How would an atheist know which one that is? Is it Allah, Jahwe, Jesus, Xenu, Shiva, Odin, Zeus or one of many other deities people believe or believed in? That seems like a pivotal detail if you want to pray properly.

I disagree with this, you can pray an honest prayer directed at which ever God is real, without trying to figure out what religion has captured his essence the closest.

If you're drowning and are begging for a lifeline, do you need to know who you are begging to for your request to be genuine? The important part is believing that they hear you.

Belief seems like an odd requirement. Obviously a convicted atheist isn't going to bother, but someone who lacks belief but still thinks there is a non-trivial possibility his prayer might be heard may still give it a shot.

Seems like God auto-rejecting genuine prayers from the unconvinced would be pretty bad for recruiting.

Just insert the word "might" or "can" and it fixes the problem, and it's likely closer to the intent of the statement.

If you think that the auto-rejecting that you perceive going on here is bad, what do you think of Louis' idea that not knowing which God to pray to is problematic? Or the idea of "proper prayer" (whatever that means) as a "pivotal detail"?

If "might", then is there a certain threshold of perceived probability by the prayer that flips a request from non-genuine to genuine? And if so what makes that threshold non-arbitrary?

I didn't mean bad as in unjust, just potentially a missed opportunity for recruiting.

As much as someone who thinks the notion of a universal creator being the least bit concerned with the requests of individual humans is absurd is capable, I did understand that point. It shouldn't be problematic to pray without worrying about which religion if any is correct.

Although for those that think God is answering, discerning exactly what he expects of humans does seem to be problematic.

When you're all-in and your opponent is drawing to a flush to beat you, is your hope that he doesn't get there genuine even though you are also certain that you might not win the hand? I don't really see how "might" can change anything here about the attitudinal disposition you have.

Odd analogy, unless you're suggesting there's an objective way to calculate and be certain of the odds that a prayer-hearing/parsing God exists.

In any case I was just wondering what it is that qualifies a prayer as genuine - or not. I would think anything that qualifies as a prayer at all is going to have at least some minute level of genuine hope attached.

The point is that thinking that God "might" hear you makes your request no less genuine than your genuine hope that your hand "might" hold. Even having certainty that there's a chance that your desired outcome won't come to pass is insufficient to make the word "might" change the genuineness of your desires.

Or you could turn it around and have exactly one out. That still doesn't change the genuineness of your desire. In all cases (except when you're drawing dead) you have genuine hope for a positive outcome.

It's a fair question, and one that I can't give a straight answer for.

Right. I hope my extended discussion of the analogy makes more sense.

- Gregory of Nazianzen, Hymn to God

I find this problematic for two reasons. Firstly, I genuinely don't understand how you can claim that Jesus is real and active in your life, a very strong assertion with little room for error or doubt and that has huge import and significance for you, and then claim that it doesn't matter which god is real wrt to prayer as if it were possible that the god you are sure is real, actually isn't real. Aren't you convinced that the god you pray to is the only god and if so then why entertain the question? Why not just state, 'I know I'm right, so it's moot'. This is part of why I don't think that your willingness to accept that you might be wrong is anything more than lip service to the idea of 'intellectual honesty', you simply don't behave as if you really believe that you could be wrong.

Second, how do you know you're right? If you're wiling to admit the possibility of error wrt to your god being real (which is definitely non-trivial), then I suppose that you must do the same with your feeling that whatever god is actually real won't mind prayers directed to other gods and admit that in fact it might displease him/them greatly. I.e. you might be greatly displeasing the real god(s) by praying to a false god. It seems that only way to you can resolve this problem is to deny the existence of the other gods, but then doesn't this undermine your view that it you could be wrong about your god being real?

Or you could say 'I don't think god minds, or I might be wrong and he does mind' which seems a little pointless.

I like it

Is this genuine non-understanding different from the other times when you say you don't understand?

I have a friend who has helped people out of dangerous situations. His name is very hard to pronounce. I can say it correctly because I've had a lot of practice. But if someone needs help says "Hey you!" he's not going to complain that they didn't call him by name.

(Edit: Alternatively, we've been interacting with electrons since the beginning of time, but only recently have we really started to understand it. Did the electron refuse to interact with us when we didn't really understand its existence?)

