Prayer

{{bronze}}
[[File:Thoughts and Prayers.jpg|thumb|right|Apt. ([https://twitter.com/pattkelley/status/742461117180596225 Source])]]{{religion}}{{cquote|Now I understand a prayer can work:<br>A particular prayer in a particular church<br>In a particular style with a particular stuff<br>And for particular problems that aren't particularly tough,<br>[[Racism|And for particular people, preferably white]]<br>And for particular senses, preferably sight<br>A particular prayer in a particular spot<br>[[List of gods that theists don't believe in|To a particular version of a particular God]]<br>And if you get that right, He just might<br>[[Problem of evil|Take a break from giving babies malaria]]<br>And pop down to your local area<br>[[Miracle|And fix the cataracts of your mum!]]|||[[Tim Minchin]], ''Thank you God''<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZeWPScnolo</ref>}}

A '''prayer''' (from Latin ''precari'', "to ask earnestly, to beg") is a form of [[Magic|spell or incantation]], usually cast (or recited) to a specific [[god]] or [[Demon|demon]]. Believers assert that their god ''hears'' their prayers and might even, if in a good mood, grant the requests contained within said prayers &mdash; a kind of celestial bonus package. On occasion, the faithful direct prayers to some third party who they believe to have the power to intercede on behalf of petitioners, such as a [[saint]] or "the Lord's anointed" (royalty, [[religious leaders]], etc.).

Though many "studies" have attempted to prove that prayer gets results, there is no evidence of divine intercession actually occurring, other than occasional applications of the [[Texas sharpshooter fallacy|Texas sharpshooter]] logical fallacy.

==Types==
{{cquote|First you get down on your knees,<br/>
Fiddle with your rosaries,<br/>
Bow your head with great respect,<br/>
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!|||"The Vatican Rag" by [[Tom Lehrer]]}}

===Generic prayers===
{{cquote|'''Lincoln Six-Echo:''' What's "God"?<br />'''McCord:''' Well, you know when you want something really really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God's the guy who ignores you.|||''The Island''<ref>http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/TheIsland</ref>}}
Generic "prayers" are often offered by public figures, or people who run websites, or people who wish they did, in order to suck up to the vaguely religious majority of the population, thinking that they're free, and, who knows, they ''might'' help, and lawyers attempting to gain favor from judges. While these prayers are directed at manipulating the faithful (regardless of whether the manipulator is themselves actually a believer), the overall mechanism of praying is sucking up to God.

Politicians offer [[thoughts and prayers]] or request prayers for victims of the latest [[school shooting]] or other [[mass shooting]]. This makes the politicians look good and prayerful while they accept… ahem… {{wpl|Bribery|''contributions''}} from the [[National Rifle Association|NRA]] and do nothing to improve gun safety. See the [[2016 Orlando nightclub shooting#Aftermath|aftermath of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting]] for an example.

*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hdX1MUOgQw "To the Victims of This Tragedy We Send Our Thoughts and Prayers" by Roy Zimmerman]

===Intercessory===
{{cquote|I like it. There should be a button on my desk I can press and forty-nine people instantly pray for me.||| Jed Bartlet, ''The West Wing''}}
Intercessory prayer is the act of praying for something to happen to someone else. It usually refers to a religious person praying for the health of another individual, but there is no reason it cannot refer to prayer with less altruistic purposes.

Unlike prayer for personal guidance, there is no reason that intercessory prayer cannot be tested through the [[scientific method]]. Praying for something to happen to ''someone else'' is a stated goal, and an expected result that can be tested for. For example, either prayer causes someone to improve their prognosis for a cancer treatment, or it does not. In this respect, it is no different from any other medical intervention, natural, supernatural, or otherwise. The nature of the intervention is not under scrutiny, but the effect ''is'' &mdash; as the effect is very much in the natural world. This puts it firmly within Science's field, even if you subscribe to a position such as [[NOMA]]. Accept no [[bullshit]] from people saying otherwise — because if something has a real effect on the real world, ''it can be tested''.

