Is Prayer Selfish?

[cleanhippie]

Asking God to stack the odds in our favor is asking him to stack them against someone else.

September 11, 2012 - Fall is prayer season. Some folks think of it as football season, and indeed, images of football players circled with heads bowed or pointing to the big guy in the sky are almost as familiar lately as birds flying south. But the real season kickoff this year was the Republican convention, where the fervent supplications of evangelicals and Pentecostals miraculously diverted Hurricane Isaac, so that the party could go on. Praise the Lord, Tampa was spared, and the death and destruction that might have befallen people who live there...befell somebody else.

Should the families of those who died in Louisiana and Mississippi sue the Republican prayer warriors for not being a little more specific? Couldn’t they have gotten the hurricane to touch down somewhere remote, where the only homes destroyed would be those of, say, birds and non-pet, non-farm and most importantly non-human mammals?

Ironically, the best defense of the prayer warriors might be the evidence (so popular with social scientists, freethinkers and certain stage magicians) that prayer doesn’t actually work. The first statistical analysis was published over 100 years ago by Sir Francis Galton himself, and in the intervening years, scores of studies and meta-studies ( here, here, here, here) and other analyses (e.g. here) have accumulated. The mountain of evidence stacks up one side of the balance. It points to the very same conclusion Galton reached:

Despite constant prayer vigils for the sick and dying, the devout—including devout Christians—have a similar life expectancy to everyone else.
In aggregate, research on prayer show no overall effect or one so weak that the most that can be said for God is that he – maybe—operates at the margins of statistical significance; not a very impressive claim for an omnipotent, interventionist deity. Put it this way, a pharmaceutical company that made similar claims and had similar results would be sued out of existence.

--snip--

Others of us may find that, in the absence of a traditional god concept, our prayers feel more like meditation than invocation, more like being than asking. We may not even think of them as prayers because the word carries so much sordid, selfish, superstitious baggage; but I think it is ok if we do. A prayer may be nothing more than a deep, centering breath; a moment of silence; a thrill of delight; or a surge of love that brings tears to our eyes, reminding us beautifully, painfully, quietly of our small place in the greater whole. In a world with gods or without, in our world today or even a world beyond belief, that is a kind of prayer worth praying.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/prayer-selfish?page=0%2C3&ak_proof=1&akid=9371.47561.za0fGT&rd=1&src=newsletter708011&t=3

Lots more at link. A good read.

[get the red out]

1. It's like anything

It depends on how it is used. Even a meditation time used to focus on those one has decided to hate can contribute to that person becoming only more hateful. Like when certain groups pray for the death of people they don't like.

I like to take some moments to focus on non-specific good in general or "good" for someone in need. There are other ways I pray but that is personal. I do not focus on hate.

Yes, I realize in this group I could get taken apart for admitting to praying at all, and probably will. Oh well.

I'll snack on it.

[humblebum]

6. You will also be defended against those who would ridicule you for

your personal beliefs and actions.

[Goblinmonger]

8. Hey, want to do me a favor?

Show me a link to someone that has been "taken apart for admitting to praying at all" in this forum. Because I call bullshit. But if it makes you feel better to think that, then have at it, I guess.

[get the red out]

14. I have no desire to do you a favor

[Goblinmonger]

17. Then I will just file your claim of people bashing people that pray

as coming from the "out of your ass" file.

[get the red out]

18. No problem

I just realize that it's always a risk to post anything in this group that is not strictly hate for anything religious or spiritual , that's all. The group seems to be a trap in many ways, comment and get taken apart angrily, just a trend I see, not every time or always nor is DU BAD, or anything like that. It's just fly paper to see who can get trapped and bogged down.

[cleanhippie]

11. If one is calling on their deity for assistance...

Then doesn't that lead to the question of "if MY prayer gets answered, then why doesn't my god answer everyone's?"

[get the red out]

15. That would depend on the person

That depends on that individual person and how they look at things. No one person can answer for everyone.

