We have been travelling with a recently widowed Cuban friend who is making spiritual pilgrimages to his Alma Mater which was a monastery that had a college at one time. We also visited his old haunts from 50 years ago. I guess he is processing grief somehow.
Catholics are an interesting bunch. The faith is very strict - at least on paper - but many I know are anything but devout. Some are divorced, others haven't attended mass in years (or go on Easter and Christmas and that's it). Others profess to be agnostics or even atheists - while still proclaiming to be Catholic. Some of these agnostics are even Nuns, Priests, or Monks. It is an interesting religion.
One quote my friend told me sort of stuck with me. A famous Nun noted that, according to the Bible, God is omniscient and sees all and knows all. He is also infallible as well - he makes no mistakes and has no "do overs" although the Bible seems to have a few of the latter (Noah and the flood, Sending Jesus to fix things, etc.).
The point was, if God has decided something should be so (e.g., little Timmy gets cancer) then praying to God to cure him is asking God to change his mind when he already made it up. If you think about it, it seems kind of pointless. For whatever reason, God decided little Timmy had to suffer and die, and here you are asking him for a second chance. God doesn't change his mind - he is infallible, right?
Of course, atheists would note that the whole argument is hooey and that the law of probability made little Timmy sick, not God, and that medical treatment might save Timmy more that praying would. But that's just being logical, and religion, like all belief systems, collapses under the scrutiny of logic.
This is not to say that prayer is worthless. Well, it is when it is used like a letter to Santa Claus, asking for favors or new toys. I kid you not about the latter - many fundamentalists will pray for a new car, and when they go and buy one with their own money they claim that "Jesus gave us this car!" I have witnessed that firsthand.
Some fundamentalists would posit that God will change his mind, but only if you pray and are one of his anointed favorites. This posits that God is a cruel and shallow God, who only does good things for those who fawn over him. Oddly enough, the most religious people in the world (of all stripes) are the poor. Clearly prayer isn't working out for them - or maybe God just hates poor people, right?
But prayer, as a means of meditation and contemplation, can be productive. In our visits to various holy shrines, I found them to be very calming and contemplative places which were conducive to introspection and careful reflection. When one prays, perhaps, one thinks about what they are praying for and realize what best course of action to take as a result. As a form of meditation, it could indeed work miracles, not by changing God's mind, but by changing yours.
God is not the answer-man, and giving up on real action in life and instead relying on prayer isn't what God wanted. After all, he did give us self-determination, right? So maybe rather than sitting on our hands and hoping it all works out for the best and have God fix things at the last minute, we should do something, instead.
Just a thought - or a prayer.