{{Anchor|Studies of prayer}}Perhaps because of the influence of [[fundamentalism|fundamentalist]] [[Christian]]s in the [[United States|U.S.]], intercessory prayer has undergone much more study than other forms of [[faith healing]]. The results are not encouraging. A large-scale review of the available [[evidence]] failed to show [[Medicine|medical]] utility to the practice.<ref>Roberts L. Ahmed I. Hall S. Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill health. update of Cochrane Database Systematic Reviews 2000;(2):CD000368; PMID: 107963500. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. (1):CD000368, 2007.</ref>

Several large, [[Evidence|randomized controlled trials]] have showed little or no effect of prayer. A [[double-blind]] study published in the prestigious medical [[Scientific journal|journal]] ''The Lancet'' demonstrated no effect of prayer for patients undergoing heart surgery.<ref>Krucoff, M.W., et al. (2005). Music, imagery, touch, and prayer as adjuncts to interventional cardiac care: the Monitoring and Actualisation of Noetic Trainings (MANTRA) II randomised study. ''The Lancet, 366''(9481), 211-217.</ref>

[[STEP|Another study]], supported by the [[Templeton foundation]] in the respected ''American Heart Journal'',<ref>Benson H. Dusek JA. Sherwood JB. Lam P. Bethea CF. Carpenter W. Levitsky S. Hill PC. Clem DW Jr. Jain MK. Drumel D. Kopecky SL. Mueller PS. Marek D. Rollins S. Hibberd PL. Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer. American Heart Journal. 151(4):934-42, 2006 Apr.</ref> showed little effect. Furthermore, and somewhat disappointingly for the Foundation, the only effect noticed was a ''negative'' effect in respect of those patients who knew they were being prayed for. It has been speculated that this was the result of "[[Placebo effect#Nocebo effect|performance anxiety]]" on the part of the prayees.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060407013759/http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2002901053_pray31.html Performance anxiety problem]</ref>

When studies are designed well and double-blind, the effect of intercessory prayer disappears. This strongly suggests that any purported effects of prayer are due to [[placebo effect]]s or poor research design.<ref group=note>The Bible also says "Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test", which suggests that He might take some offense to being scrutinized with the scientific method. In other words, any attempts to test the effects of prayer would be doomed to fail from the start.</ref>

Intercessory prayer is different from other forms of [[pseudoscience]] in that a lot of people, particularly Americans, seem to believe in it. Despite this widespread belief, medical science has failed to confirm any significant beneficial effects from the practice. [[WOMBAT|It would be wise to stop wasting resources on studies]], given that most studies have been negative and no plausible explanation for the efficacy of the practice exists. However, the use of prayer is unlikely to cease due to a lack of evidence, as people who truly believe in it will say that science ''can't measure it anyway''.<ref group=note>Would these people still say it couldn't be measured if science got a ''positive'' result in favor of prayer? Unlikely.</ref>

===Imprecatory===
{{cquote|An '''[[evil]]''' [[miracle]] is still technically a miracle.|||Black Mage, ''8-Bit Theater''<ref>http://www.nuklearpower.com/2003/09/02/episode-324-beating-a-dead-giant/</ref>}}
{{cquote|Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,…|||{{bible|Psalm|40|7}}}}

Imprecatory prayer is prayer asking [[God]] to [[Examples of God personally killing people |kill]], maim, [[curse]], send into [[Lake of Fire| eternal damnation]], or [[divine retribution |otherwise harm]] an enemy. Perhaps the most well-known imprecatory prayer occurs in the [[Bible]] in [[Psalm]] 109, a Psalm which generally gets overlooked by sermon-writers. The [[Book of Psalms]] is cursed with them (Psalms 5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 69, 79, 83, 94, 109, 137, 139, and 143), but there are also imprecatory prayers in the [[New Testament]]: {{bible|Matthew|23|13}}, {{bible|Matthew|26|23|24}}, {{bible|1 Corinthians|16|22}}, {{bible|Galatians|1|8|9}}, {{bible|Galatians|5|12}}, {{bible|2 Timothy|4|14}}, and {{bible|Revelation|6|10}}.<ref>{{wpa|Imprecatory Psalms}}</ref>

