Would you pray for someone who asked you not to?

[AchillesPoirot]

Prompted by another thread.

If you are of a faith, and you said to someone you’d pray for them, and they asked you not to, would you still do it?

For honesty sake. I have no faith and find it offensive if I’ve asked someone not to pray for me that they do so.

Bizarre thread.

I suspect you’re not as much of a non believer as you say, because if you genuinely had no faith or belief, someone else praying for you would make no difference to you, since you don’t believe in it anyway, so why would it be offensive?

Reality is that a lot of people pray because they personally take comfort from it. When there’s nothing else they can do and they feel helpless their faith allows them to take comfort in the belief that there is a being out there who has control of that which they don’t.

FWIW I’m an a atheist but my DP is a Christian. I know for a fact that he’s prayed for me, at times when my life has hung in the balance, when they’ve been taking things hour by hour, and when it wasn’t just a case of his not wanting to lose me but because he has felt helpless to be able to do anything else.

A lot of people take comfort from their faith. If you don’t have a faith, then what they do has absolutely no bearing on your thoughts or feelings.

The only exception to that would be if someone said they were praying for you to give your soul to the lord, but that has more to do with judgement of you personally

Would you do something else that someone asked you not to do for them? If they said don’t make me dinner would you make it anyway? Don’t bring me plants I can’t look after them - would you bring them anyway?

All these impact you. Someone else’s prayer does not. A better example would be would you be asking someone to atop thinking about you or practising mindfulness.

I was going to suggest you tell them to stop informing you. But actually, after the massive drip-feed, what you actually need to do is distance yourself entirely.

Stop giving them headspace.

You have every right to feel as you do.

It's quite complicated though.

The below would be my process- I'm not the people you are thinking of, so I can't speak for them, just me.

If I'm worried about something I becomes a part of my prayer life. So if I was worried about you, I'd be thinking and worrying and that would involve prayer- not as an active choice, just as a wandering thought process.

If I were in church and the prayers/confession mentioned 'people with whom our relationship has broken down', for example, your name/face would pop into my mind. I wouldn't be able to control that.

My active/considered prayers would be about changing myself to improve the situation. 'Dear Lord, I'm sad and angry and know I've upset Fred. Please help me find a way to put things right, or accept it and let go.' (Though I'd find it hard not to say 'and keep Fred safe and happy, wherever they may be').

@AlternativePerspective

Bizarre thread.

I suspect you’re not as much of a non believer as you say, because if you genuinely had no faith or belief, someone else praying for you would make no difference to you, since you don’t believe in it anyway, so why would it be offensive?

Reality is that a lot of people pray because they personally take comfort from it. When there’s nothing else they can do and they feel helpless their faith allows them to take comfort in the belief that there is a being out there who has control of that which they don’t.

FWIW I’m an a atheist but my DP is a Christian. I know for a fact that he’s prayed for me, at times when my life has hung in the balance, when they’ve been taking things hour by hour, and when it wasn’t just a case of his not wanting to lose me but because he has felt helpless to be able to do anything else.

A lot of people take comfort from their faith. If you don’t have a faith, then what they do has absolutely no bearing on your thoughts or feelings.

The only exception to that would be if someone said they were praying for you to give your soul to the lord, but that has more to do with judgement of you personally

I’ve explained. Why do you think you’re entitled to judge whether or not I don’t have a faith? Why don’t you believe me?

They are exactly praying for me to give myself back to god and come back to faith

If these people had a genuine faith and really believed their prayers could help you, they might pray for you despite your stated wishes, but they surely wouldn't go and then tell you they'd done it. That gives the lie to their motivation - it's a self-serving exercise in trying to control or influence the OP and/or somehow make them feel good about themselves.

YANBU, OP.

As something of an aside, the Templeton study which was one of the few proper attempts to examine the efficacy on illness of being prayed for, found that (contrary to expectation of at least some positive placebo effect), that believers who knew they were being prayed for had statistically significantly worse outcomes than unbelievers or people who weren't told if they were being prayed for. IIRC they had to terminate the study early as it would have been unethical to continue.

