to me how you imagine this whole thing operates, and why you think recruiting more people to pray will somehow work better than just you praying alone.
I had not seen the Sam Harris challenge about limb regrowth before, but I have often wondered something along the same lines. Christians commonly pray for friends and loved ones to recover from illness, but I’ve never known of any to pray for a deceased friend or family member to be brought back to life. Why not? The Bible clearly depicts this as being within the power of the Christian god–Lazarus being brought back even though his body was already decomposing to the point of putrefaction. So why do modern Christians (unless I’m missing something) never make this request in their prayers?
My hunch is that deep down, they know that it’s impossible, whereas recovery from even very serious illness is known to be possible–and they just don’t genuinely believe that their god is genuinely omnipotent, so as to be able to do the impossible. So it’s better not to ask something futile, lest one’s faith be challenged by the lack of efficacy.
I don’t know if one or multiple gods exist. If I had to bet, I would say no. As a hedge, I’m broadly following Christian values so that in case there is a Christian god, maybe I can sweet-talk my way into heaven.
If there are god-like beings, the hypothesis that makes the most sense to me is that they subsist on our belief. Every being needs energy and some energy source. Given that all gods command their followers to believe in them and worship them, it seems not too far fetched that they draw sustenance from us believing in them, praying to them and worshiping them.
So a god has to solve the problem of maximizing our energy transfer while cornering a big enough believer market. Some will choose promises, some will choose threats, most will choose a mixture of both. Some will keep their followers on a short leash, some will allow them to flourish – though history has shown that if humans become comfortable, their passion to worship goes down. As I see it, each entity has a different strategy.
As for prayer:
Maybe if there is surplus “belief energy”, miracles can happen? Not so much as making the impossible happen, but as in weighing the dice. There is a given chance that this woman will be found. Let’s say it’s 10%. If enough people feed their god and ask him to consider this case, maybe that 10% even happens more often than 1 out of 10. We will never know, since each case is unique and we don’t know the priors. That’s also why Harris is off with his regrowth experiment. If the chance is 0%, no nudge of the dice will be enough.
Have you read Terry Pratchett’s “Small Gods”?
The idea is fairly common in fiction, such as Stargate SG-1‘s final-seasons’ villains the Ori (SG-1 having previously dispatched all the previous seasons’ less-than-godlike ones).
Ricky Pearsall is a wide receiver for the SF 49ers. He was shot in the chest during a botched robbery attempt over his Rolex watch in San Francisco on August 31, 2024, and was released from the hospital the following day.
His mother posted on facebook. “First and foremost I want to thank GOD for protecting my baby boy. He is extremely lucky, GOD shielded him. He was shot in the chest and it exited out his back. Thanks be to GOD it missed his vital organs. My son was spared by the grace of GOD. Please pray for my baby.”
We can certainly sympathize with a mom, but an omnipotent God could have done a much better job protecting Ricky by not letting him get shot in the first place. God’s grace? God imposed a miserable experience on Ricky, threatening his athletic career.
David Chalmers: Why do people believe that God exists? One sort of answer is in evolutionary or psychological terms. One hypothesis is that it enhanced evolutionary fitness to believe in a god, perhaps because this belief gave special motivation for action. Another is that belief in God helps to fulfill a deepseated need for meaning in our life. If we accept a hypothesis like this, many people think that our justification for believing in God falls away. After all, if our beliefs in God can wholly be explained without God, then it looks as if it would be a giant coincidence if there was actually a God that made those beliefs correct. “Debunking Arguments for Illusionism about Consciousness” 2020.
Yes. This is a common refrain. Something terrible happens. It could have been worse. God prevented it from being worse. Clearly, God is omnipotent, but not without limit.
Early in my academic tenure, an undergraduate advisee of mine was accepted at a very prestigious conference (held annually at the U of Chicago, actually). She was delightful, and also a Christian fundamentalist. After her talk I gave her a big hug, and she said, “I’ve been praying so hard about this.” I laughed and asked her, “Do you say things like that just to annoy me?” And she laughed too. To me, that’s what it’s all about. Think whatever you want in your head. Just be loving and kind to others. After all these years, we are still in contact.
If prayer worked, there’d be no ongoing need for prayer. Surely the world would be perfect by now.
Prayer, I think, is a form of intrapersonal communication — a way one talks to themselves — or at least it serves many of the same purposes, like planning future actions, making sense of and learning from past experiences, calming oneself down or pumping oneself up, and identity formation/maintenance, et al.
It makes no more sense to talk to god, God, or gods than it does to talk to one’s self. After all, what could an “I” ever say to a “me” that the “me” didn’t already know (and vice versa)? The only plausible answer as I see it is there is similar individual and social utility in it.