"Love your enemies"? Not a chance. The teachings of [[Jesus]] go out the window here.<ref group=note>Well, unless the word "love" means [[Examples of God personally killing people|God's love]].</ref> Those who say imprecatory prayer is scriptural point to [[Psalms]], which contains several such prayers.<ref>[http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2_Kings_2:23_-_2:25&version=KJV The prophet Elisha curses some children, and the Lord promptly sends some bears along to eat the cheeky little tykes].</ref><ref group=note>To be fair, Psalms is part of the Old Testament, which is presumably set before God decided to start playing nice. However, this assertion opens up [[But that was the Old Testament|its own set of problems]].</ref>

The practice seems to be increasing in popularity lately:
* Dr. [[Wiley Drake]], of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, [[California]], has decided to publicly "ask the children of God to go into action with imprecatory prayer" to try to get God to curse his enemies for him.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20070823235536/http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/44143894.html Pastor Wiley Drake Calls for Imprecatory Prayer against So-Called Religious Liberty Watchdog Group]"</ref><ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20070824200235/http://blog.au.org/2007/08/15/curses-not-foiled-again-dr-drakes-diabolical-diatribes-wont-stop-americans-united/ Curses, (Not) Foiled Again!]"</ref><ref>[http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/8/15/235229/014 Death to Americans United for Separation of Church and State!], Talk to Action</ref>
* [[Peter J. Peters]] leads his radio listeners in an imprecatory prayer against the "enemies of God" during almost every show...which might just work against him, if his [[sect| image of God]] isn't the exact right one.
* [[Fred Phelps]] used to say an imprecatory prayer against the whole world every hour, by the sound of it.
* Psalm 109 is one of the imprecatory prayers found in the Psalms with "Pray for [[Obama]]: Psalm 109" bumper stickers and T-shirts.<ref>Psalm 109 is particularly nasty, calling for the children of the person cursed to be lifelong beggars due to the sins of the father and more. [http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ps/109.html#6 Psalm 109:6]</ref> Probably sold through the same outlets selling [[WWJD]] trinkets.<ref>http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/psalm-1098-let-his-days-be-few/</ref>

On the other hand, proponents of [[name it and claim it|name-it-and-claim-it]] [[theology]] teach that the words that come out of your mouth are a "creative force" which actually [[Psychokinesis|speaks something into being]].<ref group=note>Interestingly, "I create as I speak" is postulated as the Hebrew origin of the phrase ''abra cadabra''. {{wpa|Abracadabra}}</ref> Therefore, they warn, watch what you say, because anything you say can work against you as an imprecatory prayer. According to this teaching, if you say, "I don't feel so good today", you have just literally prayed an imprecatory prayer over yourself making yourself sick.<ref group=note>This is a theme, for example, in such books as ''The Tongue: A Creative Force'' (2010) by Charles Capps and ''Hung by the Tongue'' (1976) by Francis Martin.</ref> Don't say "damn it!" either — because saying so is praying an imprecatory prayer over your current situation asking God to send you (or whomever) to [[Hell]]. If, by chance, you were born with the [[soul]] of a [[dragon]] and happen to say things in dragon-language, this effect will of course be much stronger. So say only positive things which will speak health and wealth into your life, or don't say anything at all. Why multiple proponents of this haven't won the [[lottery]] remains a mystery.

===Social interaction===
Prayers which include the giving of thanks or the expression of praise/worship presumably oil the wheels of polite and mutually beneficial relationships between fallible humans and divine beings. They become part of an ongoing system of etiquette<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Israel
 |first1               = S.
 |title                = 12 Steps to Proper Prayer Etiquette: For the 12 Tribes of Israel
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=CCF_tAEACAAJ
 |publisher            = CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
 |publication-date     = 2017
 |isbn                 = 9781547114191
 |access-date          = 3 April 2022
}} 
</ref> which may encourage the bold but sinful to attempt more ambitious or demanding prayer-requests.

