Oriental Occident

“Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the divine plan?”

“Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a divine plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the divine plan has been doing just fine. Now you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn’t in God’s divine plan? What do you want him to do? Change his plan? Just for you? Doesn’t it seem a little arrogant? It’s a divine plan. What’s the use of being ‘God’ if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?”

“And here’s something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren’t answered. What do you say? “Well, it’s God’s will.” “Thy Will Be Done.” Fine, but if it’s God’s will, and He’s going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn’t you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It’s all very confusing.”

George Carlin, in “Religion is Bullshit”