Some religious people might do well to ponder that, and if Christian maybe re-read Matthew 6. If you believe in a god and aren't praying for your own purposes, no one else needs to know about it.

But if they’re just praying for you to come back to god and telling you then as I said above, that’s more of a judgement on you and I’d just tell them to piss off, and you don’t believe in god, never will, and you don’t want to hear about it. If they won’t listen then I’d just stop communicating with them.

@AlternativePerspective

But if they’re just praying for you to come back to god and telling you then as I said above, that’s more of a judgement on you and I’d just tell them to piss off, and you don’t believe in god, never will, and you don’t want to hear about it. If they won’t listen then I’d just stop communicating with them.

Your dismissive attitude ("just"? No big deal on either part?) to the OPs evident distress at whatever the dynamics of their relationship is isn't likely to be very helpful.

Keeping me in your thoughts is different because that’s internal to you. I think. But praying when I’ve asked you specifically not to feels like a violation.

But surely if you don't believe in god, you must believe that them praying for you is merely internal (like keeping you in their thoughts) as well? If there is no god, how can praying be anything other than internal thoughts?

I'm a staunch atheist, to the point that I find it almost incomprehensible that anyone can believe in god(s). But if someone said they would pray for me, it wouldn't cross my mind to tell them not to! It would be their way of keeping me in their thoughts, so I'd appreciate their kind attitude. Telling someone not to pray for you seems oddly confrontational and a bit rude, considering that them doing do will have literally no effect on you and you would never know if they've done it or not.

I guess if I were religious and believed very much in the power of prayer, and someone were, for example, very ill but asked me not to pray for them... then yes, I'd probably do it anyway. Because I would consider that the possible benefits to them would outweigh the discomfort of my own moral quandary about going against their request.

@AlternativePerspective

But if they’re just praying for you to come back to god and telling you then as I said above, that’s more of a judgement on you and I’d just tell them to piss off, and you don’t believe in god, never will, and you don’t want to hear about it. If they won’t listen then I’d just stop communicating with them.

It’s not that simple.

@Fairislefandango

Keeping me in your thoughts is different because that’s internal to you. I think. But praying when I’ve asked you specifically not to feels like a violation.

But surely if you don't believe in god, you must believe that them praying for you is merely internal (like keeping you in their thoughts) as well? If there is no god, how can praying be anything other than internal thoughts?

I'm a staunch atheist, to the point that I find it almost incomprehensible that anyone can believe in god(s). But if someone said they would pray for me, it wouldn't cross my mind to tell them not to! It would be their way of keeping me in their thoughts, so I'd appreciate their kind attitude. Telling someone not to pray for you seems oddly confrontational and a bit rude, considering that them doing do will have literally no effect on you and you would never know if they've done it or not.

I guess if I were religious and believed very much in the power of prayer, and someone were, for example, very ill but asked me not to pray for them... then yes, I'd probably do it anyway. Because I would consider that the possible benefits to them would outweigh the discomfort of my own moral quandary about going against their request.

Even in the situation where it’s all to get you back to god?

Oh ok, just read your last post. That's a completely different matter! Praying for someone to be well, or happy is one thing. Telling them you're praying for them to believe in a religion they don't believe in is awful. I'd be furious at that and would absolutely tell them not to pray for me!

No.

I pray and believe in the efficacy of prayer, especially when people pray at the same time (nor necessarily in the same place. For a group to pray at 8pm each in their own home is as effective as holding a meeting. Pray where you are.)

I pray for people. Before Covid, I would visit cathedrals, light candles, pray there for people I knew and knew of, and for situations in general. I'd keep a list to remind me. But not for people who said not to. I might acknowledge, alongside my prayers, that I was thinking of them.

I’m an atheist, so I’m engaging from the other side. It does feel a bit weird when people say they will be or have been praying for me.

