Prayer Changes Things

If you're as obsessed with me as I am, which is probably unlikely, you'll know that I made a post about prayer over a year ago. The message in this post will probably be somewhat different.

The way Christians think about prayer is ridiculous. They understand that God usually doesn't answer prayer. The way I used to rationalize this is that "God always answers prayers. No is an answer." After a few years of praying, I started to notice that the answer was "no" an awful lot of the time. The answer was "no" so often that it started to look like prayer wasn't changing much at all. Now that I look at it from the other side of the fence, the way God answers prayer looks a whole lot like coincidence to me.

Christians chalk up this whole phenomenon up to "God working in mysterious ways." So when God doesn't answer your prayers, he's got his own mysterious reasons for not doing so, and the Christian must be content. On the rare occasion that a prayer does get answered, it's never Jesus thundering down from the clouds on a fiery chariot to silence your annoying co-worker with his gigantic sword. Instead your co-worker gets disciplined by the boss for being an asshole, or whatever. Nice little things like this happen to atheists all the time, and we don't even spend time praying for them. What gives? Y'all have a direct line to the most powerful being in the universe, how come you're not more successful than us?

As for the psychological benefits of prayer, yes those are real. So if you're praying for something in your life that you need to do yourself, like lose 5 pounds or nail a job interview, then yeah, pray like crazy. Praying helps you focus on an issue and sort out your thoughts. I still kind of pray (not to God, of course), because it's how I calmed myself down and sorted out my thoughts for years. Meditation can do the same stuff.

So if you want to pray about your crippling internet porn addiction, go for it, it could help, but if you're praying for rain or your elected officials you're just wasting your time. Really.