Who is the listening? Who is taking action?

I awoke yesterday thinking about prayer. Who prays, why, what expectations do they expect from it, when is it appropriate and by whom, and should it be mandated in our social communities?

Chat GPT-4 is useful

I think of Large Language Model (LLM) forms of artificial intelligence as “Google on steroids”. With a very sophisticated architectural framework and algorithms, GPT-4 is a great tool to reveal commonly-held beliefs that have been expressed digitally on the Internet. It’s the most powerful survey tool ever invented.

I asked BingChat: what is meant by the phrase “the power of prayer”?

Reply:

“The power of prayer is an act of worship that glorifies God and reinforces our need for Him. It is not in the words or the person praying, but in the God who hears and answers according to His will. Prayer also allows us to seek His forgiveness, confess our sins, and resist temptation. Prayer is when we invite heaven’s resources to intervene in our earthly situation”.

This reply may make sense to a religious person and Bible reader, buy an atheist would likely be unsatisfied. For some atheists, the existence of God falls under the same category as other myths and fantasies such as the existence of Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

I have heard people of faith proclaim: “It’s God’s will” or “it’s the work of the Devil” when good and bad things happen. This seems as non-sensical to me as allocating an outcome to an angel or a witch. Often, the actual season has a logical explanation. However, some religious folk favour mystical explanations instead of scientific analysis and critical thinking.

I asked BingChat: What is meant by the "end of days" prophesy?

Reply:

The “end of days” prophecy is a period of roughly 3 1/2 years or 42 months that will shortly come upon the entire earth. It is a time, just before Jesus’ Second Coming, when the Beast and the False Prophet will rule the world through their counterfeit version of God’s kingdom. The Bible describes events, conditions, and attitudes that would mark “the conclusion of the [current] system of things,” or "the end of the world"1.

This is an example of beliefs held by many Christians which I consider irrational. It makes me wonder about the Bible and its strange ability to lull believers into such convictions. I don’t doubt, however, that some will consider me to be naive and uniformed for not sharing their beliefs. Everyone is entitled to believe whatever they wish as long as their beliefs do not bring harm to anyone else or their property.

The Freedoms of Choice are defined and promised as “collective agreement” established under our nation’s constitution and the Bill of Rights. We are all expected to abide by those secular documents because our forefathers understood that every citizens will be unique in his or her circumstances, abilities and beliefs. The agreement was intended to encourage us to live together in respectful cooperation in spite of our differences.

Just the same, the constitution doesn’t stop me from having opinions or expressing them. Some readers won’t like my views while other may silently agree. For example, I find some beliefs held by some religious people who read the Bible to be quite odd. They might be quite understandable if this was the year 1023 when over 99% of people were illiterate. However, in 2023, when literacy is universal and we are swimming in digital information, how is it that there are still so many people believing in fables, parables and mystical beings described in the Bible?

Here is what I know to be true for me.

I know that my thoughts and feelings arise in my mind. If I don’t express them outwardly, I am the only one who is aware of their existence. The only one who can listen and act on those thoughts and feelings is me, at least until the moment that I speak or write to express them to others. When expressed, others will register them in their minds. They possess the free will (choice) to respond by speaking or acting in reaction to my expressed thoughts and feelings. All of this is morally and constitutionally acceptable.

I asked BingChat “Who hears silent prayers?”

Reply.

According to Billy Graham, God hears our prayers on all occasions, whether we’re praying out loud or praying silently in our hearts and minds. After all, He knows all about us and knows what is going on inside us—both good and bad. The Bible says that God “judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12)

So, if I were to think a prayer silently, who would hear it? This is the essence of the question. My understanding is quite different than that expressed in the Bible.

I believe that the “Creator” is Consciousness (I will use the term ‘God’ since all Christians, Jews and followers of Islam would claim the God is the creator of all things according to their holy books). If my mind exists in that universal field of consciousness, then “God” must be aware of my thoughts and feelings.  It would not be necessary to speak the prayer for God to “hear” it. However, in congregations, people are expected to pray together, likely to inspire each other into collective human action for some purpose. In this manner, the prayer may be considered an act of leadership especially if it contained a plan of action to pursue a common objective.

But this could be achieved without invoking that help of a deity (God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit) and simply communicating the goal and plan as most leaders do on secular organizations. A plan of action presented without it being framed within a “prayer” is all that is needed to pursue expected results.

An eternal age of innocence?

The idea of Santa Claus with reindeer and elves served its purpose when I was a child. It was understood by my parents that I was living through that precious the age of innocence prior to pubescence. Equally true, however, was their expectation that I would eventually grow into a man who possessed a realistic understanding of the realities of life and the ability to face them competently.

Prayer, combined with biblical teachings and religious rituals, may continue to sustain some relic of their “innocence of youth” for some people, but not everyone. While I was raised by devout Catholic parents who did all the right things to raise me in their faith, I began to distance myself from it, its fables and myths early in my teenage years and never returned. The same was true of my four siblings.

As a Libertarian who believes that everyone is entitled to Freedom of Informed Choice, I consider prayer a personal matter to choose voluntarily, or not. When someone judges me for NOT engaging in group prayer, or reading the Bible, or honouring the Canadian flag, or singing Oh Canada, or acting upon anything based on faith (such as “Covid vaccines are “safe and effective” or “the Climate Crisis is real and urgent), I consider that judgement to be an act of discrimination against me.

The world would be a nicer place if we judged each other less and respected each others’ choices without the expressed judgement or expectations from the “collective”. Today, there is more than enough discrimination at the hands of our politicians, institutions and media to create the sorry state of divisiveness in Canada without adding to it within our personal circles.