an atheistic equivalent of prayer?

October 16, 2007 by leavingeden

It’s midterm week at Wheaton, and everybody is frantically taking exams, writing papers, and getting ready for Fall Break. For devotions in every class, we pray for our exams, preservation of sanity, and safety traveling during Fall Break. I think it’s incredibly hokey. So I was surprised, as I walked across campus on my way to take a midterm exam, to find myself wishing that there was some atheistic equivalent to prayer.

I used to be one of those Christians who prayed at every opportunity, including before a test. Sometimes it was a last-ditch plea for God to save me from my lack of studying. Most of the time, I simply found prayer a nice way to prepare myself for any event, to put my mind at ease and wrap up the preparation before the execution phase of a project. Praying before a test was a way of acknowledging the preparation I had done and get into the right mindset. It seems like a nice, quaint 17th century thing to do. Except that I kind of miss it. Not the God part, but the pausing and recognizing and pulling things together. And, it’s kind of fun to have someone you can talk to in your head all the time.

Is there an atheistic equivalent of prayer? A way to recognize the good, prepare for the worst, and put your mind at ease, maybe with a small ritual? How do you express concern for someone where you might normally say “I’ll pray for you”? How do you keep friends’ troubles in your thoughts and mentally provide moral support? Or are these psychological games purely the domain of religion?

Or, is praying essentially the same as thinking? As I once overheard a Wheaton student say to another, “sometimes I don’t know if I’m praying or thinking”.

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

17 Responses to “an atheistic equivalent of prayer?”

on October 16, 2007 at 5:48 pm1 Colin M

You can still “pause and recognize and pull things together”. Just take 5-15 seconds to stop whatever you’re doing, clear your mind, and breathe deeply. It’s relaxing. (Moreso, in my opinion, than praying, because it requires no cognitive effort.)

I guess if you took this to the extreme, it’d be called meditation.
on October 16, 2007 at 10:37 pm2 Mike (FVThinker) Burns

How do you express concern for someone where you might normally say “I’ll pray for you”? How do you keep friends’ troubles in your thoughts and mentally provide moral support? Or are these psychological games purely the domain of religion?

Well their is no equivalent to requesting the suspension of the laws of nature for the benefit of your friend. There is the equally effective “I’ll kill a small mammal for you”, but that would (should) creep your friend out. Both of these are solely the domain of religion.

I will usually tell a person that they are in my thoughts and make myself available to them for help or friendship (or whatever is appropriate for the situation). It doesn’t suspend any natural laws, but at least it is something real and can actually be delivered.
on October 17, 2007 at 12:40 am3 mighty favog

The power of prayer can be real, but not as divine intervention. For the faithful, it is a way to focus on faith, a positive thing. It empowers one to have the confidence and fortitude to go out in the world and do what needs to be done. As an atheist, I often find myself in need of such empowerment. When I’m down, or anxious about work, or whatever, I find that the deep breathing/focusing thing works pretty well most of the time–when I question myself or lose confidence in myself, or I’m just plain worrying, I sit down and breathe, at first just concentrating on relaxing and listening/feeling the air moving in and out. After only a minute or so I feel very relaxed, and then I think about my problem, and think about how I have succeeded in the past, and how I can apply myself in the present. It’s finding faith in one’s self. You also have to be willing to give up your anxiety! It’s often hard to remember that positive feelings are just as real as the negative, no matter how valid they may be.
on October 17, 2007 at 6:24 am4 Colin M

Rather than “I’ll pray for you”, I go with something like “I’ll be thinking of you”.
on October 17, 2007 at 7:19 am5 nogodsallowed

Mike, I love your comment, “Well their is no equivalent to requesting the suspension of the laws of nature for the benefit of your friend…” — Brilliant!

You have to look at what prayer really is - fooling yourself into talking to a deity for a feel-good feeling. Now that you realize that no one’s there to talk to, it may get a little lonely. That’s where the semi-meditative state helps, to slow down, breath and think about things in the case of getting ready for tests, etc.

As for the praying for friends thing, there’s always the “thinking of you” or “my condolences” comments that really are the same, secularized version. Hallmark?
on October 17, 2007 at 10:44 am6 HappyNat

I agree with what other have said. If you feel stressed take a moment to slow down and reflect. It doesn’t matter if nobody is listening because there was nobody there when you prayed and it still “worked”.

“I will keep you in my thoughts”, is what I say to someone in a difficult situation.
on October 17, 2007 at 11:44 am7 Helen

I’ve thought about this a lot because I didn’t want to lose anything valuable when I stopped praying - which was a very intentional step I took about six years ago.

I’m absolutely not interested in the mystical dialog part of prayer anymore but I think it had a centering, quieting, calming effect on my mental state that it would be good for me to still make a part of my life. I sometimes do just…sit quietly, stilling myself in the same way I did for prayer…and it does relax me and calm me mentally. It can sort of ‘reset’ my brain into a more relaxed slower pace.

Centering is probably a better name for what I’m describing than prayer. It used to happen when I prayed and I’m glad I can still do it without the mystical dialog.

