Rationale 1:

For True Believers

The Need for an Intermediary If you cannot get your message through to the very top, you need help from people you know who are closer to it.

Humankind is divided by many different faiths, each claiming to be the only true religion. Even though modern secular attitudes make room for tolerance, there is no space in the founding western and middle-eastern religious texts for shared supreme deities. Accordingly, there can be only one true God.

Because no single religion holds a majority of believers on Earth, this reality implies that most religious people are wasting their time in useless rituals and dogma, worshiping a false deity.

Today, almost all major world religions preach that God is merciful. If this is true, then decent, virtuous people who prayed to the “wrong” God will likely be forgiven after death. Though they may not have had their earthly prayers answered, they will not be condemned in the afterlife. They will finally reside in heaven with the one true God, despite their mistaken worship during life.

All three rationales presented here assume a foundational premise: a person’s life on Earth influences the essence of their spirit in the afterlife. If you leave behind loved ones, your spirit remains aware of them. To look at it another way: if your soul has no recollection of the life you left behind, can that spirit still truly be considered you? Your memories and bonds define you in the transition from life to death.

If your virtuous parents or grandparents are now in heaven and remain consciously aware of those they left behind, it makes practical sense to pray directly to them. By acting as intermediaries, they can convey your prayers to the true God residing alongside them.

By utilizing this approach, you successfully avoid the catastrophic mistake of inadvertently praying to a non-existent deity. Your deceased loved ones provide a reliable communication channel. To qualify for this heavenly reception, you simply need to live by the universal, common virtues demanded by all religious beliefs.

If you are cautious about violating rigid religious dietary codes, you can simply choose to become a vegetarian. Furthermore, it is already widely accepted across major religious branches that strict dress codes are unnecessary; belief systems naturally evolve to suit the sensibilities of the current generational majority.

Ultimately, for those who believe in absolute deities, your best bet to have prayers answered is to petition your deceased parents or grandparents who led pious lives. If your own deceased loved ones did not lead a life virtuous enough to establish this pathway, the subsequent rationales do not require this assumption.