What is the thinking among believers regarding the “power” of third party prayer? Do they believe that God withholds action until He tallys up the prayer total? To me this is one of the more preposterous of the superstitions that believers adhere to.
E.G. A child goes into a coma. Believers organize prayer services and urge other believers to pray for survival of the child. Does god say, “Sorry little Billy (or Suzy), you only got 167 prayers to spare your life. Time to pull the plug.” Or does He say, “Wow! You got 2,438 prayers. I guess I have to let you live. Well, that’s the benefit of being popular.”
Is God really a pollster who selectively employs His divine intervention depending on popular demand? Or is He a drowsy and disinterested deity Who needs to be roused to action? I am really curious to know the mindset behind this belief.
I believe God sub-contracted all prayer functions to a call centre in India some time ago. They only have a limited number of lines, so the more people that pray the better the chance that someone will get though, and that divine intervention will be invoked.
Slightly more helpfully, if you believe in the power of prayer (and many people do) surely the more prayers the better? So are you really asking why people believe in the power of prayer?
Given that you posted this the day Nader announced his new Presidential run, I thought this was a political thread.
Um, I dunno. I guess if you believe in a personal God, you expect him to behave anthropomorphically? Maybe it’s a bit of inflated self-importance, thinking, “If I pray, it will make a difference,” in people whose sense of themselves is essentially central to their view of existence? Maybe it just seems heartless not pray, 'cos if God is swayed by that sort of thing, it would help?
You might think so, but this is not necessarily the case; I know of a group of people who believe that asking the same request more than once demonstrates lack of faith and that once you’ve asked God for it, you have it and you ahould start acting like you have it (unfortunately, ‘acting like you have it’ includes things like discontinuation of essential prescribed medicine, so mortality is not unheard of in this group).
It’s well documented, if not well understood, that a person’s attitude, level of optimisn, and the amount of support the person receives from a loving community of family and friends can have an effect on that person’s health. Seperating that from the effect of prayer is probbably very difficult.
This is why I am asking about “third party” prayer and I put the OP child in a coma. I understand the positive thinking of a person praying for himself or a person who believes they are being prayed for but I am interested specifically in people who don’t know they are being prayed for. Why do people think more prayer equals more Godly help?
(By the way, if this was a political thread I would have titled it “Third Party Hasn’t Got a Prayer Theory”)
I’m atheist, but I honestly can’t see how “the more prayers the better” would make sense for a believer. It would mean that for instance a secluded old woman with no friend/family would be out of luck, while a famous artist would benefit from the prayers of all his/her fans hence could expect some divine help.
To say the truth, I don’t really understand how prayers could have any kind of power. It would mean that god could “change his mind” (if god didn’t want children to die, people live miserable lives, etc…he could easily prevent this for all these children/people. He has no reason to “pick and choose” some lucky few on the basis of the total amount of prayer received, which, as a poster rightly pointed out, looks awfully like a popularity contest. Or does it works like entertainment shows?) , or for instance let child A live because his parents prayed so much for him, and let child B die because he was an orphan and nobody prayed for him.