The Futility of Prayers: Dialogue Between Jebus & St Michael

Prayers: With a approximately 6 billion humans or more on this planet, and more than a billion of them lovers of Jebus, it is quite mind-boggling to imagine how Jebus and his heavenly motley crew deals with the daily avalanche of prayers sent every god-damned single day. With millions of teary-eyed followers praying for all manner of divine intervention, sorting out prayers in accordance to urgency, priority and other standards becomes an insanely herculean task, pretty much like sorting out mails in a typical postal office.

From the starry-eyed teenager eying for a piece of Hollywood stardom to the hormone-driven stud hankering after a beautiful brunette next door, prayers are, by and large, mundane; others are more basic and rank low on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A boy who is malnourished and starving may be praying for a bowl of rice, while a thirsty peasant could be praying for rain in the parched deserts of Africa.

The question everyone should be asking at this point is: How does God, or the triumvirate of God-heads (Father, Son and Holy Ghost), set about answering prayers? We shall find out, in a moment.

(Scene: Its an ordinary day in heaven: Jebus struts along, with his gay-looking, thigh-length robe revealing his sexy legs, and whistles a light tune, humming along at various intervals, as he makes his way to the prayer department. Today, St Michael has his hands full: It is his duty this week, and his job, like the rest of the archangels, involves sorting out prayers from the mortal world with his own angelic crew.


Every single prayer uttered by Jebus lovers across the globe is magically transmuted into written prayer cards, which are then sorted out by befuddled angels who are swamped and inundated with millions of prayers every day. The myriad of prayers are as diverse as they come: Getting good results in schools, fucking the hot brunette next door, winning the next soccer game, and so on and so forth. After the prayers are sorted out, one of the three God heads will take turns to answer these prayers, which, sad to say, hardly ever happens, unless, of course, it involves slapping your opponent on the other cheek, or killing your neighbor's pet chihuahua........)

Jebus(Walks into Prayer Department): Hi, Mikey, its your turn for the prayer mail, isn't it, mate?

St Michael: Yes, my Lord.

Jebus: Alright, then (Turns towards the tons of prayer mails accumulating in a huge cage being sorted out by St Michael's angels). Boy, so many god-damned prayers. These bloody mortals!!!

St Michael: Yes, my Lord. My lads and I have been trying to sort them out for your perusal. Its a heck of a long list, and at this point we have something like 23 million, 523 thousand, 754 prayers on the list.

Jebus: That is for........?

St Michael: Today, my Lord.

Jebus (Throws hands up, goes absolutely bananas): Holy mother of Christ! What are these mortals thinking?

St Michael: I am sorry, my Lord, we are a bit short handed here. Perhaps you can help us here with the first batch of prayer lists.

Jebus (Sullen mood now): Alright alright, Mikey. These fucking imbecilical mortals have really spoilt my mood for the day.

St Michael: My Lord, here's the first prayer bag for the first shift. (Sticks hand into bag, grabs a handful of prayer cards) My Lord......

Jebus: Alright then, read the first prayer card to me.

St Michael: Yes, my Lord. This one is a from ten yr old kid, my Lord. Name's Ken, and he is praying to score good results for his term papers.

Jebus (Rolls eyes): Fuck that, good results my ass. When I was mortal in Nazareth, I wasn't even educated! Neither were my disciples. Pass my orders. Make sure he fails his term papers.

St Michael (Sighs): Thy will be done, my Lord. (Chucks away Ken's prayer card in a "condemned" bag, reads out new prayer card) The next one is from a pious monk from Sicily, Italy. Apparently he's been caught in some legal quagmire, my Lord. He's been molesting boys since he entered priesthood fifty years ago. Apparently some atheist legal group has gotten wind on his somewhat nefarious ways, my Lord, and are planning to sue him.....

Jebus (Snorts, interrupts angrily): Nefarious? What do you know, Mikey? Altar boys asses are such fine porcelains. Give that monk a break, damn those fucking atheists! I will personally smite their heathen asses with thy sword! Answer the prayer, St Michael: All the juries, lawyers and judges responsible for the persecution of this monk shall be smite to death by lightning And don't forget the fucking atheists! They deserve to die for not believing in my divinity!!!

