Prayer vs Work, which is more effective?
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Posts Tagged ‘prayer’
Why do people pray?
According to a stuidy released in Poetics, 90% of American adults admit to praying in troubled economic times. Impassioned pleas regarding the lottery do count.
The top 3 prayer strategies include:
- Asking God for stuff - 28%
- Distracting God with thanks while asking Him for stuff - 28%
- Kissing God’s ass by just thanking Him for your current stuff - 22%
Classic American Christian George Bush, meanwhile, in an interview on ABC’s Nightline suddenly got reasonable about religion. Now that he doesn’t need the approval of the rabid right, George doesn’t mind admitting he doesn’t take the Bible literally, doesn’t see a problem with evolution, didn’t go into Iraq because God told him to, and indeed doesn’t know God well enough to believe he was personally recommended for his presidency. Where was that message 4 years ago?
Effectively focus both personal and corporate prayer. This guarantee not guaranteed.
Speaking of absolute freaking snake oil salesmen, check out this book (but don’t buy it, for God’s sake. Vote with your money). Strategic Prayer: Applying the Power of Targeted Prayer offers hope for all those whose prayers are going unanswered—no doubt an enormous market. Maybe it’s not that God doesn’t exist….maybe you’re doing it wrong!
“Learn to pray targeted, specific, result-oriented prayers. Prayer practitioners Eddie Smith and Michael L. Hennen identify 27 principles that will equip you to pray more purposefully and effectively.”
God likes bullet points. God doesn’t have all day to figure out what’s best for you. Do your research ahead of time and only contact God when your whole presentation is in order. A “goal-based, proactive approach to prayer” will aid your quest to win the lottery, sleep with hot chicks, or anything else for which you need a divine favor.
You’ll be delighted to know “this title is eligible for Amazon Fall Textbook promotions”.
Preyed Upon—How to exploit suffering people’s faith: A Social Media Marketing guide to PrayAbout.com
Oooh, crap. One of the things sweet, naive religious people fall prey to is spending assloads of money on stuff that doesn’t get them one inch closer to God. Like Hello Kitty fanatics who will purchase every Band-Aid®, air compressor and prepared mustard they come across shaped like the famous triangle ears and button nose, Christians are susceptible to all manner of thinly-veiled marketing manipulations. Who can blame them when their eternal souls are on the line?
That’s where your basic charlatan comes in. May I introduce PrayAbout.com, a website devoted to listing the prayers of people with problems so that your superconscious praying energy may be directed where it’s needed most.
A noble goal, you declare! How nice that users can vote up the most “important” prayers by assigning them virtual prayer candles! How does one acquire this PrayAbout currency?
3 Easy Ways!
1. You receive candles when you invite your friends to the site.
Fair enough - you get paid to viral market the site.
2. You receive candles when people light candles for your requests.
Tell the most sensationally pathetic story, and heavenly rewards are yours! Compelling user-generated stories are the most valuable content an online community can ask for, so naturally you’ll get a few cost-free ‘candles’ for your tale of woe.
3. You can purchase candles via PayPal or with your mobile phone.
Failing having friends or being interesting, you can still participate for a nominal fee!
There are 2 modifying caveats on the game…”the sooner you light candles for something, the more candles you can receive (because you get more candles every time somebody else lights candles; and the more candles you light for something, the more candles you get when someone lights candles after you. So light candles for prayer requests that you think other people will also light candles for).”
Marketing strategy for that includes getting you to a) spend your inventory quickly so you must interact socially or pay for more community currency b) promote the most sensational content. “Write your request in a way that resonates with other people. Tell a story and give details.” And spend your candles where you think they’ll get the most attention!
Am I misjudging these humble Webmasters of the Lord? Let’s ask the magic FAQ eight ball:
“How is the money from buying candles used?
The sale of candles helps pay the expenses to keep PrayAbout online, and to raise awareness for the site.”
So it pays for some chubby prayer wrangler to tend the site in his underpants and for advertising to propagate said situation. Truly a higher calling. The page title for the main page, valuable search engine fodder, is “Prayer requests for free“.
This kind of exploitation of people in their saddest moments makes me sad. Maybe I should post a prayer for the people getting bilked by this site.
Parents charged in daughter’s preventable death
On March 26, 2008, we had the story of Kara Neumann, an 11 year old girl who died because, rather than taking her to a doctor, her parents prayed for her to get better. She died of diabetes; a very manageable condition.
Praying doesn’t cure diabetes. Or anything else.
Now her parents are being charged with second-degree reckless homicide. Her mother said… “
“We just thought it was a spiritual attack and we prayed for her”
This is the danger of magical thinking!
“The Wormgoors arrived at the home 30 minutes before Kara stopped breathing, Dale Neumann said.
Randall Wormgoor encouraged Dale Neumann to call for medical help but the father “said he remained confident and steadfast in his belief that prayer would heal Madeline,” according to an interview Dale Neumann gave to police.
