A large scale survey showed that prayer is not only useless it can actually be harmful. A group of people in hospital suffering from the after effects of heart attacks and strokes were split into two groups. Half were told that they were being prayed for and the other half were not. The group who were told recovered more slowly. It is thought that possibly the stress of feeling that they should be responding to the effects of the prayer affected their recovery.

Well, rude as it may (necessarily) be, my reaction to someone who says that is; well, you're a f*""ing idiot then, aren't you?

It seems to me to believe without proof, is something the more you do it, the more you enter into a delusional mindset. More faith means more delusional.

There are numerous examples of prayer wishes not coming to fruition. Twice in about the last 5 years various Texas groups have prayed for rain, yet no rain came in any reasonable time period.

While I can't prove it, I am sure relations of people on their death bed prayed for that person's recovery. They don"t recover.

After I said I didn't pray so of course no prayer I didn't make was not answered, I'd ask for specific examples of prayer that did work for the faithful.

Just a shitty, excuse in order to place the blame on the person than to admit that their God is ineffective and just imaginary.

That's the same reason my magic spells never work. I don't believe hard enough.
I guess I'll have to stay poor. Ha, ha.
(Of course faith = spells.)

Faith is a claim you make when you have no evidence at all for your position. The bible might use "doubting Thomas" as an example saying he had no faith or belief until he put his fingers into the nail scared hands of Jesus. It is a very flawed argument. In the bible this act made Thomas a believer. It gave him a sort of "evidence." We today have no such option. That makes this a bullshit story.

And this phrase spawned the “prayer warrior” movement so that faith can be proof through the mumbling of hundreds if not thousands in an effort to beseech the almighty for their cause (heal the sick, find the missing thing, stop/start the rain, protect our troops in a war zone, welcome the dead into heaven and bequeath the winning lottery ticket.)

Untold amount of time and energy and in the end the sick sometimes die anyway, the lost item never turns up, the weather continues to do it’s own thing, some servicemen/women never come home safely, the dead are just as dead, and the lottery never seems to payoff because in reality it is the poor mans tax.

But I have faith in the fact that there will always be a good number of people who think they can get anything they wish through prayer or maybe rubbing a lamp.

Hmmm...How much faith is enough to satisfy his god? Does faith work like the stars we used to get in kindergarten when we did something good? Can those points be redeemed for 'salvation' when we die? It puzzles me why an omniscient and omnipotent god would need to have you pray in the first place...If god is all-knowing, doesn't that mean he/she already knows what you're praying for, and whether you're sincere about asking for it? How does one measure piety? Does the Pope get everything he prays for? I mean, he's supposedly the most faithful Christian on earth, and we still have more pain and suffering than we know what to do with (assuming, of course, that the Pope prayed for mercy, and not...ya know...like a jet-ski or something...).

FAITH is becoming to be accepted by all as belief without evidence. It is what I call a crunch point in the abolition of religion. i.e. a point where many decisions have to be made and can greatly influence future behavior. However let us not be too hasty to dismiss the word itself. It would not exist at all if all people do not find it useful. I believe there are times and situations where one cannot have the evidence and yet there is a human necessity to bolster someones confidence .
It is the mis-use of the concept that we must complain about and not throw out something we use ourselves.

e.g. "Does my bum look big in this? " One cannot really see what she is seeing.

Well, ya know, if not enough people BELIEVE in gawd, I mean REALLY BELIEVE .... then gawd will just disappear, just like what happened to Santa.

Faith is what theist use when they have no evidence.

Had you complained to a theist who knows you are not a theist?

If so, you might not repeat that mistake.

They also love to say "God answers all prayers, sometimes the answer is no".

When I finally realized that faith was not a virtue, I was free to fulfill my destiny as a nullifidian, and looked back on remarks such as you’ve described as a complement. The Great Agnostic, Robert Green Ingersoll, called faith an “unhappy mixture of ignorance and insanity,” so I reckon the less you have of it, the better off you’ll be!

I just punch them in the teeth and walk away when they do that. I imagine it really pisses them off.