Harmful Prayers
Can the call for divine intervention be a cause of harm? God only knows.
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Peter Coghill, Nick Hare and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing paying to pray. Nick, this means nothing to me. What are we talking about?
Speaker B:Well, loyal listener Chris has written to us to ask our opinions about an interesting paper that was published recently by Thernstrom & Noy in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which looked at willingness to pay for prayers. So in other words, if prayers are being offered for you, would you be willing to part with cash in order to receive those prayers or not? And it turned out, and perhaps this isn't terribly surprising, but Christians would be willing to pay to have someone pray for them. Whether or not that goes against any kind of Christian doctrine, I don't know. The Council of Trent? Right, because I thought we'd abolished this several hundred years ago, but no. Perhaps more surprising is that atheists are on average willing to pay for someone not to pray for them. Anyway, we could talk about that if you like. It's of moderate interest, I think, not terribly exciting. But when I was in correspondence with him, I said, well, this is interesting because that suggests that prayer harms atheists. So if you're out there- That thing that I don't believe in can harm me. That you're being harmed by it because you would be willing to pay to remove it. And that's, to me, just a very natural economic definition of harm. If you would be willing to part with resources to prevent something happening, that thing is harming you, one way or the other. And this was the more interesting question to me because, of course, his response was completely reasonably, don't be silly. How is that harming someone praying for them, regardless of whether they'd be willing to pay to stop someone doing it? In what sense at all is that harm? But that did make me think, given that the economic definition is really neat and coherent. And I mean, in the economic definition, really, we don't- Of harm? Well, yeah, of harm being essentially something which gives you negative utility. Even bodily harm is not significant, like physical harm. That's only a means to the end of giving you the actual harm, which is a thing you don't like. Bodily harm wouldn't matter if we weren't bothered by it. We don't mind losing our fingernails or getting our hair cut.
Speaker C:Or getting our ears pierced or injected with immunizations.
Speaker B:So the point is that bodily harm, in the economic sense, is really only a means to the end of the kind of utility harm. But obviously, we need to make laws and stuff about harm. It's a very important concept in the history of political thought. What is it? Can we do better than just
Speaker C:something you'd be willing to pay to stop? I mean, I think it's quite interesting to look at this theologically as well. And the fact that, first of all, there is precedence for people historically, as I alluded to previously, of paying for indulgences in the Catholic tradition. And that that was abolished in the 16th century at the Council of Trent, by and large. And a response to that, to the perceived wrongness of that, was the whole Reformation movement and the birth of Protestantism. But there was a monastic economy, certainly in the early Middle Ages, where people paid other people to conduct prayer for them, in order to, as they saw it, remove harm to them. Because what they were concerned about was the duration they would have to spend in purgatory, in order to make up for their earthly sins. And they felt, by paying for this prayer, they were actually reducing spiritual harm. Right? So, you know, it's consistent with that theological narrative. But then you have the reverse, you know, coming back to the atheists. You have this sort of notion of religion and sort of imposing religion on somebody, potentially by praying for them, as causing spiritual harm. And you look at things like the Spanish Inquisition and forced conversions. And that being perceived at the time as preventing harm to those individuals who were praying to the wrong religion, because they were going to hell, and we've saved them from hell. But now, in fact, the Canadian Anglican Church has recently apologised to Indigenous, you know, Canadian people, the Inuit and First Nations and so on, for the spiritual harm they caused, by doing precisely that, by indoctrinating them
Speaker B:Christianity against their will. But hold on, what about First Nations Christians?
Speaker C:How do they feel about it? Right, well, I don't know, they probably weren't asked about this.
Speaker B:But they presumably would have to sign up to the fact that they were saved. I mean, assuming that they see the Lord Jesus Christ as their saviour, they would have to sign up to that.
Speaker C:Maybe they want an apology for the apology. But the point is, this notion...
Speaker B:They should get an apology from their elders for teaching them a load of lies back in the
Speaker C:olden days, before the Christians turned up. Quite, but this idea of spiritual harm, which can be converted into economic cost, because, you know, the Crusaders of old would have paid substantial amounts of money to, you know, bequeath the building of a monastery or a cathedral or something like that, in order... Now, they were supposed to be charitable donations, which then so happened to be converted into prayer. It wasn't the buying of indulgences, supposedly, but it was the buying of indulgences. So this interaction between reducing spiritual harm and financial transaction is much older than... It's been going on a while, yeah. Peter?
