Prayer may mean different things to different people. For many, it is a meditative act: a type of philosophical reflection with existential themes, a kind of relaxation therapy, a “grounding” moment. The praying person may believe they are having a conversation with God. The manner in which God is understood to speak back is often taken in a broad, figurative way—for example, if the person subsequently has a new idea, an inclination, a redoubling of confidence, or a wave of emotion that feels like guidance. Other people may not expect that God will “speak back” at all; they may be content simply to vent, confess, grieve, or reflect within a reverent framework. In some ways this resembles classical psychoanalysis: the listener is largely silent, and the act of speaking—slowly, honestly, repeatedly—becomes the mechanism.
For many people, prayer is simply reflective or meditative: a grounding moment, a way to name fears and hopes, a way to feel less alone. But many people also pray for things—for an outcome to change, for an illness to heal, for a surgery to go well, for a war to end, for a relationship to mend. That kind of prayer is different. If it is literally effective, it would mean that events in the physical world are being altered—something in the normal chain of causation is being nudged off course. And if this were happening in a consistent, repeatable way, you would expect to see clear clusters of unusually good outcomes in places where people pray the most, or where the “right” kind of prayer is supposedly most common. You would expect the world to look, especially in more religious areas, as though the ordinary rules of physics are being bent on request. I am not aware of any such pattern.
When researchers have tried to test this carefully—especially with “praying for someone else” (intercessory prayer)—the results have not produced a solid, repeatable signal. A well-known example is the STEP trial in cardiac bypass patients: people were randomized to receive or not receive intercessory prayer, and another group was told with certainty that they were being prayed for. Overall, prayer did not reduce medical complications. Interestingly, the group who knew they were being prayed for actually did a bit worse: complications were reported in 59% of those certain they were receiving prayer versus 52% in a comparison group. One plausible explanation is psychological: once a person is told “people are praying for you,” it can quietly raise the pressure. What if I don’t get better? What does that mean about me? About God? About my faith? For someone already frightened and vulnerable, that extra layer—expectation, scrutiny, the sense that a spiritual “test” is underway—can add stress rather than comfort.
The moral structure of prayer often mirrors the moral structure of empathy. Many people’s prayers are genuinely compassionate: they think of struggling friends or family members, or of terrible world events, and they ask for comfort, protection, and healing. But if prayer is believed to cause divine comfort to arrive, this raises an uncomfortable counterfactual: if the prayer had not occurred, would comfort have been withheld? And shouldn’t a loving deity comfort suffering people regardless of whether someone happens to pray for them—especially since some of the worst suffering on earth occurs in isolation, unnoticed, with no one else even aware enough to pray? It suggests a troubling arrangement where God’s help isn’t based on who is suffering the most, but on who is lucky enough to be noticed.
This is also where it helps to remember Paul Bloom’s critique of empathy (see my review of his book, Against Empathy). Empathy is often biased and therefore unjust: it is pulled toward people who resemble us, toward vivid stories, toward those whose suffering is emotionally dramatic, while neglecting the quiet, the distant, the stigmatized, and the statistically larger tragedies that do not come with a single tear-streaked face. Prayer often inherits this same distortion. We pray intensely for the salient and familiar, and far less for abstract fairness, or for the invisible victims who never make it into our attention.
Many prayers are not about others at all; they are about wishing something for oneself. There are battlefield prayers. Prayers before a medical procedure. Prayers for money, for a job, for the return of an ex-partner, for relief from chronic pain, for the outcome of a baseball pitch or a hockey game. As a meditative act, this is deeply understandable. But psychologically it can set up a reinforcement loop: if the prayer is followed by a good outcome, the person will naturally feel it “worked,” and will be bolstered to pray again. If the outcome is bad, the person may conclude they didn’t pray sincerely enough, or long enough, or correctly enough—or that God was busy, or displeased, or testing them. Either way, the practice becomes insulated from disconfirmation.
This helps explain why prayer works psychologically, even if the supernatural claims aren't true. As a form of meditation or reflection, it can be calming and help organize our thoughts. But as a way to change the laws of physics or alter the course of events, it functions as a self-reinforcing loop. When a prayer is followed by a desired outcome, it is taken as proof of God’s power. When it isn't, the failure is easily explained away—either God said 'no,' or we didn't pray with enough faith. This dynamic validates the belief system regardless of the result, but it places an immense burden on the believer—creating the stressful illusion that their personal spiritual effort is the decisive factor in changing reality.
No comments:
Post a Comment