The OP of this thread was banned and all her posts deleted so I'm putting in this post instead.

if youre an atheist and want to be consistent, isnt someone offering to pray for you similar to someone wishing you well? is there any evidence that wishing someone well works? Do you equally get upset at those who wish others well or do you have a personal vendetta against religious people?

It may help if you linked the story.

I've always thought that if I were seriously ill and had to choose between a theist doctor, and an atheist doctor, I'd choose the atheist because I'd want to be treated by someone who thinks that they are are my only hope.

I don't think that religion has any place in a hospital and it doesn't even make sense. God put you there in the first place, at least, he allowed you to be there and presumably made no effort to stop it. For people to then pray for his help seems misguided or even downright arrogant. Who are you to question what god wants or has allowed to come to pass and to imagine that he'll change his mind simply because you asked?

Besides, what if you're praying to the wrong god, it might end up making things worse for you

There are many biblical stories where people pray to God for him to change his mind. Abraham for instance, pleads for Sodom. Even Christ prayed that he may not be crucified, I don't think it's that outrageous.

What bothers me is that people are so quick to become offended. Not just about religion, but about everything in general. I get that an incident like this may irk you, but to go as far as to complain and to make it more than it is frustrates me. Especially if it's a passing incident. If you're constantly offered prayer when you don't believe in God, that would be one thing, but a one time offer for prayer, just get over it.

It depends. Did she merely offer a personal prayer wishing the person better health or did she offer a prayer as means of treatment?

Those are two very different things. The first is just a nice thing to do, the second is (medically speaking) the same as a health professional offering crystal healing or laying on of hands.

OK, but what if I do? Your god has made it so, who are you to ask him to change his mind? Don't you think that's a little presumptuous of you?

Do you believe in the efficacy of prayer?

I regularly see crucifixes in US hospital rooms and most hospitals have a chapel, even in the UK. I'm also pretty tired of hearing people thank god for being cured of X problem, which I would imagine mightily pisses of the medical staff who worked hard to provide their treatment,, so it's not 'making it more than it is' to question how religions like Christianity have been allowed to to insert themselves so blatantly into even this aspect of our lives.

Also, you have to understand that from my perspective of thinking that religions are nothing more than human constructs that seek to further their own existence, I see the presence of religions in hospitals the same way that I see the activities of psychics, fortune tellers and mediums (including historically examples like Haruspices and Auspices). They may provide some kind of comfort it's true, but at the same time there's something ghoulish, unethical and extremely cynical about it.

Have you ever had anyone offer to pray for you in a circumstance like that? What did you do, or what would you do if it happened?

If it's the story that I recall from a while back, the nurse offered an elderly woman prayer, the woman declined, and the nurse accepted. The elderly women later filed a complaint against the nurse. It had nothing to do with replacing medicine, she claimed that many of the patients ask for prayer, so she was in the habit of asking.

Another important point (if true) is that the prayers were not all done at the hospital, but she would pray for them privately at home, so from the patients view, it is in a sense just good intentions, since they don't actually see anything but the good will. In that sense it is kind of like telling them to get well.

Not sure if you used the word "efficacy" intentionally, but I believe this implies a specific outcome. This is not always the case.

If you simply mean if I believe that prayer can change things, then yes.

I'm sure we can come up with situations where it would be inappropriate to pray for people, and perhaps if you're a health care worker who is overlooked, it can be annoying, but filing a complaint in the absence of these things is to me, an overreaction.

I would be hard pressed to find a scenario where I would complain about someone who hasn't harmed me and is well-meaning. If someone is not malicious, you are getting upset at their ignorance. If that ignorance has not harmed you, then I'm personally letting it go. If you need to complain, just tell the person involved how you feel, that they acted inappropriately, you don't need to try to make them lose their job.

Edit: I forgot to answer if it was presumptuous. It's part of having faith. The bible tells us to pray, and that our prayers can be effective (with certain exceptions). There is no reason to think it presumptuous, if God condones it.

