Before I write this, I should preface it. I talk almost exclusively about the Christian faith when I talk about religion. It’s not that I am trying to pick on or single out Christianity, It’s simply the religion I happen to be most familiar and knowledgeable about.

Prayer has always been something that has confused me. Prayer is often phrased as a thank you, a request, or perhaps even a demand. My question is why people try to request or demand something from god. The bible talks about the divine plan, the idea that god put together a plan and knew how it was all going to play out, he knew that at one point I was going to write about this, he knew about 9/11, antibiotics, the iPhone, all of it, and presumably we are all working towards some end that god has designed. So my question is this, in light of this information, does it make any sense to pray for something or anything to change the way you want it to change?

If god did make this plan, do people who pray really expect god to change his plan for them? It seems selfish and completely illogical. Why would a being who put all this effort into a plan change it for anybody with a prayer book? So, either people who pray are constantly making god change his plans, or he already knew people were going to pray or want something and you’ll get it or not, and in that case why bother praying in the first place? It seems like a lot of wasted energy and time to me. Or perhaps the reality could simply be that there is nothing listening to all these prayers to begin with.

I find it kind of similar to clicking “like” on a photo on Facebook where the caption reads “one like=one prayer” or something to that effect. Either way, liking a picture of Facebook is not going to help that child with Autism or burns on most of their body. That, like prayer, I think, simply tricks the human mind into thinking that these people have done something productive, when instead they could donate fifty cents instead of buying that crappy song on iTunes.

Needless to say, when it comes to charity, a dollar > prayer.