This has been bothering me since last night, so I want to talk about my issue with unsolicited prayers and the problem I have with, "Just be polite and say thank you- their intentions are good."
I am an atheist. I'm not simply Not Religious. But I spent my entire childhood in the Catholic Church.
Good - "Would you like me to pray for you?" "No, thank you." Interaction complete.
Bad - "I'll pray for you." You have now manipulated me into a position where I can either be "rude" according to - 1/
@Shelter Praying for me is uncomfortable, but saying god bless you is just a colloquial variation on have a nice day IMO so it does not bug me, regardless of anybody's assumptions about me. I am an agnostic Jesus freak, not sure about the supernatural until I see solid evidence, but I like Jesus' message of love, whoever they were talking about when they wrote it down, myth or not.
@Shelter I hear your boundary. If you don’t mind, I have a genuine question. May I clarify whether that is prayer only, or does it extend to things like “warm thoughts,” “sending virtual hugs,” “I’ll keep you in my thoughts,” etc. In other words, as an atheist, is this boundary around references specifically to prayer or does it extend to other unsolicited offers of support?
Being kept in someone's thoughts or being extended good wishes have absolutely nothing to do with religion.
In my opinion those are very welcome.
@Shelter Thank you for the reply & the clarification.
Grifter Franklin Graham, multi-millionaire son of a very famous grifter, is often on MSNBC commercials in my area. He makes a brief political statement, tells people to pray with him, and then launches into his prayer.
It's invasive.
Why TF would I trust a Republican grifter enough to join him in prayer, not knowing what in hell he's about to pray? His evangelical Republican thoughts are obviously warped.
Then he says call his prayer line. Obviously he wants our credit card info.
@Shelter I generally only offer prayers (online in posts) if I know the person is religious or if they specifically ask for them. Otherwise it seems presumptuous, like you wrote in your example of bad interaction. When unsure, I write ‘best wishes’ or ‘thinking of you’, phrases like that. I recently had a lady follow me & my daughter (wheelchair user) to my van…she went on about how God has a plan blah blah blah. 🙄 so weird!
@Shelter yeah, it was super awkward. I just kept loading our stuff and my daughter into the van while she talked at us. We were just at the bakery getting a donut so it was very unexpected.
- y'all by saying, "Please don't," or I can deny my own truth by saying, "Thank you."
Either way this shows that the prayer is not truly about me. It's for the benefit of the person who is doing the praying.
In my case it makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I'm supposed to ignore my discomfort in order to be polite.
I don't find that to be fair.
Anyway - I wanted to explain how I felt about the situation last night and hopefully encourage people to ask people first
It's the polite thing to do 2/2