I suspect that this is false, except for possibly hospitals run by the Catholic church (but even then). Unless you're talking about family bringing crucifixes into the hospital room, in which case it's not really any different from people bringing in cards and flowers.

Yeah. That's so terrible. Doing things that bring comfort to families during time of stress is clearly in conflict with the hospital's mission, even the secular ones.

It would be very interesting of you to actually cite evidence of pissed off doctors. You know, something other than your empty speculations? I mean, we had this whole other thread where someone claimed that their good act was ruined by someone invoking God, and the forum came down quite thoroughly on the side of unjustified anger.

Can you imagine a doctor giving the family good news, the family saying "Thank God everything's going to be okay" and the doctor being pissed off? Seriously?

Yes, we're aware of your biases with respect to religion. You also think that religious parents are unthinking automatons, and that asking questions like "What does a Christian do?" is an example of social pressure to conform.

Yeah this is going to go well.

I agree with Aaron obviously but think his earlier contribution to the thread even more ridiculous.

High pressure situations like this tend to cause lower levels of performance. This is a well-studied psychological phenomenon.

I have no problems with people praying for me in and of itself. How I would react depends on the situation and the context.

If the story is as N_R describes it; in the form of an offer and in no way could be construed as a substitute for actual medical treatment I would not take offense. However, I think it is important that medical staff realize that many sick people (and especially very sick people and the elderly) can have a strained relationship with religion, so they must tread carefully.

Personally I am almost guaranteed to respond humorously in a situation like this; "well, maybe you can get me on his other list" or some such.

I am reasonably confident that any decent doctor would be more offended by the implication that her theism or lack thereof be more relevant than her training.

I doubt they would be as offended by someone saying thank god I survived than by someone saying I'm glad I got you I don't trust that doctor who believes in God.

It's good to see that the sabbatical allowed MB to really review his position regarding religion in light of the comments of OrP.

I would personally expect more of a doctor than a nurse. If a doctor brought up religion or prayer, I would become dubious of his/her ability as a health professional.

How does that work? Can you be more specific than 'I ask god for things and he might grant them', I'm trying to understand what you think is actually happening.

For example, if someone you knew fell seriously ill, presumably that would be a situation in which you might pray for them, you might pray to god to assist in their recovery? If so, god allowed them to become ill, might even have planned for them to become ill, in which case, what does you asking god to make them better actually acheive? To change god's mind? If god can do something, and your prayer could actually initiate that, why didn't he do it already, what does it say about god that he could have saved them and didn't until you asked for it? Might your prayer simply have zero effect because it could never have an effect?

There are uncountable horrors happening in the world, right now, do you also pray for god to stop those too? I cringe every time I see a sports team praying, or a poker player beseeching god for help in a WSOP hand. If prayer actually works, should there not be a list of much higher priorities that all prayerful types should automatically pray for?

What if the person providing treatment, despite their best intentions, provides treatment that in some way is compromised because they believe that there is an ultimate power, beyond them, that could save you. That they have something to fall back on, or that if you die it's not their fault because god must have wanted that. Then you are directly being harmed by their belief. On the other side of the coin, people die because others believe that their prayers are more powerful than modern medicine, another example of harm caused by a belief in the power of prayer.

Further, whilst prayer may or may not be directly harmful to me, it represents something that I'm quite certain is harmful to me. I believe that one the greatest threats to world peace that currently exists are the conflicts arising from the different religious beliefs. Whenever I see or hear anything about religion, I'm reminded of that and I don't see those reminders as harmless in themselves, but instead as part of a greater much more harmful thing. In fact, I think that prayer is one of the methods by which religions perpetuate themselves, so I see it in much the same light as I do McDs adverts. Not harmless at all.

Ahhhh... the classic "marketing" argument from Mightyboosh returns.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...osity-1363146/

In particular, I think Zumby spent quite a while trying to convince you were in error back then. Apparently, none of that discussion took root.

Some of these criticisms are valid, but it's should not be with prayer in general, or the idea of prayer, but with the specific prayers.

