diehard03 said:

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It is fascinating to me that people can take something as innocent as praying as an affront to them.

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It's not the prayer. It's the refusal to accept their beliefs as part of their humanity. It can be considered "dehumanizing", in a way.

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One of my best friends in the world is an atheist.. he is also one of the people who encourages me in my faith.. actually encourages me to go to church and to pray more than anyone else I know. He also has told me he appreciates the fact that I pray for him, because he knows that it is the best tool I have in my toolbag to help him most the time.. he knows that I believe that it is the most helpful thing that I can do for him. Knowing that people out there care about you and love you is a good thing.

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You should allow him the grace that he probably has conversations with other people much like several of the atheist posters on this thread....and has chosen a different path with you.

That's also ok, and the sign of being a good friend. Or, he wants you (/s)

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I think this is problematic, much as k2 pointed out earlier that it's an argument against altruism among other things. However I would like to be fair to you instead of project and assume. If I may ask, how do you define human? What are all of it's essential aspects that must be respected and what is their authority derived from (what makes them essential and special, set apart from the rest, is a way that isn't all inclusive of every aspect of a person)?

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Why wouldn't you share that wish with them if you truly believe they are under threat of dying and suffering eternal misery?

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This motivation is so far removed from why I would ever talk to someone about Christ. And it seems to me to be about the most useless way, it's a threat. I think the baseline story for any Christian to share their faith must come from a place of - "here is what God has done for me." Past tense. The role of a Christian is to be a witness. How can you be a witness about something in the future? You can't testify about hell, or suffering eternal misery. You can't be reliable if you're talking about something when you're speculating. You can only be a reliable witness to experience in your own life.

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No I appreciate this as well intentioned it's tough when all you can do is show people you care but you can't take away their pain or bring back their loved ones.I will say that saying it's gods will and it's part of his plan is annoying and unwelcome in those situations.

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Ugh. Hearing this is so frustrating. Why would anyone say it's God's will for there to be pain or death? That is not in the bible, not once. Does it ultimately work for good? Yes, we believe that. Is it incorporated and redeemed by Christ's suffering? Yes, because He suffers with us, absorbs all the evil and hate and expiates in His love, because God ultimately redeems us and actually fixes things. This is the gospel. But that doesn't mean He plans or wants these things for us. Anyone that would say that is just.. I don't know. Socially awkward? Unkind? Un-thoughtful or careless...? Chalk that one right up there with "he's in a better place".

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If I may ask, how do you define human? What are all of it's essential aspects that must be respected and what is their authority derived from (what makes them essential and special, set apart from the rest, is a way that isn't all inclusive of every aspect of a person)?

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I'll be 100% honest with you: I have no interest in having this discussion. The word I chose weren't meant to be parsed down it's base level and analyzed - just trying to reword what's been said here a different way.

People can interpret "I'll pray for you" as "I don't believe or recognize your life choices", and this can be offensive to them.

It is a perfectly reasonable reaction, imo.

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People can interpret "I'll pray for you" as "I don't believe or recognize your life choices", and this can be offensive to them.

It is a perfectly reasonable reaction, imo.

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Yeah, and I once had a lady yell at me for offering her my seat on a bus. Apparently "would you like to sit down" can mean "I think I'm superior to you because I'm a man."

People can and will get offended about anything.

I think in both the case you cite and the one I did, it has very little to do with the current situation and a great deal to do with past experiences, emotional wounds, trauma, etc.

diehard03 said:

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If I may ask, how do you define human? What are all of it's essential aspects that must be respected and what is their authority derived from (what makes them essential and special, set apart from the rest, is a way that isn't all inclusive of every aspect of a person)?

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I'll be 100% honest with you: I have no interest in having this discussion. The word I chose weren't meant to be parsed down it's base level and analyzed - just trying to reword what's been said here a different way.

People can interpret "I'll pray for you" as "I don't believe or recognize your life choices", and this can be offensive to them.

It is a perfectly reasonable reaction, imo.

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Thank you for your honesty and clarity.

