So so when me old sainted mother tells me that age is praying for me, I should tell the selfish old bitch off?
You could, if you wanted to.
Or you could politely explain that since you're not a believer, you don't think that she's doing anything useful, meaningful or worthwhile
for you at all, although you appreciate that you know that she believes she is.
As for being non empathetic the assumption that theists who are praying will not make what you and I regard as practical efforts is demonstrably wrong and seems to exist simply to make an incorrect point about superiority.
As I said on the very same subject only yesterday (or maybe the day before - but very recently) this is bet-hedging, though, isn't it? If you do the God-and-medical-science-both shtick and medical science carries the day, quite apart from the unfalsifiability angle, guess which of the two tends to get the credit? Alan Burns confidently asserts that human beings are God's hands in the world, to which you can say, well, in that case how can you tell the difference between human beings who are God's hands, and no God and human beings just doing human being things? You can't. It's deliberately rendered unfalsifiable - always leaving the God hypothesis intact, you'll notice - and therefore junk as hypotheses go.
I have been helped through some dark spots in my life by friends telling me in their own way that they are thinking of me and that they care. To judge some of those expressions as being selfish simply because of the word pray would seem to me a witless lack of empathy.
We're not going to agree on this, but here's my take.
Have you heard of Greta Christina? Not nearly as well known in this country as she is in the USA, where she's famous on the atheist and LGBT-issues blog scene. She tends to blog mostly about both things - being an atheist in America and LGBT-related issues.
In June 2011 she wrote an article (
Atheists in the Pride Parade: Some Thoughts on Churlishness and Integrity), based on her activity in the recent San Francisco Pride parade, in which she made some observations on the similarities between American atheism and LGBT rights - as many have done, of course - but more importantly on what she sees as the most salient difference between the two. The day I read it, over four years ago now, I thought the point was so well made that I saved the article (I save
tons of stuff as it is ...) and I've referred to it before. I may even have provided this particular passage (it's only an excerpt: the whole is much longer) beforehand, for all I know. I'm not sure. In any case, some won't have seen this before and may well enjoy and agree with this as much as I do:
Atheists talk a lot about the parallels between the LGBT movement and the atheist movement. I talk a lot about it myself. But I think we need to remember that, for all the parallels between the two movements, there are some important differences. And one of the biggest differences is this:
There is nothing about saying, "I am queer," that implies, "You are mistaken to be straight." But there is something about saying, "I am an atheist," that implies, "You are mistaken to believe in God." Coming out as queer is a subjective statement about what is true for you personally. Coming out as atheist is an assertion about what you think is objectively true about the external world. When we come out as atheists, we're not just saying what's true for us. We're saying what we think is true in the world. And by implication, we're saying that people who disagree with us are wrong. Even if we're not actively trying to persuade people out of religion - heck, even if we don't care whether people believe in religion - we're still saying that we think religion is wrong.
We need to cop to that.
We need to acknowledge that, for atheists, coming out is different than it is for queers. We need to acknowledge that, for atheists, even the gentlest, least-confrontational, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone" forms of coming out are, in fact, still confrontational. Not just because people don't want to hear it; not just because the conventional etiquette demands that we not say it. Because it is. Because we're telling people that they're wrong.
I think we need to accept that. And I think we need to take responsibility for it.
There are a lot of different ways for us to say it. We can say it in gentle, diplomatic, "You can be good without God" ways. We can say it in snarky, in-your-face, "You know it's a myth" ways. We can say it in bald, statement-of-fact, "There's probably no God" ways. There is room for both confrontationalism and diplomacy in this movement, and in fact the movement is stronger with both methods than it would be with just one or the other.
But I think we need to accept that this is always going to be a difficult topic. I think we need to accept that being honest about who we are and what we think is always going to ruffle some feathers. I think we need to accept that ruffling feathers is not the worst thing human beings can do to one another. It's not even in the Top Ten. And I think we need to accept that being out as atheists, and maintaining our integrity as out atheists, may always be seen - and feel - a little bit churlish.
Because it is.
That's just going to have to be okay with us.
http://goo.gl/g2jKHW
