Yesterday the great Derek Thompson a guest essay by the (I’m sure) great Nir Eyal, titled “The Case For Prayer, Even If You’re An Atheist”. https://www.derekthompson.org/p/why-everybody-should-prayeven-ifWhen I clicked on the piece, my mind turned to a paper by the the great Tim Mawson my philosophy professor last term at Oxford, great in both wisdom and stature called, provocatively, “Praying to stop being an atheist”. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11153-010-9227-8According to Mawson, “atheists who think that the issue of God’s existence or non-existence is an important one; who assign anything greater than a negligible probability to God’s existence; and who are not in possession of a plausible argument for scepticism about the truth-directedness of the practice of uttering such prayers in their own cases are under a prima facie epistemic obligation to pray to God that He stop them being atheists.”Why, you ask? Here is Mawson’s pitch in a nutshell:I suggest that the person who prays that God help him or her to believe in Him is as reasonable as someone who finds himself or herself shouting ‘Is anyone there?’ in a darkened room about which he or she has various reasonable prior beliefs. This is a room about the other occupier of which, if any, he or she has heard some controversy. Some say that in this room there is a wise old man in an ongoing relationship with whom they have found great personal satisfaction whenever they have entered the room and spoken to him. Others however claim that there is no such man, that the room only ever contains the person who goes into it. Finding himself or herself in the room today the person we are considering realizes that he or she has no other more pressing business to hand and shouts, ‘Is there anyone there?’; ‘If you’re there wise old man, please answer me!’; and perhaps a couple of other similar things, and listens for a reply.
>>41717482It seems rational if you’d like to meet this man, but don’t yet believe he exists to nonetheless give him a shout.But what if through no fault of your own you actively believe there is no wise old man? Here, Mawson says, it still makes sense to call out to him. If he isn’t there, the worst you have done is tried something, and it took less than a minute of your day; if he is there, he might respond, and that would be a very good thing.The same holds for God. If you don’t believe in God, but want to find out if he does, stubbornly refusing to pray before your credence in theism tips over 50% is probably irrational and anally retentive; in general, if you want to know whether x is the case, it is not a good idea to wall yourself off from a easy source of evidence concerning x.But if God exists, it stands to reason that many of the billions of people worldwide who think they are in an ongoing relationship with God are in such a relationship, and many of those people think their relationship started through prayer.If you’re worried about the biasing effects of prayer on your impartial truth-seeking journey (‘If I pray for a few seconds each day, I will lost my Rationality, and my lizard brain will see Krishna’s face in every piece of burnt toast!’ *rips eyebrows*), then just employ a two-pronged strategy of praying, and then trying extra hard to not be irrational (which is an added bonus of Mawson’s challenge, since you should have already been doing that anyway…)
>>41717482Why waste time creating new mental gymnastics for atheists to satisfy themselves with?
My first experiences with God as an adult came as an atheist walking the Camino Santiago. Having fedoraed many a Christian in my time (my specialty was Jobs book), many a Christian had asked me how I could know if I didn't pray? So to get rid of this irksome argument and prove them once and for all retarded beyond redemption; I stopped and prayed at every single cross and church on my 100 day pilgrimage.Having studied NLP, hypnosis and self-hypnosis I formulated a prayer I in my pride assumed would not particularly mindfuck me. >I asked forgiveness for being an unbeliever.>I asked for strength and health.And knowing that God is also Love>I asked God to fill my heart with Love This ofcourse has mindfucked me beyond belief in the 15 years that has passed. My life has gone to shit and I believe I am a warlock wordlock wyrdlock! But atleast I am happy, I have kept my fedora integrity by becoming a "non-religious theist", I never lack for anything and my Shepherd pretty much lets me run wild.Anyway, great argument OP. Another such argument is that religious people score better on most metrics - so just mindfuck yourself anon! Or my own little spell>God has a special place in His heart for atheists: their wrath never directed at Him but at the Enemys image of Him. The truest of believers, his beloved lost sheep.
>>41717482Try this: Believe in Son Gohan, believe he listens and wants to help. Ask him for some ki. Ezpz. And this is why no one should ever Listen to such cucks
>>41717503Eyal’s essay takes a different tack it is about the much-touted secular benefits of prayer; I have nothing especially original to say here, only that the party-line about habitual prayer being healthy seems right, and that it is yet another thing that couldn’t hurt.I was asked by a long-time-no-see freind at a meeting of the Oxford Socratic Society if I prayed last term, and I replied with something like “less than I should”; although I am not (anymore/yet) a Christian, I still reflexively pray the Lord’s Prayer, which covers all the key bases thanks, repentance, petition, etc. without committing to any Christian Doctrines, which is why for reasons of honesty I can’t pray the Apostle’s or Nicene Creed.Sometimes I pray about more specific things; mostly I don’t pray enough.How should you pray? I don’t know. Probably it helps to pray free-verse on some days, and recite a time-homoured classic on others when you can’t think of what to say. For the atheist who is seeking (reasonable) belief, Mawson recommends the prayer Mark 9:24: “I believe; help my unbelief.”For something non-Christian (but not anti-Christian), Baháʼís have an oligatory short prayer that I like, which they recite once every 24 hours at noon. In translation it reads,I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth. There is none other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.Not to sound like an LLM, but this isn’t an abstract philosophical musing it’s a call to action. Whether or not believe (and in some ways, especially if you don’t believe), you probably have a prudential and epistemic obligation (to yourself, and to your mind), to pray.
>>41717482>suggest that the person who prays that God help him or her to believe in Him is as reasonable as someone who finds himself or herself shouting ‘Is anyone there?’Arguably sensible, but fucking hardly a prima facie epistemic obligation.
