Prayer Doesn't Work

[deepblue]

I am living proof that prayer doesn't work.

 

I spent about 25 years of my life reading the Bible and praying for salvation. I prayed for repentance. I prayed for faith. I begged God for an answer. I prayed for wisdom. Sometimes I would spend hours asking God to reveal himself to me. I was sincere.

 

All to no avail. A couple of times I felt a flash of something, but quite what it was I don't know.

 

I got nothing from God. No salvation. No repentance. No faith. No revelation. Nothing.

 

So, I've come to the conclusion that (1) I am not one of the elect, (2) God doesn't answer prayers, or (3) There is no God.

[Ramen666]

I agree with you 100% percent but tell that to Christians.

[Mythra]

Well, that was pretty frank. AND honest.

 

Of course prayer doesn't work. How could it?

 

It does make you feel kinda sillly, though, doesn't it? The fact that you spent 25 years talking to yourself!!

 

I know. I did too..

 

I've come to a conclusion, too, F&H. (1)There is no elect, (2) God doesn't answer prayers, because (3) There is no God.

[Antlerman]

So, I've come to the conclusion that (1) I am not one of the elect, (2) God doesn't answer prayers, or (3) There is no God.

Option 4, you are God. You need to "pray" to yourself. Like Smokey the Bear says, "Only you can answer your own prayers"

[Astreja]

Option 4, you are God. You need to "pray" to yourself. Like Smokey the Bear says, "Only you can answer your own prayers"

Works for me.

 

But, even there, we can fail to answer the "prayers" through doubt or distraction or lack of effort and commitment to a goal. To this end, it's vital to minimize negative chatter in our thoughts so we don't talk ourselves out of the things we think we want.

 

And the best way to do that is to keep repeating the request in positive terms, each and every time one's thoughts go into "Yeah, but..." mode.

[Lycorth]

Well-put, frankandhonest, but as has been said, try telling that to Xians who are too afraid to admit the truth to themselves and would rather make up excuses for their unanswered prayers.

[Dhampir]

Prayer does work. Frequently. It just becomes useless anyway once you realize how it works.

[garrisonjj]

I am living proof that prayer doesn't work.

 

I spent about 25 years of my life reading the Bible and praying for salvation. I prayed for repentance. I prayed for faith. I begged God for an answer. I prayed for wisdom. Sometimes I would spend hours asking God to reveal himself to me. I was sincere.

 

All to no avail. A couple of times I felt a flash of something, but quite what it was I don't know.

 

I got nothing from God. No salvation. No repentance. No faith. No revelation. Nothing.

 

So, I've come to the conclusion that (1) I am not one of the elect, (2) God doesn't answer prayers, or (3) There is no God.

 

 

JEZZZZZZZZUS CHRIST!!! When did you learn that prayer is nothing more than talking to yourself? It took me over 40 years of unanswered devotion and catholic rituals to discover and have the strength to admit its all bullshit.

[Sparrow]

I am living proof that prayer doesn't work.

 

...

 

So, I've come to the conclusion that (1) I am not one of the elect, (2) God doesn't answer prayers, or (3) There is no God.

Hi

 

A young man on myspace who goes under the name of Zackiechan wrote the following about the non-existance of god and prayer not working. I couldn't find the link anymore, so I hope he doesn't mind that I reporduced it here. In general, I think it is quite good as it is quite supportive of this view:

 

Sorry though that it is so big.

 

Spatz

 

Friday, January 05, 2007

 

 

Zak's Observational Argument for the Non-Existence of God _Category: Religion and Philosophy

 

 

The scientific method is the best method that we have to figure out how the world works. Nothing that boasts of human progress has been the result of anything but scientific inquiry. We can land on the moon, cure diseases and complete heart transplants all because of science. Not revelation or inspiration from God. Nothing productive has ever come about from the result of God.

