Prayer

Prayer

“Pray, if you like to pray, if you like to kneel, if you like to lay.”

— Chris Cornell, Soundgarden, “My Wave”

Effectiveness

Prayer is probably not effective in situations when prayer is "the only option" (see more on this below). If this were not the case and there was a measurable effect that is distinguishable beforehand, there would be ethical implications of not praying, and not mandating prayer, at the secular level (for third-person intercessory prayer). The results are increasing well-established and it is unlikely that well-designed studies would find prayer to be effective enough to be worth the trouble. (See Efficacy of Prayer.)

See Prayer is Not an iPhone.

Positives: Prayer as Personal and Communal Focus

Prayer that does not hurt any one is probably a net benefit because it can help individuals (placebo effect, personal equanimity) and can bring people together and uplift and inspire good feelings and lovingkindness toward others.

Prayer as a personal or communal form of expression of gratitude seems like a positive, like lovingkindness meditation. (See Efficacy of prayer#First Person Studies.)

Prayer that is reflective and accepting and helps individuals focus on the needs and struggles of others can obviously be beneficial to the individual or a community.

Negative Aspects of Prayer

Repetitive prayer (blessing the food) is Rameumptum-like and a waste of time and energy except to create neediness and reinforce power structures, a negative. (Missionaries joke about opening the cupboards of a new apartment and saying one prayer to bless all the food that ever enters them. Reasonable on some level.)

(See Rameumptom: Repetetive, Mechanical Prayer = Bad.)

The negative aspect of prayer is that is can emphasize personal desires too much and result in too much focus on the future, or the past, instead of the present and what the individual can do to make things better:

1. "Let go and let God" can also be a way of saying "there is nothing I can do" when that might not be the case. How about sending money (e.g. hurricane relief) instead of sending thoughts and prayers that cannot leave the skull (or the room)?
2. "Dear God, I want this so bad" could be a way of emphasizing too much a desired, unrealistic outcome, instead of allowing the petitioner to let go and accept reality or suffering in its actual form. This could cause unnecessary suffering on the part of the petitioner, not allowing them to move through the healing stages of grief, etc. (See Stoicism or the Buddhist quest for lack of Dukkha or suffering/desire.)

Prayer as a way to make important decisions can be detrimental in a few ways:

1. The petitioner may not attempt to collect all the relevant information and make a decision with a realistic understanding of the circumstances (see Consequentialism) and instead expect God to just spoon-feed an answer. In this manner expecting a Father in Heaven to give answers to everything (Moroni's promise) leaves the petitioner a child.
2. How the answers are given (again, Prayer is Not an iPhone, nor an information-theoretic communication channel) is usually via some combination of thoughts and feelings. If feelings or confirmation bias take hold, prayer is then just a form of narcissism. If prayer is a way for the petitioner to work through their feelings and clear their minds then it might be better practiced as meditative prayer or through writing therapy.

Faith healings, if they worked (above randomness, regression to the mean, confirmation bias, etc.) then there are ethical implications of not using, say, Mormon Missionaries, in all hospitals. But if there is no observable effect, then it is a waste of time (except for the comfort factor, when there is not false hope given) to deploy faith healers, when it is not outright dangerous (prevent actual access to actual care). Most studies on intercessory prayer are unimpressive at best. God had better have a good explanation about his mercuriality at the day of judgement or expect a giant class-action lawsuit from a legion of hellions.

Prayer as Meditation

There is a tradition of meditative prayer in Christianity, and that is a winning approach to prayer. Also, in Mormonism, at the temple or in nature, Mormons like to pray reflectively or to work through their thoughts and feelings on an issue. This seems like a positive in many ways, with the above caveats.

Scrupulosity

Prayer as obsession or worry should be avoided. It is not helpful and can create obsessive behaviors or scrupulosity. Religious organizations clearly prey on people with this tendency and make it worse instead of teaching people not to take their thoughts too damn seriously.