Dale Neumann told investigators that “given the same set of circumstances with another child, he would not waiver in his faith and confidence in the healing power of prayer,” according to the interview statement.”
Look at this. Even after she stopped breathing, the father was still praying for her to be healed. I want to give this guy a shake and tell him to wake up. He would do the same thing were it to happen again!
They let their daughter die, and she was okay with it because she also thought that Jesus would heal her.
Please, let’s live in the real world, where we can help ourselves and not depend on a magical man in the sky to intervene in our lives and save us when we can easily do it ourselves.
Praying doesn’t cure diabetes. Or anything else.
This little girl, Madeline Kara Neumann of Weston, VA, just died because her parents thought God would cure her diabetes if they prayed enough.
As to why their cruel God decided to take away their kid, the parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, figure “apparently (we) didn’t have enough faith”. They have 3 other children, which at this point are still with them because there are no signs of abuse.
No abuse? Simple medical treatment could have given Madeline a perfectly normal life. She just had diabetes. She really suffered in her last month on earth.
If someone can point me out to the Bible verse that prohibits believers from seeking medical attention, please comment. Dale and Leilani aren’t Jehovah’s Witness or any other sect that typically rejects medical science, so scripture must have dictated their decision.
According to Madeleine’s mom, there’s still a chance she could be resurrected.
Does prayer work?
Recently in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a young lady was driving her vehicle when it went over the side of a bridge and landed upside down on the ice below. She was rescued by an off duty firefighter, and is now in the hospital in serious but stable condition.
As often with cases like this, there has been an outpouring of emotional support for her and her family from the public. A Facebook group has specifically been created to solicit prayers for the young woman. They are as specific as to list a number of items to pray for…
Feb. 9th - **TOP PRAYER ITEMS**
1. Pray that XXXX will not get a lung infection from the river water.
2. Pray that her lungs will heal completely.
3. Pray that she will be able to breathe on her own, without the support of a ventilator.
4. Pray that she will soon be able to breathe on her own and show no sign of infection, so that she can be moved out of the ICU.
——————————————————————————————-
Feb. 8th - XXXX needs prayer that she will not develop a lung infection. She also has a broken vertebrae & tailbone, but seems to have no brain damage. She is presently breathing with the help of a ventilator. We continue to pray for her complete healing!
Of course, supporting her and her family is a good thing, and I wonder about what else can the average person do to support someone they don’t directly know? Asking for prayers is not unusual to hear, and I think it is a way of helping feel united in cause, when there may be not much else they can do personally.
This Facebook page and prayer list was not made by the family, but by an interested party. What caught my attention were the detailed, specific items that were asked to be prayed for. I asked myself the question, what is the expected outcome in praying for such specific things?
Prayers are meant to be communication with God, or a Deity if you wish. If you believe in a personal God that has an interest and takes action in the lives of humans, then prayers might at some times be asking for specific actions on God’s part.
Let’s look at the prayer that she will not get a lung infection from the river water. In this case, a very specific thing is being asked for. In the manner being solicited, it would be largely a group of strangers soliciting for Gods intervention in this particular person’s life. So I ask the question, how much asking and pleading does it take for God to intervene? When does he say “O.K., I’ll take action now?” If God is Omnipotent, then why must he be convinced?
I understand the concept of prayer as a personal reflection on a days/weeks/etc. activities; a sort of personal inventory, but that is not what is being asked for here. I wonder if people really think about what they are asking when they ask for strangers to pray for someone for specific things like this. Does it amount to begging God? Pleading with God? If God is there, why does he require the begging of the masses to take action if he truly cares?
Perhaps the proper question to ask is, do prayers work? Do they see desired results?
The answer is, in cases where strangers pray for someone, no.
I know, big shock for an agnostic to say right? Well, let’s look at some case studies. I will only reference a few since there are so many to look at.
A large study that was done in the U.K. involved 700 heart patients.
Prayer ‘no aid to heart patients’
And another study was done in the U.S. with 1,800 patients.
Prayer doesn’t help heart patients in U.S., study finds
In both of these cases, the studies concluded that intercessory prayers, the kind being solicited above, have no effect on those being prayed for; there is no evidence that God intervened.
Of course, this doesn’t prove that God never does; perhaps he didn’t want to influence these tests so people can rely on faith, or perhaps those people didn’t pray “hard enough”; who knows.
In addition, there has been multiple times where large groups have prayed at great lengths for world peace, yet what do we see in the world?
Is God ignoring his creation, or simply saying “No”?
There definitely is evidence to suggest that personal prayer can be effective in reducing stress, and this is a health benefit. In light of this, it makes the intercessory prayer study to be more conclusive since it shows that the effects of prayer are evidently only in the mind of the prayer, and that there is no metaphysical effect when praying for other people.
So the next time someone asks for your prayers, send a check instead.
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