 

Science works from the bottom up, while religion works from the top down. That is, science looks at the natural world and works its way up to a theory to explain the data that is observed. Religion on the other hand starts with the conclusion and looks around to try and find things that will fit with the already decided conclusion. This isnt that difficult to do, since humans are pattern-seeking animals. We often find patterns that dont necessarily exist. A great example of this is the book The Tao of Physics. In the book, the author goes through eastern religions and philosophies and finds parallels to modern physics, to suggest that the ancient eastern mystics had some special knowledge of the universe. This is done all the time nowadays with Christianity-- the most popular of which is the big-bang theory. Ah ha! says the Christian, the big bang was the start of the universe, so that must have been the start of the creation act by God. They think that this parallel proves that the Bible is the word of God since it got it somewhat right about the start of the universe. But there are many more unscientific things in the Bible, which never seem to be brought up. Heck, just go a few more verses into Genesis and we see all sorts of wild, unscientific stuff.

 

 

The problem with God is that there isnt any evidence for his existence. Most apologists just point to gaps in our knowledge. This is called the god of the gaps. I dont know how this could have happened, therefore it must be the result of God. But as a scientists, we need actual evidence... positive evidence for this God, before we can conclude he exists. Now of course, it would be very difficult to find evidence for a non-existent being. But lets assume for the sake of argument that God does exist. There must be some way to test and see if he is there or not. We dont necessarily need to test God, but just his effects or indirect effects on the natural world.

 

So thats what I am going to look at. I am going to look to see if God has any effect on the universe.

 

 

Christians believe that God answers many prayers. So if God does exist, we would expect sick people that are prayed for to have a quicker recovery time than people that are not prayed for.

 

And just recently, the results from the largest and most comprehensive prayer study to date was published. There were two parts to the study. The first part was completely double blinded. As usual, no one being prayed for recovered any quicker than people not being prayed for. Again, this shows that intercessory prayer DOES NOT WORK. The second part of the study was only single blinded (the doctors didnt know who was being prayed for, but the patients did). Incredibly, 59 percent of the patients that knew they were being prayed for suffered complications, while as only 52 percent of people not being prayed for suffered complications. Weird. So apparently, prayer, in some respects, does more harm than good. But why?

 

The theory on why people that knew they were being prayed for suffered more complications is that they felt more pressure to get better, which leads to stress, which leads to problems. So the best thing to do if someone is sick, and you want to pray for them, is not tell them! Actually, if you pray for them or not, it has been shown over and over again to do nothing.

 

These results are surprising, assuming that God does exist. If God does exist, we would expect to see that the prayed for groups would have significantly less complications. But if God does not exist, we would expect no difference between the two groups. And in fact, the prayed for group had more problems.

 

 

Many Christians believe that God must be the base of a romantic relationship in order for it to work. If this is true, the stronger of Christians the couple is, the better foundation they would have, and thus their relationship would be more likely to succeed. But when we look at the stats, we see that in fact, the more religious a couple is, the more likely they are to have a divorce. According to Barna Research, 27 percent of Born Again Christians have divorces, as opposed to only 24 of Mainline Protestants. Pulling up the back though, with the lowest divorce rate of anyone, are the atheist and agnostic couples, with a 21 percent divorce rate. Geographically and denominationally speaking, your risk of divorce is highest if you are a white, Southern Baptist living in the southern Bible belt.

 

Now why would this happen if a relationship is supposedly stronger when God is in the middle of it? But if God does not exist, this is exactly what we would expect. The reason this is expected is because an ultra religious couple will put much more emphasis on something that doesnt actually matter (God), and they ignore other issues that may later become a problem in the relationship. They couple thinks I love God and want a partner that does as well. When they meet each other, they only focus on the God aspect, and forget the rest, since they believe that if God is there, he will make it work. But alas, they are wrong again.

 

 

God is also supposedly the source of morality, so if we follow God, we should be better off. If God exists, we would expect a society that is religious to have less social problems than a society that is not too religious. However, this couldnt be further from the truth. The results from a 2005 study by the Journal of Religion and Society found that:

 

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.

 

According to the study:

 

The data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical cultures of life that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developing democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards.__The non-religious, pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted. Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data - a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.

 

This is consistent with the hypothesis that higher rates of atheism correspond strongly to a nation being healthier and wealthier.

