Local Bumper Sticker: "Prayer: The Only Defense Against Evil"

One may pray and pray and nothing that happens can with any certainty be said to have been brought about "because" of the prayer: that is post hoc reasoning. "I prayed and God granted my prayer" in addition to being solipsistic can only be a falsehood when one considers the statistical improbabilities involved. A poor man might pray for a fortune. The following day, a rich uncle dies and leaves him a mint. The poor man got what he wanted, but at what a cost! So, blaming himself for his uncle's death, the poor man shoots himself. "How sad," the grave digger observes. "Poor fellow having a brain aneurism." The logical problems inherent in claiming that prayer is efficacious keep it from proof: as with all things not proved, its failure lay in the complete absence of scientific evidence. When hospitalized persons were prayed for they did worse than those who were not, similarly situated.

Bill Burroughs once said we could pray in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up faster. Precisely.