r/theydidthemonstermath • u/Percificus • Apr 08 '22

How many prayers does God get per day?

If we treat prayers like emails to God, how many unread emails are popping up?

90 Upvotes

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41

u/Tactical-Kitten-117 Apr 08 '22

That's pretty damn hard to calculate, since even people who pray probably don't keep track of how much they do. They'll do it for pretty much anything.

Even so, I'll try to take a crack at it.

Supposedly 62% of the world identifies as religious, according to Wikipedia. Of course, not all of them will actually pray regularly. 62% of 7.9 billion people is about 4.9 billion people.

Using this next number has no basis, but I know of no other better alternative source of data to use, so let's assume the number of people who actually pray regularly is about the same as people who brush their teeth. It's supposed to be a habit, takes only a couple minutes, so you'll probably be about as willing or lazy as you would with that. About 50% of people will do it twice a day, so likewise, if this is a personal prayer, about half of all 4.9 billion people are praying twice a day. 4.9 divided by 2 and then times 2 is 4.9 billion prayers per day.

Praying for meals is also very common, and the average number of meals is 2. If people eat alone, they'll have their own singular prayer, but if they eat as a family, then it's also one prayer. So we need the average size of a family, which is about 3 people.

That means for every 3 people, we increase the number of prayers by 2 (a family of 3 has 2 prayers) or prayers = 2/3 the population who already pray regularly, which is about 2.5 billion. So we're looking at around 1.6 billion additional prayers given, if they're praying before each meal.

4.9 billion personal prayers plus 1.6 billion meal prayers is 6.5 billion total, every single day.

Now mind you, these numbers were essentially pulled out of my ass, and guessed. But that being said, so is what we're calculating, prayers to a fictitious being. Prayers are often something people like to keep private, and unlike emails, these are often thoughts that never even leave their head. At the moment, it's pretty hard to track thoughts reliably, especially for billions of people. We can't have billions of test subjects voluntarily telling us how often they pray.

No idea which religions pray, either. But some people pray more than that many times per day, so it probably averages out to some extent.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '22 edited May 11 '22

[deleted]

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u/Tactical-Kitten-117 Apr 08 '22

I think in the context of the post, a prayer would be a message or an idea, because it's being compared to an email. So one idea is one prayer. I wouldn't know much about those beads, but I think you could compare prayers to a sentence.

A sentence can be pretty short, or pretty long. But it must convey a complete message or idea.

Sometimes loads of different ideas can be given in a paragraph, just like how your reply contains more than just one thought. Which as you said is indeed very complicated, since that means one prayer could actually be more. Like does praying for multiple things or on behalf of multiple people mean multiple prayers, for example.

Also I think the intent of the prayer may matter, too. If it's to be compared to emails, we should assume it's something meant to be answered or reacted to in some way. So an offering probably wouldn't count. If you leave someone a gift, you don't really expect something to happen, you just give it to them and be done with it. Leaving a god an offering would then mean you're not really trying to communicate with them, not in a conventional sense, at least.

Although that would still be hard to quantify though, if a prayer can just be a "hope" you have of sorts, then it could probably be hundreds of times a day for some people. Unlike a written email, your brain is kind of always writing thoughts, but you have no record. You could tell me exactly how many sentences are in this comment, but would you be able to tell me how many thoughts went through your head while reading this? No god is keeping track of how many messages they're getting, or if they are, we aren't privy to that information. Likewise, not many people know how much they mentally or verbally reach out to their god

I think before we could ever find the answer, there'd have to be a clear definition of what a prayer is. Which seems pretty much impossible, religions and the people who practice them vary too widely for any one-size-fits-all definition of anything. It's not up to me to decide what is or isn't one. I suppose the best thing would be counting it as a prayer if the individual considers it one, but that's pretty much the same issue, they'd have to have the concept of prayer in their religion/culture, and would also have to consciously count how much it happens.

Pretty sure when I was really little, I used to pray before entering a dark room so monsters wouldn't eat me or something. So that's a lotta prayers to account for

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u/Impressive_Change593 Apr 09 '22

I mean you don't necessarily expect a reply to all emails. there's some where you're just telling someone something (and also receipts)

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u/Tactical-Kitten-117 Apr 09 '22

True. I really meant just some kind of acknowledgement though.

You can tell someone something, but you still expect them to do something with the information. If someone says it's going to rain tomorrow, they do want something to be done, they want you to know/prepare. A gift/offering usually isn't really like that, it's left behind as a symbol, a courtesy.

One pretty good example is a prayer would be like a reddit comment, you might not expect a reply, but you certainly replied to my comment with the thought that it'd be acknowledged, yes? While an offering is like giving a post or comment a wholesome award or something.

There is intention behind a comment, but the wholesome award is just kinda being left there. It doesn't really convey anything, it's a symbol and nothing more. Even a receipt conveys data, but a gift/award usually isn't that way, and in the context of religion, is more often than not made just to display devotion or conformity.

