Atheists don’t pray for anything, they’re well aware from when they were still theists that prayer gets you nowhere.

Absolute statements are totally radical man.

Sometimes even those hardships are used by God to humble someone into at least hoping He’s listening.
When He answers, it’s pretty clear He is.
Been there, done that, know Him, now.
Jus sayin.

topdog on March 15, 2013 at 7:03 PM

Atheists don’t pray for anything, they’re well aware from when they were still theists that prayer gets you nowhere.

Two hands at work are worth more than all the hands on the planet clasped in prayer…

For an atheist, the act itself of praying to a God in Whom one does not believe is anxiety producing. This would be true even if the atheist were compelled to pray for something GOOD to happen.

In other words, the act of praying is in conflict with the atheist’s beliefs. This conflict (cognitive dissonance?) would produce anxiety regardless of whether praying for something good or something bad to happen. This hypothesis would be easy to test for, of course.

That is actually very rare.

CW on March 15, 2013 at 6:48 PM

Maybe if we taught by example, and less by words, it wouldn’t have come to this. We teach by our walking, not our talking.

You would be surprised how quickly they come down with a case of religion when their children are diagnosed with an antibiotic resistant infection or a serious disease such as leukemia.

crosspatch on March 15, 2013 at 6:42 PM

I suppose you’re saying that atheists “find” god when they’re scared and worried about themselves or a loved one?

A common canard, and a speciously thought out one at that.

Agreed. Dawkins and his ilk aren’t atheists, they’re anti-theists and there’s a very real distinction to be made there.

While not germane to the article, I’m inclined to think that most people who say they’re atheist or agnostic probably believe in some higher power, but reject the general image of God put forth by the Abrahamic religions.

LukeinNE on March 15, 2013 at 4:55 PM

atheism means to be without theism, so whether you self identify as an outright “I don’t believe in god” attitude or you’re just an anti-theist, they both end up in the same place.

But I agree in principle with your assessment. I myself lean towards the god hypothesis as an answer to where everything came from. I’m just damn sure the god that COULD be ISN’T bible god, or koran god, or any other religious text you wish to forward that claims to know a social/personalized aspect of god.

“It is time we admitted, from kings and presidents on down, that there is no evidence that any of our books was authored by the Creator of the universe.

The Bible, it seems certain, was the work of sand-strewn men and women who thought the earth was flat and for whom a wheelbarrow would have been a breathtaking example of emergent technology. To rely on such a document as the basis for our worldview-however heroic the efforts of redactors- is to repudiate two thousand years of civilizing insights that the human mind has only just begun to inscribe upon itself through secular politics and scientific culture.

We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself.”
Sam Harris

If you mean sharing your faith with someone who wants to know and is open to the message, yeah sure. If you mean getting in people’s faces who don’t want to hear it, ……

squint on March 15, 2013 at 6:36 PM

That is actually very rare.

It’s not just “I don’t know”. Its “I don’t know, and I don’t really feel like figuring it out for myself, so I’m just going to set up camp here”. I’m pretty sure that’s text book laziness.

segasagez on March 15, 2013 at 6:28 PM

Agnostics are the bisexuals of the God conversation; hammered by both sides demanding that they chose a side. And they better chose the Right One (the demander’s side, of course)!

You would be surprised how quickly they come down with a case of religion when their children are diagnosed with an antibiotic resistant infection or a serious disease such as leukemia.

crosspatch on March 15, 2013 at 6:42 PM

Desperation leading religiousness is not such a ringing endorsement of religion.