Seriously? You've been bagging on him for lots of posts for having what you perceive as insufficient reason to believe something, and you're going to now suggest that the most appropriate position to take with regards to an inquiry is to insist on his rightness and not even entertain the question? To not engage in a discussion?

Of all the people to be talking about intellectual honesty and the inability to admit error...

Once again, you're using the equivalence of all (religious) beliefs as the foundation of your argument despite the fact that this has been repeatedly challenged as a nonsensical position to take.

Or you could just have no idea what you're talking about.

You've misunderstood my point a bit. I was responding to the scenario of an atheist praying while in a plane crash, specifically that it would be difficult to do because he would not know who to pray to. Merely not calling God by name is not enough to hinder the sincerity of your request, and the faith you are showing.

This "ignorance", for lack of a better word, can almost be beneficial, because you're stripping away your ego and pride, and are calling to whichever God happens to exist, not the one you hope for or expect.

Either way, my point is that being an atheist (or perhaps agnostic is a better term) doesn't stop you from making a genuine plea to God when the plane is going down, no more than a drowning man yelling for help, even if he is unsure who is able to help him.

You are making assumptions about what qualities whatever God exists values. I have trouble believing that one could address Jesus or Odin in the same manner and get the same result.

The fact that you have difficulties doesn't address whether such difficulties exist in reality. Maybe you can elaborate on what you mean by "the same manner" and "the same result" and enlighten us on what the issues are.

For example,
1) "Dear Jesus. Help me to be more patient."
2) "Dear Odin. Help me to be more patient."
Do you think that the efficacy of one of these would be different than the efficacy of the other? If so, why?

Mostly, I think your objection is quite transparently meaningless.

Sure, we are also making the assumption that God is good, that he is not Descartes' evil genius, that he isn't going out of his way to making things appear one way when they are another.

For the purposes of this examination we need to accept that God exists and that he is good. The following extrapolations, while extrapolations, are only logical. If God is good and honours sincerity and faith, then an honest appeal to him should be welcomed.

Sure, or maybe this god values integrity and sticking to your long held beliefs even in the face of death more than a last-ditch effort to cover all your bases.

If your prayer is meant to cover all your bases, it's not genuine to begin with.

In the context we were talking about, i.e immanent danger of death, I don't think prayer flows out of some concept of what God is or values. I think it flows from a human reaction to our own precariousness and contingency. It is more existential. I think the analogy to calling for help was good. Maybe "God" exists and hates people who cry for help, but nevertheless it is a very human response to danger. The one crying out hasn't settled on a course of action after some prudent judgement about the odds.

There is clearly a difference between how you would understand Jesus and Odin, but it probably doesn't matter that much in this context.

What do you believe motivates an atheist who is facing imminent death to suddenly start praying?

I would say that agnostic is a better term to use, but the question was a hypothetical. They needn't have a reason to start praying, perhaps they would never start praying, but the issue was that you said they *couldn't* because they would be stymied by the choices. I'm merely objecting to that point, for all I know they would never pray and remain atheists in foxholes, but if they theoretically decided, the number of Gods shouldn't be a factor.

This is what covering all bases looks like: "Let's see... I prayed to Jesus and Allah, so I still have Odin to pray to, and I should probably light this incense as well. Let's check Google to see what other gods there might be that I should also pray to."

I'm doubtful that this is what an atheist prayer looks like in the moments perceived to be the last ones for him.

Praying is pretty illogical anyway, so trying to apply logic is tricky at best.

You are effectively asking the person who is killing you (or at least allowing you to die) , to not kill you.

A god who only saves the lives of those who beg him seems a cruel one to me.

What makes an atheist's generic prayer triggered by emotional response to extreme stress (foxhole/plane crash) more "genuine" than a prayer attempting to cover bases? They could both involve an equal expectation of probability of response. They both seem equally selfish.

If anything the latter seems more substantial.

In a different universe I could sort of make logical sense of prayer. Given what I am able to perceive about ours the notion just seems absurdly anthropocentric.


Seems like any non-deterministic Christian theology has to involve some amount of randomness to life/death. Pretty easy to rationalize that God can't logically protect absolutely everyone from accidental death, it's His prerogative to play favorites etc.