The last time this came up, I simply replied, “You know I can’t do that, darling, but I’ll hope really hard for you.” Seemed to work, I think.
[HOMAGE=David Cross]I can pray the shit out of the Lord’s Prayer! I’m an awesome fuckin’ pray-er, man![/HOMAGE]
I have a visualization prayer that I sometimes contemplate and concentrate on. I envision the object or objects of my prayer surrounded by a healing white light and I imagine them smiling and happy. Really, just the power of visualization and positive thinking in meditation. It also often has the advantage of being an answered prayer because many times I truly do eventually see them glowing and smiling in real life. I keep it simple and direct.
Of course, mantric, tantric, and devotional compostions are highly developed and may act as a powerful lense… it’s really up to you. Try composing your own prayer sometime and put your intention into the world.
If someone asks me to pray for them, I usually give some sort of noncommitted smile or mutter something about them being in my thoughts. If someone says they’ll pray for me, it has about the same effect as if they’d said they’d do twenty push-ups for me - you know, knock yourself out.
It drives my husband completely insane, though, if someone says they’ll pray for him. Oh, that truly gets on his last nerve. He is, however, a nonconfrontational, polite person, so he just comes home and grumps about it to me for ages.
I do have a pretty bad “pray for me” story, though. A patient of my husband’s had a husband who had some sort of really agressive, horrible cancer. She knew my husband was an atheist, but asked him to pray for her husband. Now, he probably should have just said, “Sure, no problem,” but my husband instead said, “Well, you know I don’t pray, but you’ll definitely be in my thoughts and I hope he’s able to beat this.” Several months later, he and I were browsing around the produce section of the grocery store and we ran into her. She started just going off at my husband about how her husband succumbed to the cancer and it was my husband’s fault because he didn’t pray to God for him to be saved. Yeah, real uncomfortable moment there. I mean, I felt pretty bad for her, but that was totally out of line.
Years ago my mother was in ICU. I spent most of my waking hours in the waiting room along with other families of ICU patients, some of whom made and others of whom didn’t. I was frequently asked by other visitors to come hold hands with them in a prayer circle and pray for their relative, and they in turn would pray for mine; other times it was my sister asking me to participate in a prayer circle either for our mother or one of the other relatives. My sister knows my views more or less (she doesn’t accept that I’m an atheist, she just thinks I’m a “freethinker” who’s seeking proof).
In any case, it wasn’t the time to discuss theology. While I don’t personally think it did any good, it also didn’t seem to do any harm and, more importantly, it comforted the relatives when they were stressed out. I joined in, held hands, said amen, moved on.
At one point a nerdy 14/15-ish kid who belonged to one of the families refused to join in their prayer circle because “I’m not sure what my beliefs are”. I hate to say it, but when I saw that it obviously caused his relatives pain I thought to myself “What a little ass you are! Join in their ritual now and you’ll have many other times to discuss theology with them- what they’re asking you to do is basically a primal power circle.” Later when their minister visited and noticed that the kid was reading Harry Potter (I think Goblet of Fire had just come out) he nodded his head and made some comment to the effect of “If your aunt dies, I want you to remember what you were reading in the waiting room” to which a couple of his relatives clucked agreement. Tensions were too high already in their (I myself had already gotten into a fight with my brother [a fight, not an argument] in the waiting room) and I didn’t want to add to it, so I just stood up and left, but I understood the kid a hell of a lot better after that. From then on whenever that particular family looked like they were going to assume the circle formation, I left the waiting room.
I just map the word “pray” from their meaning to my meaning. Who cares if the meanings are the same or not, I’m ok with the spirit of the statement/request.
When someone asks me to pray for them I usually ask them if it’s OK if I Just pray “at” them. This confuses them enough that I never get the request again.
I don’t see how keeping someone in your thoughts helps them any more than praying does. And how does the “sending thoughts” thing work, telepathy?
Mrs Blather has been know to respond “OK, I’ll think for you” when people are particularly obnoxious or persistent in saying they will pray for her.
Just smile and nod your head, as you would do upon hearing any type of idiotic comment.
To a large extent, I agree with the many who have suggested that general sentiments of the ‘You will be in my thoughts’ variety seem to be the best option.
However, I don’t take kindly to people who push the point too far, and seem to think that just because they have chosen the host a particular religious mind virus that I have chosen to do the same, or would want to. If I’m dealing with this sort of person, when they say, ‘Please pray for [whatever]’, I reply, ‘I’d rather do something to help’. This is true. I help my friends and loved ones whenever I can, just like most everyone does. And prayer isn’t going to help anyone or anything. If it did, then the creed in question would be a matter of empirical evidence and objectively verifiable facts, rather than faith.
Family member, tough call. I usually ignore the request from family. However, most of my friends and co-workers know that I am an aethist. I do not believe in silently agreeing to pray for somebody, nor do I think I should mislead someone into beleiving that I have the same faith as he/she does.
I will offer to do anything I can for the family, if I really will. I will offer to solicit prayers from others, but I cannot mislead someone into believing that I will pray to their “Higher Power.”
When aethists do not represent their positions, or at least verbalize the fact that their belief system is not the same as theists, we become overlooked in government, offices, and schools. This leads to things like “Intellegent Design”