 

Countries containing high percentages of non-believers are among the most healthy and wealthy nations on earth (Paul, 2004). Of course, we must always distinguish between those nations where non-belief has been forced upon the society by dictators (coercive atheism) from those societies wherein non-belief has emerged on its own without governmental coercion (organic atheism). Nations marked by coercive atheism -- such as China, North Korea, Vietnam, and former Soviet states -- are societies marked by all that comes with totalitarianism: poor economic development, intellectual censorship, widespread corruption, ubiquitous depression, etc.. However, nations marked by high levels of organic atheism such as Sweden, the Netherlands, and France -- are among the healthiest, wealthiest, most educated, and most free societies on earth.

 

 

So you can see, a belief in God does nothing to a society but increase problems. This is what we would expect to see if God does not exist. The reason being that secular societies go about to find a solution to a problem, rather than just praying about it. As Carl Sagan said, If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate.

 

So if God does exist, and is all-loving, the most moral thing for him to do would be to go away. He is doing more harm than good, and sometimes, you just have to know when to throw in the towel.

 

*

 

We can also look at prison rates. Assuming morality comes from God, Christians should be somewhat more in-tuned to this morality, or at the least commit fewer crimes. When one looks at prison incarceration, one sees Christians most represented, and atheists underrepresented per capita. Out of 74,731 prisoners, 156 are atheists (0.2 percent) and 62,594 are Christian (74 percent). Given 10 percent of USA population being atheists, one would expect 7,473 atheists in prison-- assuming that Christians and atheists are on the same moral ground. The data suggests that atheists commit fewer crimes than theists.

 

This is not what we would expect if God actually exists.

 

*_--> -->

 

But we arent finished yet. If God does exist, and is the source of all reality and truth, then the more we study the universe, the more we should come to understand and realize the existence of God. Just as someone who listens to and studies a certain bands music becomes increasingly knowledgeable about the band, scientists should become more and more knowledgeable and sure about God as they study nature. But in fact, as usual, the opposite is true. As scientific education increases, belief in God decreases. The more people learn about how the universe actually works, the more people realize that the God hypothesis is useless. The main reason for this is because most people base their beliefs on a lack of understanding of nature (most commonly they wonder how such complexity could arise by itself. But when Darwins theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection is understood, the mystery disappears, as does the belief that God was needed for life to develop).

 

Among the top scientists in America (members of the National Academy of Sciences) only, 7 percent have a belief in some sort of god. Among the general population of working scientists, 40 percent have a belief in a god. You have probably heard a friend or minister exclaim that more and more physicists and biologists are starting to believe in God because of what they are discovering. Actually, that couldnt be further from the truth. Among the hard sciences (not political or social sciences), biologists and physicists have the lowest belief in god when compared to the other fields. Biologists show around a 35 percent belief in God, and physicists show about 25 percent. And just because they believe in God does not mean that they believe in a personal god, let alone the Christian God.

 

This is not what we would expect if God actually existed. If he did, the top scientists should be saying that their discoveries point to the existence of a God, not away from.

 

 

So now that we have gone through several ways in which to see the effects of God. Assuming that God DOES actually exist, I have to ask the believers: given that prayer studies never work, religiosity increases the chance of divorce, the more religious a society it is, the worse off it is, fewer atheists are in jail that Christians, and the top scientists dont have much of a belief in God... what should we expect to see if God DIDNT exist? That is, (and this is the point of the entire argument) what results would you have expected to see if God did NOT exist?

 

If we work from the bottom up, as scientists, we come to the overwhelming conclusion, based on our observations of nature that no personal God exists. However, if we start with the assumption that God exists, we can ignore/throw out this evidence since it does not coincide with our conclusion. But that is a skewed way of looking at the world, especially if you want to find objective truth.

 

Therefore, by looking at nature and the potential effects a personal God would have on it, we can safely conclude that no such being exists. And if he does exist, he created the universe to look precisely the way we would expect if he did not exist.

[Trancelation]

Well, duh. Prayer don't work if'n yer a sinnur n'whatnot, and seein' as how dur holey blood dur bein' de only thing'n clean yur sins dur, if'n ya' ain't been cleaned dur, dat dur prayer ain't gon' work dur!

