Did you mean you can’t force her to stop praying for me? Because if you really meant “can”, then the ways aren’t obvious to me. How would you do it?
I don’t make it a point to tell other people I care about to their face about it all the time. Of course I think it, but i shut up about it, which is what the OP’s MIL should do. Plus, I have more facts on my side, so the two beliefs aren’t equal
I can’t stop her. still not used to typing and editing on handheld keyboard. Clarity. my wife that she prays for me. she never directly said that to my face. She’s a nice lady. I’m not going to be confrontational. It just bugs me a little bit that she feels the need to. But then again I really haven’t been exposed to religion too much in my life. It’s just weird to me that apparently she worries about my soul. I’ve gone this long w/o religion. The only way I could see looking into it is if something catastrophic happened. I mean to me its obvious that I’m never going to come around. Like numerous people said. Shes doing it for herself just as much as she’s doing it for me
I am an atheist married into a catholic family. I also had an Aunt who was a minister and some cousins who are strong fundamentalists. So please believe me when I say I know what you are talking about.
I’m also old and crusty and beyond the point where I worry about perceived power disparities in my familial relationships (except maybe with my brother, but he’s a special case :D). Anyway, what helped me move beyond my initial resentment and somewhat confraontational nature (yes, I admit it) was spending some tim eimagining what I would feel if I truly believed as they did. Once I did that, I realized that while my more cynical evaluation of their public prayers, etc. may have been accurate, it was also possible that they were acting in sincere good faith and concern over something they put infinitely more importance upo than I. Given that, I was able to grant to my family the benefit of a more charitable interpretation and escape from my own resentment/anger.
Though I do once in a while allow myself a “Well, if you’re right that will help… Thanks.”
With strangers, though, I m more likely to respond similarly to Chessic Sense (I might even have to steal that one.
Will it, though?
If everyone has to accept Jesus of their own free will, what effect can another’s prayers have?
If you’re a nonbeliever, I don’t really see why you should care. As far as you are concerned, she might as well be asking a rock to watch over you. Forget about it.
Really why would you even worry about it, she loves you and is praying for your soul. Take it for what it is, she is in her mind trying to save your soul from hell. It is a great act of love and you are being bit silly if you take offence.
As far as I’m concerned, people can ask as many of their invisible friends as they like to watch out for me - as long as I don’t have to join in, witness or in any way participate.
My mother use to worry about me because I didn’t go to church. A nun friend of hers told her something to the effect that God is an all knowing perfect being and judges us on who we are and not by a bunch of rituals.
The nuns at my school were a fun group of people. Go figure.
And as an aside, your MIL must like you enough to want to spend eternity with her. She must think you’re pretty special.
Her: “I’m praying for you”
Him: “Great, I’ve been flying under the radar all these years and now you just turned on the spotlight, thanks”
I’ll say it again: non-believers need to stop imbuing things that are essentially nonsensical with any meaning at all.
I can see how Jews are pissed about Mormons, since there’s a religion vs religion aspect there. But they’re on the same playing field. A non-believer isn’t: the Mormons can baptise the shit out of me if they like, since it means absolutely fuck-all.
Hell, I’ve visited so many temples and shrines and mosques over the years I’ve got blessings from animists, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims, Christians that are coming out of my wazoo. I even wear a blessed string around my wrist, tied on by a Buddhist priest. It’s a reminder of a significant memory and an aide-memoire of some of the wisdom inherent in Buddhism, even though I don’t believe it’s anything other than a piece of string.
MiL hasn’t rubbed your face in it, so she’s not being smug - she just cares about you and is expressing it in her own way. I’m sure my parents pray for me too, and that’s nice, and presumably it has some psychological benefit to them, and probably indirectly to me in my interactions with them.
Granted, you’re not praying for anyone, but aren’t you guilty of the same thing? You’ve rejected religion, claiming that you know what the answers are?
Fully agreed with this. I’m so atheist I call myself a poly-atheist :D, still it doesn’t make a difference.
Now if she’s constantly mentioning it or “casually” mentioning it in conversation with others when you’re at weddings, dinners, etc., I would tell her simply that if her murderous and childish god is mad because I’m not baptized, he can tell me himself.
You could also remind her of the thousands upon thousands of people who weren’t ever baptized throughout the centuries and tell her they may make great company in the “afterlife”.
Where was that claim made?
Of course everybody believes that the choices they make in the life are the right ones for them. If they didn’t believe that they wouldn’t make those choices. There is a world of difference between believing that my choices are right, and telling others that their choices are wrong. Telling someone that their choices are wrong while hiding behind “prayer” is cowardly and IMO, even more offensive.
It would be like me telling my neighbour that I sent a gift subscription to the KKK in his name because I noticed that he was dating a lot of “those Black girls”. My actions aren’t wanted, they sure as hell aren’t appreciated, they are an active afront to what my neighbor believes and they are telling him quit clearly that I think that he is doing something wrong by dating Black girls and in need of help to correct his actions. That is what “praying for someone” means after all: asking for assistance for them to correct wrong behaviour.
There is a world of difference between “Your behaviour is so wrongheaded and dangerous that I have asked an important authority to try to stop you undertaking it” (which is what “praying for someone” means) and “I have studied the facts and have a settled opinion on this this issue and that opinion differs from yours”.
In fact there’s really no comparison.
Meh. I don’t believe that Black people are inferior to Whites either, but I would still be offended if my MIL told me she had made a donation to the KKK in my name and asked them to send me some literature.
The fact that she is attempting to produce an effect is offensive, whether the effect occurs or not. It is telling the recipient of the “prayer” that they an errant child, unable to think for themselves and in need of correction from teacher. Whether the teacher actually exists is rather irrelevant.
But you (presumably) believe the Klan exists, so the comparison doesn’t work.
The analogy would be more apt if she were donating money to, say, the Catholic church or the Moonies in your name, because that is of practical use to an organisation with which one disagrees. But just saying something in her head to something imaginary in that same head? Not a big deal.
The fact that she is attempting to produce an effect is offensive, whether the effect occurs or not. It is telling the recipient of the “prayer” that they an errant child, unable to think for themselves and in need of correction from teacher. Whether the teacher actually exists is rather irrelevant.
I will grant you that praying for someone can be a nice gesture when it’s not being used passive-aggressively or as a cudgel of one kind or another. But I am not sure it’s any kind of “great act.” The person doing the praying is, perhaps, standing there and thinking for a few seconds. It costs them nothing and does nothing. That falls pretty far short of a great act of love in my opinion.
*Non-*believers aren’t the ones who are doing that.
You are assuming that the whole concept of vicarious redemption, original sin etc… are not morally repugnant to non-believers.
The mythology can be false but the actions of the members are not. Just as the KKK’s concept of “race” is false but their actions were very real.