{"id":844,"date":"2010-02-11T09:53:36","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T14:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=844"},"modified":"2010-02-11T09:53:36","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T14:53:36","slug":"prayer-requests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=844","title":{"rendered":"Prayer Requests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even though it is pretty well established that I am an atheist, I still get e-mails for \u201cPrayers\u201d or to join \u201cPrayer Chains.\u201d On social networking sites I also see these stupid things. How ought an atheist respond to such things?<\/p>\n<p>For starters, I have to figure out what these people are hoping to accomplish with their prayer requests. Fundamentalists of course believe that prayers might change God\u2019s divine plan or something, but moderate believers use them simply as a way of showing some sort of support for their friends and family.<\/p>\n<p>When someone is sick or hurt, I understand that people want to help even when there is no real help that they can do. So I get that prayer requests can in some cases be simply a way to ask for some support from friends and family. Some, atheists let people know that they are \u201cthinking of them\u201d or that we will \u201ckeep them in our thoughts.\u201d These are good ways to deal with the whole prayer request thing, but still they don\u2019t seem like they are any more rational than prayers.<\/p>\n<p>So I am wondering what ideas people have which convey that we are there for our friends and family without resorting to these less rational alternatives? One possible thing that we can say in response to a prayer request from someone we know is that we can offer to help out if they or those closest to them need anything or just need someone to talk to.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe we can come up with some social convention which can take the place of the \u201cprayer request\u201d like maybe a comfort request or a compassion request. Just some thoughts, let me know your ideas.<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border:0\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=844\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even though it is pretty well established that I am an atheist, I still get e-mails for \u201cPrayers\u201d or to join \u201cPrayer Chains.\u201d On social networking sites I also see these stupid things. How ought an atheist respond to such things? For starters, I have to figure out what these people are hoping to accomplish [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,990,49,392],"tags":[2215,1054,2259,1053,1052,661],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":845,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions\/845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}