For an atheist why have a one-way conversation with someone or something that doesn’t exist, and because he or it doesn’t exist can’t answer your prayers? A person would first have to fool themselves into believing in prayer then have to fool themselves into accepting the whatever that happens is God’s answer. One could save a lot of time not praying. After all, as many Christians must admit, atheists are often good loving human beings (if not sometimes more so) than committed believers. Where’s the advantage?
Despite what you heard on the street or learned from your friends in back alleys (or were told by your parents and Sunday school teachers) Christian prayer is not turning in requisitions and accepting deliveries. Prayer can mean a lot more than supplication. As for types of prayer there’s everything from Anne Lamott’s famous three, Help, Thanks, Wow, to a list expanding up to 650 from a Google query.
Lists often get them in the wrong order, putting “ask” first, while adoration and thanksgiving vie for second and third. That might be how many believers would rank them but they’d be wrong. Most elements of prayer have been adapted, I speculate, from protocols of approaching tribal kings for favors: “Kneel, worms [mixed metaphors], before the great and mysterious Oz!” [Better butter up the ol’ dude before it’s off with your heads.]
First, admitting the socioeconomic gap between the parties (adoration)—Infinite, Eternal Creator of All Things compared to mortal creature who owes everything he is, was, and will be to said Creator—is a great place to start, defining who you are and where you’re coming from. Granted you’ll never worship Him enough but something is better than nothing just to let Him know you understand the situation. And a little humbling never hurt anyone.
[After ladling on the praise, not to waste the Big Guy’s time, get on with the matter at hand (petitioning):]
Creator:“What brings you to God today?”
creature: “Oh, Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?”
C: “Why not buy one yourself?”
c: “Minimum-wage job, can’t save enough. Have to eat, pay rent, doctor bills, cable, Starbucks—You know the drill.”
C: “You realize how much you’d save cutting out gourmet coffee and putting up with an occasional disease or two? Hey, weren’t you here last week confessing an unwarranted desire for a BMW7-series sedan?”
[Doesn’t look like this prayer is going to get answered favorably, so it might be best to leave now.]
c: “Well I was in the neighborhood and since I hadn’t revered You in a while I thought to put in a word in case You changed Your Mind.“
C: Who were you singing about in the line, “. . . but naught changeth Thee” . . . chopped liver?”
c: “OK. I accept Your Will but before I go I sincerely want to thank you from the bottom of my heart (thanksgiving) that You gave me a part of Your busy schedule. And thanks again for creating me and sustaining me even as a carless pedestrian. I am grateful I have feet and can get about pretty easily if I make the effort. It’s not like I’m a worm slithering in the dirt—not that there’s anything wrong with being a worm. See Ya!”
There’s a lot of wonderful things that can be said about prayer, but perhaps not by me at this time. At least I tried to clarify why Christians have that extra requirement (burden, opportunity) which atheists ignore—prayer, talking to God. Or as an atheist said to me regularly as I left for church on Sundays, “Say hello to your Imaginary Friend for me.” I did, though she probably really didn’t want me to.
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