We have discussed prayer quite a bit on this forum. We atheist see it at best a placebo but nothing more. There have been some studies but never anything extensive to really measure it.
Believers believe in the "power of prayer" as if it is a magic wand that can make things happen, even impossible things. They believe in prayer so much that they want to force people to pray, but I think that is just a way of forcing control over people rather than actually asking for something to happen.
Every night on the news there are midnight vigils, usually for a lost kid to be returned unharmed, and if the kid is found safe they all exclaim that "god answered our prayers." They never say anything about those prayers when a body is found, other than they will pray for the dead kid's soul. Seems ironic.
So here is my question, believers and atheists can chime in, if you pray for someone's death and they die, is it MURDER? If you pray to win the lottery and win is it theft?
Should we hold people accountable for praying for things and if not, why not, if prayer is supposed to actually work?
If you believe that prayer is an action and we are to be held accountable for our actions people should pay a price for their prayers and prayers should be monitored accordingly.
And how about the inaction of prayer. Should we hold people accountable for their prayer not working? If you pray for someone's cancer to go away and it doesn't shouldn't the prayee be held accountable. If you buy something and it doesn't work as advertised and the seller does nothing about it that is a clear case of fraud.
So it is a crime or it just isn't real, one or the other. You can't have it both ways.
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Prayer doesn't work, it's all faith based belief. Prayer is just wishful thinking. If someone prays for a cure to their cancer, they always thank god and never the doctor that cured them with modern medicine. Do you think it is possible to pray for someones death and it happen? Do you think it's possible to use prayer to win the lottery? The answer is no prayer can't kill someone or win you money. Prayer doesn't work because there is no god or gods.
Well the thing is prayer will not work if you are testing god.
I test god on all prayers coming from people that pray to god in earnest prayer believing him and in prayer.
Whoops! I just killed prayer for a change in outcomes for everyone! Buwhahahahahhahahaha!
I am more powerful than god! I just forced god to not answer prayers beyond the same random chance levels of any event prayed for! For all 7+ billion people alive today and all the billions more born into the future!
I know you are looking for responses from theist and other atheist, as you probably already know my opinion about prayer. But to keep this conversation moving here is my thoughts.
Praying for someone's death and that person dies shortly after is not murder to an atheist, (well at least to this atheist.) Just like having a thought about killing someone and that person dies shortly thereafter is also not murder. But the real question is, if god is real and the power of prayer is real and "god answers all prayers" I think you could argue it is murder, it would be similar to being a mob boss and ordering a "hit" you did not do the actual murdering, but most courts of law will make you very complicit in the murder.
Praying for winning the lottery and then winning theft? Even if god was real and prayer actually worked, I would not consider it theft. (how this god would choose who wins is another mystery altogether.)
If prayer actually worked and that particular god the person prayed to was real, I feel people should be held accountable, but it doesn't really matter, god would be proven real, people can pray for they want and all bets are off, may as well junk the entire criminal justice system, god should have that handled n/p. (Of course the whole idea of prayer working is just insane with a million problems like: different people praying for different outcomes on the same thing.)
Studies have been done about prayer, here is links to articles that discusses them: (hint, they find prayer does nothing.)
http://www.livescience.com/othernews/ap_060330_prayer.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/opinion/11lawrence.html?ex=1302408000&...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-02-09-cancer_x.htm
Another article, but behind a paywall: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2005/07/25/a_pr... maybe someone with a boston globe membership can copy paste the relevent parts.
Thanks for all the comments.This was, of course, a lark for people to have fun with.
Prayer is hazardous. Somebody should be liable for knee damage from kneeling too long in prayer or injuries caused by idiots walking around with their hands up in the air and eyes closed. Then there are all the people who catch diseases by clustering with millions of sick people and slobbering all over statues and other religious junk in places like Lourdes.
Anyone want to join a class action suit against the Vatican?
They are incredibly, filthy rich, the vatican and those in control of its wealth, makes middle-east oil countries royalty seem poor in comparison.
May be a good target, knowing they can actually afford to pay out a 100 billion dollar lawsuit.
....is there not something in their bible about wealth being bad? .... nahhhhh I must've misread that... ;)
Yes, prayer is a crime when it used to withhold medical attention when medical attention is available and documented to heal the person for that condition.
Example, I know of a father and mother who denied medical care to a 14-year-old son who ran through a fence with a motorcycle. The parents formed a "prayer circle" instead of taking him to the hospital. The son died four days later from infection.
This is just one example when prayer needs to be the basis for a crime.
Mom and dad need to be arrested and convicted and sentenced to prison
mykcob4,
The Bible has a lot of different kinds of prayers in it. Some ask for bad things to happen to other people. Some ask for good things to happen to themselves. The Yeshua character said that if a person believed and had no doubts that he could ask for anything and get it.
I'm sure that a lot of lottery winners have prayed to win the lottery. Guess what? One day they did win. And the same is true for everything else. Stuff happens. One day it will happen to everyone. It's also a 100% sure thing that Yahweh == the God of the Hebrews and the God of the armies == has nothing to do with it.
Bullshit. There have been multiple studies and they indicate that prayer does not work. IF you think that prayer works, provide proof or troll away
Calm down,
He said his post was "a lark" further down on the thread.
http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/debate-room/crime-or-no-crime#comm...
It does make for an interesting conversation, to me at least.
I don't believe prayer works, in fact, quite the opposite. I actually think "prayer" is detrimental to getting anything positive done. That is the point here. So MCD I don't know what you are mad about.
We could hold people accountable for prayers but then we would have to make masturbation fantasies a form of sexual assault. There are not enough prison cells for that.
That got a laugh out of me. I would say 90+ percent of the world wide population would be in jail by the time they hit their teen years.