Prayer Is Not Going To Save You

Every time there is a tragedy the first thing I often see that pops up on social media are status updates telling everybody WE NEED TO PRAY!  Pray for what exactly?  I guess the prayer warriors who create these status updates fail to realize that the same people out there killing people more than likely pray themselves.

When the radical terrorist Muslim decides he’s going to shoot & blow some shit up, guess what…he more than likely gets down on his knees to pray to Allah to ensure he can inflict the most carnage on as many people as possible.  When the white American terrorist decides to go out there and start shooting innocent people because he fears “he’s losing his country”, more than likely he comes from a Christian background and prays to God to ensure he too has a successful mission.  When the cop that patrols a neighborhood where he either ends up arresting, planting drugs, or killing people with impunity he’s supposed to be PEACEFULLY policing….more than likely he says a little prayer too before hitting the beat.  When your local neighborhood criminal goes out there to commit crime for whatever reason, more than likely he prays too before busting you in the head or putting a hot bullet in your ass.

So whose prayers are actually being answered?

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m far from religious.  Spiritual, yes.  Religious, no.  What’s the difference?  The difference as far as I’m concerned is that I believe in a higher power but you won’t find me in church every Sunday & Wednesday looking for answers to problems.  I’m not knocking anybody who does go to church faithfully, but I’ve come to believe that running to the church to find answers for most people is nothing more than a form of escapism.  A lot of people I know retreat to church & prayer because they honestly have no idea how to deal with a problem or they simply just want to pretend like the problem doesn’t exist.  A lot of people would rather put their energy into praise & worship in hopes for attaining a better existence in the afterlife than to deal with the present life they already have.  As far as Black society is concerned, this is especially troublesome to me.

Black society for the most part is highly religious.  HIGHLY RELIGIOUS.  You cannot tell a knee grow nothing when it comes to religion.

Got laid off…“I’m putting it in Jesus’s hands.”

Your family has been living in poverty damn near your whole life…“As long as we got Jesus we’ll be alright.”

Bastard baby makers popping out babies from dusty ass niggas neither one of them can afford…“Only God can judge me.  As long as I got Jesus, we’ll be alright.”

Nigga beating your ass…“Jesus will fix it.”

White supremacists guns your relative down…“I forgive him & Jesus will fix it.”

Mass shooter shooting up the place…“Jesus will fix it as long as we pray.”

500 years of systemic & institutional racism…“Jesus is coming to fix it.”

I can drag these examples out all day long if you like, but the bottom line is this:  A lot of people choose to cast problems off onto religion because a lot of people are terrified of actually trying to challenge & fix the problems.  When something tragic happens and the first thing you as a person retreats to saying is “We need to pray”, that is nothing more than the white flag of the cowardice who are ready to accept defeat.

You know the old saying “Faith without works is dead”; well it’s a lot of people out there who will continue to pray up until the moment some random fuck blows their brains out because too many people just strictly rely on faith to fix the problem instead of realizing that maybe you need to do something prior to the moment of you meeting your creator to hopefully prevent the problem from happening in the first place.

In the meanwhile, I’ll continue to pray for you all.