I think this, too, was addressed by k2 saying that's often projecting past experience onto the present. I'm not sure reading the most uncharitable interpretation of what someone says is entirely reasonable. The response is disproportionate to the individual, on the part of the non-theist pushing against aggregate lifetime experience but targeting one individual with whom they may never have spoken with much before. It's frightful to think that one stands condemned by the entirety of ones group, though very judeo-christian.

If you chose not to respond again, have a good afternoon.

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People can and will get offended about anything.

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I think this cheapens the issue and basically declares that one doesn't really care about someone else.

People can, and will, get offended about anything, and often times for good reason. Maybe it was an internal trauma you triggered. Or maybe she was just responding to your non-verbal cues.

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I'm not sure reading the most uncharitable interpretation of what someone says is entirely reasonable.

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I think we forget that we are talking about human beings here. It's not like it's a multiple choice question and they are choosing the one that's more detrimental to you.

diehard03 said:

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People can and will get offended about anything.

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I think this cheapens the issue and basically declares that one doesn't really care about someone else.

People can, and will, get offended about anything, and often times for good reason. Maybe it was an internal trauma you triggered. Or maybe she was just responding to your non-verbal cues.

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Give me a break. It has nothing to do with care about others. The act of doing a kindness for someone - which is knowable - along with the intent behind it - which is not - is what declares whether you do or don't care about someone else.

To make a person responsible not only for their own act, their own intent, but also the response of the other is to make the person responsible for the intent of the other as well. This is impossible.

Maybe, just maybe, she responded poorly because of her own ideas about men and women? And if she had an internal trauma, carrying that around to unleash on someone who acting within typical social norms doesn't make her a victim.

As for the bold part, ya got me. I am a secret non-verbal chauvinist, and the way I show this is by going around offering my seat to people. You know, I opened the door for a dude on crutches Saturday at a restaurant. It's probably because I hate people on crutches too.

At any rate - sarcasm aside - the truth is we can only control ourselves...which is enough of a burden on us as it is! It is completely on us to do the absolute best we can to never appear to condemn someone or be harsh in how we interact with them. But at the same time, this is no guarantee of success or that our actions will be accepted, even if we take every reasonable precaution and them some to be considerate. And you know what? Then the ball is back in our court to control how we respond. Again the standard is gentleness, kindness, and love.

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Give me a break. It has nothing to do with care about others. The act of doing a kindness for someone - which is knowable - along with the intent behind it - which is not - is what declares whether you do or don't care about someone else.

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Incorrect. No one likes it when you begrudgingly do something for them.

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To make a person responsible not only for their own act, their own intent, but also the response of the other is to make the person responsible for the intent of the other as well. This is impossible.

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I am not making this assertion. I just think trotting out the old trope that everyone gets offending by everything is silly. Yes, people get offended by everything. Sometimes, it's silly to cater to to. Sometimes, it's a real thing you should try and be aware of. But blanket statements like these can make people not try.

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Maybe, just maybe, she responded poorly because of her own ideas about men and women? And if she had an internal trauma, carrying that around to unleash on someone who acting within typical social norms doesn't make her a victim.

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I guess this is weird to me because you make it sound like she should deal with her issues to protect your sensibilities.

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As for the bold part, ya got me. I am a secret non-verbal chauvinist, and the way I show this is by going around offering my seat to people. You know, I opened the door for a dude on crutches Saturday at a restaurant. It's probably because I hate people on crutches too.

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You can be snarky about it if you want. I was just offering an plausible situation. I'm not condemning you here. We are all human and have bad days.

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At any rate - sarcasm aside - the truth is we can only control ourselves...which is enough of a burden on us as it is! It is completely on us to do the absolute best we can to never appear to condemn someone or be harsh in how we interact with them. But at the same time, this is no guarantee of success or that our actions will be accepted, even if we take every reasonable precaution and them some to be considerate. And you know what? Then the ball is back in our court to control how we respond. Again the standard is gentleness, kindness, and love.

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Again, this is a weird statement because you brought up how this person bothered you. Isn't the standard of gentleness, kindness and love to say "hey, maybe shes going through a lot...or maybe I'm preoccupied with something and giving off a vibe im not intending to?" Isn't our standard higher?

Agree completely.

Reminds me of an old Rick Nelson song called Garden Party.

