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Feb. 7th, 2009 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI read something in the Guardian about a nurse who got suspended for offering to pray for someone, then the enquiry sent her back to work. The Guardian article was by an atheist saying it was inappropriate to offer prayers. The comments threads, er, kicked the idea about vigorously. Most of them seem to think that it's polite to offer and polite to say thanks and ignore the matter.
I can only assume these people aren't of strong religious convictions.
I do not wish to be involved in other people's religions. I have my own. I hear of creepy things like religions that find big lists of names and baptise them all. I understand how that religion thinks they're saving them, but it removes all element of choice, and ignores the religious convictions of the individual. Praying for someone to get well is, clearly, not the same order of thing. But *asking* if they want to be prayed for *involves* them. You are left to make a choice, to say yes or no. If you say thanks it can be taken as an implied yes. By saying yes you ask someone to pray to that god in that way. You are, albeit at one remove, involved in this religious practice. And a lot of people wouldn't want to be.
And there's pressure not to say no. Not just the little social pressure as evidenced in the comments thread. Pressure to be polite to many of those people means pressure to agree with and verbally approve other people's religion. Irritating enough. But there's the pressure of fear that you will be treated differently. What if someone has been assuming you are at least vaguely the same religion as them, but by refusing you reveal you are not? Will they treat you the same way? Not just in a medical sense. If you're depending on someone to turn up and give you help then their attitude can make a big difference to your day, especially when you're already low from being ill. Plus there's structural pressures invoked just by bringing religion into an interaction. Perhaps an individual offer of prayer doesn't mean to bring up the history of oppression of your religion by theirs, but that history is there, and now it's all ghosty all over what should be a purely medical interaction. Plus there's the way it's just wearying to keep having to correct people.
So I'm not going to tell people not to pray for me. That's between them and their religion. But asking gets others involved, and I don't find that appropriate.
ETA: And now I'm not sure I agree with me. Because the ask first points are good points too, just then there's telling other people how to do their own religion, and I try and avoid that.
I can only assume these people aren't of strong religious convictions.
I do not wish to be involved in other people's religions. I have my own. I hear of creepy things like religions that find big lists of names and baptise them all. I understand how that religion thinks they're saving them, but it removes all element of choice, and ignores the religious convictions of the individual. Praying for someone to get well is, clearly, not the same order of thing. But *asking* if they want to be prayed for *involves* them. You are left to make a choice, to say yes or no. If you say thanks it can be taken as an implied yes. By saying yes you ask someone to pray to that god in that way. You are, albeit at one remove, involved in this religious practice. And a lot of people wouldn't want to be.
And there's pressure not to say no. Not just the little social pressure as evidenced in the comments thread. Pressure to be polite to many of those people means pressure to agree with and verbally approve other people's religion. Irritating enough. But there's the pressure of fear that you will be treated differently. What if someone has been assuming you are at least vaguely the same religion as them, but by refusing you reveal you are not? Will they treat you the same way? Not just in a medical sense. If you're depending on someone to turn up and give you help then their attitude can make a big difference to your day, especially when you're already low from being ill. Plus there's structural pressures invoked just by bringing religion into an interaction. Perhaps an individual offer of prayer doesn't mean to bring up the history of oppression of your religion by theirs, but that history is there, and now it's all ghosty all over what should be a purely medical interaction. Plus there's the way it's just wearying to keep having to correct people.
So I'm not going to tell people not to pray for me. That's between them and their religion. But asking gets others involved, and I don't find that appropriate.
ETA: And now I'm not sure I agree with me. Because the ask first points are good points too, just then there's telling other people how to do their own religion, and I try and avoid that.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-07 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 08:04 am (UTC)but telling other people how to do religion is what I'm most trying to avoid, so that leaves letting them pray how they want to even if it's about me.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 08:04 am (UTC)