 

N' anyhow, if'n yer prayer ain't been answert dur, it'z a curz' ya' ain'y praying right, dur. I prait for duh lourd what cum n' fence my foot dur, and he did, all-he-jew-ya!

 

So if'n ya' prey like me dur, dem' dur prayers will be a-answered! All-he-jew-ya!

 

*ahem*

 

Rant aside, I agree with everything posted here. Prayer absolutely does not work, and the above is only an example of the retorts one will recieve upon mentioning the statistical reality of the failure of prayer. Prayer may help some cope with life, but that is not the intention of prayer, and seeing as how prayer does not work to begin with, why not just apply positive thinking, or take a deep, calming breath?

 

Hope is fine. Hope is a wonderful thing, and so is love, but where does faith and prayer fit into the picture? Why are they necessary, I ask the Christian? To be completely honest, I have never recieved an aswer beyond "I don't know, it's the Lord's will, the Lord works in mysterious ways." So . . . why do a thing if it does not work, and if you do not know WHY you are doing it?

 

The rant from the MySpace page is great, very insightful and offers a lot of points I hadn't considered before. I'll be referencing it again in the future.

[StewartP]

A chap on YouTube made a video about prayer called "The Best

in the world"

 

The logic is like this:

When Xians pray, they claim that God can answer prayers in one of 3 ways

Yes

No

Wait

 

Now, lets say a prayer to a bottle of milk - "please give me $1000"

say next day a cheque from IRS turns up for $1000. I could say "see, prayer works"

say 3 months later you get a rise that amounts to "1200". I could say "see, prayer works"

say, nothing happens. I could say "you need to be patient, the bottle of milk knows what is best"

 

Of course a bottle of milk can't answer prayer. That is obvious. It means that the arrival of ay money is just coincidence.

 

BUT - and here is the illusion - with the options of Yes, No, Wait, God can't lose. Couple this with coincidence and you have the mindset in belief in the power of prayer.

 

If you have the bandwidth, watch the vid

[riverbank]

well prayer on my behalf isn't gonna work either .. even if people fall on their knees before the invisible one and pray in tongues all evening begging for God to have mercy on my poor lost soul .. won't change a thing.

[Legion]

well prayer on my behalf isn't gonna work either .. even if people fall on their knees before the invisible one and pray in tongues all evening begging for God to have mercy on my poor lost soul .. won't change a thing.

So there are people that are still praying for your return to the fold Riverbank? I wonder how long they will keep that up. Years? Deacades? Look on the bright side. They care about you, even though their concern may be a bit misplaced.

[riverbank]

well prayer on my behalf isn't gonna work either .. even if people fall on their knees before the invisible one and pray in tongues all evening begging for God to have mercy on my poor lost soul .. won't change a thing.

So there are people that are still praying for your return to the fold Riverbank? I wonder how long they will keep that up. Years? Deacades? Look on the bright side. They care about you, even though their concern may be a bit misplaced.

 

oh yeah .. I did a thread about this recently. I know they care about me, but they haven't a clue what I've been though so I do get a bit annoyed about it. Even if I tell them not to pray, they won't bloody listen. Oh well..

[Tyson]

All you have to do is consider this simple example. Feel free to use it to end all "you need to pray" arguments:

 

Imagine you want a banana. If you pray for it the possible outcomes are:

1. You get a banana fairly soon

2. You get a banana some time in the distant future.

3. You get no banana

 

Imagine you don't pray for a banana. The possible outcomes are:

1. You get a banana fairly soon

2. You get a banana some time in the distant future.

3. You get no banana

 

Why bother?

[NotBlinded]

So, I've come to the conclusion that (1) I am not one of the elect, (2) God doesn't answer prayers, or (3) There is no God.

I really don't think that 3) follows from 1) and 2). I feel that it is important to distinguish that. Now, if you would have said, there is no God as described by fundamental religious people, then I would agree.

[Unknowing1]

IMO people think prayer works because in most cases they are praying for something that they can cause to happen.

