(March 20, 2015 at 9:14 pm)Stimbo Wrote:(March 20, 2015 at 7:38 pm)Delicate Wrote: I gather that when people say "I'll pray for you" it's a noncognitivist way of saying "Here's how I'm expressing that I care about you."
Because surely, if they didn't care about you one iota, they wouldn't even bother praying for you.
So when Christians say they're praying for me, I appreciate it.
It could be seen that way, I suppose. Sometimes a person feels that the only way to express support for someone, when they are powerless to truly help, might be to tell that someone that they're in the person's thoughts. It's another way of saying "I'm here for you"; comforting, perhaps, at least in intention. Something to say when there's nothing to say.
Or it may be that the person truly believes that they're doing some good, something useful, by offering prayer.
Then there are those who want to be thought of as being helpful but don't actually want to do anything. To them, it's more important to be seen to be caring than actually doing the caring. Makes them feel superior, you might say.
There's also the type who offer to pray because the other person doesn't match up to their standards - there's something broken in them that the praying person decided needs fixing.
Finally, of course, we have those who use the offer of prayer as a silver bullet to win an argument by scorched Earth. They would most likely win at boardgames by tipping the board over as soon as it looks like they're losing. It's their way of saying "Yeah?Well, fuck you!"
I wouldn't exactly appreciate most of these offers, personally.
Of course, some use "I'll pray for you" cynically. But I don't like to exaggerate the number of people who do this. That's just assuming a lot of negative things about this set of people. I find most people are quite genuine and sincere, and assuming the best in people usually helps me maintain relationships on all sides of the belief spectrum.
