On Prayer

To continue the dominant theme of the last few weeks - as well as my enjoyable role as devil's advocate - I'd like to write about prayer.

What I don't want to write about is the traditional atheist line about prayer being pointless or stupid. That's very played out, and not convincing to anyone but other atheists. Besides, it's so boring. No, sir. I'm going to argue that prayer is - in theory and in practice - immoral. Immoral for anyone who takes the concept of God seriously (as I do).

When I say God, I'm really referring to the modern version of the God of Abraham. A transcendent God. A God of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness. Not a flawed superhuman like Zeus. It's important to make that distinction, because really, what's the harm in petitioning a god like Zeus? Something like Zeus isn't worthy of worship, he's just the supernatural equivalent of a neighborhood bully. Stronger than the other kids, but not the equal of an adult. But Jehovah, on the other hand. There's a deity worth worshipping. He's not just stronger than the others, he is strength incarnate. Ditto for wisdom and benevolence.

Take a moment to try to imagine such a God. Maybe you're picturing the old man with the long beard. Probably not. Maybe you're picturing Christ. Maybe you're picturing a kind of fog that covers the whole universe. I tend to picture a single point of light in the center of the universe, which everything is bound to.

Whatever you happen to be picturing, it's an insult to the true nature of God. God is obviously not insulted, He is incapable of being harmed by you, or your thoughts. But you have disgraced yourself by thinking for even a moment that you can hold any piece of His Grace in your crude grey matter. Whatever you imagined, it was a product of you're own, limited self. God is limitless, and the attempt was a failure at a fundamental level.

That is the kind of shame you should be feeling when you try to imagine God. Now think of how much greater that shame should be when you try to petition God.

When a person says:
"I know you have the power to do whatever is best, which you exercise...
And I know your divine plan is one of infinite grace...
And I know that you only want what is best for us...
And I know that I am incapable of understanding the entirety of you and your will...
And I know that do not perfectly understand how you manifest the will on this Earth, etc, etc....
But you see, my mother is very ill. Could you please alter your arrangements to make my life temporarily more comfortable, convenient and proper, in my own flawed perception, even though I don't even deserve this audience in the first place because of my overwhelming sin.."
Shouldn't they feel shame? At least a little? And doesn't that shame indicate something about the rightness or wrongness about their thoughts and actions?

Would it not be better for a person of faith to simply say "I do not understand this world, but I trust in your will and I will endure what I must"?

At some time in my life, I put this question forward to a believer. The person responded by saying that the prayer itself was of little consequence to God, but it was a demonstration of the person's willingness to ask God for help. A kind of theatrical exercise, that puts a man's modesty and lack of pride on display. I accepted this at face value. But not long after, I found this explanation inadequate. You exercise modesty by pretending to exert some kind of control or manipulation over the divine, by whining and flattering the divine with excessive praise? So in other words, you display one quality, while in actuality displaying it's opposite.

Here is my proposal. The theory of God has outgrown the practice of prayer. Prayer was something which made perfect sense when a "god" was just some local asshole who could destroy your crops if you didn't burn the incense properly. Now our concept of God is different, but we continue the old practice because it makes us feel good. But this is a false joy. It does not match well with the required humility of Christianity. It contradicts and diminishes the concept of God in that faith. It confuses the weak minded. It should be dropped.