An Atheist Ruminates On Piety

1. Maggi White August 24, 2017 at 12:38 pm Reply

   Agree! What astounds me is how anyone can possibly think they know what God would say on any subject, especially (what is it) 5000 years later or 2000? I don't keep up on this stuff.
   • Caroline Miller August 24, 2017 at 2:01 pm Reply

     i agree, naturally.
2. John Briggs August 24, 2017 at 1:02 pm Reply

   I write this as a friend of this blog and its writer, not I hope to create the impression that I am saying, with that troll in the children's story, "Who is that trip-tropping across my bridge?" A blog response almost inevitably comes across with an air of praise or acrimony, whatever one does. May this one be read in a different spirit. (There, I suppose I've just offered a kind of public prayer.) Here I begin. Aren't the irreligious a subset of the non-religious (the None's, as George Will calls them, including himself)? The word can be applied to the generally non-religious, but in common parlance it is also can be used (as my trusty Random House notes) to mean "anti-religious." An anti-religious person might (or might not) wish to prohibit prayer in public, or at least demonstrate that religious expression should be confined to designated buildings and spaces as, as some campuses continue to confine non-scheduled speakers to a corner of the quad. (This radical measure is, I know, not what the blog is proposing.) One wonders how MLK would have responded to such a restriction while marching in Cicero or Birmingham -- or how most people in our country, religious or not, would respond to it as a public law. No one likes sanctimoniousness, including -- at least in my experience -- the people who are religious, though of course many disagree over what sanctimoniousness is, and what it is not. Many would agree that public prayer can sometimes ooze with it. No doubt in many public settings where collective prayer used to be routine (as in convocations and graduations), it is now gone for that reason. But should prayer in public be eliminated for that reason? If all prayer in public makes many people uncomfortable, as seems to be the case, then the question is what, if anything, the resisters' public response should be. The issue would be clearer if one lumped public prayer with gross public nudity or loud and continuous cursing and drunkenness in the public square. (Even Falstaff spends most of his time off the street, in the tavern.) I would venture that most people, even most nudist-campers and cursers, would probably shun, frown, or (some few) jeer the over-actors at the town plaza or the airport terminal and expect an officer to intervene. (Falstaff, I guess, would be among those egging the officer on!) The more pertinent question is whether spreading a prayer rug on the curb of a public sidewalk should be an affront -- or at least a cause of signal discomfort -- to passers-by. Many of us have seen cabbies pray on the sidewalk beside their vehicles, or pull into a rest stop on the freeway to do so. We understand that their schedule of prayer does not provide a mosque in such situations. It is remarkable we don't see such things more often. Those who need a place to stop and pray seem to find places out of the way. It seems fair to say that those who find they must pray in public, and those who choose to do so, are likely to know they are among many others who are not co-religionists. There seems to be is a threshold that for most religious people mitigates against public prayer as a general practice. Many or most of the exceptions are arguably the result of necessity, or a desire to make a public demonstration, or to act upon a compelling need -- say in a time of disaster. A somewhat different matter is routine public prayer in assemblies, for example in the opening of a session of the House of Representatives.. A proposal to abolish the practice would of course need to engage the reasons why daily prayer has long been offered, not only the possible discomfort of some people in the gallery or on the floor. The fact that there is discomfort does not necessitate abolition of the practice. If a majority of representatives were to vote to abolish not only such routine prayers but also any spoken prayers in the House chamber or other assemblies that maintain the practice, we might ask what principle is being served besides majority rule, and who could satisfactorily defend it to the rest of us as a principle once it was clearly stated for all to examine. For what it's worth, George Will is a "None" who has strongly defended the role of religion in the public square. It is not at all clear that Jefferson's "wall of separation" means that prayer should be kept out of our sight. I close with yet another public almost-prayer: Peace be with you who read this.
   • Caroline Miller August 24, 2017 at 2:35 pm Reply

     You raise several issues here, John, which should be addressed, as a courtesy to your thoughtful reply. But I address only two, in the interest of time and space. The first is "pedantic." "Irreligious" is my way of including those who don't go to church but who do believe in a spiritual or guiding element in the universe. They would not be followers of a religion and hence, irreligious. Some have argued aethesim is a form of religion. But that is a word game. Not to believe in something doesn't make that refusal a faith. I don't believe in gremlins either. On to your second point: "The more pertinent question is whether spreading a prayer rug on the curb of a public sidewalk should be an affront." I believe I wrote it wasn't an affront, that I would support such expression and that it wouldn't make me uncomfortable,if, without being held hostage to that prayer, I could procede with my business. When I go to a city council meeting, however, to get a waiver on a building project and have to stand in prayer before I can speak, I consider that an imposition. The wonder is that people who pray don't see it as such -- which was my point.

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