"Dan's prayer for the unflinching agnostic"

Dear unknown universal force who may or may not exist,

We hope that in your potentially existent total/partial wisdom you will hear our prayers on this Thursday afternoon. We picked a Thursday afternoon, because we figured that if there is a God of some sort, his/her weekends are already pretty full and Thursday afternoons are probably kind of dead.

First, we ask that, if in fact there is a God (and there could be, although the jury is still out as far as we're concerned), that you hear our prayers through the hearing mechanism of your choice. We will be brief, as, if you exist, you must be pretty busy, and if you don't, we will look funny if we talk to ourselves for too long. Thus, we will skip the bullshit.

(Congregation turns to very end of prayer book)

1. Dear powerful force (Buddha, aliens, whatever) please give us some nice stuff. Maybe a sports car, or, if you have the power, a really good condo near a lake or ski resort or something.

2. If indeed there is a complicated theological structure to the universe, and if that structure contains some kind of hell/fire-area/penalty box, please make sure that we don't go there. Since we admit that there is a probability that demons exist, we really would like to avoid being put in a position where they get to eat our lungs. So, please give us a hand in that department, if in fact you can.

3. Please heal our sick friend (insert name of sick friend, i.e. 'Jim') Jim. If you exist and have some kind of divine plan that calls for Jim's death, well that's kind of a bummer but we'll understand. However, if Jim is going to die and make this congregation take care of his illegitimate children as a result of some random molecular interaction, it would be nice if you could use any divine power which you might well possess to intervene.

Thank you for potentially directing some divine interest in our direction.
(optional "Amen" or "God is Grrrrrreat!", if you feel like it)