Prayer: this time will be just as effective as last time. For sure.
I wasn’t going to write about this again. Not this soon anyway but somebody reminded me of the dumb fuckery that is currently trending on Twitter. Even though this latest bout of idiocy is inspired by the happenings in London (#prayforlondon), please feel free to apply this to any situation what so ever that the religionuts feel should be prayed over.
Right, so, “pray for <insert some disaster area here>”. Examples: pray for London, pray for Christchurch, pray for Japan, pray for Haiti.
Why should one pray, after the fact, for the victims of a disaster? Do you expect the God you pray to is going to magically fix things, after the fact? Why is this God going to do this? To demonstrate his awesome? To demonstrate how kind and good he is? Will this time be different?
No you fucking idiot. He isn’t going to do a goddamn thing. Just like he didn’t do a goddamn thing any other times he was prayed to by you pious morons. Do you know why? Because he doesn’t exist. You are talking to yourself. There, is, no, god. Not yours, not the ancient Greek’s, the Romans’, the Norse, the Africans, no gods at all, anywhere, ever.
However, if, hypothetically, there was a god, the Christian one for example (but feel free to replace ‘Jesus’ with whichever figment of your imagination you prefer): if Jesus needs to be told about whichever tragedy just happened, he isn’t omniscient and therefore is not a god. If he knew about it and caused it, Jesus is an evil mass murdering bastard. If he knew about it and he was able to stop it but didn’t, he’s criminally negligent. If he wasn’t able to stop it, he’s not a god. Why, exactly, are you praying? What are you asking for? What is wrong in your head?
Let me tell you what praying is really all about (to borrow from one of my earlier posts). Praying is something you do so that you can feel and look like you’ve done something without actually having to do anything. Telling people to pray for whatever tragedy is primarily to flaunt your precious pious disposition, to impress others with how freaking much you believe in your deity and how little your brain actually functions.
Praying is exactly like wanking. When you get right down to it, wanking is only good for the person stroking his dick. Some people get off on seeing somebody wank in public and other people get off by wanking in little groups or large groups but fundamentally, only the wanker really benefits.
Again, this is why I am irritated. Watching people tell other people to ‘pray for whatever’ is like watching one wanker, furiously whacking away, telling a bunch of other wankers to join him.
Praying is exactly like that. Only the idiot mumbling to himself benefits while the victims of the tragedy benefit nothing what so ever. The only one better off after a good ‘ol prayer is the idiot who did the praying. In fact, wanking would probably be more productive than praying.
So instead of mumbling some inane bullshit to a non-existent figment of your imagination, give some money to the Red Cross here: http://www.redcross.org.nz/donations or give some money to Oxfam here: http://www.oxfam.org.nz/donate-online or to Amnesty international here: http://www.amnesty.org/en/donate
Then go tell a real person you love them, stop being a pious dick and learn some science. THAT makes the world better.
One Furious Llama 
Another good example of ‘believers’ not understanding properties they insist there god has. Omniscience and Omnipotence means that prayer should be effectively useless. Best expressed by one of my favorite singers, Voltaire, in the song ‘Dead’:
“God is all-knowing/And God is all-seeing/Just who do you think that you are/to change his mind//He already knows what you want/And decided that you didn’t need it/So don’t bother asking for cures or an answer/God is the one who gave you the Cancer!”
I know one question I get asked alot as an atheist is that ‘if I don’t pray, do I ever implore out loud or in my head to the universe’ (maybe not in those words, but that’s what they mean.) I have heard some athiests/agnostics/disbelievers in prayer do do this, maybe as an old habit. I know when I was a kid I did it. But I definately do not do it anymore. Idunno if I grew out of it or what, but when bad shit happens to me the closest thing I have to prayer is that I often use my experience of having a really bad time to ask people how the hell they can believe that them having a bad day is go’ds fault (as if he’s omnipotent it must be) rather then that its just random chance. I find nothing comforting about the idea that everytime somthing goes wrong, something sentient was behind it.
One last not, the constant link of prayer/disasters means that I especially hate disaster movies where people keep imploring god for things, especially in circumstances like ‘Armageddon’ where I want to slap people and shout “WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK SENT THE METORITE, YOU IDIOT” (which I probably would do if I were in that situation)
LOL, that song is awesome.
Being an atheist, I implore, out loud, to many deities. The irony amuses me. But I’m fair about it. One day it’s Jesus, another day it’s Vishnu, another day is Zeus, then Apollo. You know, spreading the love, not taking any chances, Pascal’s Wager to the max I always say.
I cant understand that why you are hate so much to the prayer.I can understands your thoughts after whatever happens in the recent times.But remember whatever whatever is happens is not the fault of God its the fault of Human beings.God never allow to behave in the wrong way He just want to see the happy world.And It is also His magic that people help each other in this hard times.He gives them the feelings of helping and all.So it is the individual way of thinking of each human being.So just try to understands the situation and His existence between us….
God Bless……
I suspect this is spam but hey, if it’s Pastor Eddie on the other side benefiting, whatever.
I don’t hate ‘prayer’ as such. If people want to mumble things to themselves, go right ahead. When people tell other people to mumble things to themselves, with that I have a problem. Because of the sheer idiocy.
Not only does ‘prayer’ (to any god what so ever) demonstrably not actually do anything, what precisely do you intend for this prayer to do once the deity you’re praying to receives it? Should he, who knew everything before he even created the universe, who knew what he was going to let happen, who knew you were going to pray, change things because you ask? Is he going to? No, nothing ever changed after prayer. Provably so.
Nice little ‘get out of blame free’ card you play there on behalf of your god. Like I said in the post, if a deity existed and a tragedy happens:
– If he needs to be told he isn’t omniscient and therefor not god
– If he knew and couldn’t do anything he is impotent and therefor not god
– If he knew and caused it he should be tried for crimes against humanity
– If he knew and could do something but didn’t he’s criminally negligent
You claim that your god is both omniscient and omnipotent therefor your god not only could have stopped the tragedy but must have created the world in such a way that it could happen. Ergo, your god is an evil bastard.
And anyway, how the fuck are humans responsible for earthquakes anyway?
Yea… that’s why he waited 2000 years for people to discover the germ theory of disease right? That’s why he lets children starve to death every day right? Right.
Is that his magic eh? How about all the atheists that help each other? And the satanists that help each other, that his magic too? And the Hindu’s? And the chimpanzees? Does god get all the credit for anything good people (even the ones who don’t believe in him) do?
Sure, fine, if you want to play that game, but then he also gets the blame for all the bad. Why is he such an evil bastard? He made Hitler kill 6 million Jews didn’t he?
I understand perfectly well that there exists no god. That you do without any evidence is a tragedy and that you mumble magical incantations to yourself believing it’s good for something is a travesty.
Learn some science. It will make you better.