I love Mathematics!
It’s concepts and symbols often explain things in a visual way that allows me to have a better understanding of a given subject. With this in mind, I offer the following equation:
The sum of x + y + z > the individual parts of x, y or z
Here, x represents the 2.3 billion Christians in the World,
y represents the 1.8 billion Muslims
z represents the 15.2 million Jews
(The above numbers are from the 2019 data of Pew Research)
Where this is headed, is towards the following question, “If there is power in prayer, how does the numbers of people praying for something affect the outcome of the prayer?”
This question came to me when I learned that the Easter Season, Passover and Ramadan were all being celebrated this week. Normally they occur at different times, however once every 30+ years these Abrahamic religious celebrations overlap, and 2022 is one of these special years.
Starting on Friday, April 15 through Saturday, April 23, Passover, Good Friday thru Easter Week, and Ramadan are all being celebrated simultaneously. Thus, for these 8 days, almost half of the people on the planet are connecting with their God, their Families and their Faith Communities. Through their own Religious traditions, this great wave of humanity is concurrently offering prayers for Peace, Gratitude, Reflection, and Renewal.
This situation inspired me to ask myself “what would happen if these 3 great monotheistic religions put aside their historical grievances and began simultaneously praying for the human values that were common to all 3 traditions?” The basics of mathematics indicate that if there is any power in their individual prayers, then we could assume that this power is magnified when billions of people pray for the same thing at the same time. If this it true, then we could alter our global experience by having billions of people praying simultaneously for their shared values.
During a moment in history when everything is so globally connected, and so many of our problems are global in scale, I suggest that NOW may be an ideal time to test the mathematics of global prayer!