===Mechanized===
[[Image:Erik's Saga 601.jpg|thumb|250px|
Drying laundry
 Sacred prayer flags in La Bolsa]]
The [[Tibet]]ans have actually brought prayer into the Industrial Age by mechanizing it in the form of prayer wheels that turn a scripture on a scroll inside a drum, acting as an automatic prayer. In Nepal, prayer flags are used to make the prayer physical in the world.{{cn}}

===Prayer cloth===
A prayer cloth is a trinket mailed to gullible donors by certain [[Televangelist|televangelists]] in return for donating. It is blessed by the televangelist in question through the [[laying on of hands]], making said piece of cloth a conduit for the [[Holy Spirit]]. This supposedly gives the cloth [[Magic|magical]] powers such as [[faith healing]].

This bit of [[woo]] comes from the [[Bible]], [[Book of Acts]], Chapter 19: ''"And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of [[Paul of Tarsus|Paul]], so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them."''

Disgraced televangelist [[Peter Popoff]] currently runs such a racket, since being discredited as a [[Faith healing|faith healer]] by [[James Randi]]. Popoff's particular trinkets include "Miracle Spring Water" and "Miracle Manna Bread". YouTuber [[Dprjones]] experienced regulatory indifference to the continued broadcasts of Popoff's TV programmes in the UK.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFCA7505BD883826C]Dprjones's Popoff videos</ref>

===Thoughts and prayers===
Giving "[[thoughts and prayers]]" is a [[political]]/[[Christian]]-based form of [[slacktivism]] that is used to give the appearance of caring about people's deaths, particularly in [[mass shooting]]s, while avoiding (or blocking) doing anything to prevent further such situations.

==Efficacy==
[[File:Prayer logic.png|thumb|right|250px|Prayer logic]]{{cquote|Prayer: How to do nothing and still think you're helping.|||Common "de-motivator" poster}}
When prayer has been scientifically studied, it has shown that prayer has no noticeable effect.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20001110101200/http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msciprayer.html The Straight Dope: Have studies proven that prayer can help heal the sick?] November 2, 2000</ref>

===Can it be tested?===
{{cquote|When I was a little boy, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised, the Lord, in his wisdom, doesn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked Him to forgive me.|||Emo Phillips<ref>''The Guardian'' &mdash; '''The best God joke ever &mdash; and it's mine!''' (September 1980)</ref>}}
The empirical testing of prayer is a controversial issue.

Rationalists might offer the task to prayerful people to cause some slight change in the world via the power of prayer, such as tipping a pen off their desk. Religionists might respond that such tasks are beneath the dignity of their [[god]]s, so as to avoid the inevitable loss of face at being unable to do so. A search in PubMed on "intercessory prayer" shows that much of the medical ethical boards and philosophy gurus are all dubious if one can even study such a thing.<ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18757618 The ethics of studying remote prayer.]</ref>

Some [[woo]]-meisters take the position that prayer and other religious twaddle can have documented effects on a person's health. In some cases, they go so far as to claim that they put a sick person in one room, and an alternative [[guru]] in another room behind a two-sided mirror, and that when the guru prayed, the sick person got better.<ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19370557 a review of studies on intercessory prayer]</ref>

===Case study: the Pope===
Every time a [[pope]] falls ill and ends up on his deathbed, we may assume that a sizable fraction of the one billion [[Catholics]] in the world all pray for his recovery. Despite this enormous effort of prayer, 100% of popes eventually die.{{nofact}}<ref group=note>To be fair, we have no idea [[Islamophobia|what the Muslims]] might be praying for. [[They]] [[Conspiracy theory|might as well be praying for his death]]. There are 1.6+ billions of them and they pray like five times a day. Additionally, [[Jack Chick]]-style Fundangelicals ''really hate'' the pope, and likely do the same, and, if they are right that Arminianist fundamentalism is the one true faith, might have extra praying power to compensate for their low numbers.</ref>

===Prayer in the Bible===
British Roman Catholic theologian {{wpl|Gerald Vann}} addressed the lack of meaningful outcomes resulting from prayer, pointing out how people tend to treat prayer as some kind of childish butler bell for wishgranting, implying that prayers only ''appear'' to go unanswered due to the excessively inflated expectations of the praying. 