A religious friend tried to console me during my wife’s losing battle with cancer by saying she was praying for her. I told the friend that prayer was futile, and she responded by saying “sometimes that’s all a friend can do”. I think she recognized the outcomes inevitability and was just making some sort of “I wish it would turn out differently from the way I know it will turn out” gesture. Her comment was an emotional statement, not a rational one. I doubt that she believed it would work any more than I did.
Knowing that someone cares is helpful in itself.
But it was also a rational one. Prayer presumes one is without immediate power. Why make requests for something one can control? As you note, your friend recognized there was little she could do other than assert a religious variant of “I feel your pain”—even though it was unlikely she could fully do that, either. Her “thoughts” would have been no more efficacious: they serve a different purpose in being shared with you.
While this prayerful posture can retreat to rote formulation or helplessness, it can also be a strength for some in recognizing limits, cultivating humility, engaging empathy, and reinforcing mercy. While none of that has anything to do with expecting answers, it is not entirely worthless in situating people in relation to other human beings. Sure, the prayerful language might require translation into the secular to discern its connotations, but love and compassion are expressed through many tongues.
I think I might feel that I could never quite escape the shadow of an imaginary god, even in my last days.
“Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
I consider prayer to be a form of mental masturbation–it makes the person feel good but has no effect on others, the actions of others, or the world. It makes a person feel like they are doing something constructive without actually doing anything. We often hear “God has a plan for everyone”, but would prayer change God’s plan for someone?
I HATE “thoughts and prayers,” as do all the members of my non-believers group (about 20 of us). Mayor Frey of Minneapolis was right in August when an assassin killed children at the Catholic Church there. He said (maybe not quoted exactly), “enough with the thoughts and prayers.” He continued that that sentiment is all too often expressed by people who like to think they are acting, but in reality they are not doing anything constructive, which is what is necessary–i.e., gun legislation. Thoughts are fine, but one of the reasons I started doubting religion when I was a teen was that disasters happen, regardless of whether people pray to have them averted or not. In other words, “God” is either not listening or is vindictive/sadistic. And who wants a god like that???
Prayer… is part of the performance of belief in a god, no more, no less, a comfort bank either way of an outcome… she’s alive! thanks to god or if not alive, she is with god now. For a small cost you can never lose.
Adding, a ritualistic act that you belong to a group and a statement, an order of mortal beings heading toward an eternal goal.
Belief in God may serve as an unconscious justification for otherwise inexplicable prayer behavior.
Very well said. I totally agree on all of this. I do think that “prayer” really is an expression of what one hopes for, not a message to an imagined “God”.
I think god used to be alive, but he’s dead now. R.I.P.
I am less sympathetic towards well-meaning people who pray for me than perhaps others are. I had some very bad experiences at a Methodist school in the UK and the church has pretty much repeatedly refused to do anything – except, of course, to offer prayers. So I have probably also associated prayer with an institutional failure and not just a well-meaning, but ultimately meaningless, gesture.
A senior Methodist minister once insisted in praying for me, even when I asked him not to. “It is literally the most powerful thing I can do,” he insisted. When I subsequent asked him if he had seen any results because I hadn’t, he thought I was being facetious.
Another minister once wrote me a longish email about how prayer isn’t what you think it is, etc etc. I’m sure you have all heard the sort of stuff. He ended by writing “I am sorry if this is all rather technical”. It didn’t sound technical; it sounded as if he were making stuff up. His main point was that prayer is a way of aligning yourself with god’s will. Nobody in my life has ever come to me and said “I was praying for you and felt compelled to do such-and-such”; curiously, in prayer, god has always confirmed that his will is exactly what they were already doing – usually nothing at all.
Feels like I am having a rant!
The minister claimed that prayer is “a way of aligning yourself with god’s will”? That’s an absurd twist. So what you’re actually doing when praying, then, is saying “god, I say this prayer so as to align with your will and thereby not feel bad about this terrible thing that is happening, since it is obviously your will that it happen”. OK, sure, that’s helpful…
While on this subject I cannot help quoting a certain famous passage from Primo Levi’s “If This Is a Man” (1959), his memoir of Auschwitz:
“Silence slowly prevails and then, from my bunk on the top row, I see and hear old Kuhn praying aloud, with his beret on his head, swaying backwards and forwards violently. Kuhn is thanking God because he has not been chosen [to be killed]. Kuhn is out of his senses. Does he not see Beppo the Greek in the bunk next to him, Beppo who is twenty years old and is going to the gas-chamber the day after tomorrow and knows it and lies there looking fixedly at the light without saying anything and without even thinking anymore? Can Kuhn fail to realize that next time it will be his turn? Does Kuhn not understand that what has happened today is an abomination, which no propitiatory prayer, no pardon, no expiation by the guilty, which nothing at all in the power of man can ever clean again? If I was God, I would spit at Kuhn’s prayer.”
