religion, adviceIf a loved one is in the hospital or going through a hardship and asks that you pray for them. What should you do?
You don’t want them to feel as if you don’t care. Should you just do it anyways even though you feel you are praying to no one?
The person wants support. Give it to them in a way which doesn’t perjure yourself: “You’ll be in my thoughts.”
This may sound bad: Tell them that you will pray for them, but you don't actually have to. Your role in this situation is to be supportive.
The knowledge that someone is praying for them is enough to make them feel better. I am suggesting you lie to them, and in most cases morally frowned upon. But in this case the alternative is much worse.
The worst option to choose would be to tell them 'no' without an explanation. That would make them feel as if you don't care about their wellbeing.
In general I use the principle of Utilitarianism when deciding whether or not an action is just. Basically, the principal boils down to the question - which action would produce the greatest good in the world? In this case, making the person feel better would fall into a positive outcome. The only negative outcome that I can foresee is some guilt that you would feel. It is up to you to decide if the positive outcomes outweigh the negative outcomes.
More Thoughts:
If a person is asking for you to pray for them, it is usually because they are facing some problem that neither they nor you can solve. Thus, they turn to their God for help because he/she would have the power to help. If you take the more truthful route and say something like,
"I do not believe in the power of prayer, but I will keep you in my thoughts through your hard time."
You are basically saying that you think there is nothing that can be done for them. You are stealing their hope. This is why I feel that lying to them is a better option.
“I don’t believe in that sort of thing, but if you need anything at all I’ll be here for you. Just let me know.”
Rather than mislead someone, it’s important you let them know you care about them and are there for them. There’s no reason to patronize people you love.
People are acting like it will crush their world. I’m sorry, one atheist friend won’t destroy someone’s faith in God. They have an entire support structure built around God and the church, and you’re actually giving them another bit of support outside that world. It’s not a bad thing. If it would really do so much harm, you should never mention your atheism lest you steal their hope for life to begin with.
I’ve done it multiple times, and never had a negative outcome.
I’m a Christian, and as such, if I knew my atheist friend were an atheist, I would be extremely unlikely to ask for him or her to pray for me unless I was absolutely, positively desperate for some sort of reassurance or help.
Given the circumstances, I would be inclined to say that the best course of action would be to tell the friend what they want to hear and, if it makes you feel better to be honest, actually pray. As others have noted, there’s no harm in praying (or saying that you will) even if you don’t believe that it will amount to anything. Even if there’s not even a placebo benefit, you’ll have made the friend feel a little better about his or her current circumstances.
By asking you to pray for them, your friend has admittedly put you between a rock and a hard place, but any other response that I can think of seems likely to bring down the friend’s spirits. And that’s the exact opposite of what you want to do.
I think it comes down to how much we respect others’ religious beliefs.
In a fairly strict way, you can say, as we atheist do not believe in the existance of gods, or supernatural beings who are capable of listen and fulfilling prayers, such prayers will in general be useless. And then I believe, too, that we atheist treasure truth, logic and reasoning.
Thus I think one of the ways of doing it may be “I don’t believe in gods, but I do support you from my heart and wish you your very best.”
I’d say fine. What harm would it do. But really, who would ask an Atheist do so?
Why not just pray? As an atheist, is this any different than writing a letter that will never be delivered, or leaving a voicemail that will never be listened to (and thinking of it that way)? When my daughter asks me to sit down so she can pretend to play doctor with me, I don’t tell her that her plastic stethoscope doesn’t really work–that would be unkind; instead, I play along. How much more unkind to tell a sick friend you disagree with her beliefs or to lie to her, if there’s no harm in playing along?
I think James Randi gave an answer in his talk at Skepticon last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVb03qX61B4
It's about 23:20 into the clip, when he says: "I had to lie to my grandfather on one occasion..."
If you have an hour to spare, I recommend you watch the entire talk.
The setting is ‘a loved one’, not a random joe from the street. So every one I would call a loved one knows, I don’t believe in god.
To ask me for prayer is therefore a kind of offence, and the abuse of his or her situation does make it worse. No, it isn’t an excuse, it makes it worse.
Of course, as an atheist, I will not do prayer, and I will clearly state so.
Maybe that person needs a honest response from somebody who isn’t part of their braindamaged society. Yes, braindamaged. Today, you have to be braindamaged to believe in healing prayers, and what you need from a beloved one is some trust, and truth.
There is nothing wrong, if you destroy the religious believes of an ill person, but it is wrong if you destroy the trust in your relationship. If you play act with ill persons: shame on you! Don’t pick the easiest way without resistance.
tell them that prayer does not work, and that the internet can easily proof that.
Also link o the templeton foundation, who is biased towards religion being unifiable with science. Because they wasted 1 million USD in a double blind study to test, if prayr heals sick people, doesnt do anything, and if it matters, if you tell them, that they are being prayed for.
The results: prayer does not help, and does not make any difference to not praying. But if you pray for anyone, there is a difference; if you tell them about it or not. If you tell someone sick, that you pray for them, they perform worse than someone, who is prayed for and not told about it, likely due to stage fright.
You see, there is not even a pacebo effect here.
If a loved one is in the hospital or going through a hardship and asks that you pray for them. What should you do?
I’d tell them I’ll pray that their doctor doesn’t pray.
What do you care about morality. Your belief is that you live for but a moment in time and then you are ashes and bones. It all means nothing to you.
At least admit you don’t really know - that would be the truth.
It’s like telling a little kid there is no Santa Claus because being right to you is more important than letting others have hope in like
Faith: the substance of things hoped for… It’s about hope people, or else we are just on some rock floating in a universe so large we can’t comprehend it
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