Atheists & Agnostics

Thanks for sharing it. It's an enlightened perspective.

To be clear, if someone wants to pray or join others in prayer, that's their business, not mine. I respect their privacy to believe whatever they want. For me, it is meaningless except as a form of meditation. I think that's part of what you wrote. The other part being the comfort derived from knowing that other people care about you.

Regarding non-believers, your stress-reducing suggestions are excellent and there are, of course, many more ways to reduce stress, (I do not mean drugs or alcohol). In addition to your suggestions I would add exercise, taking a walk, pursuing a hobby or activity or anything that brings peace or happiness.

Your post is thoughtful and thought-provoking. My comment was simply my personal view on the results achieved by prayer. For most of my life, I was a Protestant Christian who valued prayer. One of the many reasons I evolved in my thinking was because I repeatedly saw that prayer wasn't accomplishing its primary function, that is, achieving divine intervention. Nothing ever changed. Combined with other elements required of faith I chose to view the universe through the provable facts learned through science. I've found my own peace by understanding things without any supernatural requirements.

Prayer illustrates one of the many inherent contradictions of faith, namely, if god is involved in our personal lives, god doesn't need to have any problems brought to its attention by third parties. God supposedly already knows of the troubles. If god does not know these things then it isn't involved in our daily lives but needs to have problems brought forward by third parties. This doesn't make any sense to me.

As I wrote, prayer and faith are an individual's own business and I hold no rancor for anyone's beliefs. I'd just prefer they keep it all to themselves.