No Wonder Your Prayers Don’t Work

May 13, 2009

You’ve been doing them wrong this whole time:

That tidbit is courtesy of the Spiritual Research Foundation — an oxymoronic name akin to Creation Science.

There are plenty more images where that one came from… they become funnier (or scarier) when you realize some people take them seriously:

There’s an entire page devoted to “Spiritual Facts” which includes statistics like this one:

“Negative destiny“? You’re shitting me.

For some reason, they left the citations for the numbers off the page…

That whole site is full of hilarity. It’s bad enough people do these things without any regard for science. It’s even more embarrassing when they try to justify their superstitions with numbers and the false pretenses of science.

(via Unreasonable Faith)

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David D.G.

=^O

Egad. If that’s not parody, then these people are completely beyond being parodied!

~David D.G.
Reginald Selkirk

Did you know that 65% of our life is destined?…

Did you know that if you add another decimal place, 23.7% more people will be convinced by your BS statistics?
Asad123

Did you read the piece of Bill Gates? Apparently Bill Gates has had a long history as a spiritual saint. Here’s a quote: “He has done spiritual practice for 20,000 years in the subtle plane of existence called Heaven (Swargaloka) and for 3000 years in the subtle plane of existence called Mahaloka.”
I wonder if Mr. Gates is aware of this.
hoverFrog

That 35\65 thing is pure bullshit. Everybody knows that you need to apply the Pareto Principle to “spiritual facts” in order to make them more scientific. 80\20 is the True (TM) answer.

Also I’m unsure of what “destiny” is. Is it something like electricity that requires a protective sheath to prevent harm to those who might accidentally be exposed to “destiny” or is it more like ejaculate? It’s difficult to tell from the diagram. Either way if your thumbs are stuck to your forehead I think you’re doing something wrong.
ollie

Darn. I thought that I just needed to have my prayers amplified by the Prayermax 5000.
Andy G

The second picture almost reminds me of a beer bong. MMM god principle. Goes down smooth.
Mike Caton

Same question applies – does the name you call your god matter? What if you can’t pronounce it the same way as he did (which if you’re separated by languages and centuries, is certainly true)? How are prayers targeted to the right place in general? If you you slur like the protagonist in Army of Darkness (“Clatu verata nHRRMPH…Our Father, who art in HRMPH”) do they go to Satan instead? If prayer is real, than these are serious questions.

http://luckyatheist.blogspot.com/2009/03/nine-billion-names-of-god.html
Harknights

I said it elsewhere.

60% of all statistics are made up.
Richard Wade

35% of our lives are within our control? Try more like 0.02% oh great swami. If I had 35% control of my life I’d be the frikkin’ Wizard of the Wondrous Wow. Try being control of which of the 22,000 breaths you’re going to take today have flu virus in them. Try being in control of the hundreds drunk drivers who will be on the freeway with you tonight. Try being in control of your very next thought. Oh, missed that one? Ok, just grab one of those dozens of thoughts that are wizzing by and control it. Lotsa luck.

Did you know that 98% of all statistical quotations are made up on the spot?
Polly

Wait a minute…If you can use your 35% to affect the other 65%, then doesn’t that mean effectively 100% is under your control? And doesn’t that imply that destiny is a load of crap?
Coffeeaddict

HAHA!! This is classic! 😀

Thanks for posting this up
Sabio

Laughing out of control ~!!
Damn, it is these nuts that give us Buddhist Skeptics (perfect models of sanity) such a bad name !
Justin jm

“Negative destiny“? You’re shitting me.

One can only hope.

What could “negative destiny” mean? Time going backwards? BS flowing backwards?
Jeff

The trick to successful prayer is selective memory of which things turned out the way you wanted. Just remember “answered” prayers and forget the rest. It also helps to limit your prayers to things that could happen anyway without any supernatural intervention. God is funny about not doing things that could only have supernatural explanations. I guess He doesn’t like to show off.
Stephan Goodwin

It would be so nice if people like this could be held accountable for simply just making sh*t up with no regard of its effects.

