Atheist or Agnostic?

StudentC · Apr 6, 2006

So I'm crazy enough to have read through this entire thread...

Very interesting conversation and for the most part people seem to be keeping an open mind.

firstyearstudent - In answer to your original post, I can't begin to tell you what you'll encounter as an atheist, because I'm not one. I am however the only Jew in my nursing class which is predominately composed of very religous Catholics, Christians, Pentecostals (sp?), etc. I live in a very religous area (not my own religion - very small Jewish community). And while there were a couple of Jewish patients on the floors I've had clinicals on, but they were never my assigned patient.

Because I do dress differently, the issue of my religion does come up from time to time, whether with my classmates, with the nurses at clinicals, and once with a patient. I have found that as long as you maintain a modicum of respect for whatever the other people believe in and are able to let the very overt comments just roll off your back - it's okay. It's not always easy to not react to someone trying to witness to you, or tell you you're going to hell because you don't believe in x,y,z, or make generalized statements regarding 'everyone believes...', but if you really want to pursue nursing, ignore them and go for it. I don't volunteer the information that I'm Jewish, but I do try to be honest when someone asks and then just grin and bear whatever they say (while I think of all sorts of responses in my head). And that may be something you find yourself doing way more than you would like.

I have yet to have a patient ask me to pray with them, and to be honest, I'm not sure how I would deal with it. As it is, I usually just leave the room when the minister or pastor or whatever comes and hope that satisfies their religous needs.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 6, 2006

"Fact" ? That's a pretty blanket statement for about 2/3rds of the world population...

Surely Angie means a non-praying person, rather than a faithful person of any faith.

The point being it was implied that the non-praying person better find some faith if he/she is going to be a nurse because the time will come when you will be asked to pray for a patient and you won't have many options, so best to get some faith and start praying. That praying is the only response at certain times.

Ask an athesist to pray for you (not knowing she/he's an atheist) and there's going to be a different reponse than from one who is a faithful person. Angie's saying she would recognize that and rather not be prayed for by someone who doesn't pray or believe in prayer.

I'd like to think as someone who finds a faithful person to pray for my patients, rather than pray for them myself, that the look on my face isn't as bad as Angie implies. I'd like to think I keep my composure a bit better than looking like I've been asked to do something illegal. I'm a bit more professional than that.

Am I making sense?

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Apr 6, 2006

"Fact" ? That's a pretty blanket statement for about 2/3rds of the world population...

Yes, and it makes a very interesting "blanket" too, doesn't it?

Once again, you're getting a tad literal with my statements. :nono:

That said, I'm backing out of this thread. I have no desire to offend or argue with anyone, and once it's been established that an atheist has the right to be an atheist and a Christian has the right to a fellow Christian's prayers on her deathbed, all else is moot.

Thanks, Tweety, for sticking up for me. Very perceptive of you, as usual.

mojo0726 · Apr 6, 2006

First of all, hello. This is my first post, but I felt that I needed to respond. Being a Christian, I find that my faith has helped me deal with the grief and sorrow that sometimes go along with the job. I work in a pediatric emergency room and see all kinds of things from abuse to major trauma. My faith in my heavenly Father keeps me going. As far as if it should be an issue in your case, I don't know. I just know that I have had a lot of people turn to me for spiritual guidance or comfort when things aren't going so well for them. I just hope that if the time comes when someone turns to you and asks you to pray with them, you can at least give them a little comfort and not say, "I am not a believer." I also hope that some day you will realize the love that the Lord has for you. So much so that He gave His life and shed His blood so that your sins may be forgiven. God bless you and good look in your career.

allnurses Guide · Apr 6, 2006

First of all, hello. This is my first post, but I felt that I needed to respond. Being a Christian, I find that my faith has helped me deal with the grief and sorrow that sometimes go along with the job. I work in a pediatric emergency room and see all kinds of things from abuse to major trauma. My faith in my heavenly Father keeps me going. As far as if it should be an issue in your case, I don't know. I just know that I have had a lot of people turn to me for spiritual guidance or comfort when things aren't going so well for them. I just hope that if the time comes when someone turns to you and asks you to pray with them, you can at least give them a little comfort and not say, "I am not a believer." I also hope that some day you will realize the love that the Lord has for you. So much so that He gave His life and shed His blood so that your sins may be forgiven. God bless you and good look in your career.

I applaud you for working in a pediatric er. That has to be one of the hardest jobs.

