I’ll pray for you.
I lost a christian friend once over this, and ultimately, it was an issue of boundaries and respect. I think they saw it that way too, albeit from a different angle. I’ll try to explain what mine was, to the best of my ability….
It’s not so much that it’s threatening to say this to an atheist – but rather – offensive. Like – you’re purposely declaring that you’re going to be doing something that this person doesn’t agree with. By announcing it to them in such a way, it’s announcing that you intend to violate their boundaries, it’s passive-aggressive. If you know someone wishes not to be prayed for, but you then say you’re doing it anyway, it’s basically harassment, let’s be real. The prayer itself, isn’t the harassment, rather, it’s basically the taunting. I think the reason that the religious person thinks the atheist perceives the prayer as threatening is because they themselves are almost treating prayer as if it’s like some kind of karmic death ray towards the atheist.
If you simply prayed in silence, without the announcement, and respected that they don’t actually appreciate your prayer – then it wouldn’t be a problem, and no one would know the wiser. Well, unless there really IS a god, right? Then said god would know. In fact – in some ways, having to announce the prayer – is almost like an insecurity on the behalf of the person having to announce it. Like, if you were so confident that there was a god, and prayer works, announcing it wouldn’t be necessary…..it’s kind of a “words louder than actions” moment, a “disease for the cure” moment, etc, etc….
However – religions often try to be sort of self-reaffirming in this way, by telling it’s believers it must spread the word and pray for those that don’t…..but…when it comes at the cost of empathy for others?!? At the cost of disrespecting that person’s own wishes, and violating their boundaries? At some point, it ceases to be about truly caring for others, and more playing ego/mind games around your belief being the correct one, and i’d say 99% of the time when a religious person knowingly says this to an atheist, that’s what it is. Always. There’s just no respectful way it could be anything else. They’d do it in silence, in that case.
Heck, even a properly scientifically-minded atheist doesn’t believe in a “true anything”, but they might believe in a 99.5% probability. Religion is kind of like assuming an infinite possibility, with very little probability, as a truth. Likewise, religion and morals aren’t mutually exclusive. you could live an honest and outstanding life, and not be religious. In fact – the presumption that you couldn’t, could be considered somewhat offensive to many atheists, which is basically what I’m calling out.
My one grandfather was big into charity organizations (knights of pythias, freemasonry, various religious things, etc, etc) . He was a religious man, actually, both my grandfathers were. Oddly enough, my grandmother and my great grandmother, both death-bed atheists. Saw too much suffering and bullshit in life, just lost faith with age. I didn’t learn that until their last moments though. It made a lot of the religious trauma I went through seem very much…..in vain….
And i think that’s another thing religious people forget – many people are basically put through hellish childhoods being forced into whatever religion by crappy parents, including entire cultures of male and female genital mutilation, all in the name of religion, so even the very notions of like, “oh i’m praying for you” it’s kinda like, yeah go force religion some more, why don’t you. More trauma. And that’s something to remember – in many ways, for many people, religion is trauma. Some, much worse than others. That hell you speak of – that’s right here on earth for many of us. That devil you speak of – it’s the politicians using religion to justify non-scientific causes.
I think the rest of your post is basically waxing on about pascal’s wager, and truthfully, and I don’t mean this to offend, I just don’t care. I actually see the notion of heaven as almost being equivalent to hell – like, what’s supposed to be eternal happiness, sounds more like limbo, being stuck with all my dead relatives, the ones that I already mourned and had sorrow for, but then i have to be up there with them, while all the living people I care about that i haven’t yet mourned the loss of, are still alive and living and I can’t interact with them….So now what….i have to mourn that I lost contact with all of the living and be happy my dead relatives are back? I mean, i guess people have their own interpretations of it, and that’s just mine, but for some it’s just like, pick your utopia, whatever that is, 72 virgins, etc, etc, pick your poison, basically.
Like I don’t even get this whole thing. It’s just selfish bullshit because people don’t want to die? I frankly, just don’t care if i’m wrong about this, oh well. The whole notion just seems so selfish and human, I’m pretty damn sure you’re just worm food in the ground when you die, and the thing about pascal’s wager – what if there’s like, some third or fourth option? You know, pascals wager is just assuming like, believe and be good = magic heaven god. What if it’s not just a two sided coin, but a 6 sided die? How do you even know that simply “believing” is good enough or that putting in those 60 hours was the right 60 hours? Like, it’s all just presumptions on top of presumptions.
I’ll be frank with you – i am generally a pretty busy person, i fill my life with hobbies, work, family, etc, i can’t even imagine having 60 hours of free time for fairy tales, I’ve also just been through a lot of bullshit, trauma, etc, been kicked off the top of the mountain one too many times in life and had to climb all the way back up again, yet, i’m also not one to hold others down and say “you need to pull yourself up like me, too!”, I actually think I am a much more caring person than a lot of people give me credit for, despite not being religious, on flip side.I think humans are actually really bad at being charitable in useful ways, rather, we tend to do things that are more “feel good” or convenient, or even self-serving to your own community, but not the actual best for the greater good. It’s elitism, basically. Religious charity, is elitism, because, well, how many religious people are giving my atheist ass much of anything? Hahaha…let’s be real. It’s biased though. It’s not universal, it’s not just “for everyone”, but rather, you get it “through them.”
The larger changes we could make as a society, likewise, get overlooked for selfish and stupid reasons, and, heck, wouldn’t you know it, religion is often used to justify many of them, too, because well, hey, they got that charity thing covered, right? I think we are wealthy enough, humankind, as a whole, that a lot of the problems in the world, frankly, are bullshit, and caused by selfishness and greed. And religion is literally a tool used to pretend that we’re solving those problems, while people profit off doing the exact opposite, profit off not actually helping. That’s what I see religion as. Probably quite a bit different from your own view.