{{cquote|Some people think that prayer just means asking for things, and if they fail to receive exactly what they asked for, they think the whole thing is a fraud.|||Gerald Vann}}

The actual problem, however, is that this is precisely how Jesus himself defines prayer in multiple places in the Bible, corroborated by all four gospels<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20040204154942/http://www.evilbible.com/Jesus_Lied.htm EvilBible.com listing relevant Jesus quotes on prayer from Mark, Matthew, Luke and John]</ref> &mdash; thus effectively closing the door on any attempts by Christian theologians to invent some kind of requirement that prayer must be "modest" or consist of "realistic demands" to be likely to be answered. 

{{cquote|Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him. Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours.|||[[Jesus]] (''{{bible|Mark|11|23|24}}''), instructing the faithful on how to tell if a prayer worked or not, and what to expect in terms of results.}}

Jesus in fact ''stresses the flamboyant disproportionality'' of answered prayers as the definitive proof of their success, underscoring that the ''only mechanism'' causative of unanswered prayer is a lack of faith, however obscure this splinter of doubt may be even to the praying individuals themselves &mdash; and ''not'' any divine regulation against supposedly "over-the-top" demands in prayer (since the whole point of prayer is that faithful worshipers may be rewarded by an [[Omnipotence|omnipotent]] God).

{{cquote|And when you pray, do not be like the [[hypocrite]]s, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.|||[[Jesus]] (''{{bible|Matthew|6|5}}''), telling the faithful that praying just to be seen praying isn't getting you anywhere.}}

This is a problematic state of affairs regarding Christian prayer theology, since an imaginary opportunity for the church to get away with specifying prayer as "only that which is so subtle as to blend in perfectly with [[random]] chance" would ''at the very least'' allow for reliances on vagueness in the defence of prayer &mdash; strategies with their own [[Apophenia|set]] [[Improbable things happen|of]] [[Argument from ignorance|problems]]. On the flip side, it neatly explains why well-designed studies fail to find any effects of prayer, since [[rational]] [[skepticism]] is technically a form of doubt.

===''Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer''===
The ''Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer'' (STEP) is an experiment that was carried out by the [[Templeton Foundation]] on the effectiveness of intercessory prayer on patients recovering from coronary artery bypass graft surgery (e.g., to treat heart disease).<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070708235747/http://www.templeton.org/newsroom/press_releases/060407step.html Templeton Foundation: Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer]</ref>

Like all things Templeton, this project was created to provide scientific [[evidence]] for [[religious]] action (specifically of the [[Christian]] variety). The team, under the leadership of Harvard Medical School doctors Herbert Benson and Jeffery A. Dusek, et al., was granted a large research grant (USD $2.4M) to test the efficacy of this type of prayer. 

====Methodology====
1,802 subjects, all receiving the same surgery and who generally believed that prayer works, were divided into three groups:
#Patients who would be receiving prayers, but didn't know it.
#Patients who would be receiving prayers and were told about it ahead of time.
#Patients who would not be receiving prayers (the control group).
Three groups of religious folk (two [[Catholic]], one [[Protestant]]) from religious states ([[Kansas]], [[Minnesota]]) provided prayers to the study subjects in groups 1 and 2 (whom they did not know) throughout the course of the study.

====Results and reaction====
{{cquote|The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.|||[[Søren Kierkegaard]]}}
The results found no differences in the complications of groups 1 and 3, which a [[rational]] scientist would expect. Unexpectedly, however, patients in group 2 actually had ''more'' complications during surgery… a [[psychosomatic]] result of knowing about the prayers, perhaps? Indeed, in the study quoted, prayer had a small ''negative'' effect on the health of the patients prayed for.<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?pagewanted=all New York Times: Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer] March 31, 2006</ref> 

Of course, the [[atheism]] community had a field day with these results. [[Richard Dawkins]] mentions the experiment in ''[[The God Delusion]]'', and offers up the possibility that because prayer empirically made matters worse for the patients, that they might have a legal case against their well-wishers for willfully aggravating their conditions!<ref group=note>Dawkins says this his with tongue inserted firmly into his cheek, but this is just one bullet in the large chest of ammunition against the case for religion as a benevolent institution.</ref>

The Templeton Foundation, required to release the results of the study lest they lose face as a legitimate scientific institution, panned the results and did their best to play it down in the media.

