I really liked this post on Psychology Today’s humanist blog by the president of the American Humanist Association, Dave Niose. The post reprints a letter written by an atheist father to his 11-year-old daughter explaining why he doesn’t believe in prayer. The context of the post explains that the man is married to a Christian and their child is being brought up with religion, and the girl was upset with her father when he said he would not pray for her. His letter is both thoughtful and instructive, illustrating plainly and clearly why prayer is misguided and why he chooses to ground his life in the real world rather than the magical and supernatural one:
Therefore, when you ask me to pray for you (or for anything else), I don’t want you to misunderstand me when I say that I won’t do it. I simply do not believe that prayer works, or that it makes any sense. Nature works according to natural laws, not magic. The idea of a man in the sky who takes requests from 7 billion people just seems silly to me. No such man would ignore the prayers of billions of suffering, innocent people while granting the prayers of those who ask for iPods, or to win soccer games, or pass tests.
So I hope you understand, and I hope you can respect my views. Of course, even though I’m not praying for you, I very much hope good things happen to you! I also want you to help make the world a better place, a place where there is much more peace and much less suffering. That will happen not by praying for it, but by working hard to make it happen. You can make the world better by paying attention to the the natural, not the supernatural, and leaving magic to fairy tales.
I also came across this image of Frank Sinatra and some quotes from him about religion, as well as some similar banner-style images of other celebrities via this post at The Friendly Atheist. The banners come from the “New Atheism” group Truth-Saves.com. Typical of the more confrontational style of “New Atheists”, Truth-Saves is a bit more direct in their opposition to Christianity, including organizing college students and voters . Their banners are along the same intentions as the now-famous “atheist bus ads”: attempting to de-stigmatize atheism by directly challenging the assumptions of religious people. The discussion at Friendly Atheist about the banners links to this 1963 Playboy interview with The Chairman of the Board (don’t worry, the link is only the text of the interview), wherein Ol’ Blue Eyes really lays it out in a way that seems exceptionally brave for the time. Some of the FA commenters have pointed out that some of the other celebrity comments are taken out of context and probably misrepresent the actual religious beliefs of those celebs (notably Natalie Portman and Jon Stewart), but Sinatra had no use at all for religion.
And the Flying Spaghetti Monster would like to remind you of some things that atheists never do.
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