Prayer and Other Puzzles

In a column called “Inner Voice” on HT, Roy Eugene Davis tries to explain to us when and how to pray. It is necessary he feels to not pray to GOD but to pray in GOD. Before praying, he feels, it is also necessary to clearly define your needs and desires. He also lists the following things that need to be done to have an effective prayer:

• Be still until you are calm and you are aware of being one with God
• Do not beg for what is needed
• Rest for a while in that consciousness of fulfillment until you are permanently established in it
• Be thankful that you have realization of fulfillment

Sigh! This has been done so many times and yet…

Of all the things that humans do, eating, washing their behinds, day dreaming, writing proposals, no activity comes closer to uselessness than praying. Prayer as an attempt to fulfill a need or a desire is essentially stupid and verily futile. Ever wonder how every priest who has asked you to pray has also said that “God helps those who help themselves”?

If we had already found out the most effective form of prayer that got us what we wanted, believe me all humans would know it. However I suspect that isn’t the case.

There are only two possible things that can happen after you pray:

1. God answers your prayer
2. He does not

People have this bias only remembering the cases when a result reinforced their belief. When somebody/anybody has kept score then the results have become negligible. This hasn’t been a problem for the religious since the one single rare occasion is called a miracle. Well if you define a single rare occasion as a miracle then there is no reason to celebrate a miracle. It is rare, and entirely produced by randomness, thank you very much.