Bumper Sticker: Real Men Pray

The older I get the more troubled I become over the idea of prayer.  Apart from the likelihood that we are merely talking to ourselves, there's the question of why people do it at all.  Why does anyone want to have a one-way "conversation" with an all-powerful Creator who apparently has nothing better to do than listen to petitioners?  And what on earth does anyone say--besides the recital of memorized words?  The worst possible excuse for praying is to ask for favors, the supreme gesture of pure selfishness, whether one prays for himself or his friends and relatives--or even large classes and groups of people.  And judging from His total indifference to the prayers for it, God clearly doesn’t think much about world peace.

About the only reason I can think of to pray is to say thank you.  If there's a Creator, He or She will be pleased to hear a thank you once in a while.  That much I'm sure of.  But so many people have such a litany of suffering—chronic diseases, death of children and parents, no jobs, no education, drug dependencies, the list of horrors never ends—that I often wonder what on earth they could be thanking God for.  Sometimes it seems people should be cursing Him for what He’s done to them, which makes more sense than thanking Him for their suffering.  Maybe real men don’t pray:  If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.