It’s a strange world we live in, and from time to time we are affected by people, in ways that make no logical sense. For example I want to talk to a person that I respect in certain areas, and view as a side show freak in others. I don’t know how many people reading my blog will recognize the name Christopher Hitchens. He is an author and journalist who has a long and heady history of defying conventional norms.
Like many other people Christopher went from being an avowed socialist, to a free market capitalist, all the time staying a fan of Marx. He believes that Marx’s revolutionary ideals are a good thing, and that if Marx had truly understood the revolutionary nature of capitalism, then he would have been a fan. I’m not convinced.
Politics however is not what I want to talk about. Mr. Hitchens is an atheist, and one of the founders of the “New Atheism” movement. Feel free to read the Wiki on it, but the down and dirty sum is, New Atheism is a religion. Basically a religion, whose key precept is to reject the notion that there is any God.
His writings are not just of a questioning nature; they are a categorical denial of God. He has made statements impugning men because they have some sort of faith, saying that he believes, “All religious belief is sinister and infantile”.
Now Mr. Hitchens is fighting for his life. In June he was diagnosed with Metastatic Esophageal Cancer. The prognosis isn’t good, and Mr. Hitchens has stated that with prodigious use of alcohol and cigarettes, you “make yourself a candidate”. Many people all around the world are praying for him to recover from this dreadful disease. And that makes Mr. Hitchens mad, very mad indeed.
Well Mr. Hitchens, I am here to give you solace. If you want to reject the prayers being directed at you, then that is your prerogative. One of the things that believers like myself do is pray for those that we care about. It’s not that weird, actually it’s kind of nice. Maybe he should take the advice of fellow atheist Penn Jillette (Warning - Language, but since when did Penn say anything that didn’t have curse words in it?).
Christopher, you don’t mind if I call you Christopher do you? Has it ever occurred to you that there are many people who are as passionate about their faith as you are about your lack there of? Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and convert you, us Mormons send out young men in white shirts and blue suits to do that ;-) What I am going to do is try to talk to you on a human level.
It does not hurt you when others pray for you, and there is nothing you can do to stop the people who love you from praying for you. They are giving you the most significant gift anyone can give, bandwidth. Sorry if you don’t understand, I’m a Network Engineer, and I am putting this in terms that make sense to me. You see everything has limited bandwidth. Think about a water hose, the amount of water that can be pushed through that hose is limited by the diameter of the hose. The same goes with computer networks, and people’s lives. There is only so much that we can fit into our lives, only so many things we can think about in a day, and only so many mentions we can make in our prayers. If someone has decided to include you in one or more of those things, then they have given you the greatest gift they can give you.
As precious as that gift is, does it really matter what form it comes in? Do the prayers tear away slowly at your atheism? Some people would swear that they can feel the prayers of others strengthening them. I know you would never say that you can feel them like a burden, since that would make your stance against them null, but honestly other than fodder for your articles what does it matter to you if people are praying for you health and well being?
Mike
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