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Do atheists pray? It sounds like the lead -- or the punchline -- of a joke. But it turns out that it's no laughing matter. As contradictory as it seems, there are atheists that do, indeed, pray.
According to "Psychology Today," citing the Pew Research Center's figures, 6 percent of atheists and agnostics pray daily. And 11 percent even pray weekly or monthly.
It's sort of like the old saying, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" If an atheist prays, do they believe that anyone is listening? Or is it more like self-talk, where, when they hear themselves voicing their issues, they can more easily sort them out than if their concerns are left to rankle around in their head? They may not need a recipient. Or they might believe they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, and if a higher power happens to jump in and assist, well, then that's just an added bonus.
Perhaps, for them, prayer takes the form of a moment of reverence for a gorgeous artwork, a dazzling sunset, a glistening snowdrift, connection with a beloved pet. Perhaps it is expressed in feelings of sympathy for a friend or loved one who is ill or down on their luck. They may be crying out in physical or emotional pain, which is all the more excruciating because they doubt anyone can hear their pleas. Or maybe it's simply the moment when their team scores, and they jump up and shout out in joyous exultation.
The "Washington Post" refers to an atheist named Sigfried Gold who, in his own words, "drops to his knees on the beige carpeting of his bedroom, lowers his forehead to the floor and prays to God" twice a day. However, this creation which he refers to as "God" is actually a goddess he supplied with a name and a detailed appearance, with one stipulation -- she doesn't exist.
An atheist who prays -- to any being -- is quite an oxymoron. Depressed, overweight by more than 100 pounds, and drifting away from his wife and child, Gold joined a 12-step food addiction program four years ago. As with similar 12-step programs, it required surrender to God or a higher power, and the incorporation of prayer. Now Gold is in shape, happy, well-connected with his family -- and he has integrated a prayer routine into his life.
Gold doesn't believe that any supernatural being is focused upon his prayers. Yet he calls his nonexistent deity "God," and believes he has experienced a "conversion" that's nothing short of a "miracle." He attributes the positive changes in his life to the power of simply asking for what you want. "If you say, 'I ought to have more serenity about the things I can't change,' " he explains, "versus 'Grant me serenity,' there is a humility, a surrender, an openness. If you say 'grant me,' you're saying you can't do it by yourself."
While Gold may be an anomaly among atheists, his quest for a supernatural experience with inexplicable mystical forces turns out to be more commonplace. Research regarding atheists, conducted by the Pew Research Center, conveys a wide variety of beliefs. Eighteen percent of atheists claim that religion adds some value to their life, 26 percent attest to being spiritual or religious, and 14 percent believe in "God or a universal spirit." Of all the Americans who claim to lack a belief in God -- although they don't all refer to themselves as atheists -- 12 percent attest to praying.
In response to this variety, secular chaplains are beginning to populate universities including Carnegie Mellon, American and Rutgers -- and parents are establishing atheist Sunday schools. All of these activities have triggered controversy among atheists regarding the lengths they should go to when mimicking their theist counterparts.
According to Paul Fidalgo, spokesman for the secular advocacy group, the Center for Inquiry, atheists negate religion's allegiance to a supernatural god, but are starting to more closely examine the "very real effect" that traditions such as going to church, prayer and observance of a Sabbath have upon the lives of those who are religious. "That's a big hole in atheist life," Fidalgo describes. "Some atheists are saying, 'Let's fill it.' Others are saying, 'Let's not.' "
Well-known atheists, such as writer Sam Harris, are investigating the spiritual value of "non-ordinary states of consciousness," he recently penned in an essay. Contrary to this school of thought, "there is a lot of resistance to that among other atheists, who think it sounds very hocus-pocusy," Fidalgo said.
Gordon Melton, who is a historian of new American religions, says that atheists have only become organized in the past 10 years, causing the range of their viewpoints to become more well known. "It's only been recently that people who are atheists said, 'One can do spirituality in an atheist context,' " he explains. "We're getting more comfortable with idiosyncratic behaviors [in general], mixing things we'd not think of as going together. We see people are kind of making up their own religions as they go along. When we think of people sitting in the pews, we shouldn't think of them homogeneously; they are all over the fields. They just aren't voicing it."
It gets more confusing. What, exactly, do atheists mean when they say they believe in God? To whom do they direct their prayers? How do they experience the benefits of prayer? If they describe themselves as spiritual, what definition do they assign to that word? And how do the 6 percent of atheists who pray identify exactly what that practice entails?
Many atheists bristle at their implied ambiguity. Seventy-nine year-old Pete Sill, from Arlington, Virginia, participated in weekly Catholic services nearly his entire life, was a parish Scout leader, and describes himself as "very spiritual." At least five hours a week he meditates or practices yoga, and has adopted aspects of a variety of religions because he believes they express the human need for survival. To him, they ease the fear of being alone, and the fear of dying. "I think prayer is important," Sill says, "because it takes your mind away from the horrible aspects of everyday life."
According to 23 year-old Vlad Chituc of Duke University, he began college by dismissing religion as something negative -- but now he wants its benefits. He regularly meditates and is searching for places where he can draw "that energy you feel when you're in sync with a group of people," at gatherings such as dance parties.
In an email, Chituc wrote that he accepted the word "spirituality," which "really is just kind of shorthand for feeling a deeper connection to something greater than yourself." But would an atheist see any thing or any being as greater than the self? "Maybe 'greater' is a loaded term," he conceded. "Finding meaning in something other than yourself -- not something supernatural."
In the UK, interest in spirituality is escalating. A book that was widely reviewed there last year and became a bestseller was Alain de Botton's "Religion for Atheists," which proposed that non-theists -- such as himself -- could gain many advantages such as better relationships and abolition of "feelings of envy and inadequacy" by imitating religious folks. A "godless congregation" [with the intentional lowercase letter "g"] known as the Sunday Assembly, which opened last autumn in London, was instantly packed with over 1,000 attendees and was forced to open in other locations to accommodate the throngs of people it attracted.
For Tanya Luhrmann, a Stanford University anthropologist who studies the use of imagination in prayer, Sigfried Gold is "common and uncommon." According to her, he's displaying a typical way some people are educated to pray by expanding their imaginations. Luhrmann says the objective of those prayers "is to use your imagination to make what you're focusing on more present. That changes you. You're not making more real your ideas about going shopping. You're making more real this person who is the best possible person."
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