krulwichians and abumradians, and atheist's prayer

As I said in a previous post, I'm an atheist, and, as I said in the same post, I've gone back to Quaker Meeting. As I sat in Meeting today, my thoughts turned to the two hosts of WNYC's Radiolab.

Bear with me here.

The hosts are Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad. Regular listeners will know that Krulwich wants to believe that, where human's find meaning, it's because there's an intelligence behind it all, an "author of meaning", if you will. For Abumrad, it appears that the idea of the "author of meaning" demeans meaning; it's more... uh... meaningful to him if we're the ones making our own meaning.

I think the world divides into Krulwichians and Abumradians, and I find myself in the Abumradian camp (I think that's why I so like Terry Pratchett's thoughts on humans not being fallen angels, but risen apes).

Now, just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I'm a-spiritual. In the earlier post referenced above, I pointed out experiences (rare, but there nonetheless) that are, I think, spiritual. Because of this, I think that prayer might be useful - not to connect us with god, but to keep us in right relation to the universe, and to put in order experiences which we have, and which we might not otherwise be able to live with.

Back when I was a Catholic, we learned that there were four types of prayer:

• Adoration and Wonder,


• Thanksgiving,


• Forgiveness, and


• Petition

It's clear to me that the last is useless. I see no experience anywhere that praying for something has gotten anything that could not be otherwise better explained.

Forgiveness, however, makes sense to me. Just as we can injure other people (or animals), I think there are some actions which actually injure humanity itself - and they are not simply the grand actions of world figures. I think there are some crimes so heinous that they actually affect the criminal's relationship with meaning and with humanity. I think that some things might make a kind of person who is then less able to be human with other people, and this affects a person's ability to be in the world. I think a kind of "prayer of forgiveness" is then in order, although I'll admit that "actions of forgiveness" will almost certainly have to accompany it.

Thanksgiving. This one came to me today in Meeting. Thanksgiving, if there is no god, is an experience of Wonder; it becomes subsumed into the category of Wonder (I am not going to call it Adoration because I think there is nothing to adore, but "wonder" makes sense: when mathematicians talk about "beautiful mathematics", I'm sure they are having experiences of awe and wonder).

So for this atheist, anyway, there are two kinds of "prayer", or ways of ordering spiritual experiences, that make sense: wonder and forgiveness. There may be others, but for now, this is where I will stop.