"Facebook family - a great friend and brother-in-Christ, Tim, needs prayers! he starts his first round of chemo tomorrow and as ANY of us would be, he is very scared! Tim is only 31 years old with two beautiful daughters and an amazing wife. He is very strong in the Lord, but this is a whole lot to handle so I am trying to get as many people around the country praying for him as possible. Will you join us in praying for Tim? If you will pray for Tim, please Like, say "yes" in a Comment and Share this post with everyone you know? It will mean the world to Tim!!"
As of this writing, there are almost a million likes, 300,000 comments, and 150,000 shares. The vast majority of the comments are mindless drivel constituting mainly of "We're all praying for him!" and suchlike.
Some of you may be wondering why I'm bringing this up. I don't know the guy, honestly don't really care about him, but I'm not a completely evil person and I don't want to see him die just for spite. I've had family members doing chemo and other procedures before as well, and I know how rough and painful it is. The point I'm making with this article is thus: PRAYER. DOES. NOTHING. Instead of wasting my time sending happy thoughts to an invisible, non-existent skybully, I'd be more inclined to check the credentials of the doctors and the facility he's being treated at, and to familiarize myself with the procedures involved so I'll know exactly the chances he'll have and how well they'll work on him.
I'd hope that most sane and rational people would put their trust into proven science instead of what Douglas Reynholm would call "Wishy Thinking". Let me provide a simple flowchart that completely destroys the validity of prayer:
The arrogance and/or stupidity necessary to think that God has a Master Plan for Life, the Universe, and Everything, but he'll change this perfect plan just because you ask him nicely, is completely and totally absurd and astounding. Just think of all the things we could have achieved with all the time spent kneeling in supplication to a fairy tale. Fuck, we could probably be exploring the galaxy and shit by now.
To me, the continued advocation of prayer to religious types is almost exactly the same as playing the lottery for poor people. It gives them the extremely faint hope that one day, if they keep buying into the system that they have their whole life and gotten shit on every single day, that just one day, it'll all pay off for them in a big way. The main difference between these two examples is that people actually WIN THE LOTTERY. No one has ever had a prayer answered, chalking the few coincidental occurrences up to divine providence. There's absolutely no evidence that 'God did it'.
The second point I'd like to make with this is the fact that most people are so retarded as to think Facebook Likes actually DO something. They don't. At all. It's nice when you run a page like The Book of Heavy Metal to get a few likes on something you've worked hard to make entertaining and insightful, but to go around blathering about how the more Likes you get, the better this person's chances of surviving CANCER are, is just sheer idiocy. I can't even fathom how stupid someone would have to be to actually think that Facebook Likes magically cure diseases.
Like I said, I'm not completely evil. I get that people want to be supportive and whatnot. I get that. We have this mentality in our country, however, that we're good people just because we send happy thoughts to people, without actually DOING things. Take a few minutes and donate some fucking money to the hospital he's going to, or send some cash to his family to help them defray the costs of medical bills, you know, something tangible and USEFUL.
Now, this is the part where I become slightly evil and say that if this person DOES in fact not make it (unlikely, but not unheard of), I'd be villainously pleased to send each and every one of those people a message that would state, in effect:
"Wow, that guy Tim died. Guess your God didn't love him enough, or he didn't love you enough, or he decided his Master Plan was more worthwhile than ONE PERSON. How can this be, since he was "SO STRONG IN THE LORD"? Here's a secret: it's because God doesn't exist, and in life, bad things happen to good people randomly. Grow the fuck up and make the world better instead of wishing to a fairy tale and falsely feeling good about yourself for doing absolutely nothing. You are why this planet sucks. Your religion is bad and you should feel bad."
Mean? Perhaps. The thing is, any early childhood specialist will tell you it's not good to let your young kids hold on to meaningless fantasies, imaginary friends, etc., and that they have to give them up to grow up and succeed in reality. Religion is essentially the same thing, for adults, and by telling them the simple reality that Jesus Claus doesn't exist, it might make them open their eyes and start trying to make the one life they get worthwhile, instead of just wasting time waiting for their reward in Heaven. Just because someone doesn't agree with your delusions doesn't make them evil, it makes them a freethinking independent, rather than a mindless sheep. Ignorance really is bliss, which is why you have to rudely awaken these followers into doing their own thing, following their OWN path. Sadly, most will end up like THIS:
I see it as a public service. If you don't want to hear it, well, that's just too fucking bad, GROW THE FUCK UP.
Death is only the beginning...
