This fallacy bit. If you go into your room to pray, God will favour you. So if I don't go into my room to pray, what happens then? If nothing, then the praying person presumably gets favoured whereas the non-praying person gets, er, ignored? Disfavoured? Still favoured if God's in a favouring mood? So what fallacy am I committing? I just want to know if praying gets you favours more than not praying, or wrong praying, that's all!


"As for your prayer thing, that's just silly. Do you want us to say, "Our Father who may or may not be in heaven"?
Why yes, I would much prefer it if you did, actually. Not in private, which is absolutely none of my business, but when praying in public where you may be heard by people not of your convictions or when you're getting your kids to parrot your prayers full of certainties. You know how it is. Get impressionable people to say the same thing over and over again a thousand times and they'll end up thinking it's true. It's certainly less hassle to get them to believe something that way than to equip them to ask critical questions in an unfearful way. It is not harmless to indoctrinate children with spurious certainties (whilst at the same time strongly discouraging them from asking questions or leaving the flock). I think we used to call it brainwashing.