Or perhaps tell them they should pray for no more devastating forest fires.  Ever.  Think of how many future hours of prayer will be saved! 

 I like chocolate.

There. That was just as effective as a prayer. 

*farts* Dammit, I just did something more effective than prayer. 

I'm on the other side of the world, so the butterfly affect from my release of gas could change the wind direction over there turning the fire back on itself and easing it. 

Maybe next time I'll end up with something as effective, nothing more nothing less. 

Technically farting will make the fire bigger - haven't you ever lit one?

It's an appropriate fart joke. The best kind really.

Please forgive the length of this post. I started typing and the words just flowed… My actual point is at the bottom if you want to skip the walk down memory lane and my gyrations about the do’s and don’ts of prayer in the middle.

Let me start by saying that I totally agree with the opinions expressed here about prayer and its effectiveness in the world. A more mundane and vacuous exercise is really hard to find in my opinion.

Another anecdote to add to the one mentioned in the OP was the experience I had a few years back when I still lived in Slovakia, in Bratislava. I met a few Christian missionaries who were doing this god-through-baseball program to help bring back to god the newly freed Slavs who had suffered behind the Iron Curtain with “atheist” communism. Many of their targets happened to be students of mine, so it was in this context that I had originally met them.

Anyway, I got into a conversation with the wife of the athlete-minister who was running this baseball program when the topic of prayer came up. He was over in a corner of the bar somewhere doing the god gab with other potential converts. The usual platitudes were tossed around the table about the power of prayer and how it saved someone from cancer or stopped a sinking boat from dipping below the water until all aboard could be saved or made a frozen laptop computer unfreeze just in time to print a required paper for graduation. You know, the stuff of miracles! Then the wife got all teary eyed and pious and told our table how she had stopped a hurricane from destroying her house with her prayers and those of her children.

They had been praying all day as the story goes before the hurricane hit; they prayed as they huddled in the basement of their home awaiting the hurricane; they prayed god would stop the hurricane all the way up until the hurricane was blasting their city. At that time they adjusted things a bit and prayed that the hurricane would not damage the town or their neighbors’ homes. Then later it was just their house they prayed for when the winds were blowing overhead. I listened intently as she described a process of failed prayers in the face of the actual power of nature.

Ultimately their house was “saved” when many others were not, and this was a moment to rejoice she proclaimed as she threw her hands together in yet another prayer of thanks. I guzzled a swig of beer. This woman was utterly oblivious to the fact that her tale of the usefulness of prayer was actually more an argument against prayer.

My otherwise cautious super ego was apparently neutralized at this point by the three or four Zlaty Bazant I had consumed, which prompted me to ask the obvious questions anyone in the RRS would ask. I asked her how she thought this constituted answered prayer when in fact so many other homes were destroyed (something measurable that can be used as evidence). She answered that the power of their prayers guided god’s hand to brush the hurricane aside in their case. Then I asked what had happened to her first prayer, the one that would have stopped the hurricane altogether and thus would have spared the whole town and not merely her home. She didn’t have an answer other than more prayer was needed “obviously.” And why her house and not her neighbors’ houses, in which Christians lived replete with praying children? No answer other than the “mysterious ways” cliché. And then she went on to spout the typical B.S. that the sparing of her house meant that her family was now in the position to do HIS work helping the others in the community not so fortunate.

When I pointed out that this was special pleading of the worst kind (followed by a quick explanation for what that is), she started to get that look that believers get when they realize that you aren’t asking them these questions in the role of the preprogrammed straight man, the one who acts as a catalyst of disagreement and honest wonder only to later see the light and come to a belief in all that is great about god. Instead she realized that I was actually challenging what she was saying and that I wasn’t going to budge all that easily. The insult of this was only made worse by the fact that my questions were lined with a hint of beer induced sarcasm. This was the point at which I should have shut up and slithered away from the table. I did not do this, thinking as I did that I was wonderfully astute and right on the verge of converting a Christian to the atheist’s truth. I also think I can dance well when I’m drunk which is very much not the case.

She did a couple of hand waves in her husband’s direction, all the while smiling at me in this “fuck you, you unbelieving SOB” way. Her husband came over, a big guy with this dirty baseball cap and a temper that can only be forged in god’s house. A whisper here and there in his attentive ear, a well placed sob and a buried face in the shoulder of her Christian hunk, then an extended finger in my general direction and I was in deep shit. Luckily my Slovak mates were there to usher me out of my own stupidity in this case. I had a few rounds to buy at the next bar but was otherwise spared the rod so to speak.

I think prayer is a trickier dilemma than we might want to admit. All of us freethinkers know that it is a ridiculous practice born of superstition and sanctioned by people out of habit more than anything else, okay habit reinforced by a traditional belief matrix. The problem comes in the larger picture and in the various social situations that we might find ourselves in where prayer shows its ugly head.

