Wednesday, June 6, 2018

I’ll pray for you

Occasionally you’ll see public figures who are not particularly engaged in faith or openly hostile to Christianity say that they’ll “pray for you”.   Or you’ll see people who deny the existence of God or who posit a God who doesn’t actually do anything who’ll say the same thing.

This raises some questions.

Who are they praying to?
What do they expect their prayers to accomplish?
What would make you pray to a being whose existence you deny?
If you believe God can’t act outside of the natural, physical realm, why pray to Him?


Just a few questions.

2 comments:

Marshal Art said...

I once worked with an atheist who said, "Bless you" after I sneezed. I asked her who she expected would bless me. She said, basically, that she did or could. I asked her how could she possibly? I let her off the hook by allowing that she was simply a victim of cultural indoctrination that was the result of hundreds of years of Judeo-Christian influence, but that her use of that expression was truly goofy for an atheist.

Craig said...

Yes, I find it comforting to know that people ate praying on my behalf to a being that doesn’t exist, is essentially powerless, or who they don’t believe in.