Ignorance is Bliss: Prayer

“Let us pray.” For the budding young atheist dragged unwillingly to his grandparents’ church, there are no more disturbing words than these. Who the heck do these people think they are talking to? Don’t they know how strange they’re acting? Is there some gray old man in the sky somewhere with a telescoping microphone tuning in to these people’s daily begging for more money or better-behaving children or fewer beatings? Do they really think when they pray that they are going to affect some kind of outcome in the world? Do you think anyone can hear your thoughts? They cannot. No one can, and your prayer will not make a bit of difference in the life of your son fighting for his life overseas. I am sorry, but this is the truth.

There is something worthwhile about prayer. (But do not mention this to the devoutly religious, for I’ve learned they can’t bear to hear anything doubtful of their beliefs.) It has nothing to do with any god or deity, or supernatural (fictional) world. It has to do with your brain and how it works. We need to feel that life is worth living. We need to feel that we can have some effect on the world at large. And we need to feel that we are not alone in this. So by praying, one simply affirms these things to his or herself. Call it affirmation, call it meditation, contemplation, confirmation, mental masturbation, whatever suits your beliefs. Fact is, for many people--across many cultures and belief systems--it has the desired effect. This lends no legitimacy to Creationism or any other belief system; it is just natural that our brains and bodies function better when we believe that we are not alone and not helpless. We are social creatures and it is what we need to survive. Meditation is a sort of self-stimulation, allowing us to do for ourselves what we probably are not receiving externally. Bad news about the war your son or daughter is fighting in? You can’t go over there and protect them. Perhaps you believe the current President was right for getting us into this war, so you can’t protest, either. So, pray for them, since there is little else you can do. And you can offer them a little comfort by telling them that you pray nightly for them. At least they will know you are thinking of them. But that is all that it will mean.

I have nothing against prayer, but I cannot stand lies, deceit, deception. Prayer is an ultimately selfish and ineffectual thing, worthwhile only to those doing the praying. A crowd of a thousand people will no more effect the outcome of a Presidential election by praying than they will by yanking each others’ dicks in sync with the 1812 Overture. If it were really that easy, I’m sure the world would be much easier for everyone to live in. But it should be apparent to anyone that a better way to end war, disease or famine is for people to get up off their butts and get involved with some worthwhile cause or another. Homes aren’t built by telekinesis, news programs aren’t broadcast by telepathy, and wounds aren’t repaired by chanting and the waving of hands. And yet every Sunday millions upon millions of born suckers are convinced to try just that, to wish something into existence without lifting a finger to actually make it happen.

Suckers usually convince themselves of the merits of prayer. Just go to a church service, and ask someone what prayer has done for them, and you’ll get the most naïve and child-like explanations. You will hear accounts of just-missed tornadoes, even though millions of other people also were “just missed,” or testimonials of the healing power of faith, never mind the ability of every living thing to heal itself, or the hospital and their crack staff of professionals trained in the ways of science. The rain came “just in time” this year, in answer to a farmer’s prayers, even though it’s been coming regularly since before there existed people to beg themselves for it. Everyone in church loves to quote “the scripsher,” though none of them seem to be able to quote P.T. Barnum. (I’d be willing to bet the preachers know who I’m talking about; they owe more to con artists than to “Jaysus.”)

Like all the things religious, prayer has its more disturbing aspects. Prayer of the private and personal variety doesn’t bother me any more than the knowledge that people also eat, sleep, bathe, use the toilet, pick their noses, and so on. It’s the public aspect of prayer I find irksome. Instead of a healthy and relatively private thing, it becomes a ritualistic public display of submission, not to a higher power, but to whichever a-hole just called for everyone to bow their heads and agree with his barely literate view of the universe. (Or forever be ashamed of themselves for not doing as everyone else does.) As with so many other aspects of religion, there is an implied exclusivity that truly seems more the point of public prayer than anything else. It’s a tool for pushing conformity on those willing, and for driving wedges between them and everyone else.

Personally, I think it’s good there’s no one listening to our innermost thoughts. Seriously, would you want your most embarrassing prayers to end up on some cosmic “Universe’s Funniest Prayers?” Imagine arriving at the pearly gates and having St. Peter play back for you an endless recording of all those bumbling, half-baked requests for your jalopy to keep running, for your girlfriend to put out, and for Packer victories. How embarrassing would that be? Let’s just have no illusions about what goes on in our minds. We need comfort but we’re not getting enough from external sources, so we provide a little for ourselves. Yes, life is good. Yes, we can work to make things better. No, we are not alone in the world. There are five or six billion other worried people who often find themselves just as miserable as we, and no one is listening to them, either. Yes, life goes on.