I’d like to do it more but I just don’t get around to it much because I’m disorganized.

About having someone to talk to - I just talk to myself. I’ve found I prefer that because it doesn’t raise a million questions about this person who is supposed to be talking back to me - who are they? How can I trust them if they send people to hell? Etc etc. For me that made prayer an ‘unsafe’ conversation and that’s one main reason why I stopped talking to God. But I feel safe talking with myself. Maybe it’s not very enlightening but at least I know who I’m dealing with!

I hope this helps a bit.
on October 17, 2007 at 11:51 am8 Helen

p.s. I’m not sure there’s anything that can replace “I’ll pray for you” if you’re talking with a Christian who thinks you’re a Christian and therefore they’re expecting you to say “I’ll pray for you”. It’s a little social ritual that is broken if you don’t say that - and yet saying it would be a lie.

I would probably say “I’m sorry” or “I hope things work out” or even “I’ll be hoping things work out”/”I’ll be thinking of you” which is about as close as I could get to “I’ll pray for you”. Those things might sound lame but at least I would be giving a response which acknowledges that they communicated something which is or will be painful/difficult/stressful.
on October 18, 2007 at 8:18 am9 vjack

I think Colin is right - just take a few seconds to clear your head and organize your thoughts. No point in prayer other than as a brief moment of relaxation.
on October 18, 2007 at 9:07 am10 JonJ

It seems to me that “prayer” is actually meditation (or what Zen people call “sitting”), dressed up with an imaginary address to a Sky Father in hopes that he will go out of his way to do something special for the person praying (in the case of petitionary prayer). So meditation will do everything that prayer does except for the Sky Father bit.
But I never prayed, so I don’t know how it works from personal experience. The closest I ever got was silent Friends meetings.
on October 18, 2007 at 12:45 pm11 Polly

“As I once overheard a Wheaton student say to another, “sometimes I don’t know if I’m praying or thinking”.”

This was very true for me at times. I would simply start to think aloud following one idea into another. Those “prayers” would go on for more than an hour.

I think of prayer as meditation and I hope to continue practicing a secular version of it.
on October 19, 2007 at 6:07 pm12 Hugo

Your post made it to this blog:
http://rightsaidreverend.wordpress.com/2007/10/17/eendag-sal-ons-dalk-verstaan/

The first comment, imperfectly translated into English:

“I don’t believe in a ‘higher power’ (not the best word), but I do sometimes enjoy having a running conversation with someone in my head. I have no idea who it is, but it feels like I’m heard. Even if you don’t believe in God, there is nothing that stops you from personifying reality and then having a conversation with it.”

YMMV. This does reflect my views quite well as well, might be worth it though. If you know it’s just a personification of whatever abstract notion, you could still employ “prayer” in a traditional way, without feeling hypocritical… I think?
on October 19, 2007 at 6:12 pm13 Hugo

Oh, and another take on variations on “prayer”, consider for example the very first comment of this post:

http://www.emergentvillage.com/weblog/prayer-as-projection
on October 25, 2007 at 3:25 pm14 Caduceus

I find that I perform the atheistic equivalent of prayer quite regularly; it is, like people have said, basically talking to yourself. Or, as Hugo said, personifying the universe or reality of whatever and addressing it. I regularly will think, or even say out loud, things such as, “Don’t let me make a fool of myself in front of that pretty barista,” or, “I really hope I get this job.” For example. And no, I don’t say it out loud within hearing distance of the pretty barista. It’s comforting, even when one understands that nothing besides oneself is going to act on the request. Give it a try.
on December 16, 2007 at 1:28 am15 Idetrorce

very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
on April 30, 2008 at 9:44 am16 Abie

I’m an atheist that gew up in an very secular country (France), so I’m not sure what kind of prayer is practised in the US beside the megachurch transe and glossolalia.
If it looks like the “day debriefing” I see in some movies (Dear god, today so and so happened and it made me feel so and so and I should try harder to this ans that. Tomorrow there is that big event coming up, I sure hope it will turn out allright,), then my secular equivalent is writing a diary entry when my thoughts prevent me from going to sleep.

HTH
on April 30, 2008 at 7:01 pm17 jessica

Re: Helen’s #8:

My favorite aunt has just been hit with multiple bouts of cancer and MRSA viruses, etc. at a very young age. They’re Wheaties (the whole damn family) and so I get bi-weekly prayer requests and praises that God has delivered yet another blow, but it must be somehow in the name of glory, etc.

I have not yet found a way to respond to these, or talk to my aunt, without acquiescing that I’m praying for them. Especially after a direct request for prayer, responding by saying “I’m thinking of you” would be a blow… not only because I’m an in-the-closet atheist, but because I know they view it as both an effortless gesture on my part AND vital to my aunt’s recovery.

That said, to everyone else, I say something like “scrunching up my face and sending good vibes to you…”. To most others, I think it’s important not just that you’re thinking about them (30 seconds of pity, for instance, is not what they want) but that you’re doing so with the intention of helping them out.