Speaker D:Well, I'm definitely of the atheist camp who would pay Christians not to pray for me, but I would... It's not so much as direct harm directly to me. I don't see there's any link there. For me, it's more... They could make better use of their time. So I'd pay them to do something else. Maybe I'd pay for their charitable donations, or they could go and do some work or something to give something actually concrete and meaningful, in my opinion. Well, just donating money, just doing some work to earn some money that they... Helping the homeless or... Helping the homeless or something like that. Not animal charity, that's a waste of time. So for me, it's much more of a sort of effective altruism-like approach. I suppose if I was Christian, I'd be a Methodist, because it's more about my actions rather than my thoughts. But yeah, to me, that's the mechanism. It's like, if you're praying, you're not doing something more useful. It's a frivolous activity.
Speaker B:But I think the point is that Christians get value from praying as well. Presumably a Christian is in some way enjoys praying for people. And I mean enjoys in a very loose economic sense. Like they would rather pray for someone, do some praying than not pray. So I mean, they are benefiting. And you... I mean, there's a lot of things that people do, which aren't helping people, but you're not worked up about that. Like someone who's just sitting on their sofa, not praying, is doing the same amount of good as someone who is praying. So why pick on the person who's praying and get all worked up about them and not just the person who's doing
Speaker C:nothing? Because if your worldview is that there is an afterlife, and there is harm that can come to you in that afterlife, and in fact, you know, this life is the tip of the iceberg, really, then, you know, it very much makes sense for you to pray for yourself. And it's extremely altruistic to pray for other people. I think that we've got a confusion about
Speaker A:what prayer actually is and what it's for. But we can come on to that in a moment. Peter,
Speaker D:you come in. Yeah. So I think the payment really, in my mind, would be to enable them to do something useful. So yes, I'm quite happy for people to doss around and do nothing, contribute but if you're willing to contribute, and you're thinking about praying, I'll bung you a couple of quid to go and do something useful. Like get on a bus and go somewhere and help someone. Yeah, to me, it seems frivolous. You know, when I'm feeling particularly anti-religious, it feels pretty selfish thing to do is pray because you are doing it for your own kind of
Speaker A:satisfaction. And that's actually what I want to clarify.
Speaker B:But I mean, yeah, sorry. But I was gonna say, well, the thing is that, yeah, the main thing that I don't really understand is if surely if this thing that you're asking for is a good idea, God wouldn't do it anyway, wouldn't he? I mean, you've done theology. So you read us in on this. Why isn't that just? Yeah, what was the question? Sorry. Well, why? There's me telling God that he should do something, right? Yeah. Isn't that a bit like telling him his job? I mean, he's right. He would know if it was the right thing to be done. He would be doing it anyway. Well, the optimal allocation of divine resources is. And presumably, I'm not going to be able to get that better than he is. So what's the theory
Speaker D:there? What's the theory of prayer? So I think that's a good point, actually. And given that he's got a plan that's sort of theologically determined, what good does praying actually do? There doesn't seem to be scope for a for a petition system if he's already got a plan.
Speaker A:Right. And that's almost getting into free will and that kind of thing as well. It's not quite, but it's close to that. Yeah, I think there's a couple of ways to look at it. One is kind of the cop out answer you often get, which is, well, God moves in mysterious ways. OK. Ours is not to reason why. But I think there's another thing which is a potential misunderstanding of what prayer actually means, which I think even Christians themselves don't always understand. So I've got a half brother who is very religious, is a Presbyterian, Scott. And he I don't know why we were talking about prayer. And he was saying that, you know, the way that people talk about it often is actually how we're talking about is that you it's essentially asking for something to be done for you or done for others. And he was saying he was saying that in his opinion, that's not what prayer is. Prayer is and to me, it sounded more akin to meditation, actually. And it's about sort of it's more about let's say there's something in your life that you don't like. It's more about almost asking for the for yourself to be able to come to reconciliation with that. And so guidance. Yeah. And so it's channeling God's will. Yeah. And it's less about I appreciate this kind of a fine line there. I hear what you're saying, but it's not about petitioning kind of thing
Speaker B:that modern day Christians say. Yeah, it's all about, you know, personal. So, yeah, but I expect these are the answers that you would get. I would want to look at the actual evidence of what priests say when they sit in a pulpit and say, let us pray for something. And it's, you know, praying to help victims of war and famine. It's praying to, you know, to keep people safe. And it's they are praying for they're asking for stuff to be done. There's no doubt you're right. I mean, just look at what they say. Well, not me, Madam Chairman, the priests themselves. What do they say? They ask for stuff when they lead prayers in a church. And that's that. I think. And by the way, I think you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But OK, I do. I think this I don't think we here between us have the theological expertise, perhaps yourself excluded to really get much further on this. And I do want to steer back to this question of harm, specifically whether Christians should be banned from praying for atheists because it harms them. Now, this the evidence is pretty clear, allegedly in this paper that people don't like being prayed for. Is it now if someone is next door and they're playing their stereo at two in the morning, that is against the law. They're not allowed to do that. And, you know, there are certain other things that people can do which are not physical harm at all, like harassment and and, you know, certain types of hate speech and so on, which do not impose physical harm and yet are illegal. Now, here's my question is, should it be illegal for Christians to pray unbidden? What's the word I'm looking for? It's like when you. Yeah. If you're the involuntary victim of a prayer. Yeah. Should you should you be entitled to compensation? I mean, should it be illegal? Well, look, the first question is, why not? But you tell me why not?
