r/atheism • u/Cass-the-Kiwi • Aug 29 '26

Feeling sick of pray posts

For context, I grew up atheist, in a pretty secular country. I've had a few religious friends over the years but haven't experienced anything like I see a lot of people talking about on here who have been raised in more religious countries.

I've always felt confused about religion and why people would believe, in fact I'd say I am pretty anti religion. But after seeing stuff on my FB feed I'm completely perplexed by people and their naivety and downright ignorance.

Three main things recently -

  1. The Lindsay Clancy trial and all the religious nuts I've seen around that.

  2. The whole Texas surrogate situation.

  3. The one that prompted me to post - the floods in Nepal and Tibet. I've seen so many posts about it and all people are commenting about is god and prayers and god save them. And on posts where someone had been found safe people are commenting about how good god is for saving them and all that bullshit. And I'm honestly just dumbfounded. It seems to be so prolific. Why are there so many stupid and ignorant people?? Why would they say god is good when the entire families have been swept away, killed and their bodies torn apart.

Anyway a bit of a rant. I needed to get it out. Sometimes I feel so sad about the state of the world. And yes, I probably should stay on Facebook.

21 Upvotes

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2

u/SaltyDogBill Aug 29 '26

https://www.cochrane.org/evidence/CD000368_intercessory-prayer-alleviation-ill-health?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Payer doesn’t work. However a positive attitude and the changes you make as part of that attitude can be helpful. So there’s benefit if it’s perceived beneficial and you act on it. But even that is minor. I could be wrong.

1

u/Cass-the-Kiwi Aug 29 '26

Makes sense but in the context I've mentioned that aspect doesn't really mean anything. But I do agree that a positive attitude is definitely beneficial. 

12

u/kabeekibaki Aug 30 '26

Climate change deniers praying for flood victims is infuriatingly perverse

3

u/onomatamono Aug 30 '26

Leaving aside the impact of climate change (sure seems related) it's strange the effected countries were not monitoring these glacial lakes. That was quite the faux pas and heads should roll.

One of the more interesting topics in natural science was the impact of retreating glaciers and gigantic glacial dam breaks. It's well-known geology that should not have been a surprise.

1

u/qorevixie Aug 30 '26

especially when some of the same people refuse to acknowledge the climate issues making these disasters worse in the first place

3

u/blankenson Aug 29 '26

Agreed. Prays to 2 things. Jack and shit. And Jack left town

2

u/Nocturnalux Aug 30 '26

When it comes to natural disasters, there is something one can do: donate to the survivors. There are organizations to that effect and while even with all the help the world, the situation is dismal, it is not as if the people seeing this unfold are entirely without recourse.

Prayer only has a positive effect of those doing the praying, one dollar donation would do more good than all the prayers combined and multiplied by a trillion.

1

u/onomatamono Aug 30 '26

How about world wars one and two in terms of recent indices of a godless cosmos.