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Prayer App

Best if installed as an Easter Egg.
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The prayer app detects if your eyes are closed and you are speaking in an emotional or hushed tone. It wakes Siri or Cortana and modifies their voice to the *deep bass we have come to expect from frequent interactions with the omnipresent supernatural, offering random practical Google search and/or religious / spiritual / psychoactive-drug or even magic 8-ball level advice pulled from a database of trippy online religious books, any trace of which instantly disappears as soon as you open your eyes.

*Every once in awhile a demonic-hiss-like cackling should substitute, just to keep things interesting.

Eventually we'll all just pray to a triune Siri/Cortana/Robin, who resides in the clouds, through an implant we get at birth and aren't told about.

RayfordSteele, Jun 15 2015

Divorces by religion http://divorce.love...tistics_by_Religion
When a couple marry those of their religion pray for them. If the marriage has supernatural help, it should influence divorce statistics. [Voice, Jun 15 2015]

Apparently western protestants have chosen the wrong supernatural entity http://www.mediaite...vative-protestants/
[Voice, Jun 15 2015]

Muslim Pro https://play.google...oid.muslimpro&hl=en
- Fasting times during Ramadan - Accurate Prayer time calculator based on your current location - Azan / Adhan: visual and audio notifications / calls for prayer - The Holy Quran (Al Qur'an) with recitations (mp3 audio), phonetics and translations - Dua's from the popular "Hisnul Muslim" book (Fortress of the Muslim) - Halal restaurants and mosques locations around you - Animated Qibla compass to show you the direction to Mecca - Muslim calendar to estimate holy dates such as Eid-Ul-Fitr and Eid-Ul-Adha - Islamic greeting cards - 99 names of Allah [tatterdemalion, Jun 16 2015]

[link]






       That is a very elegant piece of philosophy, [Ian]. However, I refute it thus: <points to Wales>.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 15 2015
  

       Imagination, b.s.ing, all about the same really.   

       I went through my philosophy phase proclaiming much the same-existence is good, nonexistence is bad, etc. Then I had kids and stopped living in my head.   

       Don't worry Ian, its a temporary affliction. You'll get over it eventually.
RayfordSteele, Jun 15 2015
  

       I thought this would be the app equivalent of Tibetan prayer wheels, i.e. the app prays constantly on your behalf so you don't need to bother.
pocmloc, Jun 16 2015
  

       Nicely ironic if your prayer wheel breaks and gets to heaven before you do ...
8th of 7, Jun 16 2015
  

       You do wonder if any Muslims have the call to prayer times scheduled as music for their cellphones.
4and20, Jun 16 2015
  

       [4and20] oh you bet.
tatterdemalion, Jun 16 2015
  

       Just out of interest, do Muslim prayer times shift with daylight saving and with time zone? And how can they be sure that Allah adds leap-seconds at the same times that we do?   

       Presumably this is all sorted out by the Muslim Pro app, but what do hobbyist Muslims do?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 16 2015
  

       [MB] I would imagine they work on a local solar time equal hours system, but that's just a wild guess.   

       More importantly, what happens if you get it wrong? Some kind of devil comes up and bites your bum? I believe that's what happens to Christians who accidentally neglect some part of their liturgical or devotional duty.
pocmloc, Jun 16 2015
  

       // And how can they be sure that Allah adds leap-seconds at the same times that we do ? //   

       They don't need to. The Islamic calendar is a Lunar one and "drifts" as the lunar cycles are not coincident with ephemeris time.   

       // what do hobbyist Muslims do? //   

       Get executed for Apostasy.   

       // I would imagine they work on a local solar time equal hours system, but that's just a wild guess. //   

       Sort of.   

       // what happens if you get it wrong? Some kind of devil comes up and bites your bum? //   

       Not quite. The Taliban come round and slaughter you and your entire extended family with AK47's, including your domestic and domesticated animals. Then they burn your house down.   

       Of course, in some jurisdictions they're not nearly so liberal.   

