A Critical Mass

Atheist Revolution recently wrote about prayer as an individual’s means to soothe oneself in difficult times, and I think this viewpoint is correct and obvious.

I would like to offer the opinion that prayer is useful to governments to keep the population docile and submissive. I think it’s fair to note that all governments seek to maintain power for themselves, whether it’s a dictatorship or a democracy, and it seems to me that some governments have latched on to the idea that a credulous population is a trouble-free population. What better method to prevent the threat of revolution or an unfavourable election result than to keep the population voluntarily on it’s knees, wishing for an alternative outcome but taking no action?

Furthermore, if the head of state purports to engage in the same activity, praying to and receiving instructions from an unseen deity, all the better to reinforce the idea that Average Joe is doing the right thing by staying indoors and fervently hoping that the laws of the universe will be changed to suit this individual’s wishes, or that world events will be influenced by an inactive and unseen being (I refer to both the prayer and the prayee here - both are highly ineffective).

The believer soothes himself by believing his prayer will be answered - but not yet - and that he is doing his part in doing good, never stopping to consider that evil is allowed to prosper by good people that do nothing, and that praying is exactly equivalent to inaction, for all the results it achieves.