You also missed my point about taking a scientific approach to something like ebola. Gas masks are utterly irrelevant and pointeless. We know how the virus is spread and we know that if caught reasonably early it is easy to kill. Even if your entire neighborhood consists of people with ebola you and your children are safe as long as you don't swap bodily fluids. I don't know about you, I can't remember the last time I swapped bodily fluids with my neighbors. So, yeah, others can pray --which is utter nonsense-- I'll stick with scientific knowlege --which is not.
Here's the difference with science: If tomorrow someone offered true evidence that ebola is now airborne and prayer kills it, I could not imagine a single scientist who, when presented with the evidence, would not accept these findings to have a high degree of probability of being true.
This is so ridiculous I had to separate it just to say:
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING! SURELY YOU MUST BE BECAUSE NO INTELLIGENT EDUCATED PERSON COULD POSSIBLY HOLD THIS RIDICULOUS BELIEF.
The fact that we have people on this planet in 2014 who can actually believe something like this is the root of many of our problems.
You are equating praying to medical treatement. That is utter nonsense on the face of it, regardless of whether or not an established and effective treatement course exists for an ailment. I'm sorry, it's just plain stupid. Would you pray to Thor, Apollo, the Tooth Fairy, Zeus? Why not? So, pray tell, why does your brain magically stop working when your favorite god is invoked?
I have long believed that some kind of bacteria or virus is going to take out all or a huge chunk of humanity at one point or another. Evolution is a heartless SOB. We could very well be one or two random mutations away from losing half the planet's human population. And, BTW, the mutations in question don't have to attack us. Imagine losing half the worldwide crops, cattle or fish.
Don't get me wrong, I don't lose any sleep over this and don't have a garage full of gas masks and HAZMAT materials. When/if it happens that stuff is likely to be absolutely useless.
I wonder if that's what might finally make the religious "get it". You go ahead and pray to your powerless imaginary intelligent creator. I'll choose science thank you.