50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (14 page)

Requesting something by prayer is such a common practice that
few believers ever stop to think about just how incredible a claim it is.
People who say prayer works are claiming that we can ask a god for
something just about anything from good health to winning a warand the god will consider our request and possibly grant our wish.
Some even say the god is obligated to grant our wish, based on their
interpretation of ancient writings. Despite the extraordinary nature of
this claim, millions of people seem to go along with it without much
thought. And, despite results that could more easily be explained as
chance or as caused by the actions of people, they think it really
works.

One would think that prayer could be analyzed or measured in a
way that made it clear even to nonbelievers that it's a real phenomenon. Prayer is important to the big question of whether or not a god or gods exist because many believers cite it as a primary reason for
thinking that their god is real. It really could be the elusive proof for a
god that atheists are always asking for. Imagine if the followers of one
religion consistently had their prayers answered at a very high rate,
high enough to discount chance, misinterpretation, or fraud. It would
be powerful evidence that their god is real. But, of course, we do not
see this. What we see are Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims, animists,
and other believers praying to their respective gods in their specific
ways and then claiming that their prayers work. The fact that followers
of so many contradictory belief systems claim that their prayers
achieve positive results is a bad sign for prayer proponents. For
example, members of preindustrial tribes pray to a variety of gods for
things like successful hunts and good weather all the time-and often
they get what they asked for. But that's not proof that their gods are
real. Nor is it proof that Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, or Vishnu are real when
their respective believers get the results they prayed for.

Selective memory probably is the reason so many believers in
many different religions think that their prayers work. For example,
imagine a devout Christian who prays to Jesus for more money and
then, after ten years of working hard and showing up at the office on
time every day, she gets a raise. She might feel that this event in her
life is confirmation that her god is real. After all, she prayed to Jesus
for more money and she got more money. Case closed, at least in her
mind. But would a typical Muslim accept this? Will he reject the
Koran and begin believing that Jesus is a god based on this claim of a
prayer answered by Jesus? It's doubtful, especially if the Muslim has
experienced his own prayer successes that confirmed to him that Allah
is the only true god. What about Jews who pray in their particular way
to their god? They say their prayers get answered too. Millions of
Hindus claim positive results from their prayers. Does it prove the
existence of their gods? Mormon prayers get answered all the time, at
least according to Mormons. Does that prove that Jesus was in North
America like the Book of Mormon claims? If Tom Cruise prays for a
box office hit next summer, and gets it, would that mean the claims of Scientology are true? People in ancient Rome prayed and surely some
of them believed that the gods answered their prayers on some occasions. If a Christian prayer can be called proof of Jesus, then a Roman
prayer must be proof of Jupiter.

What is it that convinces believers that prayer works? If it did, if
one really could get a god to grant wishes, wouldn't it be a lot more
obvious that it worked and wouldn't we know which god was more
likely to answer prayers by now? After several thousand years of
praying, wouldn't trial and error have us all praying to the same god
in the same way by now if there was something to this?

Isn't it possible that believing in prayer is a big mistake? Couldn't
it be that believers simply are making the honest and common error of
selective accounting when they review their personal prayer histories?
Mistakes of this kind are easy to make and we all should be on guard
against it. It seems to be human nature to focus on the few hits and
forget all about the many misses when it comes to something we want
to be true. Psychologists call it "confirmation bias" and psychics know
all about it. When psychics claim to talk to dead people or predict a
customer's future, they know that they only have to be right a few
times because most people will forget the incorrect statements. Confirmation bias explains why many people believe in psychics even
after they stumble through numerous incorrect statements. So when
believers get excited about "answered" prayers it may have something
to do with them forgetting all the prayers that resulted in nothing.
People who do this are nothing more than the victims of a normal psychological phenomenon. Their only fault is thinking like a typical
human. It has nothing to do with intelligence and it can happen to
anyone.

Believers might also keep in mind that some "answered" prayers
are not good evidence that a god is really at work for the simple fact
that some requests are bound to turn out positively no matter what. For
example, imagine if I was to list ten reasonable hopes for the coming
year such as, "I hope I sell my car for a great price," and "I hope a hurricane doesn't rip off of the roof of my house." Then I record what happens over the next year. I am sure that some of my hopes would be
fulfilled and some would not be fullfilled. Would the fact that some of
my wishes came true mean that I have magical wishing powers? Of
course not, this is just the way the real world functions. Some things
work out like we hope they will and some things do not.

Comedian George Carlin has a lot say about religion, most of it
too rude to include in a book that is meant to be respectful of believers.
However, his commentary on prayer is not too harsh and it makes the
point very well. Carlin says he gave up on praying to a god because
the answer rate was unsatisfactory. So he started praying to Academy
Award-winning actor Joe Pesci instead.

So I've been praying to Joe for about a year now and I noticed something. I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the
prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the
same 50 percent rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time
I don't. Same as God, 50-50. Same as the four-leaf clover and the
horseshoe, the wishing well and the rabbit's foot, same as the Mojo
Man, same as the Voodoo Lady who tells you your fortune by
squeezing the goat's testicles, it's all the same: 50-50. So just pick
your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself. (Carlin
1999)

Carlin is funny and right. Ask for a hundred things in the name of anything or anyone and you are bound to luck out on some of them.
Praying to Joe Pesci, ridiculous as it is, is likely to generate a success
rate that is similar to praying to Jupiter, Jok, Jesus, or any other god.