{{cquote|Our study was never intended to address the existence of [[God]] or the presence or absence of [[intelligent design]] in the universe. The study did not endeavor, either, to compare the efficacy of one prayer form over another or to assess participants' understanding of the nature and purpose of prayer. Finally, it was not our objective to discover whether prayers from one religious group work better than prayers from another.|co-author, Father Dean Marek, Director, Chaplain Services, Mayo Clinic|}}

One wonders what their remarks would have been if the results had turned out in ''favor'' of the efficacy of prayer. And if these five things that they assert weren't part of the purpose of the study, then why spend so much money on it?

They suggested other possible reasons for the results (e.g., maybe if the patients knew they were being prayed for by loved ones instead of random strangers at a distant church), but no follow-up study was ever issued.

==Quantity of prayer==
{{cquote|The man who prays is the one who thinks that God has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct God how to put them right.|||[[Christopher Hitchens]], ''Mortality''}}

Congregations are frequently exhorted to pray for something or someone. The idea apparently being that if entire groups of people pray for something, then the being being prayed to is more likely to perform miracles &mdash; not unlike the idea that the more people shake a vending machine, the faster it dispenses treats.

Exactly why they believe this is not clear. Possibilities include:
*They believe their eternally perfect supreme being may, in fact, be slightly hearing impaired.
*They believe that as the being has to listen to all the prayers, it simply gets bored and [[Bread and circuses|performs a miracle to shut the believers up]]. 
*They believe that if more people demonstrate [[faith]], then their God will be [[Argumentum ad populum|more impressed than if only one person demonstrates it]].
*They believe that a certain number of "prayer hours" are necessary for each miracle and consequently collective action gets things done more quickly (essentially a real life equivalent to the very dignified process of "grinding and farming" in video games).
*They believe that prayer is like a lottery: one gets picked out of the hat each day, so the more entries you have, the more likely thy will be done.

Many of these "get blessed quick schemes" constitute textbook examples of [[magical thinking]], and the suggestion that "the more people who perform the prayer, the more power it has" implies that the faithful don't really believe in an [[omniscient]] deity after all, or perhaps don't really believe in an omniscient and omnipotent God who helps His people without being repeatedly asked.

Rarely do the faithful connect this supposed need for some kind of game theory-inspired "prayer meta" to affect the output of an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent eternal creator, with the suggestion that: [[Problem of evil|maybe your pointless suffering is noted and even intended]]?

==Paradox of prayer==
{{cquote|Trillions and trillions of prayers every day asking and begging and pleading for favors. 'Do this' 'Gimme that' 'I want a new car' 'I want a better job'. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday. And I say fine, pray for anything you want. Pray for anything. But...what about the divine plan? Remember that? The divine plan. Long time ago God made a divine plan. Gave it a lot of thought. Decided it was a good plan. Put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years the divine plan has been doing just fine. Now you come along and pray for something. Well, suppose the thing you want isn't in God's divine plan. What do you want him to do? Change his plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a divine plan. What's the use of being God if every run-down schmuck with a two-dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan? And here's something else, another problem you might have: suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? 'Well it's God's will. God's will be done.' Fine, but if it's God's will and he's going to do whatever he wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me. Couldn't you just skip the praying part and get right to his will?|||[[George Carlin]], ''You Are All Diseased''}}

A number of paradoxes appear to take place anytime prayer is seriously considered. One strange aspect of prayer is that the deed being prayed for has often been rendered necessary by the actions of the deity prayed to. A natural disaster or "act of God" often leads to prayers to the same God to alleviate the consequent harm. It would seem to give more bangs for the prayer bucks to ''pray for there to be a reduction in such disasters''.<ref group=note>Or an increase in [[Sensitivity and specificity|specificity]] such that only the people God ''wants'' to harm gets harmed in said disasters.</ref>

Prayers themselves can also lead to impossible paradoxes. To give an example, imagine two teams competing in a major sporting event. There are likely prayers for both team to win, leading to a question of how God could possibly answer both prayers at the same time. Prayers for prosperity or material wealth often fall into this realm; as there is only so much available material wealth in the world, it is likely impossible for every praying individual to receive the degree of material wealth they requested at the same time before one runs out of material wealth to distribute. There have even been a number of historic wars where both sides claimed that God was on their side and would ensure their victory.

