Traditional Prayer Outmoded by the Internet

Posted by on March 29th, 2009

Do you feel you should pray more, but don’t have enough time to devote to traditional prayer? Some innovative entrepreneurs at informationageprayer.com may be able to help you out. They have created a web service that will pray for you for a nominal fee:

Information Age Prayer is a subscription service utilizing a computer with text-to-speech capability to incant your prayers each day. It gives you the satisfaction of knowing that your prayers will always be said even if you wake up late, or forget.

We use state of the art text to speech synthesizers to voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to typical person praying. Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the subscriber displayed on screen.

The web site has a blue vertical bar on its left hand side where you can select from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Unaffiliated or Other Religions. Out of curiosity we tried clicking ‘Other Religions’ only to find that they are not yet supported by Information Age Prayer. For now the site remains a monotheistic prayer service. Popular prayer choices include the Lord’s Prayer for Christians, the Shema for Jews and the Salat for Muslims.

To get the Catholic Morning Prayer voiced daily for you at their facility cost $19.95 a month. Are your children not praying daily anymore? The prayer for the children is their cheapest option at only $1.99 a month, a small price to pay to keep your child in God’s favor. There are no shortage of prayers to be had on the site. You can buy a single month or subscribe to have ongoing monthly service. Prices are decided by the length of the prayer and how often it is said.

So here is how it works: You pay for your prayer of choice. It is sent to a computer at ‘The Information Age Prayer Location’. Your name comes up on the screen and the prayer is spoken aloud for you by a text to speech synthesizer and then percolates through the universe where it is presumably picked up on by your supernatural deity of choice.

We are dying to know what their facility looks likes. We imagine matrix-like rows upon rows of computers and speakers spitting out prayers, creating a cacophony of sound. We sent an e-mail to the creators asking for official pictures of the facility to sate our curiosity, we’re still waiting to hear back from them. But rest assured that once we do they’ll be posted on weirdthings.com.

For those of you with questions about the efficacy or theological implications of automated prayer, the site’s webmaster has created a nifty FAQ to assuage your concerns:

-Is it wrong to charge for prayers?
The fees assure our customers that we are the most reliable service provider for Information Age Prayer. While most companies only donate a small portion of profits to charity, Information Age Prayer donates a full 10% of revenue to charity before subtracting our operating costs. For more information see our terms of use. If you are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and would like us to donate to you see this page.

-Are prayers blasphemous when voiced by a computer?
We recommend you contact your local clergy for a personal answer, however we think that Information Age Prayer is a new and exciting way to connect with God.

-Can I get a direct Peer to Peer connection with God?
God is not your peer, His connection with you is ever-present. What we offer is a way you can tell God that you think of Him every day with our Information Age Prayer Services.

Too bad about the P2P connection. For those of you who are thanking the heavens right now that you have been absolved from the grind of daily prayer, you might want to check their privacy disclaimer before you unfold your hands and get off your knees:

Your privacy is protected, all prayers are not audible outside of the Information Age Prayer location. While it is certain that God hears the prayers, we cannot guarantee that other supernatural beings do not overhear or otherwise obtain knowledge of them.

So stay ever vigilant against prayer interception from other supernatural entities. But with no guarantees, perhaps traditional prayer hasn’t been relegated to the 20th century just yet. You don’t want a message intended for God to end up in the hands of some fiendish demon. But isn’t that a risk you take even when you’re praying yourself?

2 Responses to “Traditional Prayer Outmoded by the Internet”

  1. JustinRYoung Says:
    March 29th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

    I'm waiting for the Twitter plug-in: “Our fthr who art n heavn…”

  2. JustinRYoung Says:
    March 29th, 2009 at 10:35 pm

    I'm waiting for the Twitter plug-in: “Our fthr who art n heavn…”