Home » Mind & Soul » Atheism » Not a prayer

Not a prayer

© Francois Tremblay

As sarcastically defined by James Randi in his Encyclopedia of the Paranormal, prayers are little more than a modern version of a recited incantation, and work about as well as any other incantation. Their role is diverse : cajole the deity in changing reality for one's own ends, avoid anticipated divine wrath, express one's gratitude or adulation.

But this may be seen as unfair. Some people contend that prayer fulfills other functions - giving a person the courage to face a problem, self-affirmation, and the like. However, there is no inherent reason why these functions cannot be fulfilled by another method, that doesn't rely on myths.



The mechanics of prayer is a mystery. We suppose, then, that a parishoner tells his god that he wants reality to be somehow changed, against the law of causality, in a certain manner. We then presume that the god either fulfills the person's wishes, or not. Incidentally, it's rather funny to see how many christians ask for material things and other advantages, seeing how altruist their religion is (for an example, see this prayer request page). Anyway, apart from the problems of determining exactly what to implement, there are problems with both outcomes.

If the god fulfills the wish, not only does this break the nature of material reality (a phenomenon which by definition we cannot observe, since we must consider every event as part of it), but it would mean that believers in an existing god who fulfills prayers would be extremely powerful. And yet we do not observe proponents of any religion being more well-off than any other, or even compared to atheists : christians, for example, are more criminal, more intellectually deficient, and have a generally baser character. However they do tend to prosper more easily in the United States because the christian religion is more or less the state religion there.

If the god does not fulfill the wish, then this would tend to discredit that god's power. The religious retort would then be to claim that the god does not have to fulfill prayers, or that prayers are a test. But in that case, how are we supposed to verify the believer's claim of his god's power, apart from empty emotional bromides ? Furthermore, one might think that it would be a great occasion for a god to show his power and convert people, since this seems to be a primary motivation of modern deities.

The copyright of the article Not a prayer in Atheism is owned by Francois Tremblay. Permission to republish Not a prayer in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.