{"id":1265,"date":"2023-01-08T16:06:24","date_gmt":"2023-01-08T21:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/godlessguy.com\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2023-08-06T18:50:02","modified_gmt":"2023-08-06T22:50:02","slug":"the-con-of-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godlessguy.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/08\/the-con-of-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"The con of prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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My entire life, I very rarely, if ever, felt my prayers were answered, and I am traumatized by years of thinking it was because my faith wasn\u2019t strong enough. I wasn\u2019t a good enough Christian. I was always told when it came to prayer that \u201csometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no. And sometimes the answer is not yet.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, okay. <\/em>My only real question was, \u201cWhy are my answers always \u2018no\u2019 or <\/em>(when there was no apparent answer) \u2018not yet\u2019?<\/em>\u201d Otherwise, I accepted this nonsense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If prayer does anything at all, it is for the one saying the prayer, not the recipient. Indeed, the person praying feels as if they have contributed, that they have done something when in reality, the most they have done is devote a minuscule amount of their time to you. Whenever someone says they\u2019ll pray for me, I smile and say, \u201cThank you.<\/em>\u201d I don\u2019t press it because I understand they genuinely believe they are accomplishing something, and I appreciate the sentiment. It just boggles my mind that they never seem to keep score of prayers answered, and if they do, they count their hits and ignore their misses. It doesn\u2019t work that way. Why pray at all? Doesn\u2019t god already know what you want? It seems it would be an annoyance to god To incessantly be bugged about things he\u2019s already fully aware of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been a study on the effects of prayer on cardiac bypass patients across three groups that showed a higher number of complications among those that were prayed for. I will link to the study at the end of this post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many religions run on the \u201cblame the victim<\/em>\u201d mentality where the ineffectiveness of prayer or any hardship in life is because \u201cthey didn\u2019t believe enough<\/em>\u201d or \u201ctheir faith wasn\u2019t strong enough<\/em>.\u201d I told myself this for years, especially since my mother seemed to have a direct line to god. I felt so guilty for so long. I thought if I just read my bible more, were even more involved in church, and poured my all into it, I\u2019d get that \u201cHoly Spirit.\u201d That\u2019s what they want you to think. That\u2019s how they get you. Blaming the victim is grossly inappropriate behavior\u2013and if there were a God,<\/strong> He would surely put a stop to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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