The power of prayer?
(Top Posts - Distance From Belief
in theism - 090405)

Pray for something, anything. Does it occur?
Does it occur because of your prayer?

If it doesn't occur, your prayer has failed.

If it does occur, what evidence do you have
that it occurred because of your prayer?

Pray to something, anything. Does it make any
difference what you pray to?

If it matters not what you pray to, for the same
result occurs no matter what you pray to, then by
what measure does a so-called 'answered' prayer
prove anything other than someone believes that
asking something for something does something?

Say someone prays in the following manner:

Dear Goober, please help Aunt Mabel to recover
from malady X.

If Aunt Mabel recovers from malady X, does
Goober and the prayer deserve the credit? If not,
why not? If so, how so?

If Aunt Mabel doesn't recover from malady X,
does Goober deserve the blame? Is that evi-
dence that prayer is powerless?

Change the name Goober to anything else, and
describe for me how the above scenario differs
based on the prayed-to-entity.

---

Religion, just make believe gone wild.

---