Sunday 16 September 2012

The Atheist Prayer Experiment

Starting tomorrow, I will be spending a few minutes every day, for 40 days, asking God to reveal himself to me.  I'm doing this as part of a project run by Premier Christian Radio, called - well, see the title.  The idea is that participating atheists will share their thoughts via Facebook, blogs etc and, by the end of it, God will have resurrected Freddie Mercury, Jimi Hendrix and all the dead Beatles, thereby incontrovertibly proving his existence to us erstwhile unbelievers.  Or something like that.

I'll be writing here and on the Atheist Prayer Experiment Facebook page.

I was brought up in an evangelical Christian home and was a pretty fervent Christian until my mid-20s. I'm also gay and was diagnosed with chronic renal failure when I was ten. Despite many people praying for God to heal my kidneys, I ended up having three (count 'em!) transplants.  Attempts to de-gay me were similarly unsuccessful, but you can imagine what I was taught about homosexuality.

So yeah, I got religious baggage.

I'm typing this on an iPad, so I'm not going to go into details on my past here, but it may come up in the next forty days. I'm not expecting God to turn up. If he does, though, he'd better have a bloody good excuse for giving me my mum's depression instead of her cheekbones

5 comments:

  1. McGingersnap, it sounds to me like God proved himself to you by giving you three successful kidney transplants!

    (just kidding, I grew up Christian, and know how to play the cards.)

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  2. Ooh, you rotter! Yes, that one was played in full, believe me,

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  3. You should be aware that prayer changes the prayerful person, not God. If God moves in your direction, it will be in the form of a change in your perspective, not necessarily a tangible miraculous event.

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  5. P.S I posted on the Fb page that I would like such an experiment to be conducted with us Christians to see what happens. There's a lot of toxic beliefs amongst us lot & we could do with sorting out some goats from sheep when it comes to our theology.

    THought I'd share a couple of my fave quotes on prayer as well if you don't mind:

    We can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with our God - Henry Nouwen

    “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.” St. Therese of Lisieux

    When we pray, we immerse ourselves in the living presence of God.

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