You’re not going to commit some sort of atheist sin by using an imaginary sky deity as your rubber duck.
Interesting comment! I was catching myself about to pray all the time when I first deconverted, but always stopped myself, thinking that praying or listening to Christian music would make me a hypocrite of an atheist.
I still listen to Christian music occasionally, and reading your comment makes me wonder whether it would have been okay to go on praying, too.
Would any atheists here argue that it’s always bad to pray?
I wouldn’t find it inconceivable for prayer to have some role outside of the belief in supernatural communication with spiritual beings. In a certain sense it’s a form of meditation. If you change the wording of a prayer away from the implication that someone out there will hear you and make supernatural changes in the world accordingly, you could pray as a sort of meditation on a desire or on a value. I guess, at least, that repeating to yourself that you hold a certain desire and care deeply about it is a way to reinforce it.
Interesting comment! I was catching myself about to pray all the time when I first deconverted, but always stopped myself, thinking that praying or listening to Christian music would make me a hypocrite of an atheist.
I still listen to Christian music occasionally, and reading your comment makes me wonder whether it would have been okay to go on praying, too.
Would any atheists here argue that it’s always bad to pray?
I wouldn’t find it inconceivable for prayer to have some role outside of the belief in supernatural communication with spiritual beings. In a certain sense it’s a form of meditation. If you change the wording of a prayer away from the implication that someone out there will hear you and make supernatural changes in the world accordingly, you could pray as a sort of meditation on a desire or on a value. I guess, at least, that repeating to yourself that you hold a certain desire and care deeply about it is a way to reinforce it.