nakedpastor: The Imbalance

January 6, 2012 By 17 Comments



Filed Under: General, Humor 17 Comments
About David Hayward

David Hayward runs the blog nakedpastor as a graffiti artist on the walls of religion where he critiques religion… specifically Christianity and the church. He also runs the online community The Lasting Supper where people can help themselves discover, explore and live in spiritual freedom.

  • starskeptic

    I don’t think that ‘answered’ should be empty; George Carlin talked about that “same 50% rate” about praying to the sun you know- Joe (Pesci) Bless You!

    • Matt Silverthorn

      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.

      • http://www.facebook.com/AnonymousBoy Larry Meredith

        if you’re consider it to scale, it’s pretty accurate. It’s like scaling the Earth to some of the largest stars just in our galaxy. It’s so small it’s impossible to see. The amount of prayers made versus the amount answered is too giant a difference.

      • starskeptic

        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

    • Charles Black

      Actually since every supposedly “answered prayer” is due to coincidence then the cartoon is accurate that there are no answered prayers.
      There’s your answer.

  • http://twitter.com/0xabad1dea Melissa E

    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”

    • starskeptic

      –you’re right Melissa – one way or another the answer’s there; humans never seem to get a busy signal…

    • Anonymous

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

      • starskeptic

        THAT would explain a LOT!

      • Anonymous

        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

        • http://itsmyworldcanthasnotyours.blogspot.com/ Anonymous

          *rolls d20*

          *checks chart*

          “Concentrate and ask again.”

    • http://itsmyworldcanthasnotyours.blogspot.com/ Anonymous

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

  • Lurker111

    A really simple and direct analysis of prayer can be found here (go to the second chart in the article):

    http://othersidereflections.blogspot.com/2011/12/infographic-interlude.html

  • http://religiouscomics.net/ Jeff P

    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.

  • Neil

    So what I understand from this cartoon is that prayers look like pubes, and when used as a type of spiritual currency, are just about as valuable as pubes.   

  • http://itsmyworldcanthasnotyours.blogspot.com/ Anonymous

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

  • Yawn

    It’s a miracle only a small few were hurt when the scale tipped