"Dear God, almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. We pray in faith, knowing you will bless us as you describe in Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19 and James 5:15-16. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. "- [1]
Prayer is when Christians talk to their imaginary friend. Polytheists may talk to one or more imaginary friends.
Prayer and science
Prayer can't be proved scientifically to work, further there are philosophical difficulties about why an All powerful, All knowing and All loving God waits till people pray before curing sickness or righting wrongs generally, see Problem of evil. A scientific study was done that was large enough to have statistically significant results. Prayer gave no noticeable improvements with the recovery of patients, patients who knew they were being prayed for actually did worse. Probably patients got frightened and thought they must be very sick when they knew people were praying for them. Somehow or other prayer never heals amputees.
We are praying for you
This article divides prayer into two types though there is no clear distinction, praying Christians may be genuinely concerned as well as sanctimonious.
Concerned prayer
Sometimes Christians come out with stuff like, ‘We are praying for you’. This can be a genuine expression of concern, especially if you are sick, have suffered a serious setback, have suffered general bad luck. At such times the Christian/s who promise to pray for you may be concerned and not at all sanctimonious or very concerned and only a little bit sanctimonious.
A quiet reply like, ‘I appreciate your concern’ is good because that doesn’t either pretend that prayer works or offend the other person.
Sanctimonious prayer
Other times, ‘We are praying for you’ really means, ‘We are praying for you because we know that you need our prayers, you sinful atheist.’ When this happens offline the superior manner of the Christians is often clear. When this happens online, ‘We are praying for you’ often follows directly after they’ve had a go at you over something or other they consider sinful. Then if you get angry the Christians may come back with something like, ‘Why are you angry at God?’
In what way you should reply depends on circumstances and –when it happens online- on how much of a heated reply the website in question allows. There are various points you should bear in mind.
- Prayers is a personal matter, they are free to talk to their imaginary friend in any way they like and the things they say to their imaginary friend won’t affect you.
- You are not angry with god, you know god doesn’t exist, you are angry at their sanctimonious attitude.
There is a good and a a bad side to Christianity, see the category page
See also
- How can you tell the difference between Christianity and an abusive husband or boyfriend?
- How can you tell the difference between Christianity and a scam?
- Quotes on prayer
References
Videos
- Tim Hawkins-Scary Bedtime Prayer That's how they teach children to feel comfortable about sleeping.