GENEVA — This week, an international panel of scholars released the findings of a study examining a causal link between an improved prayer life and teaching a teen to drive. The results are conclusive: parents who report a "poor-moderate" prayer life increase their prayer by over 329% after the first behind-the-wheel lesson.

"With a large sample size, several control groups, and a double-blind methodology, we are confident we have demonstrated that anyone who teaches teens to drive will cry out to God for deliverance." Swiss scholar Hieremias Timothée-François led the study and spoke to journalists on behalf of the panel of scholars involved: "We published the details in the peer-reviewed ‘Quarterly Journal Of Prayer & Meditation' – we even included atheists in the control group, and their prayer was in the 99th percentile when their teen would brake-check on an open road, or skip the brakes altogether when approaching a crowded crosswalk."

Other researchers from the panel spoke up to defend their evidence. French scholar Rion Jean-Rosé elaborated on their data's reliability: "Our hypothesis assumed only the really 'hard-core' Christians like Baptists, Presbyterians, and Reformed types would see an uptick in prayer, but this was disproven – even Methodists, Unitarians, and Catholics prayed more when their teen threw the clutch out for the umpteenth time!"

At publishing time, the study received widespread acceptance from the academic community when the scholars involved added their evidence that parents of teens learning to drive on stick shifts lost their salvation altogether.

When guns are finally banned in the coming utopia, you may still need to defend yourself on the rare occasion.