St Michael: Thy will be done (Throws prayer card into "Prayer Answered" bag). Next prayer, my Lord: This woman is from Ethiopia. Apparently her town has been unduly punished by a year of severe drought: Nothing ever grows there, my lord, not even cactus, and she has lost 5 of her children out of her brood of ten. And the conditions are getting worst by the day, with the warlords coming in and grabbing what little they could rob and pillage.

Jebus (Laughs, gesticulates like a madman on Drugs): War! Pillage! Murder! Death! What are these fucking mortals complaining about? Killing five of her children is nothing, Michael! We of the Godfather clan, kill millions and millions of people every god-damn year! Five kids? She's lucky to have five less kids to feed! Damn ungrateful sods! Pass down my orders: I want her whole family killed, gutted and have their rotten corpses fed to the dogs! That's their penalty for being ungrateful ingrates!

St Michael: But, my Lord.....!

Jebus: Stop dilly dallying, Mikey, I haven't got time to waste! I have a food and sex orgy to attend to with my angelic cohorts!

St Michael: Alright, my Lord (Throws Prayer Card to "Condemned" Bag) This one is from a male stud from England. He prays everyday to fuck his brunette classmate. She's hot, sexy, and very much delectable, if you know what I mean.....

Jebus: Castrate him.

St Michael: What!?

Jebus: Fuck him, I say. Curse the guy with testicular cancer. He wants to have sex with that horny male stud, fine with me, but if he wishes to screw that dumb bitch with my blessings, he'd better be gay. Otherwise, be prepared to suffer the consequences of my wrath!

St Michael: Yes, my Lord, thy will be done.........

(& so the dreary and insipid day continues, with the majority of pious folks having their prayers unanswered, and a vast majority being punished for imposing themselves upon the divine tyrants in Paradise. Moral of the story? Stop Praying, unless you need to pray for murder, avarice, bloodshed, pedophilia and to top it all, gay sex.)

THE END

When Praying for Miracles Becomes a Dangerous Game of Life and Death

From time to time, atheists are often reminded, often quite incessantly, about the benefits of prayer and why we atheists should not abandon religion wholesale. In addition, religious folks are quite quick to inform nonbelievers about the perceived frivolity of atheism, that if death comes a-knocking we atheists will start getting scared shitless and go to our kneels and beg for a whole bagful of miracles.

This kind of asinine arguments are quite baseless, especially since there isn't any god to answer your prayers to start with. But generally, prayers are harmless, the ones which border on little else but a bit of a intellectual masturbation: Prayer to win soccer matches, prayer to screw that hot brunette next door, and so on and so forth.

That said, not all prayers are harmless, and some of them can be essentially harmful and deadly, especially when it comes to emergency situations. For example, when the house is on fire, the last thing you want to do is go down on your knees and start praying to some imaginary sky deity who, if he exists, wouldn't have started a fire in the first place and then begin a game of dice to decide whether your body deserves to be barbecued to a fried crisp or save you later for midnight supper.

In a life-and-death situation, every second counts for something, sometimes everything: In the few seconds it takes for you to pray for your incompetent sky deity, a window of opportunity for escape may be lost for good. And if you think that your sky daddy can save your ass from a burning bush then woe to you, I will say.

In sum, prayer doesn't work, and if you'd face a emergency whereby you need to take urgent action to save someone else's life or yours, please, for fuck's sake, do not stop for a wing and a prayer!

Pilot who paused to pray in emergency gets 10 years

A Tunisian pilot who paused to pray instead of taking emergency measures before crash-landing his plane, killing 16 people, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Italian court along with his co-pilot.

The 2005 crash at sea off Sicily left survivors swimming for their lives, some clinging to a piece of the fuselage that remained floating after the ATR turbo-prop aircraft splintered upon impact.

A fuel-gauge malfunction was partly to blame but prosecutors also said the pilot succumbed to panic, praying out loud instead of following emergency procedures and then opting to crash-land the plane instead trying to reach a nearby airport.

Another five employees of Tuninter, a subsidiary of Tunisair, were sentenced to between eight and nine years in jail by the court, in a verdict handed down yesterday.

The seven accused, who were not in court, will not spend time in jail until the appeals process has been exhausted.

Prayer Can Be Dangerous



"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."

