Prayer is purported to be an altruistic act. It supposedly helps the bereaved in some way simply from the goodwill of the person praying. The problem with all of this is that any altruistic act announced to the public is not altruism at all.
Altruistic acts are those that are done simply for the benefit of the recipient, and for no other reason. People who announce their beneficent acts to everyone are not motivated by their desire to help someone, they are motivated by the rise in social status they get when someone clicks that facebook ‘like’ button. They are not motivated by altruism and compassion, they are motivated by narcissism and their own greed.
This concept of praying in public being narcissistic is in the bible itself:
-”Be careful to not do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Matthew 6:1
-”So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets. as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.” Matthew 6:2
There’s a lot in Matthew about not praying in public, and yet I see so much of it on social media sites. A little while ago after the Newtown shooting I posted a passage from Matthew as a status on facebook to remind people what the bible actually says. It’s a really sad day when I, an atheist, have to quote the bible to tell people what their holy book actually says. I think that’s pretty revealing in of itself.
So if you want to be truly altruistic in your actions and prayer, dont be public about it. Don’t go posting photos of you volunteering at a soup kitchen. It’s great that you did it, but doing it for the wrong reasons removes the veneer of nobility from your actions to reveal the true core of vanity and narcissism.
