Prayer

[Cyberman]

Personally, it's when they tell me they'll pray for me that I find insulting, depending on the context. See, it comes in several flavours. First, there's the standard kneejerk prayer offer for when there's nothing else to say; that's fine. "You'll be in my prayers for your tragedy" doesn't really hurt anyone. I find it personally ludicrous, and rather insulting if they're using my own circumstances as a proselytising platform, but if gives them comfort to say it then they can fill their boots.

Then we have the "let's all wish as hard as we can until we get whatever result we're trying to get", basically designed to make a person feel like they're achieving something or giving something back when really they haven't done a thing; like this I adapted from my FB wall:



A conscience salve. To which I ask, where is Madeleine McCann?

But then there's the "there's something wrong with you and your opinions that doesn't match up to my standards, so I'm going to make it obvious to you that you need fixing" flavour. That does leave a bad taste in the mouth, frankly.

The ultimate "I'll pray for you" comes when the person has lost whatever point they were trying to make and knows it, so throws it out like the Holy Handgrenade of Antioch; a sort of scorched-Earth "fuck you".