Subject and Expectation:
In this third part of our series on the harmful toxicity of religion, we will be defining how it blatantly promotes helplessness in humans instead of encouraging people to cultivate the strength that they have inside to handle life. We will be analyzing this accusation on religious dogma and it is our hope that the reader walks away with at least a more realistic view of religion and faith in today’s world. You can find our previous article in this series here: Reason Number Two Why Religion is Toxic and Harmful – Breeds Traumatic Levels of Fear-based Guilt and Shame.
Rocky Balboa
My father raised me on the story of Rocky Balboa; the inspiring lessons of digging deep and finding the strength inside of you to keep moving forward when faced with adversity. To never give up, no matter what. These fictional stories gave me a powerful inspiration to use my internal resources of passion and drive when life gets hard.
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was June of 1979. My father took my brother and me to see Rocky II for the first time. The theater was completely packed and almost no seats were open. As long as I live I will never forget what happened in that movie theater that day.
The first film had won the Academy Award for Best Picture just three years prior and completely captured hearts all over the world. The anticipation of the sequel was so thick in the world you could almost touch it. We had all been waiting impatiently to see what the character would do next.
After the workout scene where he is preparing for the second fight with Apollo Creed, Rocky then begins running in the streets of Philadelphia. He starts being followed by a group of kids. More begin to follow. He ends up being joined by a herd of children. The excitement in the theater begins to grow more and more. By the time Rocky and the hundreds of children are running up the stairs, the people in the theater were literally standing up all over, clapping and yelling with pure elation.
The management actually had to stop the movie for a moment and announce over the loudspeaker that if everyone didn’t calm down to where people could hear the movie, then they were going to have to stop it. Over half of the audience was standing and cheering. I remember thinking to myself how crazy it was that a simple story about a fictional character motivated people to such a degree where they acted like this. Where WE acted liked this. Needless to say, as a six-year-old boy, I was also up out of my seat cheering with excitement with everyone else. It’s one of my fondest memories of my childhood.
The moral of these Rocky movies and the heart of the story is to believe in the power of yourself. This is why everyone in that theater in 1979 was so excited. They witnessed an unbelievable example of how the beautiful human spirit can move us to do great things. Just look at how far humankind has evolved because it simply refuses to be stagnant. Its is part of our DNA.
That extreme level of excitement was present in the audience that day because when motivated by optimistic inspiration in ourselves, we see the potential that all of us have in us to do amazing things. Later on in the movie series, Rocky is having a conversation with his troubled son. In his well-known inspirational speech to him about handling life’s problems, he tells us that
“…it ain’t about how hard you can hit, its about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”
– Rocky Balboa
This picture that I framed is hanging at the bottom of the stairs in our home to remind our sons of this optimistic inspiration every morning when they get up.
Religion Encourages Helplessness
Why did I choose to tell that story? Simple. To emphasize the fact that this is the exact opposite of what religion teaches. The principles of faith are based on praying for help with everything, praying for guidance with every decision in life, as opposed to believing that you have the ability inside of you to make it through a particular trial of life. Prayer is the answer to everything for most religious people, even in the minutest things in life.
This breeds a trait of helplessness in a person when they feel that they can never make their own mind up about anything in their life without consulting an imaginary entity or a holy book. Again, I understand completely that there are times in our lives when we just can’t handle something and turn to prayer. But overall, in the grand scheme of things, religion is harmful to our personal belief in our own capabilities and in ourselves. It is toxic to our evolution as a species.
Why Do Some Feel That Prayer Works?
For many years I wanted to learn the practice of yoga. I’m happy to say that within the last year I have become a total Yogi. There will be many articles on this in the future. In the practice of yoga, clearing your mind and concentrating on mastering stillness and control is what it’s all about. It’s not very hard to understand the benefits that come from these things.
During a yoga workout or a session of meditation, there are many moments where you’re holding a pose in concentration, and there is a huge emphasis placed on clearing your mind throughout your whole workout. The concept is that when you step on your mat, the world around you stops and you concentrate on just you…your inner peace. If you have ever tried yoga, then you are aware of how you feel when you walk away from a workout; refreshed, content, relaxed, at ease, and essentially an overwhelming feeling of peace.
Does this sound familiar? This is the same effect that praying has on a person of faith. When a person prays, think about what they’re doing? It is essentially a session of meditation for them. They come away from a session of prayer feeling the exact same things as mentioned above.
In 2014, nbc.com published an article entitled “Power of Prayer: What Happens to Your Brain When You Pray?” The discussion was centered around the studies of Dr. Andrew Newberg of Thomas Jefferson Hospital. Newberg has been studying the effect of prayer on the human brain for more than 20 years. The outcome of his research basically proved that when a person prays, their brain changes.
Article excerpt: These changes, says Newberg, are signs of the power of prayer to heal. Said Newberg, “We see not only changes in the activity levels, but in different neurotransmitters, the chemicals in our brain.”