Well I'm all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see you can't please everyone
So learn to please yourself(in a Godly way of course)

k2aggie07 said:

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It didn't bother me. I didn't lash out at her, didn't make me mad. Bemused more than anything.

She should deal with her issues not to protect my sensibilities (I'm fine) but for her own sake.

Being kind and considerate to others does not involve taking responsibility for the outcome. I'm not responsible for what she did, only for me. You see what I mean? It's where our responsibility begins and end. I'm all for radical self-responsibility, huge onus on each of us to be completely self sacrificing and gentle in handling others. The more radical the better. But that's where it ends. (Not that I am a case study for how this looks in my own life, but it is my goal).

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If I may be so presumptuous, I would add that being sensitive to any and all potential responses is not only overly burdensome but borderline abusive. Think of small children in homes with abuse - they don't know what will set off their parent so they live in a constant state of anxiety which impacts their neurological development, keeps them in fight or flight rather than developing the frontal lobe (logic and reasoning). This feeling is being created across the population at large by interactions as such. That's one of the bigger issues at play with this idea and why, as you said, she needs to work through her issues for her own sake; so that she doesn't go through life being triggered by everything or everyone. She needs to heal and develop coping mechanisms instead of just unloading on random strangers.

And, I would argue, acquiescing to such behavior is enabling and not helping that person cope with reality.

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It didn't bother me. I didn't lash out at her, didn't make me mad. Bemused more than anything.

She should deal with her issues not to protect my sensibilities (I'm fine) but for her own sake.

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This is a safe place, K2. You can admit that you were bothered by it.

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Being kind and considerate to others does not involve taking responsibility for the outcome. I'm not responsible for what she did, only for me. You see what I mean? It's where our responsibility begins and end. I'm all for radical self-responsibility, huge onus on each of us to be completely self sacrificing and gentle in handling others. The more radical the better. But that's where it ends. (Not that I am a case study for how this looks in my own life, but it is my goal).

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Yikes. My point is the same as yours: Clean up your side of the street. Just don't use "people get offended by everything" as a reason not to clean up your side of the street. Nor should you use this demarcation of responsibility as a reason to not look inward.

Simply check to see if you contributed in anyway and try to do better. But I see no value in worrying about whos responsible here.

But I didn't say people get offended by everything, I said people can and will be offended by anything. Meaning that not every action will offend someone, but any action might. I never said this is an excuse for us to be boorish or rude or inconsiderate.

Besides, the only way I contributed was by offering her my seat. To her, any man offering a seat to her is in and of itself condescending and sexist. I know that's what she thought about it because she told me, quite clearly. But I believe this is just as wrong as the prayer example, and the reasons are all identical. (I didn't tell her this, I'm sure it would have been mansplaining or something).

The reason it's good to look at in two ways - the particulars of the offer and the intent behind it - is because it addresses all concerns. The delivery may be hamfisted, or the intent may be hypocritical. But we should leave the room for the explanation that the delivery may be beyond gentle and reasonable, the intent may be innocent, and the response may still be negative. That's life.

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But I didn't say people get offended by everything, I said people can and will be offended by anything. Meaning that not every action will offend someone, but any action might. I never said this is an excuse for us to be boorish or rude or inconsiderate.

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you're right. It doesn't change my meaning or this discussion, but you're right. it's also not a counterpoint either. It's also very easy to project boorish, rude and inconsiderate on accident.

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Besides, the only way I contributed was by offering her my seat. To her, any man offering a seat to her is in and of itself condescending and sexist. I know that's what she thought about it because she told me, quite clearly. But I believe this is just as wrong as the prayer example, and the reasons are all identical. (I didn't tell her this, I'm sure it would have been mansplaining or something).

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I don't know. I wasn't there. But it seems you definitely have biases, based on your comments here. You may or may not have given off a vibe that she responded to. If you're satisfied that you didn't, then carry on.

I'm still not tracking how they are identical. You didn't know that she was like this, in your bus scenario. But you certainly know the atheist is an atheist prior. If you aren't aware, then it makes more sense...but this original premise was one of definitely knowing the person doesn't believe.

Now, if she's wearing a "I sit for no man" shirt, I could see how one might take your offer as offensive...as you are demonstrating to her that you care more for this social norm than her communicated wishes.

