Faith is a measure of irrationality

[Tonus]

So, there is an instance of the "person" who flat out didn't believe. I'm assuming now that you have to believe in prayer to have it work for you. Now there is a factor for you to chew on, why prayer doesn't work in 'every' instance.

This is the kind of reasoning that helped me to free myself from religion. Notice that you have these occasions when prayer doesn't work, and your reaction was to come up with an explanation for why it didn't work that still supports the notion that it does. I saw this kind of reaction all the time when I was a believer. To me and my fellow Christians, god always answered our prayers. It was simply a matter of interpreting his motives:

- If we prayed for A and got it, god answered the prayer.
- If we prayed for A and did not get it, god withheld A from us for our own good. Therefore, he answered the prayer.
- If we prayed for A and got B, god felt that B was the better option for us and gave us that instead. Therefore, he answered the prayer.
- If we prayed for A and nothing happened, then it's not time for god to provide us with A, and we simply need to be patient. But he will answer that prayer. An alternative would be to claim that god doing nothing was the answer, and thus he answered the prayer by not answering it.

There may even be other options. The effect of this is that the believer has his belief reinforced by making the circumstances fit his belief system no matter what happens. These "coincidences" are used to strengthen the faith that was used to interpret the circumstances so that they support the person's beliefs. As with so many things, we do not apply this kind of thinking to our everyday life-- people who think like this in other areas of life are considered to be conspiracy theorists or crackpots. But if we apply it to religion, it becomes an admirable quality: faith.