The Logical Flaw of Prayers

[Andrespetmonkey]

insomniac17 said:

Andrespetmonkey said:
I agree with Kantor, as a personal thing it's totally great and I'm totally fine with it.

But when people pray for others? Well that's different. It makes people think they're helping without actually doing anything at all in a lot of cases.

That's not always true. Some people are so thankful when they hear that other people prayed for them. In my experience, these tend to be very religious people, but it touches them that so many people thought of them in their time of need, and it makes them feel better. Usually this is for someone who's sick and in the hospital, or something that's harder for people to actually help out with.

In that case, I'm cool with that. What I mean is instead of donating to a charity, raising awareness or taking action in anyway, people will pray, which is effectively sitting at home or at a place of worship and thinking to themselves. Not in all cases of course, many times, people will both pray and take action which again I'm fine with, though I would hope it isn't because they think it's what God would want, but rather what they want to do.

(Yes, people can donate money to a sick person rather than pray. But my point is just that some people do appreciate prayers, and it does help them; at least mentally.)