Prayer and Morality

Many Christians and Muslims say, “If there is no God, why should we be righteous?” This is really a stupid question. Such people, even if they are righteous are so, because they want to gain the approval of God and get rewards after death. Therefore, if a person, who is good even though he doesn’t believe in God is a “real” righteous person because he has no desire for rewards after death or fear of punishment after death. 

Most of those religious people who think that morality comes from God, would probably commit murder, rape, genocide and all kinds of evil acts if it is proven that God doesn’t exist. Such people do good deeds, or at least, avoid doing bad deeds because they are afraid of their deity and they want rewards after death in heaven. So, if we think about it, this is not real morality. This is just doing what their god supposedly wants them to do. So, we can come to the conclusion that only a person, who does action selflessly, is a true righteous person. The Bhagavad Gita teaches selfless action. It teaches that people should perform their actions without having any desire for the results.

Now, let’s come to prayer. Christians and people of other religions, spend lots of time praying, and hoping that their deity will hear their prayers and fulfill their wishes. Some attend prayers just in order to please their deity, or because prayer has become traditional. But, we must understand that prayers make no difference to our environment. How can repeatedly citing a passage written millennia ago to please a non-existent deity make a change in our world? Even people who believe in God should understand this. Why would an all-powerful God need us to sing his praises? It is just a matter of time when many people will look at prayers the same way they do at blood sacrifices today. 

If I were to say, “If the Egyptian God Ra exists, he must make it rain in five minutes to prove his existence.” And, if five minutes later, it doesn’t rain, the Christian will say, “Ha ha, I knew Ra doesn’t exist.” But, if I were to say, “If Jesus exists, he must make it rain in five minutes to prove his existence.” And, if five minutes later, it doesn’t rain, the Christians will make many excuses. The Christian may say, “Jesus doesn’t have time for something so trivial”. But, very well then, instead of asking him to make it rain, why don’t you pray and ask him to wipe out cancer in a day or two? But, no! Jesus will never answer any kind of prayer and even Christians know this fact. They just don’t want to admit it. 

1 Kings 18: 25- 40 has a fascinating story. In this story, Elijah, a puppet of Yahweh wanted to prove that the god Baal didn’t exist. So, he asked the prophets of Baal to pray and create a fire. So, the prophets prayed to Baal, but Baal didn’t respond. Then, Yahweh’s puppet Elijah prayed to Yahweh, who responded and proved his existence by creating the fire. So, Elijah mercilessly killed all the prophets of Baal. 

So, according to the Bible, Yahweh, the Christian god, does respond when someone wants him to prove his existence. But, the truth is that no matter how much you pray, Yahweh will not respond, just like Baal didn’t. And, if today’s atheists become as brutal as the ancient followers of Yahweh, the Christians will end up like Baal’s prophets for failing to prove the existence of their deity. 

  

If you don’t believe that Yahweh will not respond, you can try praying day and night. You can shout if you like, you can offer many kinds of burnt offerings so that Yahweh can “smell” them. But, still, he will not respond. Why? Because he doesn’t exist!

People have tried praying in hospitals, as experiments, to see if the patients would heal any faster. But, no! Everything was going the same way. So, there is simply no use arguing with the fact that prayer cannot make any kind of difference. 

So, instead of wasting our time on prayers, why don’t we spend our time helping the poor and the needy instead?

Blessed are the merciful.