       The good news is that a high proportion of sentences are set aside on appeal, so that's OK.   

       // I believe that's what happens to Christians who accidentally neglect some part of their liturgical or devotional duty. //   

       It's what some Christians believe happens to them when they accidentally neglect some part of their liturgical or devotional duty.   

       Of course for Catholics they just get buggered by the priest whether they've neglected some part of their liturgical or devotional duty or not, and thern get told it's God's Will. And not to tell anyone, because it's God's secret. So tht's OK, then.
8th of 7, Jun 16 2015
  

       Watch out. If you compete with Muslim Pro you know what could happen to you...
pashute, Jun 17 2015
  

       A really smart version of Muslim Pro would set all the prayer times a few minutes fast. After all, if you want to get Allah's attention, it can't hurt to turn up ahead of the masses.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 17 2015
  

       //The prayer app detects if your eyes are closed and you are speaking in an emotional or hushed tone//
I think at better set of metrics is required than my usual lunchtime seminar-induced incipient fugue state. Instead, the Prayer App should be linked to the biometric-collecting Apple watch or similar, such that your heart rate or sweat volume is tracked, allowing your phone to respond all godlike when you're being chased down back alleys by Quds Force operatives.
calum, Jun 17 2015
  

       //Presumably there would need to be a back-end with clergy// Why is everyone having a go at the Catholics all of sudden?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 17 2015
  

       All of a sudden ?   

       Anyways, the Muslim Pro Plus app, as well as doing all the prep work for the faithful, will do the prayer as well, provided you point it due East, face down.
FlyingToaster, Jun 17 2015
  

       Having spent some time in a predominantly muslim country, I can see that there is room for some efficiency savings. But I'm not sure the app would suffice.   

       I'm pretty sure the Koran doesn't specify the language that has to be used for the half-hourly prayers. So, someone just needs to devise a high-level prayer language. With suitable definitions, it ought to be possible to condense the whole praying thing into one syllable. This is already done to an extent in some muslim texts, where every mention of Allah has to be followed by "PBUH" (lit. "peas be upon him", i.e. "may he be nourished"). I presume that the muslim god is as omniscient as anyone else's, so more or less by definition he/she would know that "P'tash" was a more efficient way of expressing 30min of praying.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 17 2015
  

       Already done in the RC church, where most children can manage the entire Hail Mary (55-60 syllables depending if you include commas and such) in a little less than 3 seconds.
FlyingToaster, Jun 17 2015
  

       When you're a little kid and there are catholic priests on the prowl, about the only thing you can do is pray REALLY fast …
8th of 7, Jun 17 2015
  

       If you prayed to an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters, would they eventually answer it in a way that predicted the future of every conceivable outcome in the multiverse?
RayfordSteele, Jun 17 2015
  

       No, obviously not, because prayer is merely self-delusion. Next?
pocmloc, Jun 18 2015
  

       //The energy of positive influence over a random graph must inherently be different to a lack of such influence.// You've never worked in academia, have you, [Ian]?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 18 2015
  

       I think {Ian} is trying to say, somewhat wordily, that self-delusion can sometimes have practical applications.
pocmloc, Jun 19 2015
  

       Sounds like "The Secret".
tatterdemalion, Jun 19 2015
  

       Save the power of positive thinking mumbo-jumbo. It's every bit as silly.
RayfordSteele, Jun 19 2015
  

       //The energy of positive influence over a random graph must inherently be different to a lack of such influence. The connection of more than one person together strengthens the desire influence, as would repeating it. We have language, we have imagination, we can influence the reality we model around us. This is beyond provable, look at the buildings, bridges, technology, roads, aircraft etc that surround us. If our desire coupled with imagination expressed as language had no influence on the world at all, we’d still be picking fleas out of each other’s hair and not achieving much else.// — Ian Tindale, Jun 18 2015   

       This is a very potent paragraph. I just thought I would point that out.   

       As you were...
blissmiss, Jun 26 2015
  
      
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