"I'll Pray For You"

The other day, I was having a rather heated discussion with a conservative Christian counterpart, and he popped off at me:

"I'll pray for you, and pray that you at least get an interview to the next $7.25 an hour job you apply for."

I told him to please not bother, because his God had given up on me a long time ago, and while there are plenty of people who need those $7.25 an hour jobs, I happened to not be one of them.

Obviously, his "offer" to pray for me was malicious, but I have been told that before.

"I'll pray for you."

And they do pray for me, or they pay Benny Hinn to do it for them.  They pray that I'll be saved, that I'll see God's light and come back to his truth.  They pray for my soul, my heart, my salvation, and they pray for whatever else they can think of, but I wonder if I ever actually needed any of them to stand up and loan me a dollar, if any of them would.

Someone once said that prayer is the best way to feel like you are doing something, when you are actually doing nothing, and I feel the truest example of this is when someone says he's going to pray for me.  For one, it's a complete waste of time, and for another, if you really want to pray for someone or something, there is enough misery in this world he could devote his prayers to.

So after the sniping was done, I asked my counterpart why he would bother to pray for me at all?  Why not pray for the people in Haiti, who are now fighting Cholera?  Is it because Pat Robertson said they brought this on themselves because they made a pact with the devil in the 1700's to get rid of the French?  What about Zahra Baker, or Caylee Anthony, and the other innocent children who have had their lives cut short by people who were suppose to love and cherish them?  What about the millions dying in Africa from starvation and AIDS?  What about the people in our own towns who can't find work, or a place to live, or a meal?  Why waste a perfectly good ritual on me, when these people need all the help they can get?

I pretty much knew the answer before he said it, but I also knew the truth, or at least my opinion of it.  His answer was the stock one: because everyone needs to be prayed for.  However, I really believe there is another reason they all like to pray for me, and for people like me.

We're safe.  It is easy to project all of the evil in the world onto an atheist or an agnostic, and we are the one time it is good not to get a return on your investment.  If a "Christian" prays for an end to the suffering in Haiti, and nothing happens, it doesn't look or feel too good (although they do pray for the suffering to end, but only in large groups during a television power hour), but if one prays for me, and nothing happens, then he can just chalk it up to the hardening of my heart, the loss of my soul, and so and so forth, and, gosh darnit! He tried!

Don't get me wrong; there are plenty of good people, religious or otherwise, who do far more than pray.  They know they can't fix everything, but they do what they can.  They volunteer at a shelter, they donate to charity, they offer a family a meal.  But people like my counterpart don't strike me as this type.  Instead, they tell you they will pray for you so you know what good Christians they are; they make it a point to let you know they are morally superior to you, but hey...God loves you anyway.  It is this hypocrisy that drove me away from religion in the first place.

If you want to pray for me, fine.  Knock yourself out.  I don't care, because your prayers aren't going to affect me one way or the other; however, if you want me to know what a good person you are, then there's a soup kitchen where you are welcome to join me in the serving line.