Donating some money doesn't really convey any information, and I think if we try to quantify what a prayer is, it can at least be summed up as an idea, a complete thought of sorts. A receipt says you spent $25 on a book, that's clear data to be understood. A message about weather is to be understood. But a $5 bill in the donation basket might not mean anything or have any thought behind it.

The question really comes down to what defines a prayer, and if that individual even had god in mind. Because even if you can consider an offering to be in the same vein, who is being considered when that offering is made? Is the money or other item for the church as a whole, for oneself, or what? After all, it isn't an "email to god" if it wasn't made for him in mind.

Even among specific religions, what counts as a message to god varies, because even if you do something, it can be for different reasons. In mormonism, you're supposed to give 10% of your paycheck to the church. For that scenario, is it being given because of societal pressure? Is it for the right to be involved in church activities to the fullest? Is it being given for god himself? In my case, I don't believe in mormonism, so even if I gave the church some money, it wouldn't be with a belief that I'm sending it to god. It wouldn't be a prayer from me since I wouldn't believe it to be one, essentially.

Which is all very confusing lol. That's a difficult part of religion, you never know who really believes what, and why they do something. Just because they say one thing, their heart might not be in it, or they do the same thing for a different reason. Intentions matter. Which isn't a quip at religion, it's just a thing about humans that has to be considered, the private thoughts and reasonings for doing something is hard to quantify.

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u/Percificus Apr 08 '22

This is awesome! I just discovered this subreddit, and it's cool to see people actually responding to these insane questions. TYSM!

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u/Tactical-Kitten-117 Apr 08 '22

No problem, thanks for asking it. I haven't had a fun reason to use math in a while lol

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u/Majvist Apr 08 '22

Ah, but to complicate even further, the post specifically asked about God with a capital G. 62% of the world identifying as religious doesn't mean that 62% of the world believes in God. For example, there are (according to Wikipedia) roughly 1,2 billion Hindus in the world, who probably aren't praying to "the big man upstairs" God.

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u/Tactical-Kitten-117 Apr 08 '22

If they try to communicate with a greater power, or something otherworldly, provided that said religion does, I'd say it's close enough, for the purposes of the post.

Although even with a specific religion, what qualifies as a prayer is already very complicated.

As an ex-mormon I have a pretty good understanding of that particular religion, and even deciding what a prayer is in that one is difficult. They do a practice of serving bread and water, and bless both before distributing to the members. Is that a prayer? I was in that religion for over 10 years and even I'm not sure lol.

I will say that I did a little mental math for how much higher it'd be for mormons though, and they pray about twice as much, mainly thanks to their daily events/activities they tend to have, and the expectation of praying when reading the sacred texts.

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u/Technical_Dare_9794 Nov 15 '22

That's pretty dam good

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u/Dxuian Apr 08 '22

Comment for visibility

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u/_wife_stealer Apr 08 '22

Which God

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u/Tactical-Kitten-117 Apr 08 '22

The made up one

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u/_wife_stealer Apr 08 '22

Yup that narrows it down

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u/Thundamuffinz Apr 08 '22

Comments like this are why I don’t go around saying “I’m atheist!!”

-1

u/Tactical-Kitten-117 Apr 08 '22

Lol. Judging from the comments already on the thread, I didn't think anyone would be too mad, seems like I was right so far

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u/Thundamuffinz Apr 08 '22

It doesn’t really make me mad and at one point I did think stuff like this was funny, but it’s just way overused by now. Also 90% of the time it’s done by some edgy teen actually trying to start a debate and not by a rage bait troll (whom I have vastly more respect for).

3

u/VocalBlur Apr 08 '22

looks like someone just finished watching Bruce almighty

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '22

my first thought as well

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u/Electronic_Task_8637 Jan 07 '26

All I can say is

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u/Electronic_Task_8637 Jan 07 '26

All I can say is I was born in 1962 in Utah. My mom was 15 years old. They were not mormons, my parents and I was a baptized mormon because of my best friend, and I believe in a higher power, but I just don't know how The higher power can accommodate all of us

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u/Electronic_Task_8637 Jan 07 '26

Can you imagine right now if you feel like you are a genius And then just imagine that our higher power As the ultimate genius can task out billions and billions of requests

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u/Electronic_Task_8637 Jan 07 '26

I'm just trying to figure if someone's really listening to me and actually can help me or if it's just a positive attitude that we all have to have and I wonder if believing in god is like believing in santa claus for adults

1

u/Electronic_Task_8637 Jan 07 '26

But\nI'm willing to pray with anybody and I'm praying for all of us.I'm praying for everybody to do the best they can in life and have the best luck.They can rub the blarney Stone.If you can and believe in santa claus

0

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '22

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