meaningfully enough, those prayers can be answered by an active deity. I don't call that hypocritical. Yes, we can provide examples where it is illogical and contradictory, but hypocritical doesn't apply, necessarily. Ironically, when I was a Catholic, I prayers of petition annoyed me and I did not engage in that part of the faith. When I prayed, it was in gratitude....not for anything specific...but rather for the opportunity to live. I did not make requests of the deity, although, most others did, and it did annoy me. For example, my sister-in-law would pray for a football team (still does, I think) to win a game because her husband's occupation depended on him winning that pick. But, what about the woman, or man, praying to the deity who has a son playing for the opposing team? Does the deity flip a coin? Therein lays one of the biggest contradictions of prayer as petition, imo. That's not hypocrisy, though, at least it's not to me. Now, if you wanted to bury the knife deep in my metaphorical flesh, Robin, piercing my vital tissues and/or organs, you could have supplanted weak for hypocritical. It was an act of weakness.....terrible weakness. I was at the mercy of Nature.....and unconsciously, I grasped for anything and everything to try to make it right. It was a profound moment of weakness.....and thankfully, I'm better for it. I was humbled. It wasn't the first time, and it certainly won't be the last....but I was humbled....and my vulnerability