nakedpastor: The Imbalance

Agreed. While none of these prayers were “answered” by anything, the law of averages would mean the desired outcomes would happen a certain percentage of the time, and to someone who believes that some god is answering their prayers, random chance will appear as if their prayer was answered.

A lot of that also has to do with HOW people pray; if you pray that way I used to “Lord either let him live or take him quickly” – god just doesn’t lose at all with that kind of prayer…{I’m imagining Satan’s lawyers shouting “I object”} …GIGO

Don’t be silly; every prayer is answered, but the answer to almost all of them is “no” or “yes but” because humans can’t be trusted to pray for what they actually need to pray for!

For example, when you pray “God, please don’t let any children starve to death tonight”, the answer is…..

Note: it was an actual point of theology taught to me that “The answer to every prayer is yes, no, or wait and see why you were wrong to ask, usually one of the latter two”

So… that would mean that people are praying to a big Magic 8-ball in the sky?

Ingenious:
It is certainIt is decidedly so
Without a doubt
Yes – definitely
You may rely on it
As I see it, yes
Most likely
Outlook good
Signs point to yes
Yes

Reply hazy, try again
Ask again later
Better not tell you now
Cannot predict now
Concentrate and ask again
Don’t count on it
My reply is no
My sources say no
Outlook not so good
Very doubtful

I always figured the answer was “maybe”. (Parent-speak for “not a chance in hell, kid.”

The drawing is only accurate if you include the full set of prayers.  The “proper” religious way to look at it is to selectively only remember the prayers that happened to come true.  When you apply that filter on the dataset, then the results can be quite good (even 100%). 

Just don’t try to get a job with anything that applies statistics professionally.  You might get thrown out on your religious butt.  But for God rationalizing, it works great for the religious masses.

So… shit in one hand, wish in the other, and see which fills up faster.