What is the meaning of prayer? CJ Stone discovers the medieval in all of us... Do you believe in God? I’m not so sure. I’d like to imagine a being of ultimate goodness, but sometimes the world seems so cruel and senseless that if such a being does exist, it’s obvious that he’s asleep on the job. Someone once said that you might as well believe in God as not, as if there’s no God it can’t make any difference either way, whereas if there is a God then it might well make all the difference.

My argument with this is to say that if God is so petty-minded and self-regarding that he demands that you believe in him before he is concerned for you, then I’d rather not believe. Such a God doesn‘t deserve my respect. Anyway, the God that I believe in will forgive me my human foibles, including my tendency to disbelieve in him. After all, it was this God who made me.

So far I have used the masculine pronoun when referring to God, in the biblical manner. This is purely for the sake of convenience. Everything I’ve said applies equally if you conceive of God as female. In fact it apples whatever your conception of God: as male, as female, as both male and female at the same time; as up, as down, as black or white; as real, as imaginary, as general or particular; as an ecstatic sine wave in an ocean of bliss or as a puff of exhaust from the back end of the cosmos. God either is, or he isn’t, and I really don’t think it makes any difference whether you believe in him or not.

How about prayer, then? This has always struck me as an inherently vain activity.

We all do it. Even atheists and agnostics pray, even though they don’t believe in who they are praying to. But who are we to think that God listens? What are we but a bunch of animated carbon molecules meandering about on an insignificant lump of rock hurtling round a not particularly important sun, in a sort of galactic cul-de-sac in an unfashionable suburb of the Universe?

What’s worse is that each of us is only one of six billion other animated strings of complex carbon molecules jostling about on this planet, all of us praying - consciously or otherwise - pretty much most of the time. Isn’t it the most vain thing imaginable to believe God should pay attention to any one of us in particular?

Personally, though, I have no argument with God: my argument is with the people who tell me that they know what God think.

This is happening all the time, of course. The world is full of spiritual pundits on the chat show of life with an opinion of some kind about the nature of God’s intentions. Which is all well and good you might say. Opinions are like belly buttons: everyone has one. Where it becomes particularly intolerable is when the opinion is launched on the back of some great human tragedy, such as the Asian tsunami on Boxing Day last year.

The electronic airwaves were suddenly clamorous with noisome debate about the “meaning” of this event. Everyone had something to say on the matter. Usually it involved some reference to God, or to some form of spiritual intervention, meant to “teach” us something. Which makes you wonder at the nature of people’s imagination that they can place faith in a being who would be willing to wipe out a hundred and sixty thousand people in order to impart some vague moral lesson. This would be a cruel teacher indeed.

There is something profoundly medieval about his way of thinking and it shows how little the human race has grown up in the last few centuries. We may be able to blow the planet up several times over, we may have instruments that can look into the depths of time and space, we may have computer games and digital animation, USB ports and CD Rom drives, but we still picture God as like some be-robed and bewigged Lord High Pontiff passing judgment on our moral failings and punishing us accordingly.

Actually the fact of the tsunami illustrates my earlier point about the vanity of prayer. I imagine that everyone seeing that wave hurtling towards them would have let out a little silent prayer of anguish at the moment it struck. I guess that everyone who heard about the tsunami afterwards and who had relatives in the region would have prayed for their safety. And everyone who was saved would have thanked God for the fact, and everyone whose relative was saved would have believed that God had heard their prayer. But what of the other one hundred and sixty thousand who weren’t so lucky? Should we therefore conclude that they deserved their fate?

Of course not.

So here are the facts as I see them.

Human beings have meaning, tsunamis don’t.

The tsunami wave and it’s aftermath was a terrible human tragedy, but it was no “wake-up call” for humanity.

It did not have purpose in itself. It is we, the human, who define purpose. If we want to build early warning systems to help avert such tragedies in the future, then all well and good. But we should not draw moral lessons.

In the end it is time that the human race grew up and began to face its responsibilities, to itself, to the future and to the planet we all share.

It’s no good appealing to God, because God isn’t listening.

Read more at: www.cjstone.co.uk

I dont agree with Stones article. I could state my opinin ,in fact I will due to Stone giving his .

I've come to know in my 38 years of living , that two forces are amung the universe . {as we know it} both in opposition with eachother. BLACK -WHITE
POSITIVE-NEGATIVE
GOOD EVIL
LIFE-DEATH
WAR-PEACE
FRIEND -FOE
SEEN- UNSEEN
LOVE-HATE
RIGHT WRONG
And many many more.

Ive also come to grips that life is unpredictable and nothing turns out the way most plan
we do not know when we are going to die or when catastophies happen .we basically are not Gods of the earth. Earth supports life and mankind in numbers outnumber thier instincts and support destruction .Stone shows me that he is one sided and doesnt look at the simple fact that the Devil has no responsibility here and that makes me realize that
there is not a direct interest enough in WANTING TO KNOW about God and if he did he would realize that there is a underlying force wich beckons all of creation. Satan. God does have ears though and we cannot expect Him to be there when we need Him.

Would you? Only fools make such mistakes and never learn.
Has anybody ever called you "Hey!" How do you respond a thousand times over if the same person shouted Hey? Would you ignore them ,not respond or give somebody that used to call you Hey, but now knows your name and calls you CJ Stone !

How then would you respond to and why?
You cant bull________ me with this pothetic excuse not to seek out truth inGod ,.its alot eaiser to blame him. Well maybe someday you will look for his name if it be important enough to you and oh by the way the Bible is a good source to start . Next time when in prayer , learning how by learning His name might be the reason your prayers and the prayer of many have not been answered. Mr Stone , you put the article out there so you are responsible for my response. Good luck in the future . It would be a wonderful turnaround if efforts to writght such one sided non thought out material was just opposite
from this article on God . What makes me respond is that it might effect others that sincerly do want to know about God and your responsibe for those individuals rights as humans in helping them or hurting them with your one sided opinion . more facts please

Because the universe does not exist according to our own design and desires it does not mean that the universe does not exist.

There have been scientific studies on prayer and it does impact outcomes.

Nature is a chain of metabolic life and death and to wish for an end to all death for all things is to wish for the end of all metabolic life itself.

Perhaps if you were female and a mother it would be easier to understand. Pregnancy and childbirth are not pleasent, but even in this age of choice women still choose to suffer for a time so that they may have the joy of bringing forth new life and new love.

Positive thought and a humble attitude can work wonders.

If God wanted us to know he exists then what would we learn from it?
We're transitional beings. We already know he exists. We just forget when we come back.

i agree partially, i don't think that an athiest or agnostic would pray at all because we are logical thinkers and we know that religion is an opiet.