Sunday Forum: Does God need, or answer, our prayers? (Sunday Forum)

by James, Australia, Thursday, April 16, 2009, 23:00 (1494 days ago)
edited by unknown, Friday, April 17, 2009, 05:55

I have taken the liberty of turning this string into today's Sunday Forum as a way of drawing it to the attention of the larger audience who receive our daily email but who don't necessarily read the forum each day. In today's email I've included some further thoughts on the subject of prayer from Sr Mary Cresp RSJ and Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP. ...Editor

A Colombian on Prayer

Now that I have ordered books from Amazon by confirmed believers, Polkinghorne and James Carroll, here is something from the other side of the fence, a column by Klaus Ziegler in El Espectador, the Colombian daily.

"The ultimate purpose of prayer is to persuade the Supreme Being to change the direction of events in our favor. But isn't that absurd, almost sacrilegious to think that our prayers can change the destiny carefully worked out in advance by an infinitely wise being?

The believer thinks that prayer is more persuasive if it is made by groveling, preferably on one's knees. But it is obvious that a Superior Being could not be pleased by such servility, because he would not be affected by vanity, a defect impossible to imagine in a perfect being.

The devout believe that the more persistent they are with their prayers, the more likely it is that their appeals will be attended to. Do they think by chance that it is possible to break the divine will if they keep asking to the point of exhaustion just like a spoilt child does with his parents? They also believe that a prayer said by a group is more effective than one said by an individual as if the superior consciousness would be more likely to change by pulling a crowd or if there is a lot of noise.

Catholics think that the prayers of the Pope are more effective. That is to say, they accept that God behaves like an authoritarian despot who only listens to his most immediate underlings and takes no notice of the simple man in the street. Or they run to the Holy Mother to intercede for them, assuming that the celestial heart is susceptible to being softened up by the prayers of a mother. And although there is only one Mother, there are lots of virgins some with the power to perform miracles, and others no. And saints who act as mediators between heaven and earth.

Prayer often relies on praise and glorification, in other words, adulation and flattery. But this must be blasphemy because it reduces the Supreme Being down to the level of the weak and imperfect human being. Richard Dawkins is right when he points out that societies throughout history have invented anthropomorphic gods, created in their own image and likeness that interfere in our lives, sort out our destinies, solve our problems and promise us a life on the other side of death.

There is no religion whose gods are abstract beings, oblivious to human life. All their gods offer us continuity in for our existence. The similarity and widespread existence of religion is one of those mysterious universals whose evolutionary sense is still unknown. It is an enigma that is lost in humanity's remote past."

I don't know what the Christian answer to his first comment is because unless you reduce prayer down to meditation it seems to be exactly the way he describes it. Indeed, liturgy and official prayers are heavily laced with all this toadying.

But I also don't know, and neither does Ziegler, why religion is such a universal phenomenon. Usually when scientists like him see something universal like that, such as art, aggression etc, they say that it must have a biological base, brought about by evolutionary processes. But what is evolutionary process that has brought about religion?

Even though neither Zeigler nor I know the answer to this question, according to Newberg and Waldman's, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist, (which I have also ordered from Amazon), just thinking about the topic has increased the number of dendrites in a particular section of our brains, and these will slow down the aging process in both of us. That can only be a good thing.

I am not sure if Newberg and Waldman have got to the stage of comparing the dendrite growth rates in believers and non believers, but I will let you know when I have finished the book. In any event, it seems from what they say, that prayer, whether of the contemplative type, or just straight out toadying and groveling is good for us. And so is putting a Zeigler on it all.