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The pitch that prayer can change anyone\u2019s life, if you give it a try, is hard to rebut. \u00a0The obvious objection, as is often the case with religious experiments, is that the definition of success and the length of time required for a valid trial are never time. \u00a0But even ignoring that problem, the odds are already stacked in favor of religion. \u00a0There\u2019s plenty of reason to think that prayer could be beneficial even if God did not exist.<\/p>\n
If prayer is a way of setting apart a part of the day to reflect on your behavior and the needs of other people in your life, it\u2019s hard to imagine how it wouldn\u2019t<\/em> be of use. \u00a0If the goal is achieving miracles, curing the sick, or\u00a0communing\u00a0with God, then the claims get harder to support. \u00a0A simple period of reflection, which is all prayer is likely to be when attempted by an atheist like me, is probably going to have some <\/em>salutary effects. \u00a0It did for me the last time I tried.<\/p>\n During Lent last year, when I agreed to try praying, I ended up in a fight with an\u00a0acquaintance\u00a0that I found quite upsetting, particularly because I couldn\u2019t understand why the other person was so furiously angry and deliberately cruel. \u00a0My boyfriend suggested I should pray for the person who was upsetting me, and I balked. That sounded like tattling on the other person to God. \u00a0If I was in the right, and the other person was behaving unreasonably, presumably God already knew that, and it was hardly noble to complain about it.<\/p>\n After all, it was unlikely, even if I were right, that I was acting in the precise way that would minimize the conflict. \u00a0As long as some fault belonged to me, the other person was irrelevant. \u00a0The only thing that mattered was that I behave correctly \u2014 it made no difference whether my stumbling block was another person or inclement weather.<\/p>\n