Slightly Off-topic

Just so you know, I’m an atheist.

Tonight one of the problems of being an atheist was brought to the forefront of my mind. You see, being an atheist is a serious problem when one of your friends has some kind of difficulty. Anyone else can say, “I’ll pray for your safety” and their commitment is pretty much taken care of. But what have I got?

What the other friend has said is, “Your plight is so bad that I’m going to call in the aid of an all-powerful deity to make sure that everything works out in the end.”

What I have is something akin to, “I’ll give you some thought, but that’s about it because you’re really far away.”

So, when I read a post about someone’s neighbor holed up with a gun in an apartment mere yards away, the believer gets to unleash a deity to cover them with a divine flak jacket until the morning.

Meanwhile, I look up a streaming police scanner in the hopes of finding out just what the fuck is going on, since the cops are obviously a little too occupied to go around reassuring the other residents.

But here’s the other odd thing. Say another friend posts about Mittens having ear mites again. And here comes the believer with a plea to some divine being to make the poor little kitty better. Really? I don’t think the creator needs to get involved in something that can be sorted out with a bottle of eardrops and some Q-tips. But I know if I mention the overkill of calling in god I’ll never hear the end of it. Instead, I give advice about using a headlamp while cleaning Mitten’s ears and hope everything works out.

Granted, to the outside observer the believer’s “I’ll pray for you” and my “hope everything turns out okay” look almost identical. (Okay, the believer might have some muttering with words like “thy” and “art,” but that’s the only measurable difference.)  However, the “pray” sentiment has more cultural currency than my firm hope that nothing bad happens.

Consequently, I rarely say anything when people mention their hardships. I’m always worried about starting some religious fight on someone’s wall while trying to be supportive without flat out lying. But sometimes it’s hard not having that easy out of “I’ll pray for you.”