Health is a big concern for everyone sooner or later and prayer is
often used by believers as a way of trying to fend off sickness and
death. There may or may not be ways to conclusively test whether or
not prayer works for this. Several studies in recent years have tried but
none have shown that prayer works and held up to scrutiny. This alone
indicates strong reason for doubt. Something that is supposedly so
powerful should not be difficult to detect if it was really making an
impact on human health.

Let's consider a special type of prayer for health, one that should
have a very good chance of getting a god's attention. If any prayer
works, one would think it would be a mother's prayer for the health of
her baby. Few prayers are more sincere or more passionately delivered, especially if the baby is seriously ill. Unfortunately, these
prayers do not seem to work well at all. This is obvious because there
are many highly religious nations with horrible infant mortality rates.
Meanwhile, highly secular nations with large percentages of atheists
in their populations have very low infant mortality rates. How can this
be? Why are the babies of so many atheist mothers faring better than
the babies of so many Christian, Muslim, and Hindu mothers? Obviously the higher the percentage of believers in a society, the more
praying is going on. How can prayer advocates explain why so many
more babies die in very religious countries such as Nigeria, Yemen,
and Niger than die in the much less godly countries of Sweden, Denmark, and England?

According to the UNICEF report, State of the World's Children
2007, the ten countries with the highest death rates for children under
the age of five are: Sierra Leone, Angola, Afghanistan, Niger, Liberia,
Somalia, Mali, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Equatorial Guinea. These countries have populations that are virtually all
Christian, Muslim, or followers of traditional African religions. None
of them have a significant number of atheists in their population. No
one can doubt that the mothers in these countries pray often and pray
hard. But all this effort fails to save a shockingly high number of their
babies.

To reinforce this point, State of the World's Mothers 2006, a report
issued by Save the Children, ranked the best and worst countries for
mothers based on available healthcare, education, and opportunity as
well as risk for maternal and infant mortality. The list reveals the same
pattern of countries with significantly high levels of atheism (less
praying mothers) doing well and countries with high levels of belief
(more praying mothers) doing poorly (Save the Children 2006):

Best Countries to Be a Mother Sweden Denmark Finland Austria Norway Australia Netherlands Worst Countries to Be a Mother Niger Burkina Faso Chad Guinea-Bissau Sierra Leone Ethiopia Yemen Central African Republic Liberia Democratic Republic of the Congo

Even believers may wonder if prayers work for anything at all when
they can't even save millions of innocent babies who are desperately
prayed for by religious mothers. Who on earth is more deserving of a
god's help than a baby? Some believers might argue that this disparity
is about economics, failed governments, and healthcare deficiencies. I
agree, but that's a godless explanation. Why should money matter to a
god? Certainly believers think their god is capable of saving a baby,
whether it is in a state-of-the-art European hospital or a dimly lit and
underfunded African clinic. If prayer works, then it should be able to
work anywhere regardless of the local economy.

The claim that prayer works may not go away any time soon no
matter how many prayers fail. It may be easy to argue against it but
disproving prayer is far more difficult, perhaps impossible. Although
I welcome scientific prayer studies, it may be beyond science's ability
to deliver a definitive answer. After all, how can researchers accurately
record and measure prayer? Prayers can be nothing more than silent
thoughts within the mind of a believer. They can be directed at people,
even strangers, thousands of miles away. Believers can pray for people
who are not even born yet. How can a researcher ever know which god
the believer is really praying to, if they are sincere about it, or if they
are really praying at all? How can a researcher determine who was prayed for and who was not? Some people pray for everybody on earth
to be healthy, for example, while others might pray for the early death
of all rival believers. How can researchers know if the subjects are
praying or being prayed for in the "correct" way?

Former faith healer Hector Avalos, now a professor of religious
studies at Iowa State University and executive director of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, is well aware of the
difficulties:

Even if someone prayed to the Christian god for healing and that
person was healed, it would not prove that the healing was done by
the Christian god. All religions claim to have answered prayers. For
example, according to the Bhagavad-Gita, part of the sacred scriptures of Hinduism, the god Krishna claims that it does not matter
which god human beings worship; it is Krishna who answers their
prayer. Thus, it would not be scientifically possible to show that it is
the Christian god who answered a prayer even if such a prayer was
answered. (Avalos 1997)

Please forgive this wild thought, but could it be that most believers
don't really believe in prayer? That's not as crazy an idea as it sounds.
I know that many people make a lot of noise about how prayers can
heal AIDS, change the course of hurricanes, and get a family member
off the booze, but sometimes I wonder if they really believe in it. After
all, it doesn't work most of the time. Privately at least, many believers
must know that praying is no better than hoping. How can they not
when sincere believers in every religion fail in relationships, lose jobs,
suffer illnesses, die, and so forth every day despite desperate prayers?
Believers likely have doubts about prayer, whether they talk openly
about it or not. Dan Barker, the Christian preacher who became an
atheist, certainly did:

Looking back, I have to admit that my greatest doubt was the efficacy of prayer. Prayer simply does not work. Period. I know that I
prayed thousands and thousands of prayers that were a waste of time. That is, I know now that they were wasted. But since prayer is
such a powerful doctrine of Christianity, I imagined that there was
some meaning behind it all.... Some say prayer is an important
exercise because, regardless of the outcome, it puts us in touch with
God. But this contradicts the direct teachings of Jesus: "And all
things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive"
(Matthew 21:22), and "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching
any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father
which is in heaven" (Matthew 18:19). The writer of I John 5:14-15
said, "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask
any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that
he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions
that we desired of him."