SALT LAKE CITY, Utah–Speaking today at the Favored Children’s Conference at Brigham Young University, Our Heavenly Father shed light on a topic that has been heavily debated over the past decade: how effective are thoughts and prayers?

The remarks came in response to comments during a panel on plagues, when a young woman began her question by first offering her thoughts and prayers for those affected by the global pandemic.

“I’m going to cut you off right there, Julie,” God interjected, “It is Julie, correct? 1175 East Mobile Drive? Born 12-12-94? Is that right? And have we ever met? You’ve never told me any of those things, correct? Exactly, so I know a few things. The point is, the idea of thoughts and prayers is great, but folks like Julie here are using them all wrong.”

The Almighty referenced data that showed a nearly 2000% spike in thoughts and prayers following a catastrophic winter storm that left hundreds of thousands without power and dozens of deaths from exposure.

“If we have prayer numbers that high before the storm, maybe we ease it up a bit,” The Redeemer said, “It’s easy to turn the heat down a little before you stick a pie in the oven, but if you don’t and you burn it up, well you’ve just got burnt pie. Does that make sense, Julie?”

The Shepherd compared praying to taking vitamin C each day to prevent catching a cold. He added that prayers help Him as well, as He tends to be forgetful, a statement that drew knowing laughter from His wife, Nancy.

“What I’m trying to say is, pray for the kids not to shoot up the school. Don’t wait to offer your prayers after there’s a dozen dead kids. I can’t just bring them back. Snap my fingers and there they all are, happy as clams. That would be weird. This is real life, not the MCU,” the Creator explained, “Let me put it this way–if the other cast members of Saved By the Bell would have prayed for Screech last year, I may not have struck him down with cancer. Hell, if they’d have offered a few prayers after he got sick, maybe I would have considered curing him. But not one peep until after he’s dead. And then the whole cast is, like, thoughts and prayers for Screech, or whatever his name is. Was. But you get my point, Julie?”