Prayer doesn't work so why bother?

A fundamentalist Christian couple from Philadelphia who relied on prayer, not medicine, to try to cure their dying toddler son was convicted on Friday of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment. This should serve as a wake-up call to any uber-religious wackos who think praying to some "higher power" that only exists in their minds will cure their child - it won't necessarily work. A doctor with many years of experience is better than some fictional higher power at curing many common ailments, therefore, I would not recommend prayer as an antidote to all ills and I most certainly would not recommend prayer for treating swine flu (which has recently made a return to Britain) or meningitis or Ebola or some other potentially fatal disease.