Prayer Requests

[My imaginary friend is GOD]

When people ask me to pray for ______ on Facebook, I don't want to be a jerk, but I kind of feel like they should know that magic only works in fairy tales. I know they're in a place of pain, but they should ask for people's support dealing with the situation, which can actually help, not for people to talk to their imaginary friends. How should I respond to prayer requests?

[Something completely different]

I never was asked to pray for anyone.


The entire concept sound weird............................... and american.

[Nine]

I usually just ignore those kinds of things. If they keep doing it they'd get blocked. There aren't any people I know who I both like enough to add on Facebook and are irritating enough to ask me to pray for their shit.

[Minimalist]

Prayer is nothing but talking to yourself.

[wandering soul]

When people ask me to pray for ______ on Facebook, I don't want to be a jerk, but I kind of feel like they should know that magic only works in fairy tales. I know they're in a place of pain, but they should ask for people's support dealing with the situation, which can actually help, not for people to talk to their imaginary friends. How should I respond to prayer requests?

What they're really doing is reaching out to other humans for support. They have learned in their particular cultural and social environment to express that in terms of "please pray for ......" Just translate that into your own frame of reference as "please keep me in mind with positive thoughts I need people around supporting me right now"

And of course you don't need to respond at all. On Facebook non-response is sort of standard. But if they are in fact a real friend for whom you care and to whom you do want to respond, you can respond honestly from your own frame of reference something like: "hey I'm thinking of you in your difficult situation"

The point of the request is to gather human support, you can give that support in your own way.

[Gooders1002]

Play to end religion lol

[Kayenneh]

I agree with WS. Prayer is silly, but it is never wrong to show that you care and say a kind word to someone in need. If you have nothing good to say, then you let it be

[hockeymonk]

Usually I take it just for a figure of speech. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[Angrboda]

I find the standard phrases "I'm sorry to hear that X" and "I hope that Y" tend to be very useful and serve comparable functions.

[Zen Badger]

I always get pissed off at the ones that are along the line of "this baby needs your prayers to get better"

Well if god were going to fix the kid because of prayer why did he give it the disease in the first place?

I"ll usually post something like "Empty prayers won't save this child,only science will"

And I noticed that when JP2 was dying all the millions of prayers for him did fuck all.