Speaker A:Yeah. But in what sense are you harmed? That's the first question. In what sense are you harmed?
Speaker B:Because you don't like it. And in what sense are you harmed by someone playing this stereo at two in the morning? In what sense are you harmed by someone insulting you on a placard and leaving it outside your house? None of those things harm you in any kind of physical sense. But they all impose a cognitive harm, which is ultimately. So what I'm saying is, can you come up with a definition of harm which excludes the praying but does include, you know, one end we've got obviously GBH, which requires blood to come out. And on the other end, we've got, you know, it's insulting
Speaker C:someone. Chris. Yeah, well, there's a couple of perspectives. I mean, one is you look at sort of legal definition. So I think the Scottish Adults Support and Protection Act categorizes sort of six groups of harm. And it doesn't, you know, as all legal definitions, it can't completely, you know, ring fence these things. But it talks about financial, physical, psychological, sexual harm coming from neglect and then self-harm and self-neglect. So at least, you know, I think when most people talk about harm, they think instantly in terms of physical harm. But as Nick was talking about, you know, and as is legally defined, there are obviously other types of harm. We is about the material impact. And, you know, John Stuart Mill's harm principle, you know, the only actions that can be prevented are the ones that cause harm. And, you know, when he talks about harm, he's talking about those that injure the rights of someone else. And, you know, and then he goes on to some more specific definitions about things to do with, you know, a damage against your interests and so on. It's all very circular. It is very circular. Now, I love John Stuart Mill and I
Speaker B:think the harm principle is great, but it does not answer any of those questions. No, it doesn't.
Speaker C:OK, Chris, carry on. So I think my key sort of feeling on this is that if somebody is praying for me and I don't know about it, then I'm unaware at that point of the harm. If they then come and tell me they've prayed for me at that point, that that harm is inflicted upon me, you know, if I'm unknown. Now, there's a similar argument here to the whole Edward Snowden WikiLeaks, you know, NSA, GCHQ issue, which is that while people were unaware of the fact that these government agencies were rifling through their emails, nobody perceived the harm, right? It was only when Edward Snowden came forward and said, do you realize this is what's going on, that there was outcry and people wanted something doing about that harm, even though actually in no way were they materially impacted by the fact that this happened to be going through some big radar dish and never actually read by a person at any point. And so there's something about awareness of the harm. Yeah. That makes the harm material in some way. So, so praying in a corner for me without telling me, fine, from my perspective, coming and telling me in my face, I've been praying for you because you're evil and I think you need saving. At that point, I'm like, hang on a minute, get out of
Speaker D:my face. Peter? Yeah, I think, yeah. To pick up on Chris's point about the, it becomes manifest when you know about it. The interesting, I saw the same definition of harms from the Scottish legislation. The harm of, I find particularly interesting, the harm of neglect. So that's the harm of, you're causing somebody harm by not doing something for them. And the harm of restricting of freedom is another one that's often cited. So, for example, locking someone in their house and not, you know, restricting their freedom of speech is a form of harm or is perceived as harming them in some way. But where does it, would it also still be harmful if I found someone who was completely sedentary and never left the house and locked them in their house? Would I still be harming them? I've restricted their, I've taken their freedom away, but they never
Speaker B:used it anyway. Yeah. Well, that's a bit like, you know, Chris was saying, if there's no material cost to someone, is it, is it harm? And I think there you've got an issue of, well, you know, like squatters living in someone's house, which they, you know, which they don't use. Yes. I mean, you know, it is definitely, I wouldn't like you to lock me in my house, even if I wasn't going out that day. Because I think the freedom, yeah, exactly. The option itself has value to me. But what about if you didn't know that he had done that? Well, I mean, but this, this is not, I don't think this is a terribly relevant consideration, actually. It seems like it ought to be. I think it's something else, which I'll say in a sec. But there are lots of things where, you know, you, even if you don't find out about it, it's still harmful. You know, it's still considered to be, you know, there's lots of legal things, you know, well, I mean, I guess like using someone's property when they're not, when they're not there, you know, it's illegal to go inside someone's house and watch telly all day and then leave just before they get home. You can't do that.
Speaker C:But even if you hadn't used their electricity and watch their telly, even if you just walked in and walked out again, it's still, it's still trespassing.
