If you want to read a book that's closer to how the universe actually works, and how your mind should operate, read it: https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-709
Plausibly quite true. But given (1) how often the succession turned violent after a monarch died, and (2) how very little power the average person had - I'd say such prayers were entirely reasonable. If they made "life in the lower 99%" just 1% more bearable, that'd be a worthwhile RoI.
Demon-Haunted World is a book worth reading...but Carl often seems to forget that 99% of humans are neither huge science geeks (as he is), nor rationalist robots.
E.g when the Spanish Empire ruled the world, the British were not very happy about that. With the British Empire, the French and the Germans fought them with every opportunity.
Knowing how most kings and queens have behaved throughout history, I think Sagan suffered from a faulty premise. The queen everyone loved best made it to 96.
[1] https://theconversation.com/long-live-the-monarchy-british-r...
Have you seen the Sumerian King List?
I'm an atheist, but many of the arguments put forth by atheists seem very lame to me.
If you want to persuade them to believe otherwise, then you have to come up with arguments which are actually persuasive from their perspective. This is a problem I see with a lot of smug atheist literature. It's also a problem I see with all the arguments from Christians about why I shouldn't be an atheist. I guess I seem approachable to them, I get a lot of well meant but totally fruitless conversion attempts. They are arguments which doubtlessly seem very sound to them, one who already believes, but totally fall flat to me, somebody who doesn't. Like telling me how many different people claimed to witness Jesus resurrection... that seems like compelling evidence if you already believe that the bible is reliable. Christians tell each other these arguments at Church, find it very convincing because they are already convinced and find it hard to imagine the frame of mind of somebody who doesn't believe, then with great earnestness present these arguments to nonbelievers and are puzzled when it doesn't work.
Well that's exactly what's going to happen when you confront most Christians with "Your god isn't real because he doesn't do as you command him to with your prayers." Prayer failing any empirical test of efficacy is convincing evidence to people who already don't believe but totally falls flat with people who do.