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The reason it's good to look at in two ways - the particulars of the offer and the intent behind it - is because it addresses all concerns. The delivery may be hamfisted, or the intent may be hypocritical. But we should leave the room for the explanation that the delivery may be beyond gentle and reasonable, the intent may be innocent, and the response may still be negative. That's life.

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Again, I don't know what value you have trying to clean up someone else's side of the street. You're exactly right that she should have judged your intent and offer. But she didn't. You can't control that.

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I'm still not tracking how they are identical.
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Again, I don't know what value you have trying to clean up someone else's side of the street.

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If you'll extend grace to both the person offering prayer and the person offering the seat, the reason they're identical is that neither is done for self-gain of hypocrisy, and neither are done in a boorish or inconsiderate way. If those two boxes are checked, it's not condescending or rude. Condescension requires a sense of superiority by definition. Rudeness is by definition a social construct - being impolite or ill-mannered, yeah?

Neither the intent of the person or the rudeness of their action are able to be determined solely by the person receiving the altruistic act. The intent can be guessed at, but the rudeness is social convention. Doesn't matter whether that's prayer, or a bus seat, or a stock tip.

I'm not cleaning up anyone's side of the street. You're the one that keeps trying to make understanding, anticipating, handling their side my problem somehow. It requires information we can't have. That's why we have social convention - to navigate social interaction with others.

All we can control is ourselves. If we do this with gentleness, compassion, humility this guards against condescension. If we always try to act gentle, kind, and polite, this guards against rudeness. People can still assign condescension and rudeness arbitrarily and incorrectly.

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If you'll extend grace to both the person offering prayer and the person offering the seat, the reason they're identical is that neither is done for self-gain of hypocrisy, and neither are done in a boorish or inconsiderate way. If those two boxes are checked, it's not condescending or rude. Condescension requires a sense of superiority by definition.

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I think you're trying to have some philosophical discussion based on generic parameters and I am talking about a very specific case: choosing to tell someone you're praying for them when you know they are atheist.

I'd argue that your decision to tell someone you are praying for them when you know they don't believe in your God would fall under your condescension requirement.

I also think its really easy for us to think we aren't being inconsiderate, when we really are.

I think if you asked someone to pray for you and you know they don't believe in God, that would be rude/condescending. If someone knows that prayer is a large part of your life and your Christian beliefs are your core... then wouldn't be worse for you *not* to offer your prayers? If you prayer for everyone you care about, I hope you'd pray for me too.

To a person who doesn't believe in God, you are simply meditating on your desire for good things for another person. To a person who does believe in God, you are usually offering the only tool you have to help them...and a pretty powerful tool at that.


There are tactless ways to do and say anything. However, if we put the best construction on everything and try our best not to take offense at things that are not meant to offend, the world will be a much easier place to live.

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I think if you asked someone to pray for you and you know they don't believe in God, that would be rude/condescending. If someone knows that prayer is a large part of your life and your Christian beliefs are your core... then wouldn't be worse for you *not* to offer your prayers? If you prayer for everyone you care about, I hope you'd pray for me too.

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I think this is a way of rationalizing it, but it can still be rude if not desired. Just because it's core to your being doesn't give you the license to give it out without any care to their side.

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To a person who doesn't believe in God, you are simply meditating on your desire for good things for another person. To a person who does believe in God, you are usually offering the only tool you have to help them...and a pretty powerful tool at that.

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It can also say "I really don't care about your beliefs because I have mine". I think people can discount this because they look at it from efficacy standpoint ("if you don't believe in God, then the prayer doesn't matter to you")

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There are tactless ways to do and say anything. However, if we put the best construction on everything and try our best not to take offense at things that are not meant to offend, the world will be a much easier place to live.

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Sure. But these things are often misused. "Try out best not to take offense" can turn into "You don't have a right to be offended because you were supposed to know that I didn't mean to offend you."

I'm not advocating walking around on eggshells or caving to rude people on buses. I have seen people try and justify themselves and not look inward because they hid behind this "anyone can be offended by anything" trope.

My comments originated from your statement on how someone could be offended by prayer and I tried to answer that question.