copying my answer from virtually the identical commentary made on reddit ("why should I use an ORM when I can just write the SQL?") (not to mention Fowler's article makes this same point pretty clearly):
ORMs do not claim to be "simpler than SQL" and this has nothing to do with the purpose of an ORM. There is nothing that's ultimately "simpler than SQL", if in fact you aim to just write SQL.
The purpose of the ORM is to marshal data between an object-oriented domain model and a relational schema, to translate a wide array of common relational patterns with corresponding domain-model patterns (think foreign key to collections, for example), and to express relational queries in terms of the object model at least to some degree.
All of this is well outside the realm of just "writing SQL queries". The ORM is a tool used to integrate relational databases with an object oriented application layer, and to that degree they make this task a lot less effort than doing it by hand.
ORMs do not claim to be "simpler than SQL" and this has nothing to do with the purpose of an ORM. There is nothing that's ultimately "simpler than SQL", if in fact you aim to just write SQL.
The purpose of the ORM is to marshal data between an object-oriented domain model and a relational schema, to translate a wide array of common relational patterns with corresponding domain-model patterns (think foreign key to collections, for example), and to express relational queries in terms of the object model at least to some degree.
All of this is well outside the realm of just "writing SQL queries". The ORM is a tool used to integrate relational databases with an object oriented application layer, and to that degree they make this task a lot less effort than doing it by hand.