For example, if someone falls sick, like you describe, yes I want them to be well, but perhaps what I want even more than that, as a Christian, is that God work in this situation for an even greater good than good health. If I realize that we will all die one day, good health is not a permanent solution. I can pray that through this situation, the person who is sick is touched by God through this situation, which may come through them being healed in the first place.

As a more mature Christian, you don't always ask for specific things, because you understand that the bigger picture is not always available to you, so you pray that God's will be done, that he be active in the situation.

As for your first example, you are describing negligence, so there may be merit to some disciplinary action, but these are just hypotheticals. If like I said, it is not malicious, then it's moot in my opinion.

As for you second paragraph here, do you think it would be harmful if I pray for you right now? I can understand why you feel religion is harmful, but surely this doesn't mean that you would want a nurse fired if she discretely asked if you want prayer.

If you go around in hospitals and offer sick and elderly people prayer, odds are that quite a few of them are going to end up feeling dread and fear. Religion is not always a comfort near the end of your life.

You can't pour the entire responsibility over to the patient recipient, who are usually is not in this place of their own volition, to not be insulted or phased. A health professional should be vary of this, and even when prayer is offered out of niceness, some diplomatic tact and empathy is certainly required.

I conceded that there are situations where this may be inappropriate, I think tact is extremely necessary in these scenarios. Obviously you can be rude and overstep your boundaries, but when this has not taken place, there is no need for a formal complaint.

Edit: I just remembered going to Hospitals as a young man to pray for people. It hadn't occurred to me until now. I likely wouldn't do this now, but at the time I had a young man's zeal. Many people refused. One guy in particular was extremely suspicious of me being there, and when I asked if he wanted prayer, he gave me the old "aha!", but we ended up talking for a bit after he declined, and he wasn't offended, just not interested. A few people accepted, I think some of them just appreciate the visit, and aren't particularly picky about who is there.

Certainly, but it is not solely up to the health professional or his/her good intentions to decide when this is.

MB: I think that there is plenty to critique in the way some people go about praying, but I also think your understanding of prayer is far too narrow and transactional.

So if a sports team prays "to win the game" and they really believe that they are asking for that specific thing to happen and that God will grant it to them, I think that it's sort of an unfortunate understanding of prayer, and your questioning them about their relative priorities would be entirely justified.

In the same way, it can be argued that a certain attitude that goes along prayers for healing can be misguided, again because of the sort of transactional expectation, but I do not judge such prayers at all, because even if they are hard to fit into some coherent metaphysics, they are often not really just an incantation with the blunt expectation of success: It's not as if Christians are not aware about questions concerning the "efficacy" of prayer. But we pray also in those times as an expression of hope and pain and grief and everything else. Fundamentally we pray to be present with God, which is what prayer really is about.

So there are prayers of petition, of lament, of doubt, or raw cries for help. All of which are human expressions. They may each in some way fall short of reflecting a metaphysical reality, but they a part of a human experience of God. There is also prayer of thanksgiving, of joy, in peace, silence and stillness, which have a different character, but are no less prayer.

A fair point, but simply being offended, is to me, not a good enough reason for complaining, and not a good enough reason for any action being taken. People are constantly offended these days.

Surely you're not simply praying that god will do what he was gong to do anyway and that what he wills be done, that seems a little pointless. The net result is the same as if you hadn't prayed at all. What do you believe happens when you pray to your god? Do you believe that prayer can actually change anything? If so, how?


So if you were in a hospital in an Islamic country, and you asked your doctor 'will I be ok doc?', and he replied 'Insha'Allah, Insha'Allah', you would be content with that? It would worry me greatly that my doctor thinks my fate is in the hands of a god that I don't believe exists but for me, this applies to all religions, not just all of them but one.

I didn't say that I wanted a nurse fired. As for your praying for me, yes, it would be part of perpetuating a system of belief that I think our species would be better off without, so I would see it as a negative although you wouldn't be causing me any direct harm (depending on what you pray for of course).