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.
I will pray for you.
ReplyDeletelol
ReplyDeleteI like this article, its a good observation. However, I think it is strange that you are surprised by people doing things that directly contradict the bible (such as praying in public). Even if you did want to follow the bible fully, you couldn't because of so many internal contradictions. So, what we have is people who cherry pick parts of the bible. The reason i think it is strange is, as an atheist, endless examples of people cherry picking shouldn't be a surprise to you. Maybe not- maybe that's just me.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, something I find quite dark that you didn't mention was the fact that people we affirming their faith in public. There is this bizarre perception that being faithful is virtuous and the fact that you are praying says something good about you. so I find it narcissistic and divisive to say what a faithful person you are. From my perspective, people who try to publicize how religious they are, are showing their willingness to believe anything without evidence, not to mention to the self righteousness.
thoughts?
You and I are think a lot alike on this kinda stuff. You're absolutely right about people cherry picking parts from their holy books that they like. What I was trying to do with this post though, was to speak to those people in their own language to better convince them of their own folly.
ReplyDeleteAnd again, you're absolutely right about extending the concepts I described in the post to general piety in the public sphere. If I had thought of it at the time I might have included a couple of paragraphs delving into that. But alas I didn't, and since it was your idea I think I'll just leave this post as it is with your insight in the comment section as a tribute, Sir Anonymous