The Impotence of Prayer, cont.page 2
More prayers from more people are better, some believers believe. They add up, the faith of the masses compounded, amplified through the static of all the other prayers, so that god, by majority rule, is forced, though omnipotent, to pay attention. This must be the way Christians think, since if a single prayer worked, TV evangelists wouldn’t ask for mass prayer from third parties, and prayer chain letters wouldn’t be forwarded over the internet that seek force in numbers for our loved ones dealing with medical problems.
And if the sick for whom we pray get sicker, our pastors tell us that god doesn’t always give us exactly what we ask for because god knows better how our needs should be met (religious people are fond of explaining and interpreting and claiming to know how prayer affects god). Sometimes the answer to our prayers is “no,” because god wants us to experience the tragedy of loss to make us fully comprehend his will and the need to hold dearly the living while they’re with us. The pastor would explain that prayer acknowledges god by asking him for help, and giving god permission to help through prayer obligates us to god, the only payment accepted being belief and faith; if the sick die, then our faith and our prayers weren’t strong enough.
No studies have shown prayer to have a significant effect on healing the sick (that can’t be explained by the placebo response or poor research design—see the following resources for an in-depth analysis of results from a number of research studies: 1,2, 3, and 4).
However, prayer does have an effect. Prayer gives the prayor (to coin a term similar to debtor, for instance) hope, a sense of actually taking some control, a sense of connection both with the prayed-for and with one’s god. Prayer makes the prayor more relaxed, calmer, serving as a sort of meditative clearing house for an anxious mind. Since prayer is simply wishful structured thinking, it can bring focus about the desired outcome, from which a plan of action might develop. Prayer is an envisioning, a rehearsing of outcomes, an acknowledgment and early acceptance of the possibility of terrible outcomes which one can begin to prepare for emotionally and secularly if wills and do-not-resuscitate orders must be arranged.
Praying aloud in the presence of a prayee tells him you care, that you’re betting on his improvement, which can lift a person’s spirits, and feeling good has all sorts of positive benefits, including the release of happiness chemicals in our bodies. We feel warm with the love of others who assure us that they are praying for our recovery and good health. It seems personal.
Psychologists confirm that loudly betting against someone’s success might cause a depressive, defeated emotional state in a crippled rival who has low self-esteem, and feeling this way, the rival may become less solution-oriented, less enthusiastic and less motivated to succeed, less creative and less divergent in finding solutions, less positive and less confident about personal outcomes, and more likely to surrender more easily in response to small failures. But these aren’t the responses of rivals who thrive on defying those who talk smack, taking such negative expectations as a personal challenge to crush opponents and make them choke on their bad wishes.
Prayer affects emotions, so there is a cause-and-effect correlation. We know that emotional abuse and subsequent demoralization can happen. We know that people can sue when others hurt their feelings, what’s called intentional infliction of emotional distress that causes alleged severe emotional pain. We know that a smile can brighten a day, that laughter can be the best medicine (for the stressed, since it provides temporary relief, if one accepts the false premise that both a competing stressful emotion and a happy emotion can’t be held simultaneously, and that the happy emotion displaces the stressful one). Prayer alone can change the thinking of both the prayor and the prayee, which can lead to action or determined inaction. When we know we’re being prayed for, and we believe in a higher power, our attitude improves, both because we realize that other people care for us, and because maybe a few prayers are getting through god’s filter. When we despise the mindset of people who think prayer works, we might try to get more ill just to defy their belief.
However, no divine intervention can be an effect of prayer,
because there are no divine or supernatural beings to grant such effects. No god
provides a prayed-for effect, no matter when a prayer is uttered (during the
Christmas season or on a Jewish religious holiday) or for what reason (for a
medical cure, peace for warring nations, for rainfall in drought-stricken
geographic regions, or for reasons considered good for humankind or bad or petty
or selfish) or for whom (oneself or others or for strangers on behalf of others)
or where on earth one thinks or chants a prayer (in a church or standing beside
the wailing wall in Jerusalem) or the prayor’s experience (a long-time priest or
a meditative guru) or the type of prayer (nightly prayer or a prayer to a
martyred saint) or the prayor’s religious denomination (Presbyterian or
Catholic) or the number of prayors (a million, ten million, a billion) or the
extent or limitation of what is prayed for (clearing of a facial blemish,
turning back of time, regrowth of an amputee’s leg, all acts within god’s power
to achieve if god created all natural law and the heavens and the earth) or no
matter what proof is offered to whom that prayer is effective (who believes
proof is irrelevant to the validity of the proof) or no matter the positive or
negative outcome of an alleged effect (neither positive nor negative effects
result from prayer as a result of a supreme being’s intervention because no
effect results from divine intervention) or no matter how ardently one believes
that prayer works (believing that prayer has power, just as believing in voodoo,
does not change the reality that no gods intercede as a result of
prayer--reality is the thing that stays the same when you stop believing in it).
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