On May 1st, National Day of Prayer, we were told by religious leaders that we need to pray more.

My engineering background prompted me to immediately ask: How do they know?

Even more to the point, how can they tell what the right amount of prayer is? How do they know if people are praying too little, or even too much? Is there a quota system? And just who is keeping score of prayers -- is there a holy word processor keeping statistics?

How does it work? Do all prayers count equally? Do long prayers count the same as short prayers? Do loud prayers count the same as quiet ones? Does 100 people praying once equal 1 person praying 100 times? Do broadcasted prayers count more, varying with program ratings? If a believer is too injured to pray, can a designated prayer substitute be used? Does praying experience improve the score?

And what about subject? Do all prayer subjects count equally? Does a prayer for world peace count the same as a prayer for a monthly period? If one person prays for rain, and another for sun, what happens? Do opposite prayers cancel each other out, like votes?

What about language usage - length of words, misspellings, bad grammar, clarity of thought? (No, scratch "clarity of thought" - that's silly.)

And who needs to be prayed to? Do all characters count the same? God, Jesus, Holy Ghost, Mary, Joseph, Adam, Moses, Madeline, Great Spirit, Not-so-Great Spirit, Saints-by-the-Gross? Are we supposed to pray to them all at once, or rotate, or pick one at random, or go with personal favorites? Do they each like different kinds of prayers, or is it all the same to them?

This prayer stuff gets real complicated, real fast. Having never seen the scoring system, I don't understand. But if religious leaders say we need more prayers, maybe we should just accept it on faith. NOT!

"Gentleman Jim Heldberg" writes from his favorite City by The Bay, and welcomes mail at jheldberg@atheists.org.

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