The Overbearing Prayer

Though I prefer to paint myself as an activist in the atheist world, there are places I don’t do it. Namely, places where I am drastically outnumbered, and places where I would be disrupting too many people’s lives at once. In the first instance, it’s impossible to have an intelligent conversation about anything when too many people are throwing their hats into the ring and reinforcing stereotypes. In the second, it’s a matter of respect. I wouldn’t want a theist to walk into a skeptic’s meeting and rile everyone up, so I apply the same standard to myself. This Thanksgiving featured both of those circumstances, and as such, I kept my mouth shut on a couple of issues, one of which I’d like to discuss with you.

This Thanksgiving, we had a prayer before dinner. Well, not so much before dinner as during it. We did a buffet sort of self-serving routine, and about the time half of us had our food (and some of us were already eating), my grandfather insisted that one of my uncles come and offer a blessing. My grandfather is deeply religious, as regular readers already know. My uncle, though not my grandfather’s son by birth, is descended from religious folk. I’m pretty sure my biological grandfather (a man I only met a few times before he died) spent more than a couple hours discussing the good book in front of an audience. I know for a fact that one of my other uncles is deeply religious (he told me so when I mentioned this blog to him), and that the other one is so deep into spirituality that you might as well refer to him as a de facto theist at this point. Among the other attendees were my incredibly religious nephew, my brother who claims to be an atheist but defends the beliefs of others to a rather ridiculous extent, and my family who has recently returned to church. My wife (the partial agnostic) is still up in Santa Cruz preparing for opening night of her professional directorial debut (break a leg, my dear), and thus, I was all alone in my disbelief, mired in a bog of believers.

Now, let me begin by saying I understand wanting to bless the food. I really do. It’s a tradition that’s been around for centuries, if not millennia. Thanking God (or whomever you happen to believe in) is perfectly fine, especially on a holiday that is based on the very concept of thanks. (Obviously, I wouldn’t do it if I had my way. Personally, I prefer to thank the people who purchased and prepared the food, but I’m the weird one here.)

A normal blessing, one that thanks god for the bounty of this feast, for the good health we have, for the trees and all that, is, as I said, perfectly within the realm of respectability for me. But what many theists don’t realize, is that prayers of this sort can easily become less about being thankful, and more about being, in a word, fearful.

Our prayer started out innocuous enough, though my uncle did insist on using phrases that assert the supremacy of god. I can get past that, the whole “our God in charge of everything” thing. But the part that didn’t sit well with me came after the thanks. He said, “please help us to recognize that everything we have comes from you, and that everything is because of your will.” Those of you who are open minded, reading this alone on your long weekend, read that sentence again. Maybe three times.

“Please help us to recognize that everything we have comes from you, and that everything is because of your will.”

“Please help us to recognize that everything we have comes from you, and that everything is because of your will.”

Now tell me, honestly: is that sentence more for God, or for my uncle’s three children? Or for the ungodly one in the room? I don’t suspect my uncle of any malicious intent—he really goes out of his way to be a nice guy most of the time—but I don’t think he has any idea how this sort of thing sounds. I don’t think anyone who ever offers this prayer aloud, to an audience, really thinks about the words that are coming out of his mouth. One on one, alone, on your knees by the side of your bed, I understand asking God to help you remember where your blessings come from. I understand asking him to help you keep your faith, especially if it’s an often-tenuous proposition. I also understand saying this sort of thing in front of an audience of devout believers, where everyone is hoping for similar results. But to say this in the blessing of a meal strikes me as odd. Something about it makes me question this prayer the same way I question backhanded compliments, as if it’s some sort of code. “That’s a beautiful painting for someone who hasn’t been trained in the arts.” To me, it felt far less inviting than it could have. But again, I’m the weird one.

I’m interested in your opinions. I feel like prayer is a sacred space where no one casts a critical eye, and maybe we should. Some people hide threats within prayers, and I’ve (more than once) heard someone send a message to their children while offering their heartfelt thanks to their chosen deity. I don’t really know how much these public prayers are about god anymore. What do you think?

Quick Update

I wasn’t sure that people would continue coming to the site, given that I haven’t had time to do a proper update in a while, but apparently, I’ve had many visitors this past week. Given that, I would really like to leave you with something to think about, whether or not it’s straight from my mouth. Here’s an article that Penn Jillette tweeted today. It’s about ministers who have lost their faith–because they read atheist literature as well as the bible. Somehow, taking a critical look at the bible can make it rather difficult to reconcile the differences and inconsistencies it contains. For those of you who always tell me I should read the bible, feel free to chew on these details for a little while:

Via ABC News

I’ll be back at you soon, one way or another. Seems I might be doing lunch with one of my favorite pastors soon.