Can prayer and atheism co-exist?
posted by Beyond Skin | January 18, 2012
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IcerocketI was brought up in the conventions of Catholicism and began my own spiritual questioning in my teens. I've realized now that I know nothing about God or god for which I am largely grateful as the search is so interesting! I no longer subscribe to the idea of an almighty that punishes, metes out famines and pestilence and casts all newborns into darkness simply from the act of being conceived by a man and a woman.
I've left the hard line teaching of the church of my upbringing behind many years ago but I do consider myself a spiritual person and I still believe in prayer. Can the two co-exist? I think so.
I was reading one of the last columns of Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair where he talked about his cancer treatment and his thankfulness that prayer groups had sprung up to aid him. At least I think he was being thankful...one can never be fully sure with Hitchens! I began to ponder this in the context of my own largely atheist or agnostic beliefs and I found no contradiction. What is prayer after all only the wish or affirmation for a change? Is it possible to 'pray' without necessarily worshiping a divine being; to pray to the great collective unconscious?
A good friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer last year and I wanted immediately to pray for her fast and prolonged recovery. But when I realized that I no longer believed in a divine God, I was conflicted. I didn't want to feel 'fake' or suddenly turn to a being I didn't believe in to ask for an intervention. But as I thought more and more about prayer and the nature of wishing, I began to realize that it was a request for positive energy in the universe to reach my friend; for a cause or a physical action or idea to be implemented. An affirmation if you will. And thus I found it easy to pray because it felt right to want the best for her.
As a Catholic I was taught that you shouldn’t pray for material things. Not money or new cars or anything physical but it was allowed to pray for so-called spiritual gifts, grace, closeness to the divine, acceptance and such. But in the context of my new thinking, why shouldn’t a person pray for material things? If the universe and its collective positive vibrations can grant health or peace of mind, why not money or a new apartment or lover? In my old thinking prayer was to me a chore, a recitation of meaningless words. This new outlook allows me to pray every day, everywhere for anyone and anything!
Comments
interesting idea
— Jan 19, 2012
i still go through something like this, as a former born-again christian. sometimes, not too often any more, i will pray out of habit, catch myself doing it, then realize that the prayer is going to my higher self. then i think that my prayers are cluttering up the ether with thought-forms. i have revisited the whole matter again since a recent encounter with beings who identified themselves as archangels and who told me to call on them if i need them. that cast me again into the quandary. i see them as externalized forms of my higher self. i am thinking that if it feels gratifying to pray, it is ok. at the least, it can alleviate stress and any thought forms out there sort themselves out or remain in space. thoughts are supposed to be energy and energy can move things.
wisdom
— Jan 21, 2012
Thanks, this is really interesting. I've never had any doubt that you can be profoundly spiritual and yet still be an atheist. It depends on what lives in the deeper reaches. And personally I prefer that sort of atheist to a mealy-mouthed believer. And yet there are so many problems. For example, I believe that the day will come when reincarnation will be generally accepted - and yet the hard-core materialists will interpret it as a phenomenon of the brain, or some such thing. Near death experiences are already in that category. It starts to get ridiculous. And what is the 'collective unconscious'? Humanity is splitting off onto two different pathways. But about prayer - yes you can make very affirmative requests to your own better nature. But the minute you venture off into the better nature of something outside of yourself you are talking about a consciousness or love which transcends you. Even the concept of 'collective unconscious' presupposes wisdom. How do things cohere?
It seems to me that a certain point you have to decide to say that the consciousness or wisdom you are praying to must belong to.. something. And, yes, I'm happy with archangels and guardian angels.