Speaker B:It's possible to libel someone without their knowledge. I mean, it's still a crime to do that, right. So, or a tort, rather. So, you know, it's you, the fact that someone knows about it is not a kind of clincher. However, I think the clincher in this case is about enforceability and measurability. You know, you've got to be able to prove that. So for one thing, you'll be able to prove that they prayed. Now, I don't know how you do that. I don't even, you know, they would have to fess up, I suppose. But we do have a similar issue at the moment with, you know, sort of hate, with laws about harassment and hate speech, because there's a number of things you've got to, you've got to prove that, you know, a number of things in order to show that you've been harassed and they include, you know, it's got to be based on a characteristic you have. So it's got to be a protected characteristic, which might be your sexuality or gender. It's got to be offensive. It's got to be unwelcome. And it's got to be pervasive enough to sort of affect your job effectively. And how do you prove whether something's offensive? I mean, other than someone saying that they find it offensive. How do you prove that something was unwelcome? You have to just claim it was unwelcome. So, I mean, you know, I think even though, you know, I think it's the enforceability, which would, you know, stop a prayer ban. It's just impossible to know whether someone's prayed or not. But I don't think it's, it's not a million miles away from, you know, being able to prove that a comment was unwelcome. You know, if someone claims it was, then is that enough?
Speaker A:I want to hear more from Peter.
Speaker D:So if I cause you to lose an arm, which means that you're less able to do your job, you have a less full life, etc. There's some way I could financially recompense you for it. But that sort of suing is just moving money around, right? So it's sort of moving money that I've got to value that I have to you. I wonder if there's like a sort of more meta level of harm that's caused by, because there's no net value increase in the whole system by moving the money around. Is there harm that's caused because there's overheads in moving that money around, there's legal costs, etc.
Speaker C:Yeah, the whole basis of, you know, Anglo-Saxon law, Salic law was, you know, the idea of vergeld. And, you know, if you killed somebody and they were of low social status, you might have had to cough up a few groats. But if, you know, they were a sort of thane, then it would have cost you, you know, a Sutton Hoo bracelet or something. So, yeah, the idea that harm is financially redistributed and that you have a system that contains, you know, overheads associated with judging that is certainly a precedent.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, in economics, there's a concept of a deadweight loss, which is effectively a loss that occurs because a transaction didn't occur when it could have done, which is kind of pretty similar. So in other words, it's a misallocation of resources and there's a loss there. I mean, I think in this case, you know, there could be a net positive if Christians gain more from praying for me than I lose by being prayed for. Well, fine, I'd be happy to accept subscriptions, being a prayer victim.
Speaker D:I've actually got some data on that. So there's a paper by a T.T. Brown. I think he's at Berkeley University. He's done a number of papers over the years, but most recent one I could find suggests that based on a sort of well-being valuation method that they've developed, that the US average for Christians praying is eight sessions a week. Seems quite a lot to me. OK. For which the average American gains an equivalent of $53,000 a year in terms of well-being, personal well-being. So what that means is, what that means is if you're an average median earner in the US, you can double your pay by praying eight times a week.
Speaker A:Sorry, I don't understand. They found that people who pray eight times a week have that much more salary.
Speaker D:No, not that much more salary. No, that much more perceived happiness in life.
Speaker C:If they wanted to feel that good, they'd have had to go to, you know, spas and, you know, gone on beaches.
Speaker B:Or equivalently, they would be willing to pay that amount to be able to continue praying.
Speaker D:Yeah, gotcha. And interestingly, the marginal gain of one additional prayer session a week, so going from eight to nine, is equivalent to $6,500. So you can give yourself a bonus on top of doubling your salary by praying an extra. So we should all be praying. Well, exactly. Yeah. Prayers pay, it seems.
Speaker A:It pays to pray. OK. Well, OK, where do we go? We need to wrap up there.
Speaker D:I've got a bit more data just to round off. This was related to the study that Nick cited. The amounts were calculated of how much prayers are worth. So the study is US-centric, we should say that. So a prayer from a priest is worth $7.17. Right. So it's not bad. I don't know how many they knock out in a day, but maybe a prayer takes five minutes. Yeah. That's pretty good, pretty good earning for a priest, right? Prayers from less sort of moderate Christians rather than, or less exalted ones, not priests, not part of the, part of the... Just your bog standard Christian. Just your bog standard Christian. They're worth $4.36. So what I think there's an opportunity for a prayer market.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker D:Along the lines of eBay that you can ask for prayers and exchange finances for it. And we can undo several hundred years of theological history.
Speaker C:Yeah. Float it to the Cistercians.
Speaker D:It's got real value in this world.
Speaker A:OK. Well, that's fascinating. I especially liked that bit at the end there about the quantification of it and the valuation. All right, we'll stop there. Thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare, Peter Coghill and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. And until next time, goodbye. Amen, I think. Amen. Keep us in your prayers.