Because the brain (grammatical mistake here, missing the word control perhaps?) basic body functions like heart rate, blood pressure, and the immune system, he said, “there’s evidence to show that by doing these practices, you can cause a lot of different changes all the way throughout the body, which could have a healing effect.”
However, they then highlight a statement made by Dr. Richard Sloan that shows another way to view Dr. Newberg’s findings.
Article excerpt: “Your brain changes when you eat chocolate,” said Dr. Richard Sloan, author of “Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine. “The brain changes when anything happens … There’s nothing special about showing brain changes when people pray.”
Article excerpt: Sloan says that while religion provides comfort to believers during times of stress, they “shouldn’t practice religion because it’s like some sort of cosmic vending machine in which you can deposit a coin to get a health benefit.”
What do we take away from these two viewpoints? It is extremely interesting that Newberg devoted so much time to this research, and I actually was very intrigued with his findings that prayer has a direct effect on the chemicals in the brain, producing a feeling of peace and happiness in the person. Nonetheless, I feel that Dr. Sloan’s thinking is the point to be taken away here. While it is true that the act of prayer has a direct effect on the neurotransmitters in the brain of the person doing the praying, giving them a feeling of elation and comfort that can inevitably kick start a deeper healing process, this still has nothing to do with God.
The healing process is not stimulated or caused by God answering a prayer. It is simply the chemical and psychological effects that the person induced themselves, drawing the comfort from a session of meditation and stillness, focusing on their faith in their God that brought them this comfort and stillness.
I see this as one of those points of logical reasoning that is so simple to understand if we stop and actually allow ourselves to agree that it’s all explained science. However, much easier said than done for people that are extremely indoctrinated.
So. Let’s talk about the big question now.
Does Prayer Really Work?
In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins documented the results of a very interesting experiment on the subject of whether or not prayer works. He described how a team set forth to test experimentally the proposition that praying for sick patients improves their health or that it was somehow evident that God had intervened, answering prayers. There were three groups of people and three scenarios…funded by a foundation and driven by a team of researchers, doctors, physicists, and a religious scientist. 1,802 patients were monitored at six hospitals, all of whom received coronary bypass surgery. The patients were divided into three groups.
Group 1 received prayers and didn’t know it.
Group 2 (the control group) received no prayers and didn’t know it.
Group 3 received prayers and did know it.
Three congregations of churches were involved, one in Minnesota, one in Massachusetts and one in Missouri, all distant from the three hospitals. The praying individuals, as explained, were given only the first name and initial letter of the surname of each patient for whom they were to pray.
The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear-cut and with no surprise, from a scientific standpoint. There was absolutely no difference in the health or healing process between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not. Out of 1,802 patients that were prayed for by hundreds of people asking God to intervene in their healing process, there wasn’t one single evident difference between the groups.
What did this prove? His experiment proved that no amount of praying will ever amount to any results whatsoever, in regards to God doing anything. As mentioned above, it is nothing more than an element of comfort that praying gives a person doing the praying or the one being prayed for, feeling and believing that something is going to fix their problem in some way.
Interestingly enough in the experiment, those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications than those who did not.
In Conclusion:
In regards to climate change. we are in the middle of a very serious problem with our planet and our future existence. Scientists have proven repeatedly that it is a real problem. I read the other day that a large group of scientists are estimating a possible end of civilization by 2050. A fairly unbiased discussion was posted on newscientist.com this past June can be found here. Livescience.com also posted a chilling article predicting possible future living situations all over the world due to our changing climate; it can be found here.
These are real problems, that an imaginary entity cannot and will not fix. This supposed divine entity has never cared before to intervene in natural disasters, widespread death by cancer, cases of child molestation, or the millions of miscarriages that have happened. We need to work together and believe in ourselves to fix this problem. We need to realize that if we don’t do something soon, instead of going to a building of worship and talking about the same old tired things over and over again, this problem will not get fixed. We have the power as a collective species to fix most things.
I want to make it very clear that I am no way ignoring that the simple act of praying does have some benefit to people on a psychological level. Without even considering whether or not prayer works, there will always be people in the world that need prayer for the comfort it brings them personally. I have said this before but it merits reiteration. In no way does this article or any other article posted on this website expect that a person can simply read one piece of information and just immediately decide to walk away from religion. Religion has a strong grasp on the world and it has for centuries. Humankind as a whole was indoctrinated thousands of years ago to believe that it needs religion to survive.
This is not an easy task, suggesting to someone that they could have a better life without faith in a higher power. Just like anything in our lives that plays a part in defining who we are and what we stand for, even just the thought of trying to live your life without religion or faith can almost shake some to their core. Our intent is always nothing less than trying to help people see other options to live their life. The goal of this website and The Small Town Humanist family will always be to encourage continual evolution and growth together, utilizing what is within us. Humanists believe strongly in continually bettering themselves through learning, experiencing life, and working together in empathetic love with all of humankind.
Thanks, well written and balanced article.