Somebody once told me (I forget who):
God answers every prayer.
It’s just that sometimes the answer is *no”.
Over and over and over again in the New Testament, Jesus promises the Christian faithful that whatever they ask for in prayer will be granted to them (Mark, 11:24; Matthew, 7:7-11; Matthew, 21:22; John, 14:13-14). Contrary to the excuses often fabricated by Christian religious leaders, the bible does NOT say that god will “answer” prayers, so that sometimes the answer might be “no.” Moreover, the bible does not say that god will grant your prayers “if he thinks you’re worthy,” or “if he thinks it’s best for you,” or “if it’s consistent with his plan.” Instead, god repeatedly and unequivocally promises to grant the prayers of the faithful.
What has always struck me is the injustice in the notion that God will attend to those who have the most friends. To the extent that I am sympathetic to faith, I imagine a god who most loves the friendless. If there is no one to pray for you, you are the most beloved of God. Those studies on the effectiveness of intercessory prayer: If it would’ve worked, it would just have demonstrated that the guy’s a prick.
“A god who requires prayers to effect change would be dictatorial and mean-spirited, demanding that obsequious people supplicate and propitiate him. But surely that’s not the kind of God most Christians imagine. ”
You obviously didn’t attend Catholic school 😉
Prayers, sacrifices, shamanic rites and magic rituals are among the responses that frustrated humans generate when faced with problems they cannot solve by themselves. This tendency probably goes back 30,000 years or more.
I view these things from a psychological perspective. When someone asks others to “pray for my sick child,” I tend to see it as them asking: “It will make my family feel better knowing that others are thinking kind thoughts about us.”
I also believe non-theists can and do “say prayers” as a form of self-motivation, even if they don’t phrase it that way. A prayer does not have to be to a god or deity. A prayer can be to oneself: “Give me the strength to get through this” or “Lucky charm, give me the wisdom to make the right decision.” This type of self-motivation or daily affirmation focus can be of psychological help.
When people say they’re praying for me, I say thank you and accept it as a “wishing me well” type of thing like Dennett says.
I’m a nurse, and people say “God bless you” A LOT. I say thank you, back atcha… or something like that and realize that they are expressing good wishes on my behalf and accept such good wishes gracefully (I think).
If someone says, pray for me, I say, “I will think good thoughts for you,” and on the day of their surgery, scan, test, whatever sort of trial, I’ll send them a text… thinking of you.
We’re all humans flopping around doing our best….
I don’t think any good is served by picking on people’s awkward expressions of good will.
One common and fairly straightforward definition of prayer is “A reverent petition made to God, a god, or another object of worship” (American Heritage Dictionary). This seems to represent well the traditional understanding of the term.
I think is it unfortunate that some people expand the use of the term to other circumstances, as this seems to indicate a need to import religious “imagery” into situations where religion is not necessarily involved. It’s hard enough to get away from all the claptrap without unnecessarily adopting some of the framework. And I’m not sure I understand the point of calling something a “secular prayer”. That is a classic oxymoron to my ears, so what is intended that cannot be expressed without the use of terminology invoking a “reverent petition” to a deity?
I do sometimes try to perform self-motivation, or engage in numerous other ways of addressing problems or challenges in my life. In that regard, never do I consider anything that I think, or say to myself, as a “prayer”. And I feel fully capable of communicating my truly heartfelt concern and support for anyone else I know going through difficult times without telling them that I am praying for them (even if I know they are religious). If you actually do care, it’s not that hard to express it meaningfully without invoking the idea of prayer; doing the latter is just taking the lazy way out.
Believers can say what they like, I’m not trying to muzzle anyone. But I just wish the non-religious would avoid being complicit in universalizing the religious overlay. There are other fully compassionate ways of dealing with difficult experiences.
● The situation is terrible. We must do something. This is something.
● Wishful thinking is no respecter of education.
● “Useful” is in the eye of the beholder.
● Re imagining a god who most loves the friendless, J.C. allegedly imagined that too: Matthew 25:35 et seq, regarding the Last Judgement.
Glad to know I am not the only one that awkwardly cringes when prayers are offered.
During major wars there must be millions of people praying for different outcomes.