You just told HOW MANY PEOPLE that all their prayers to save their dead mother’s soul didn’t work because you did them wrong???

Eh, guess that’s what these people get for praying?
Alan E.

I love it when they start making up laws.
“When a person prays, he remembers God intensely and has an intimate dialogue with Him about issues very close to his heart. By the law of reflex action, God also feels closer to him.”
Hank Fox

Proper hand position is important too. The thumb against the forehead, for instance, is absolutely vital. Countless Christians have failed to teach their children the proper thumb position and discovered, to their dismay, that the hands accidentally form the Vulcan Death Grip. A rash of deaths in Christian preschools in the 80s was due to just this fact.
medussa

Thanks for posting this. It just made my morning. Any chance this is a parody site?
Jeff Satterley

Egad. If that’s not parody, then these people are completely beyond being parodied!

~David D.G.

Good call. I can’t imagine making something up that’s funnier/more ridiculous than this.
Thundergod

Why is it that when I make shit up I get called on it??? Do I need to get a website or something???
hoverFrog

Hank Fox said:

Countless Christians have failed to teach their children the proper thumb position and discovered, to their dismay, that the hands accidentally form the Vulcan Death Grip.

But there’s no such thing as a Vulcan death grip.
lindsey

That middle graphic reminds me of an episode of “Rocko’s Modern Life.” He goes to the doctor and there is a chart where with wavy blue lines (good feeling) and jagged red ones (pain). The doctor says something like “there’s the problem, you just need some of those wavy blue lines!”

Prayer is just like cartoons!
Aspentroll

Xtians haven’t figured it out yet, but, prayer is just another way of “HOPING” something will or won’t happen. If prayer really worked everyone would be millionaires and all the amputees would have regrown their limbs.
Larry Huffman

You know…back when my faith was wavering…and everyone that I asked questions of told me to pray about it…if I had had such nifty and scientific charts and diagrams as these, I would have most certainly gotten my answers and remained devout. (lol)

And Richard…I believe the percentage of made up stats is more like 97.4%. Then again I just made that up.
Just4Kix

I think “Negative Density” is the same as “Dark Matter”. We can’t see it, we have no way to prove it exists (other than mathematical calculations), but we have to presume that there’s something there other than emptiness. Wait, which one was I talking about?
Jaroslav Sveda

Anyway, shoudn’t be there an upstream communication channel marked in the diagram, too? 😉 (Telco student, sorry, couldn’t resist.) OC, God could have known beforehand. But if God knew beforehand what you will pray about, then there’s no point of praying if the request is reasonable and unselfish. Or is there, apart from some benefits of concentrating on the issue?
Ashley Moltzan

lol that link is so funny but so scary that some actually believe it…
absent sway

“Did you know that if you add another decimal place, 23.7% more people will be convinced by your BS statistics?”

I literally laughed out loud at this, and at the rash of deaths in Christian preschools in the 80’s–glad I survived that one!
Aly

Visited the site and clicked on the “about us”. Apparently being a “His Holiness” means you’re holy enough to have your personal pronouns capitalized.

See, I thought you had to be God to have that privilege. If it’s just a matter of being a His Holiness…my parents will be happy to learn I’m a Hindu again.
elf_man

Protective sheath? That explains my paladin’s holy aura.
Jeff Satterley

That middle graphic reminds me of an episode of “Rocko’s Modern Life.” He goes to the doctor and there is a chart where with wavy blue lines (good feeling) and jagged red ones (pain). The doctor says something like “there’s the problem, you just need some of those wavy blue lines!”

Rocko’s Modern Life reference by lindsey FTW!
llewelly

How do we explain to these people that a ‘protective sheath’ of godliness doesn’t protect against teen pregnancy? It’s got to be polyurethane or latex.
martymankins

Wow. That’s all I have to say is Wow.

At least it gave a design professional a small payday for that illustration.
Trudy

This is ALL TRUE … I take this position while I’m lay down in bed. 2 years ago I take my position and start taking my breath deep, at once a crystal white light came in. I was in awe it stay with me for several seconds… since then my contact with the Higher Realms comes like strings of elektricity in my head.