My ex’s stepmother used to say this to me every time she saw me! “I pray for you two. All the time.”
It was weird- it made me feel like she thought I was ill!

So while I probably wouldn’t tell someone not to pray for me (unless they were being a dick about it)- I don’t find it comforting to hear. I find it quite off putting, and I’m not sure why someone would want to pray for someone who has no interest in it or has asked them not to.

It would depend on the nature of the prayer for me. If they were praying for me to recover from illness I would look upon that differently from them praying for me to 'see the error of my ways'. So praying that I recover from covid OK, praying that I find god and join their faith not OK. I suppose the difference is would I welcome the desired outcome of the prayer.

I am an atheist and no, I can't say this would bother me. No matter how long they pray for you to do whatever, return to the church in your case, it won't happen. It's not affecting you in any way. Someone can pray I'll win lotto or pray I'll fall in to a volcano. They can stay up all night putting curses on me. It will make absolutely no difference to anything. It's just a thought.

Thinking about someone is the one thing in life you don't need their consent to do.

Never. You must respect their beliefs not decide they don't matter.

Practically - as with most things that involve changing other people’s behaviour - there is nothing you can do to stop them praying about you/for you.

So all you can do is control the effect of their behaviour on yourself, so that you don’t continue to feel violated.

That could mean telling them explicitly never to discuss religion or prayers with you m, cutting them off entirely if they can’t respect your boundaries, or changing your mindset to believe the prayers are irrelevant, inconsequential.

Tbh I think that someone praying for you to find God says more about them than anything else.

To me, feeling the need to pray for someone to find god just shows insecurity on the part of the prayer giver. People who are that staunchly religious struggle hugely with anything they believe being questioned, to the extent that I believe that they don’t want to acknowledge any questioning because they themselves have questions they don’t want to acknowledge.

If telling them to piss off isn’t an option then I would simply dismiss what they’re saying by saying something along the lines of “look, you can pray all you like. It doesn’t matter to me because there isn’t a god to hear it so you might as well be talking to a brick wall as far as I’m concerned, so you’ll be wasting your time.

And if you really want to wind them up you could just say “why don’t you just admit that there isn’t a god then we can all forget about this.”

I do believe that the only way to deal with these people is to dismiss them out of hand. Becoming upset will give them the illusion that you’re thinking they might be right, so if you just shrug and dismiss then they gain nothing by telling you they’re praying for you.

if they carry on and pray without you knowing then you’re none the wiser, but at least they’ll have shut up about it.

These are not people I can tell to piss off or challenge in any way shape or form.

@NoSquirrels

Practically - as with most things that involve changing other people’s behaviour - there is nothing you can do to stop them praying about you/for you.

So all you can do is control the effect of their behaviour on yourself, so that you don’t continue to feel violated.

That could mean telling them explicitly never to discuss religion or prayers with you m, cutting them off entirely if they can’t respect your boundaries, or changing your mindset to believe the prayers are irrelevant, inconsequential.

This is all very good advice.

It's hugely controlling unrealistic and unreasonable to presume you should have any say on someone else's internal life, including how they think about you or privately reflect on you in communion with their personal belief in God.

It's perfectly reasonable however to ask them not to discuss it with you.

It's also perfectly reasonable to object if they are engaging in this publically such as in a prayer group.

Even then, you can't control someone else's speech, even if about you, but you can choose to remove them from your life for not respecting you.

In any of these scenarios however I think the best route to happiness is to consider someones intentions and respond to that.

It’s being done privately and in a home group. If that makes a difference.

@AchillesPoirot

^It’s not even about whether I think prayer is pointless or meaningless.

It’s about the fact that I have specifically asked someone not to do something and they have done it anyway.

Does that make sense?^

It makes perfect sense to me

This really feels like inventing problems out of nowhere.

@AchillesPoirot

I can relate, probably much more than you think.

Stop telling them not to pray for you. Stop caring that they do. If they keep telling you that they are and it causes you anger, pain and distress, stop engaging with them completely.