© Darius A Irani, 2023
War and Genocide in the twentieth century inflicted a mind boggling degree of suffering on our species. For the first time, civilian deaths in warfare would outpace that of combatants. For example, in WWII there were 23 Million military deaths vs 53 Million civilian. A staggering ratio of more than two civilians dead for each soldier killed. The total number of war related deaths during the whole century is about 140 Million. Applying the above ratio suggests that 100 Million non-combatants died as a direct consequence of war during the Twentieth century. A further 122 Million were killed by genocide. Taken together, 222 Million men women and children were never given a chance to live their lives to a natural conclusion. Let us assume that 22 Million of these were non believers in any kind of higher power (God, if you will), and another 50 Million were too young to know better. Drop another 50 Million as being just casual believers. This still leaves us with about 100 Million devout believers in some higher power, whose lives were prematurely snuffed out in very brutal ways. These were not just the Judaeo-Christian victims of Hitler’s cruelty. In reality, Mao and Stalin’s madness/brutality make Hitler look like a boy scout. Consequently, the ‘higher power’ that these 100 Million victims worshipped was quite varied. For our purposes it suffices that a god was worshipped and believed in.
These 100 Million were serious believers. They faithfully attended all the prescribed services. They sat, stood, knelt and genuflected as was required of them. They intoned all the prayers, sang all the songs, rang bells, burned incense, prayed to idols and adhered to all the rites and rituals. Heck, some of them even practiced symbolic cannibalism. They started doing this when they were hardly old enough to understand what they were doing and continued until they could barely remember why they were doing it. What they expected in return was that if the brown stuff ever hit the fan, this almighty GOD they worshipped would step up to the line and save them. Well, during that century, the brown stuff hit the fan in unimaginably copious quantities, and not a single one of them was saved. Not one. To the rational mind only two possibilities present themselves. Either, there is no God and any effort exerted in praying to one is an exercise in futility. Or, there is a God, but he is so callous and indifferent to our condition, that it is sheer arrogance to believe that he will pay any attention to our piddly supplications when he ignored the dying cries of a 100 Million devotees.
The three major religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - suggest a third possibility. There is a God, and, as unlikely as it may seem, he is loving and caring. But, he marches to the drum beat of his own plan. Sadly, we mere mortals are not wise enough to understand his master plan and so have not been sent the relevant memo. We must take it on faith that the plan is perfect and is being executed correctly. Embodied in this plan is the explanation for all the pain and suffering around us. The madness, the inhumanity, the brutality and selfishness all perfectly explained but hidden from us. So, where does prayer fit into this paradigm - arguably nowhere - because, if what one is praying for is part of THE plan, then the prayer is redundant. It will come to pass anyway. Conversely, if it is not part of THE plan then at least a hundred million anguished souls would admonish you to stop wasting your precious time praying for it to happen.
Prayer in the context of a natural disaster is even more controversial - the recent hurricane Ian is a good example. For starters, no known storm has ever spontaneously dissipated itself in a puff of smoke. They always make a painful and destructive landfall somewhere. So, praying that a storm misses you is the same as praying that it hits one of your neighbors instead. Probably not quite the purpose prayer was invented for! Secondly, what exactly controls the path of a hurricane? Is it the myriad of meteorological variables that constitute our weather, or is it some powerful hand of a divine entity that steers it this way or that? If it is the latter, then it would explain why meteorologists are so inept at getting their predictions right. Those silly people are using mathematical equations to try and predict divine behavior. Good luck with that. Finally, what are the poor suffering people in Ft. Myers Beach to make of all this? Why were their prayers less acceptable than say those of the faithful in Tampa (the original destination of the hurricane)? Why did some hand reach out and turn the storm South Eastwards thus sparing Tampa and demolishing them? Did the many Gods have an arm wrestling contest, and the guy from Tampa won? Or, should they be questioning their devotion to this savior who again didn’t bother to turn up when he was desperately needed?
Politicians on the other hand have mastered the exploitation of our belief in prayer. The expression “Thoughts and prayers” seems to date back to the revolutionary war. For obvious reasons it resurfaced during the civil war. It then went dormant until about 1999 when Clinton is supposed to have revived it - probably in the context of the Columbine shooting. It has since become the default act of inaction when dealing with mass shootings. Our conservative legislators aver that to take actual action for gun control would violate the second amendment. What they really don’t want to violate is the wazoo of the goose that is laying them golden eggs. Without the support of the gun lobby their re-election coffers would be significantly leaner. Consequently, as long as their constituents believe that praying and thinking are meaningful and sufficient actions, they will happily oblige them, and do little else. As long as half of America believes that the ability to take a life is more important than living without fear, the politicians will continue to appeal to divinities to solve a problem of our own making, and well within our own ability to solve.
All very enigmatic and even borderline irrational!