Offering God On A Wing & A Prayer: Nurse Suspended for Offering Prayer to Patient

On a Wing & A Prayer: Proselytizing in Public Hospitals

Amongst the myriad of religious practices which are practiced by religions, prayer is one of the most sacred of duties: It is supposedly a two-way communication line between you and your favorite cosmic deity (although I tend to suspect prayer to be a one-way, nonreciprocating kind). Most prayers come in the form of accosting for divine favors, and people do pray for all kinds of divine intervention, from trivial nonsense such as winning football leagues to more serious endeavors, such as killing your enemy or seeking some form of a divine cure for supposedly incurable ailments.

Imagine this scenario: You are suffering from a terrible migraine, and here you are, taking your seat next to your doctor, who examines you, and instead of dispensing his expert medical advice and some prescription drugs, decides to offer you a free prayer for your health. Sounds familiar?

From time to time, most of us, I am sure, will encounter folks from the field of medicine who will take our religious liberties for granted. During my post-op visit to a hospital to have my stitches removed last year, I was attended to by a male nurse who, during the process of removing my stitches, decided I would do well with a bit of proselytizing. I wasn't very much offended, given the fact that my knee was at his mercy, but is the hospital the right institution for spreading religious dogma?

A nurse found out the answer the hard way, according to this BBC news article:

Nurse Suspended For Prayer Offer
1st Feb 2009

A Christian nurse from Weston-super-Mare has been suspended for offering to pray for a patient's recovery.

Community nurse Caroline Petrie, 45, says she asked an elderly woman patient during a home visit if she wanted her to say a prayer for her.

The patient complained to the health trust about Mrs Petrie who follows the Baptist faith.

She was suspended, without pay, on 17 December and will find out the outcome of her disciplinary meeting next week.

The Roles & Responsibilities of Hospital Staff

One stubborn trait that keeps cropping up in such delicate "religious" issues is that religious folks are very insistent in blurring the line drawn between Church & State, exploiting any crook and cranny to proselytize to unwary, secular citizens as well as citizens who somehow do not share their religious zeal.

Sure, these religious proselytizers have their right to spread the religious virus in their churches and to a certain extent, public places, but to allow for such unabashed pimping of God in secular, government institutions not only impedes important work, it breeds discontentment and intolerance towards other folks who do not share the same faith as the proselytizers who seek to shove religion down the throats of other people.

I have little doubt that Carrie Petrie is a well-meaning nurse and a devout Christian, but let's try to reverse the roles for the sake of argument: Suppose Carrie is the patient, and sitting next to her attending to her is a Muslim nurse who begins to rant about the virtues of Prophet Muhammad. Will the Muslim nurse be offending her religious sensitivities?

Clearly, the need for secularism and separation of church and state is evident here: It allows for the smooth running of the hospital, minus all the negative bias and unnecessary bickering arising from religious disputes, thus allowing the hospital to function normally.

In short, being a government entails certain conformance to rules and regulations, and that includes not proselytizing to folks when you are dispensing government service. For the nurse in question, that means no proselytizing to patients, which she had quite willingly and blatantly commit.

The Faith of Patients?

The moment a patient steps into a medical institution, he or she no longer places faith in cosmic deities: After all, if you really trust in God to deliver you from the pain and suffering caused by your ailments, why would you visit a doctor, instead of a priest?

To put it bluntly, why should God bother to inflict disease upon you, only to have you find a cure from a priest? A case of divine sadism on the cards?

Sure, religious folks who are inevitably cured of their ailments by doctors will attribute their convalescence to some invisible deity. Faith, it seems, is dispensable when life-and-death is at stake, but upon recovery, the good doctor is all but forgotten, his actions replaced by the wild imaginations of a supposedly loving, powerful deity.

Keeping Government Institutions Secular

The need to maintain equality and bi-partisanship is the basis of government institutions, such as hospitals. Hospitals should be dispensing medical care and services, not prayers and dogma. Sectarian religions should never be allowed to be dispensed by medical professionals and government staff.

While the fundamentalists may decry secular rules as being infringements upon their religious rights, I am quite sure that they will also be the same folks who will complain vehemently if someone else who is of a different faith from theirs attempts to shove down religion down their throats. These folks simply want the government to indulge in their fantasy entities at the expense of the rights of others.

If indeed patients are really so confident of their respective deities, they should be visiting the Churches, not hospitals.

And finally, if prayers do work, not a single hospital we see today will be left standing today. We'd all be cured on a wing and a prayer.

Prayers Don't Work.......




-"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
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