Another obvious problem is that prayer entails the idea of attempting to make an allegedly omniscient entity aware of something. It also involves messing with an allegedly divine plan, or indirectly arguing that the person praying could somehow improve upon God's intent or design.

To complicate matters further, the logic behind designing and creating life forms intelligent enough to '''not''' reliably offer uncritical praise, yet perpetually demand this of them unwaveringly, seems to land our diagnosis of said creator somewhere between "unintelligent" and "malevolent".

One problem that at least one Christian has admitted that prayer won't solve is scrupulosity, a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder that can take the form of praying obsessively.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150228213522/http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2008/march/scrupulosityor-obsessive-compulsive-disorder.html Scrupulosity—Or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? No matter what you call it, it's no day in the park for believers] by Katelyn Beaty (3/31/2008 02:14PM) ''Christianity Today''.</ref> [[Martin Luther]] is believed to have suffered from scrupulosity.<ref>Aho JA. ''Confession and Bookkeeping: the Religious, Moral, and Rhetorical Roots of Modern Accounting''. Albany: State University of New York Press; 2005. ISBN 0-7914-6545-4. Martin Luther and scrupulosity. p. 95–8.</ref>

{{cquote|I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.|||[[Friedrich Nietzsche]]}} 

===Godbotherer===
{{cquote|If God can influence the course of events, then a God who is willing to cure colds and provide parking spaces but is not willing to prevent [[Godwin's Law|Auschwitz]] and [[Hiroshima]] is morally repugnant.|||Unnamed philosophy professor<ref>[http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2007/01/Praying-For-Parking-Is-Evil.aspx "Praying for Parking Is Evil" on Beliefnet]</ref>}}

A '''godbotherer''' is a religious person who is considered to constantly bother their personal version of [[YHWH|God]] with trivial requests. Godbotherers presumably place everything in their imagined God's hands, for instance — in possible order of importance:

* [[Big Bang|the beginning of everything]]
* 
the [[evolution]] of
 man
* escaping the [[Babylon]]ian exile
* winning [[World War II]]
* winning the Super Bowl
* winning a high-school [[American football|football]] game
* surviving [[cancer]]
* surviving the [[flu]]
* waking up after surgery
* waking up every morning
* finding your soulmate
* finding your car keys
* getting a green light at the intersection
* not getting fired at work for being an insufferable prig
* promoting to challenger in <u>League of Legends</u>

The term "godbotherer" is also used to indicate anyone who bothers other people about God.

==See also==
{{fun|People to pray for}}
*[[Roko's basilisk]]
*[[Wishful thinking]]
*[[Why Won't God Heal Amputees]]
*[[NOMA]]
*[[Essay:Two pens]] — a challenge to prayer by a RationalWiki member.
*[[Francis Galton]] — Tested prayer empirically over a century ago.
*[[Bible thumper]]
*[[Classroom prayer]]
*[[National Day of Prayer]]
*[[National Sunday law]]
*[[Presidential Prayer Team]]
*[[National Prayer Breakfast]]

==External links==
*{{wpa|Efficacy of prayer}}
*[http://www.bible.ca/tongues-photogallery-pentecostal-trinkets.htm Pentecostal trinket gallery] &mdash; prayer cloths, prayer fleece, prayer pencils, and miracle cornmeal packets. The better to fleece you with.
*[http://www.dustoffthebible.com/2012/07/25/the-worst-tbn-product-scams-of-all-time Some more examples]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPZPGlBgXUY Nothing Fails Like Prayer, Dan Barker]

==Further reading==
*Heiler, Friedrich: ''Prayer. A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion.'' (1997) [[Special:Booksources/1851681434|ISBN 1851681434]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Religious terms]]
[[Category:Blasphemy (probably)]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]
[[Category:Christianity]]
[[Category:Bible woo]]

Categories: Religious terms, Blasphemy (probably), Pseudoscience, Christianity, Bible woo