How to Pray If You're an Atheist

[rug]

Jerry DeWitt.
Author, 'Hope after Faith: An Ex-Pastor's Journey from Belief to Atheism'
Posted: 07/15/2013 11:48 am

Last week my mother called to give me some very bad news: A young relative had died early that morning. He was a man whose entire life was one series of life-threatening situations after another. He was born with severe birth defects. So, although his untimely death came as no real surprise, it was still shocking and heartbreaking to our family. He had overcome so many seemingly impossible health challenges that one more "medical miracle" didn't seem out of the question.

For over 25 years I faced similar soul-shattering scenarios, but I had always believed that my relationship with God and my communications with him (through prayer) would carry us through any situation, no matter how painful.

But then I became an atheist.

So what does an ex-believer do when praying to a God you no longer believe in is not an option?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-dewitt/how-to-pray-if-youre-an-atheist_b_3573423.html

[cbayer]

1. Jerry DeWitt again - atheist evangelist

and self-promoting guru extraordinaire.

Loves praying - go figure.

His list sounds like good therapy to me or just what most believers do when they pray.

Amazing how he is so facile at transferring his pentecostal way of seeing the world to his new, improved atheistic way.

[rug]

2. A career is born.

[longship]

3. Sheesh, yet another "why atheists should be more like believers" article.

Sorry. The solution is simple. Atheists don't pray. Why would they even want to? Arguing that they are somehow missing something is just more theist rubbish from a professed former evangelical who still cannot entirely let go of the culture he was brought up in.

Sorry, my friend. I went to church for the first thirteen years of my life and I never believed it. Not every atheist insists on keeping such religious cultural baggage in their lives. I guess I have no problem with those who do such things, but I will not entertain anything like an argument that this makes atheists somehow incomplete, which is almost the inevitable argument.

I never pray. And I never miss it from when I attended church and recited the prayers out of politeness.

Thanks, rug. Another chance to chime in on why atheists are not the same thing as the religious in spite of the seemingly never-ending articles stating the contrary. They are kind of a set piece, a memetic story that gets retold over and over again.

Different story, same lesson: atheists are really just the same as believers. They pray. They really believe in god after all. There's something missing in their lives because they don't have god, or Jesus, or Mohammed, or Buddha, or whatever. I almost never hear some variation of these arguments.

It used to piss me off. Now, I am just amused by it. This is the spell we have to break. The one Dennett writes about in his "Breaking the Spell".

[cbayer]

4. He is a snake oil salesman, imo.

I don't think he is any more sincere now than he was as a pentecostal preacher. He's just selling a different "religion".

[longship]

5. So it would appear.

I know nothing of this guy, but the article has the smell of apologist in it, as do many of the same such "I am an atheist but..." articles and essays.

If one has to qualify their disbelieve to justify acting like believer, then maybe they are still a believer, or cannot let go of that culture.

I don't criticize people who do that unless they are trying to sell something, like often is the case with the "no religion, but spiritual" crowd who seem to have invented their own religion of sorts and always seem to have boundless energy to discuss their newfound woo beliefs. Amazingly, these wackaloons get grouped in with atheists, agnostics, etc. in polling and skew the results simply because they don't attend church, temple, mosque, etc.

I would rather discuss my atheism with a fervent theist than a spiritual none any day. At least with the former we have something to talk about. It seems like the spiritual nones just make shit up as they go. I have a sister like that, and avoid all discussions on such things with her. She's way off the deep end, but I still love her.

[cbayer]

6. He's the same guy who started an atheist "church" in Louisiana

that has recently gotten some press. And he bills himself as a leader in the atheist movement.

He's not a "spritiual none", btw. He is clearly describing himself as a confirm atheist. And he will attract a certain crowd, I am sure.

I have a number of friends with unusual spiritual beliefs, but we don't talk about it much. They tend to have a rather laissez-faire attitude.

OTOH, we know a couple of black helicopter CS types who will talk about pretty much nothing else. They drive me nuts. I generally have one brief conversation with them, then tell them that I don't agree and there is no point in trying to convince me.