If one is a caring person, one who does not quibble over the differences in beliefs when the chips are down, it is easy to see where going through the motions with prayer can seem an innocuous enough thing to do. But should we really do this? Is there a danger in going through the motions of prayer when prayer represents so much of the beliefs we consider wrong? Is it worth it to be honest about your despising prayer or at least admitting that it is negligible in your life? Is it wrong to hold steadfast to this opinion when prayer represents a source of comfort to a person you care about and thus your denying this practice in a time of need could be construed as cruel?

An example we might use in a non-religious context could be the actions you would take with a friend who smokes cigarettes. Assuming you have an open friendship with him, you might tell your wheezing friend at the basketball court that his hissing lungs are a sign that he needs to get his act together and change the way he lives. You might reemphasize this point to him at a bar or in restaurants where his smoking is annoying and impeding on your own lifestyle. But what if this person, someone you care about a great deal, doesn’t heed these warnings and continues his unhealthy behavior? One day he’s in the hospital for tests on his lungs and he is scared for his life? I imagine a caring friend would be less inclined to jump on the high horse in the same way as the previous examples and still lecture the friend while he is in the grips of fear and agony. It would certainly not be the time to point out the factually supported risks connected with smoking or that he has done this to himself. A caring friend would be there to support him and to make sure he knew that you were on his side regardless.

Taking that model then, what do you do with a Christian friend about his praying? He knows you are an atheist as you know he is a theist. You harbor fantasies about bringing him around to the right way of thinking and he certainly believes that bringing you back to god would be a feather in his heavenly cap. Nonetheless both of you navigate the friendship peacefully enough with only the occasional debate that boils down to HIS “faith” fiat and your unrelenting application of reason and logic.

So all the same bells and whistles are there. He wants to pray before the game in your softball league so he does while you stand silent. He wants to pray before you dig into the spare ribs on the table when you are already three mouthfuls in. He prays for a safe journey as you car pool to work while you fiddle with the radio until he finishes jabbering. Whatever the daily context of this intellectual standoff, at least no one is getting hurt. In these cases you feel it is alright to say that you find the practice ridiculous and that prayer has never been proven to be effective. You point out that there has never been an experiment run that has established any causal link to prayer and some effect on the target of the prayer. He claims (annoyingly so) that you are looking at it the wrong way, that you need to understand that prayer is the tool of a man of faith. Yes, the never ending circle of faith by assertion.

“What does it say about your god if we do have a car accident?” you retort. Then the special pleading goes on until you park the car and got to work. Nothing has been resolved… again. But you still drive home together and remain friends.

But here is the burning question?

What harm is there in praying with a believer friend if his daughter is in the hospital and he wants to pray for her recovery? Let’s say you don’t believe, as I have already stated. Let’s say you have even told your friend about being an atheist as the example illustrates above. What is the moral benchmark for you when this friend of yours is asking you to pray with him for the life of his daughter? I honestly don’t know what it is personally since I find the practice of prayer to be for naught. I have found myself in this terrible position twice since becoming an atheist, and I was torn about what I should do in each situation. In both cases I gave in to my friend’s needs and prayed with him in as absent a fashion as one could imagine. I felt terrible afterwards, however, like I had betrayed my own beliefs and by extension myself. It was a sunken feeling that I don’t ever want to experience again. It still bothers me that I sacrificed my intellectual integrity when faced with such an emotionally charged situation. I acquiesced to a mythology and it really bothers me that I did so.

I have sworn to myself that I won’t do this again, that I won’t, no matter how dire the situation is, pray for a miracle or pray to a god that doesn’t exist for healing powers because I will not perpetuate a belief system that I am very much against, one that threatens my right to exists, one that is a leech on humanity and a cancer of the mind.

I’ve rationalized it this way. In the former example with my fictitious friend in the hospital getting tests on his lungs after having smoked for years, I would not engage in having a cigarette with him “ to calm down” when I don’t smoke. In fact, I would find this practice to be completely ridiculous, not to mention very counter productive to his overall health. I mean really, smoking in the hospital when smoking is what got you there in the first place. If the analogy holds, it would be equally ridiculous for me to pray for god’s intervention for a friend who needs to have his daughter served by science and trained doctors. This is a preposterous notion. If I were in his shoes, I would want to hear reminders of how good the doctors are at this hospital, that my daughter (I don’t have one by the way) is lucky to be in a place where she can be helped. If my religious friend were to start praying for her I’d take that as an insult of the highest order since prayer is intangible and amounts to nothing in my way of thinking. I would hope that my friend would understand this and use language that I would want to hear while I was freaking about the state of my daughter. A theist can refer to science in most cases without jeopardizing his beliefs, right?

This brings me back to my dilemma. How do I use language he needs to hear without becoming a cog in the wheel of the process I can’t stand? How to I respect his wishes when the very act of doing so means that I have caved in where my beliefs are concerned? I won’t pray with my friend because I don’t believe in prayer. What then is an atheist to do that doesn’t appear to be a lecture of or a slap in his face while also showing his friend that he cares and hopes for the best.

I honestly do not have the answer to this question. What would you guys do?

Cheers!

That's nicely written Larry! I like how you put that. Truth be told, if I called you wordy, it would be the pot calling the kettle black.

 Cheers!