[dmallind]

20. If a god is worthy of the name, especially in monotheism,

it should be capable of granting all prayers, whether it chooses to do so or not. It is after all possible for all victims of a disaster to survive, or only those who pray for it (possible remember, not plausible), or only those the god decides to save for whatever reason.

Now certainly two competing teams praying for a win over the other cannot be granted their request, but we can assume that a god has the power to grant the win to the team which is the most meritorious perhaps.

Yes I agree that the idea that "God was looking out for/saved" one person out of 100s in a disaster is not just selfishness but the most heinous blasphemy against any god given this "credit", because it renders them either cruel in allowing/causing the others to die or incompetent in being unable to save more. I just assume that dolts who say such things are either overcome with emotion or morons of the first water rather than as hateful toward their god of choice as their words taken at face value would make inescapable as a conclusion. Certainly if I acknowledged a god I would not dare to insult them so cavalierly.

[rug]

2. This reminds me of parents asking the best for their kids.

I never have. If they have the best, every other child has something lesser. Instead, I wish them what is good in life and friends to share it with.

[cleanhippie]

9. I think of it more like praying for my team to win the game.

It will be at the expense of the other team.

[rrneck]

3. Would fervently praying to become a better person

make somebody else an asshole?

[dmallind]

5. Depends why you want to be one

Would you still pray to be a better person even if it would negatively affect your life and the esteem in which you are held by others? Then nope that would be an exception to supplication = selfishness. But if you want to be a better person for the benefits to yourself, then it's obviously selfish.

Generic you, obviously.

[rrneck]

7. Well said. nt

[cleanhippie]

10. I don't think so.

But it depends on what "a better person" means.

Better than what?

[rrneck]

13. Thats a good question.

Praying for self improvement is good. Praying to be better than others seems like a way to make them worse instead of improving one's self.

I think a lot of people get those objectives confused, and make a lot of true assholes rich in the process.

[dmallind]

4. Well there are different kinds of prayer

Intercessory or supplicative prayers like you mention often or almost always are selfish to more or less degree. Lord help me get this job means someone else misses it. Lord spare my house from the flood diverts waters elsewhere.

Devotional prayers are the basic Divine Brown Nosing and not particularly selfish except in a false modesty overdone unctuousness - Lord you are so very very big and we are so very very small and all that.

Confessional prayer is only tangentially selfish unless you assume divine mercy is constrained. But you are still asking the limitless creator and lord of all the universe to spare a thought to ease your guilt over, say, buggering the altar boys after Mass, so there is a degree of selfishness in both the request and the root cause.

Thanksgiving prayer could either be selfish or not, obviously depending on whether you give thanks for your new Lexus or for rain in the Sahel.

Meditational prayer can be selfish depending on the result of the contemplation, natch.

[cleanhippie]

12. So, in some way, even tangentially, prayer is selfish?

[dmallind]

16. Well not all of it, but a lot of it

Certainly even supplicative prayer can be selfless - it's possible to pray for things like help for the starving and the afflicted, and peace for those embroiled in wars. But not all prayer is asking for anything at all. It's all useless of course, inasmuch as simple calm relaxation can achieve any positive internal benefits that accrue from meditative prayer (I hope there are no DUers who believe any kind of petitionary prayer has any external benefits), but I wouldn't necessarily agree it's all selfish by definition, even if much of it is in practice.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. it's ineffectual. so the selfish part is irrelevant. nt.

[dimbear]

21. Turn to the Psalms, my friends, for many many selfless examples.......

Usually numbered Psalm 35:

26 May all who gloat over my distress
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who exalt themselves over me
be clothed with shame and disgrace.
27 May those who delight in my vindication
shout for joy and gladness;
may they always say, “The Lord be exalted,
who delights in the well-being of his servant.”

Just one of many many examples. For a modern one, see Mark Twain's famous "War Prayer."