Do atheists pray? No. Yes. Maybe …
\nIt doesn’t matter.
\nThe no\u2010god thing is no big deal. The absence of god would not smite one, were one to pray.
\nThere is no reason why a person who does not believe should not use the prayerslearned in childhood as mantra, as words that help.
\nI think of a scene from some probably\u2010not\u2010very\u2010good movie, the subways filling with magma, a guy carrying an injured man, struggling to safety, reciting the traditional Lords Prayer. Perhaps he did not believe; maybe he used the words learned in his childhood to act with dignity and courage in a desperate situation.
\nPersonally, I don’t pray. But I do reach for hope, for the human hope\u2010beyond\u2010hope, the hope one reaches for in times like these, a burning core of prayer.<\/p>\n
From Molten Wood and Feral Ideas\u00a0 chasens.ca\/book<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do atheists pray? No. Yes. Maybe … It doesn’t matter. The no\u2010god thing is no big deal. The absence of god would not smite one, were one to pray. There is no reason why a person who does not believe should not use the prayerslearned in childhood as mantra, as words that help. I think … Continue reading “Pray?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}