On the lunacy of prayer

[slartibartfast]

And it's not just offending sensibilities. Christianity stipulates that if you believe in Jesus, you will be a moral, happy, fulfilled person who will go on to live in immortality in the most wonderful place imaginable, however if you don't you won't be any of those things ie. amoral, unfulfilled and ultimately going to hell - definitely not good daughter marrying material.

On the "not substitute for initiative" part, I am sorry, but I have experienced this first hand many times. The guy who came up to me and my wife in the supermarket to pray for her arthritic knee definitely did think that his action was a substitute for initiative. So you can develop your own flavour of "prayer ethic" but the fact is that millions of Christians do pray for sick family members, and not because it causes them to take initiative but because they believe that this increases their loved ones' chance of survival.

I'm not sure how well aligned this (bold) is with biblical passages.  Our modern concept of happiness and fulfillment seems different than the version described in the bible.

Prayer seems to serve many roles if you review the history of Christianity.  Being thankful is one of those and I have nothing critical to say about that.  We should all be thankful regardless of our spiritual beliefs.  Our lives are but a tenuous blip on reality.  Nature cares nothing for us and would end any one of us in an instant if we happen to be in the wrong place.  Nothing is guaranteed in our life and every day we experience happiness is something to be celebrated (if you value such a thing).  But being thankful can come in many ways and the Christian idea of prayer is but one.  And I've always been amused by the need Christians feel to pray audibly and publicly (often holding hands or raising the hands) when they also claim that god knows what they are thinking.  Wouldn't god know if you were genuinely thankful or concerned for a loved one?

I  have no problem with being thankful. Being regularly thankful naturally focuses the mind on the "good" things in your life and strengthens / reinforces positivity. But in the words of Richard: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”. My point being it isn't being thankful to God specifically that brings the benefit, but just being mindful / thankful of good things you have in general. I would wager that most Christians would insist that their strength comes from God exclusively.

Your comment re. praying audibly / publicly probably stems in part from the indoctrination process. How does a parent know the child is praying properly and for the right things? How do you "prove" to other Christians that you are praying (and therefore strengthen the communal bond). If everyone always prayed silently and without any physical gestures at all, a lot of the societal / communal "common language" would be lost. 

Your comment also made me think another crazy thought. That which relates to people always looking up when they are talking to / thinking of God. Clearly that comes from the outdated concept that the Earth is flat, infinitely deep and they believed that good things (ie. Heaven, God) must be in the "sky" and bad things (Hell, the Devil) must be within the earth. I don't think that modern Christians still believe that Hell is somehow located within the Earth itself, or God or Heaven are floating in the sky somewhere, but the concept still prevails. The other funny thing is if God IS concentrated more in some areas in the universe than others (and not uniformly distributed) then where? Maybe praying downwards would actually give you the best bang for your buck