Every time someone says what we need is prayer instead of actually doing something, it makes me so angry. So many times representatives have said pray to fix crime, pray people won’t shoot up schools, pray for rain in our drought, pray the hurricane misses us, ad naseum.
What would be great is to put it in terms they might understand. Like a double blind study with Harry Potter magic incantations as a control. It would just be great that every time some moronic rep says pray for x we could shove that study in their face and say unequivocally it’s a useless gesture. I know I know, they won’t listen. But at least we could start kicking out that crutch they use when their legs aren’t even broken.
It’s a good idea, but you’d have to find someone willing to fund and execute it privately. Because any public institution that funded such a study would get some serious bad PR.
You mean like this one that shows that remote prayer could actually work?
Conclusions
Remote, retroactive intercessory prayer said for a group is associated with a shorter stay in hospital and shorter duration of fever in patients with a bloodstream infection and should be considered for use in clinical practice.
Here’s another article that has a bunch of studies that have been done about this.
Look, not to piss all over your idea, but I tend to think the kind of people who believe in the efficacy of prayer aren’t going to be dissuaded by a little thing like what science has to say on the matter.
I think there is a way to be respectful of religions and therefore thoughts and prayers but still expect action. None of the religions really suggest you can ask for something and then literally do nothing and all things will come to you.
There is nothing wrong with the idea of thoughts and prayers, assuming they are genuine but the politicians were elected to act on behalf of the people they represent, so it’s really fine to accept thoughts and prayers, for those who believe, but still tell them to get off their ass and do something.
But this is quite literally what fundamentalist Christians do in this country. That’s also why you have faith healing and kids dying because parents think praying will fix them. And oops, if it doesn’t then their kids death was meant to be.
Everybody knows prayer doesn’t work, except insofar as it can make people feel better. Pope Julius II didn’t pray to fight his enemies in Italy, he hired a fucking army. Mohammed didn’t pray his way to conquest. Constantine didn’t win the Battle of the Milvian Bridge by praying, he did it by killing the other guys.
In the context of the gun stuff, it’s just a form of ritualistic courtesy sadly being used as a screen behind which to hide do-nothingism.
You know what also doesn’t work? Changing your Facebook profile pic in sympathy for victims of something or another. But people still do it, because most people can’t actually fix the big problems of the world, but don’t want to be helpless.
Alas, ‘dive’*3 is right. Dogma and tradition don’t mix well with skepticism and science. As someone who has been on both sides of that equation, I should know.
As an alternative to thoughts and prayers, it’d be better if the GOP took some of their bitter medicine and suffered considerable shooting losses of their own to cause them to suddenly develop empathy. Like, if that ballpark shooter hadn’t missed.
Like the occasional softening that develops from having a LGBQT child for some right-wing politicians, has any of those scum developed compassion from being shot at or losing loved ones?
I mean extremist yes but most of the people and most Christians who are using thoughts and prayers as a sole solution for guns and mass murders… they don’t actually believe that. When someone needs surgery, most Christians don’t send there loved on into a room with some random person with the hopes that thoughts and prayer will just do everything… they typically still select a surgeon, talk about the surgery, and think about what they’re praying for, that the surgeon does well that the loved one makes it through. So yeah, is there a small sect that only believes in healing from God, sure, but that number is tiny and does explain the paralysis around gun issues in this country. Even for those who believe in miracles, they know, or should know, miracles are rare, the rest is mostly a push or helping hand with action already happening.
When a religious person prays, though, that’s not “doing nothing.” Offering prayers is an act, giving something to the deity. In Judaism, for instance, since those Roman bastards tore up our Temple, we haven’t been able to do all those gory sacrifices Torah demands. Rabbinical Judaism based on chanting a bunch of prayers every day was supposed to substitute for the dead sheep and jugs of oil and stuff. So, when someone devout says they are praying, they are offering devotion and submission at the very least, in exchange (from an outside viewpoint at least) for having Ole Miss beat Auburn or whatever.
Even to sacrifice sheep, they’d have to have sheep to begin with, and thoughts and prayers didn’t conjure those up; there’s some toil involved which is why there is mention of rest too
I’m not saying thoughts and prayers isn’t an action or important to those who have faith; what I guess I am saying is the Bible isn’t full of people who woke up in the morning, prayed, when back to sleep and then waited for all the magic to happen. Let’s face it, one of the largest groups in this are Christians who immediately run to the camera or public to give their thoughts and prayers and then book it as fast as they can to protect the NRA. When it comes to Scripture, there just isn’t a large theme of prayer and do nothing else approach that is being suggested.