The irrationalism of religionists knows no bounds. Remember that the horrors in the WH are due to religionists voting for that outcome, despite overwhelming evidence that exactly that would be the outcome. And religionists still defend the career criminal. Felon45 supporters in the last election:
White Evangelical Protestant: 81%
Hispanic Protestant: 63% (even after all his Hispanic attacks!)
White Catholic: 60%
White non-Evangelical Protestant: 57%
All the remaining ones are under 50%, but none are anywhere near zero.
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” — Seneca (5 BCE – 65 CE)
Never understood this religious stuff. I rejected it as a child as the proposition came without data. I was a science nerd then and am still one, and an atheist, 60 years later.
A swipe at ‘Mother Nature’
Aside from really enjoying this website the recent article God: Celestial Dictator or Kindly Father brought to mind an article I had written as COVID was winding down (‘Mother’ Nature is punishing us with COVID? Call Child Protection) where I took a crack at certain environmentalists lauding our dear Mother in her attempts to punish us. And yes, she may delegate certain tasks to her consort, our ‘Kindly’ Father. Following are the last couple of pages to give you a taste.
With this in mind I would like to accept Mother Nature as the beautiful ‘Mother to all’, as Villainatos put it, and on this basis ask questions about Mother’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as a ‘parent’, whether she has met or failed to meet basic parenting responsibilities. Evidence appears overwhelming that Mother Nature has been cruel, capricious and utterly indifferent to the suffering inflicted upon her progeny, including to those who have worshipped her. Countless millions lost to starvation, disease, disasters termed ‘natural’ and occurring with no or little warning and cynically ascribed to human folly. In contemporary jargon this is known as victim blaming. Need I go on? But why is our Mother to All so cruel, indeed viscous, in her indifference to human wellbeing? All we can do is hypothesise, but unlike Villainous et al, my hypothesising will be focused on Mother of All and not ‘her’ victims. Could Mother Nature be a dominatrix? Kinky, and depending on one’s proclivities…. But ultimately unsatisfactory, the nature of the SM relationship being too voluntary. Dominatrixes are supposed to elicit sexual pleasure through the infliction of measured physical pain, humiliation or servitude. If that was all it was, ‘Mother’s’ role would be trivialised beyond measure. Humiliation and servitude are certainly part of the ‘deal’ but the physical pain inflicted has been anything but measured. This hypothesis can therefore be discarded.Could she be a single divine parent with a tragic history of severe attachment disorder? This is more promising as it may explain why ‘Mother’, and ‘her’ slightly lesser divine male cohorts, flipped between going missing in action, perhaps at some divine haunt getting a skinful, or going troppo when presented by the kids with anything remotely resembling demanding behaviour. (“Please [mother] may I have some more?”). To my mind this hypothesis is worth consideration and jostles with the one that follows.Mother Nature is suffering from an uncontained sociopathic personality disorder, i.e. ’Mother’ can be a nasty piece of work. This too ticks a few boxes, but it raises the question of wtf was the intergalactic child protection agency doing? It was either missing in action (in a collusive relationship and rubbing shoulders at the above mentioned haunt?) or, heaven and associated divine agencies forbid, it doesn’t exist. Either way we kids are on our own and are forced to shoulder the responsibility for negotiating what has been a difficult and complex developmental pathway. And this is where Faust’s advice comes in, enabled as it was by Mephisto’s Life Coach Facilitation Agency. “If I stand still I shall be a slave.”
My point in taking a swipe at Mother of All and her human cheerleaders, aside from having some fun, is to criticise their profoundly reactionary nature. It is misanthropic too of course but misanthropy is, perhaps, too broad, for it allows its essentially class nature to slip through unnoticed. It is not the aspirations of the less well heeled that is the problem. Where significant environmental or social problems emerge we do not point our fingers at the Oliver Twist brigade – wanting more is not just reasonable, but proper – but at those, or the systems, that stand in the way. Finally, let us not forget that there are two targets we confront in our ongoing struggle for development and prosperity. One is Nature, the natural world. We have an impressive track record in this struggle, discovering and applying natural laws to our advantage. The other is human made, the reactionary killjoys and misanthropes who, generally from a position of privilege, accuse the less well heeled of greed, selfishness, of caring more about themselves and their progeny than they do about ‘the planet’. And behind the killjoys? Marx hit the nail on the head.A swipe at ‘Mother Nature’
Thomas Szasz’s famous, often-cited quote regarding prayer is: “If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.” Appearing in The Second Sin (1973), he was making a critique of psychiatric diagnosis, but it always struck me as a critique of prayer as well. The asymmetry points to the illogical nature of prayer, highlighting the quiet paradox at the heart of this most human practice.