Welcome by the way - keep posting.

steph

leslie :-D · Apr 6, 2006

welcome studentc, and thank you for your input.

mojo- i echo steph's sentiments: you truly have one of the most difficult jobs out there. my hats off to you.

angie- i do hope you return. i enjoy reading your posts.

firstyearstudent- i think it's going to depend on what area of nsg you work in, re: whether you have pts asking you to join them in prayer.

nearly all my pts ask me to pray with them. being a hospice nurse, i've come to expect it. i think it's notable that many of the atheists who were on their death beds, have asked me if i believe in God. often when the reality of nothingness is so close, the hope of an afterlife is the only comfort one can achieve.

there's also been many times i've joined in prayer, "our Father who art in Heaven..." ....i know most of it but tend to mumble towards the end. hey, i try.

what the bottom line is for me: i always try to adapt to my patient's preference, no matter what form it takes. i know what i feel inside. that's enough for me.

leslie

lorster · Apr 6, 2006

what the bottom line is for me: i always try to adapt to my patient's preference, no matter what form it takes. i know what i feel inside. that's enough for me.
leslie

I guess this is what I was trying to say but leslie has said it so much better. I believe a persons presence with a patient is what is important. I do not believe that most patients care what you believe or do not believe. You do not have to be a believer to pray or to be spiritual. I have a great deal of respect for people who practice their religion to the best of their ability all of the time. I have no use for those religous people that think they can sin and hurt others and then go to church and be forgiven. It does not work that way. You can not make up the rules as you go to best suit your situation at the time. I choose to be agnostic all of the time and at the same time, be a good person that does not hurt others. If others look down on me or pity me, then that is their problem, not mine.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Apr 6, 2006

(By the way, I like how the choice is between "ignorant and immortal" and "Intelligent but mortal")

Technically, that wasn't the choice.

There were two trees of note in the Garden. One was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which they partook.

The other was the 'Tree of Life', which is why they were outcast from Eden, to prevent them from taking THAT fruit.

Gen 3:22-23 "And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had taken."

Knowing good and evil (intelligence) didn't make men mortal. But it DID make men a threat. Remember, we are made in the image of God, and that is certainly a strong hint regarding our powers and abilities. So, the threat we represent was tempered in two ways: we are limited by our mortality (forbidden access to the tree of life) and our lack of common embrace (discontinuity of human spirit).

Gen 11: 6 "The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to preach to anybody, but just pointing out something interesting re: what Roy was saying. One of the most amazing things about both of these passages, to me, is that the very jealous God of the OT spoke in terms of we and us, in both cases. Either this presages Jesus centuries before the NT, or, this says something completely different than our understanding of God.

~faith,

Timothy.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Apr 6, 2006

I think being agnostic has helped me be a better nurse because I'm not opinionated. The pt gets what s/he wants from me without hints to go in another direction if s/he has made her mind up because I don't have the baggage of a divine dictator saying life has to be a certain way. A pt can safely bounce ideas off me without me having an agenda if she hasn't made her mind up about something. I don't have some religion telling me that their are easy answers to the obedient so can help people think through options.

That sounds quite patronizing.

Agnositics are openminded, while religious people are blithely convinced that they 'have all the right answers' - and are of course blindly obedient.

I respectfully disagree. The above comment is highly self-righteous and over-rationalizing.

I am religious because I'm a scientist that has the ability to look at the wide world and revel in wonderment. I intelligently deduce forces at work that cannot be explained by macro-evolution and big bangs.

You insult religion at the very same time you claim a neutrality that defies opinion. Point of fact, you are HIGHLY opinionated.

(And I have said nothing by way of attack; I have only challenged the assumptions that the poster has contradictorily articulated about him/herself.)

~faith,

Timothy.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Apr 6, 2006

If you can provide rational arguments for all these events, I'm all ears.

Actually, there was a guy in Yahoo News today arguing that the Sea of Galilee was cooler 1500-2500 yrs ago and could quite possibly have had 'floating ice' that allowed for the illusion of 'walking on water'.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060405/sc_nm/science_jesus_dc;_ylt=Ag62Qxc2fvrg2s.x7hkJLjUEtbAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBhZDJjOXUyBHNlYwNtdm5ld3M-

This guy's claim to fame was the 15 yrs ago he articulated how the parting of the Red Sea could have been due to natural forces at work.

~faith,

Timothy.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 7, 2006

That sounds quite patronizing.
Agnositics are openminded, while religious people are blithely convinced that they 'have all the right answers' - and are of course blindly obedient.
I respectfully disagree. The above comment is highly self-righteous and over-rationalizing.
~faith,
Timothy.

Funny a persons perspective because I didn't find the poster your responding to was self-righteous at all. The poster didn't say "agnostics are open minded" and Christians aren't. The original poster said he/she relates better and is personally were more open minded that other people he/she has witnessed. Christians have one and only one way to get to God, and their commandment is to "take it to all the world".

If the post was patronizing, it wasn't more than a few posters who began with "I'm a Christian.............., particularly the one who implied you'd best learn how to pray, or "I hope you find the love of the Lord".

Then again, there's nothing wrong with believing you have the true answer, be it atheism or Christian. The problem is when you express it with confidence, it's attacked by the other.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 7, 2006

what the bottom line is for me: i always try to adapt to my patient's preference, no matter what form it takes. i know what i feel inside. that's enough for me.
leslie

Leslie, you're a better person than me. I could not be a hospice nurse, because I personally am not very spiritually refined. Maybe one day.

But ultimately,I agree it is the patient, their preference and their desires that matter. My problem would be that in all cases, I am not the one to adapt to their beliefs. There's too many belief systems out there and I'm not comfortable mumbling through a prayer I don't know or believe. (I'm very familiar with that prayer and can pray with the best of Christians, but it's other belief systems I'm talking about).

I can see why if it brings comfort to a patient, one would do that. But I'm not there yet.