Week 4, Why and how do we pray?
This is a touchy topic so I did my best not to offend...too much.


Part 1: The Video
Gumbel starts in his usual fashion, anecdotes about prayers working for him etc. and asking "What is Christian prayer?". Since it is so obviously different to Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Baha'i prayer. Apparently Christian prayer is the single most important activity in your life and it is the very reason humans were created in the first place. So the meaning of life is that God is vain, jealous and craves worship (I'm in a rather cynical mood right now). A quip about how the billions of stars are testament to God's transcendence, in my opinion they are testament to his wastefulness, billions of stars and this is the only one he cares about.


We are graced with an anecdote about a civil war soldier who, after being refused an audience with the president, went out into the park and sat on a bench crying. The soldier then poured his heart out to the child, the child (who turned out to be Lincoln's son) took him to see Lincoln.
Come on you can see exactly what Gumbel is going to say right?
"The soldier got to the father, through the son" Gumbel triumphantly states that we can do the same as well, through prayer.


As some of you may know the Alpha Course includes a weekend away, which I will be attending and blogging about. Gumbel talks about how on the weekend away the Holy Spirit fills people, which sounds to me like there will be a bit of speaking in tongues, indeed the Alpha Course has been criticised for links to the charismatic movement. I will speak in tongues if you want, suggestions of something to say like funny phrases in Klingon or Elfish will be considered.


The bible verses Matthew 6:6 and 6:9-13 are referenced, Jesus condemns prayer in public stating people should do it in private (Rick Perry should probably have read this instead of having a pray for Texas day). We are told prayer is important in the relationship with God and that God loves us. Let's think about that, if you loved someone would you torture them forever for not loving you back, even thought you knew when you created them they would not love you. Why not just put everyone in heaven to begin with? Why not just appear to people and say I am God, worship me. Right now every Christian reading this is thinking "He did do this with the Bible". I'm sorry but do you really believe an Omniscient God cannot do better than a book with multiple contradictions with not only science and history, but also itself. A book that supports slavery, sexism and homophobia. It is absurd.
I have been told an objection to the Mafia boss analogy is that whatever you do in that situation is bad (Paying protection or burning) whereas it is not with God (Believing or burning). Well what do you have to do to believe? You have to give up pretty much all critical thinking to believe absolutely everything in the bible AND sell everything to give to the poor (which is a pretty nice idea, but don't sell everything, just that which you don't need) AND hate your family.
Another analogy would be that of a fire-fighter, like Darkmatter2525 used:
There is a man trapped in a burning house, a fire-fighter comes to rescue him however he will only do so if he believes that the fire-fighter is there (most of us would believe a fire-fighter is there trying but we have seen fire-fighters rescue people before, can you honestly say the same about God?) without any evidence. This is similar to how God will not reveal himself and save you until you believe, the classical excuse for this is that it violates free will. In the analogy the fire-fighter starts the house fire in the same way God created hell knowing in advance exactly who he would send there.


Back on topic, Gumbel shares a little anecdote about how his first ever prayer was answered: He prayed for a lift to London and his friend offered him one. Obviously his lift to London was more important than children dying of starvation and AIDS. The Templeton institute's studies of prayer have shown it to have no correlation with health does this actually surprise you?. He then tells us that God not granting our prayers is still answering them, no is still an answer. It appears that no matter what happens God will always be thanked, another DarkMatter Vid on this (I am a big fan of this guy's work). The Lord's prayer is mentioned and for some reason Father Ted comes into my mind here: "You know you can praise God with sleep Dougal..."


Prayer, like the law of attraction and other bullshit, seems to be blame the victim for failure.
If the prayer is granted: Praise God!
If the prayer is not granted: You weren't faithful enough Praise God more!


Part 2: Discussion


First question asked to the group was: Do you think God answers all prayers?
My first point is to reference Matthew 17:20. It specifically states that even if you have only a little faith, nothing will be impossible for you. This could be interpreted as meaning God will grant any prayers, which contradicts what Gumbel has said.
Another point I bring up is whether or not prayer will actually change God's mind. Since God is omniscient he knows exactly what is going to happen, no matter what and everything is part of his plan. If your prayer was part of his plan then whether or not you pray is irrelevant, if it isn't then even if you pray he won't grant it.


One member mentions in passing that God is outside of time. I personally have no idea what this means, can anything actually exist outside of time? This is often used as meaning God is outside the universe, however the universe is defined as: everything that exists, including all space, time, matter and energy. If God is not included in 'everything that exists' then you can clearly see where the problem is.


Coincidences were then mentioned, and the same member as before said that she notices these coincidences more when she prays. I give the example of confirmation bias as a possible reason why she does. Some other members of the group say that praying gives them hope/reassures them, I have no doubt of this, however hope is entirely subjective. Lots of things bring people hope, that has no bearing on whether the experience is to be believed or not.

Staying on the point of coincidences, I mention Skinner's and other experiments with pigeons. Pigeons developed what were referred to as 'superstitious behaviours' when food was dispensed at a random time.
After an anecdote about healing I bring up the saying cum hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for with this therefore because of this) it means that just because 2 things happen at the same time they are not necessarily linked. My favourite example is that of a couple on a train, a waiter brings some exotic food, one person eats the food as the train goes into a tunnel. Later in the day the other person goes to eat the food and the first on says "Don't eat that it makes you blind". I also say that this is often used in rubbish like alternative medicine.


The healing anecdote is mentioned again and this time the statement that she stopped going to the doctors was added to it, while preparing my response of "Would you advocate prayer over medicine?" we are signalled that time is up.
My apologies about how short this post is, hope you enjoy it all the same.
Thanks for reading guys, all comments welcome!