Skeptico points us to yet another example of the failure of the power of prayer:
I am listening to a gospel track on a local radio station. The lyrics are as follows: “This year is ours and in faith we will claim whatever belongs to us Ghanaians.”
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There is a lot of praying. Last night there were all night prayer services and radio phone-ins are asking people from all religious backgrounds to offer prayers for our team’s success.I am amazed at the level of optimism here. I am being cautious because anything can happen but I believe, like many Ghanaians, that we can win this match. I will watch it in the Osu district, where I watched our last match, as this has been a lucky place to see the games so far.
Ghana was up against Brazil and got their asses handed to them in a 3 to 0 loss. Now I suppose it could be that the Brazilians were also praying for their team and perhaps it’s a case of them managing, somehow, to pray harder or in greater numbers that they were able to overcome the effect of the Ghanaians’ prayers. Or maybe the Ghanaians weren’t as pious as God would’ve liked or maybe they pissed God off by praying for something that, in the grand scheme of things, is not really all that important and could even be considered selfish. Maybe God doesn’t give enough of a shit about soccer to bother getting involved. Or, most likely of all the possibilities, maybe praying just doesn’t work.
I’ve always found praying for a sporting match to be—profoundly goofy, at best, and a shadow of Twain’s “War Prayer” at worst.
But I have some odd (and not necessarily coherent) views on intercessory prayer to begin with, so don’t pay too much attention to me.