 

I really would like to see some type of hard core research where people who prayed for something got what they prayed for and had no control over it happening whatsoever.

[chefranden]

Actually you just have to be careful about what you pray for. Pray for a parking spot and if God has one available he'll let you have it. Pray for world peace, and he'll tell you to fuck off every time.

[Unknowing1]

Actually you just have to be careful about what you pray for. Pray for a parking spot and if God has one available he'll let you have it. Pray for world peace, and he'll tell you to fuck off every time.

 

Ah so that's why my prayers were never answered, I didn't pray for the right stuff.

[garrisonjj]

I am living proof that prayer doesn't work.

 

I spent about 25 years of my life reading the Bible and praying for salvation. I prayed for repentance. I prayed for faith. I begged God for an answer. I prayed for wisdom. Sometimes I would spend hours asking God to reveal himself to me. I was sincere.

 

All to no avail. A couple of times I felt a flash of something, but quite what it was I don't know.

 

I got nothing from God. No salvation. No repentance. No faith. No revelation. Nothing.

 

So, I've come to the conclusion that (1) I am not one of the elect, (2) God doesn't answer prayers, or (3) There is no God.

 

 

Your story is the same as mine except try 40 years of prayers and sacfafice,,, all for FUCKING nothing! This we fuckin pray, amen!

[NotBlinded]

Your story is the same as mine except try 40 years of prayers and sacfafice,,, all for FUCKING nothing! This we fuckin pray, amen!

You know, that's another thing...why do they invoke the Egyptian God Amen when they finish praying? Of course, I had no idea I was doing that when I used to pray either.

 

Well, I looked it up. It seems the hebrew and greek words were Awmane and Ahmane, meaining so-be-it or verily. Whoops! A little slip and they are praising a pagan God for thousands of years!

[Trancelation]

Your story is the same as mine except try 40 years of prayers and sacfafice,,, all for FUCKING nothing! This we fuckin pray, amen!

You know, that's another thing...why do they invoke the Egyptian God Amen when they finish praying? Of course, I had no idea I was doing that when I used to pray either.

 

Well, I looked it up. It seems the hebrew and greek words were Awmane and Ahmane, meaining so-be-it or verily. Whoops! A little slip and they are praising a pagan God for thousands of years!

this is pretty interesting stuff, considering the Christian compulsion to treat words as if they had magic within them. Though I suspect that revealing this t them would only result in the argument that God magically made the word mean whatever the individual Christian claims it means.

[Former Follier]

It is pretty amazing how Fundy's seem to take every word of the Bible so literally until it doesn't mean exactly what they want it to mean... then it's a metaphor or an illustration or a parable.

[Ramen666]

It is pretty amazing how Fundy's seem to take every word of the Bible so literally until it doesn't mean exactly what they want it to mean... then it's a metaphor or an illustration or a parable.

 

 

That is so true, you are on the right track. Seeing you are a new member welcome to the boards, enjoy.

 

Just like this prayer thing for example, more than once prayer is said to work if your a True Christian. Still am yet to see one work for me in the last few years even with my parents praying.

[Former Follier]

It is pretty amazing how Fundy's seem to take every word of the Bible so literally until it doesn't mean exactly what they want it to mean... then it's a metaphor or an illustration or a parable.

 

 

That is so true, you are on the right track. Seeing you are a new member welcome to the boards, enjoy.

 

Just like this prayer thing for example, more than once prayer is said to work if your a True Christian. Still am yet to see one work for me in the last few years even with my parents praying.

On a related note. . . have you ever noticed that prayers are always answered to Fundys? If a Fundy asks god for something and the prayer doesn't meet with their expectations then naturally it's just god's way of saying 'no' or 'not right now'. But if that same Fundy's prayer is "answered" in the way that they want it to be then, of course, it's divine intervention! Couldn't we just chalk it all up to the natural course of events in a person's life? Why does it always have to be about a supernatural entity intervening in any way? There is absolutely no rock-solid proof of any supernatural events, but Fundys are all too willing to ascribe fortunate outcomes to a higher power.