FFRF sent an Action Alert to members April 17 asking them to set AARP magazine straight about its February/March article entitled “The Paradox of Prayer: A Pilgrimage.” Commenting on the article, Editor-in-Chief Robert Love wrote, “I learned that prayer is a primal human instinct that crosses faiths and cultures, and extends even to those who don’t believe in a personal God.” He also claimed, “We older Americans are a prayerful people.”
Members responded in droves to the alert. Below are some excerpted responses to AARP:
What were you thinking? I don’t know about primal, but your statements about prayer strike me as primitive and poppycock. While I have not prayed for about 65 years, I have talked to myself on occasions, such as when I read your ludicrous statement in support of supernatural thinking. I said, “Don, are you hallucinating. Did he really write that?”
Is it your goal to reposition AARP as a faith-based seniors organization? I ask that you give equal time in the next issue to reason, critical thinking, freethought and science, and apologize for insulting the good sense of so many AARP readers. — Donald B. Ardell, Florida
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I am a senior citizen, age 81, and I have two longstanding beliefs in regard to prayer and religion: “Nothing fails like prayer” (Unknown), and “Religion is the worst disease of mankind” (Ayn Rand).
Faith is believing that an entity actually exists without any proof or evidence. Whenever a “prayed for” person “miraculously” recovers, a scientific explanation can always be found to explain the recovery. — John Dunn, California
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I believe humankind should get off its knees and get to work instead of pretending it can suspend the natural laws of the universe or alter reality through wishful thinking. Please devote part of an upcoming AARP magazine to the joy and freedom of relying on human ingenuity and of being a nonreligious senior citizen. — Kevin Larkin, South Carolina
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As a longtime member of AARP, I was appalled to read [Robert Love’s comments]. I do not believe in a personal god and I have never prayed in my life. — Edward F. Rockman, Pennsylvania
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You are wrong! Prayer is taught, left over from from the cave-man days. I am 76 years old and haven’t prayed since I learned how to read and abandoned Mormonism. Actually, I did pray once. When I was in graduate school, my mother told me that praying would help me pass a very hard test. So, I got down on my knees, folded my hands in front of me, closed my eyes and said, “Dear Heavenly Father, please help me with tomorrow’s test so that I won’t [expletive] it up. Amen.” It didn’t help, I got a C+. — Frank W. Knell, Arizona
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I turn 50 in May, and I’m part of a generation that is a lot less religious than perhaps the majority of your current membership. I teach science, my husband and I are married, with two teenagers, and while we loves stories, we’re also interested in an evidence-based understanding of the world, as opposed to unsupportable, “supernatural” belief systems that call for prayer to nonexistent goddesses, demons, witches, shamans or gods.
So while I’ve recently received multiple invitations to join AARP, I really do not wish to be associated with the kind of religious nonsense printed in your February/March magazine. Feel free to pitch again for my membership when I turn 60. Maybe by then there will be fewer old Catholics, Mormons, Christians, etc., who currently reference their “faith” to deny basic civil rights to gays and lesbians, deprive women of access to health care options and dumb down evidence-based science education to pander to in your magazine. Cheers! — Bill Griesar, Oregon
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Take it from me, there are lots of people (older and not) who do not pray. To insist that prayer extends to those who don’t believe in a personal God is incorrect. It is disrespectful. if not absurd, to claim nonbelievers find meaning in prayer. As an AARP member, I have become disenchanted with your magazine. It was once of value, but now it is mere fluff. — Lois Martin, California
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I am an older person, a member of AARP, and so is my wife. We know many people our age. None of us is prayerful. I do not appreciate you using your position as editor-in-chief to engage in proselytizing. Prayer is not primal. No one is born with any manner of religious belief. It is taught to people as children, an indoctrination. — Graydon Wilson, Vermont
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In the summer of 2008, I was mauled by a bear, which tore my face off before I was able to fight it off and drive myself down a mountain for help. As it was attacking me, I can assure you that “prayer” was the very last thing on my mind. (Nor did my life flash before me, nor did I see some Baby Jesus come to carry me home.) I find your contention “prayer is primal” hugely offensive to the very real calculus that ultimately saved my life.
The fact that the Independent Book Publishers Association deemed my memoir Chomp, Chomp, Chomp: How I Survived a Bear Attack and Other Cautionary Tales worthy of its Benjamin Franklin Award for autobiographical and inspirational book of 2015 should tell you that not all of us seniors fall prey (sorry,) to this nonsensical abdication of personal responsibility. — Allena Hansen, California
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Prayer is what is often done by people who aren’t willing to contribute anything else to a situation. They believe they have done something meaningful, when in fact they haven’t accomplished jack. I don’t go out of my way to criticize people who have a religious conviction unless and until, as you do, they stomp on what I believe, as you did.
I just renewed my membership in AARP and now I’m sorry I did. You are incredibly disrespectful to lump all of seniors us into the same bag. — Jerry Foreman, 73, Nevada
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I found the comments regarding prayer to be offensive and even silly. The majority of older Americans may believe and participate in prayer but there are plenty of us who know that nothing, absolutely nothing fails like prayer, and that is statistically quantifiable. — Stephen P. Driscoll, Massachusetts
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Please give those of us who rely on ourselves the respect that we have been forced to give “believers.” How about an article on the many successful, fulfilled beings in the past and present who have no need of prayer to keep ourselves happy. You have a very good magazine, but this was uncalled for. — Rose White, AARP member since 1998, Hawaii
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I found your article about prayer to be distasteful to my wife and I, both atheists, but thought it was just more of what we always experience — a mainstream publication trying to isolate people who don’t voice the official views. We are both 75 and have been AARP members for a long time. Please leave religion out of your magazine so we all feel included. — Peter and Marilyn Werbe, Michigan
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I have never prayed, except as a child, and that was only under duress. Though I would fight for the right of others to pray, it is not something I would never chose to do myself. It’s deeply offensive for you to assume that all elders are exactly like you. Atheists are proud, thinking people, and we have maintained our beliefs in the face of great prejudice. We don’t deserve to be treated as nonexistent. — Andrea Natalie, New York
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With age comes to some the wisdom to stop believing in imaginary friends and illusory dei ex machina as solutions to problems. Please devote a similar amount of space in an upcoming issue to those AARP members who are not “prayerful” but are instead rational in confronting the inevitable pains of life. — Julia Whitsitt, South Carolina
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“Prayer: A Pilgrimage” was, I hope, a story of your own personal life searches. If it was meant to be any more than that, I take it as a personal insult, as well as lacking in factual or logical statements. Please, I wish to read no more faith-based proselytizing in our magazine, the magazine for all Americans over 50. — Jere Miles, Florida
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I am an atheist, happy with my choice to be without belief in God or gods, and consider prayer a foolish waste of time. I say, “Have at it if it makes you feel better,” but please stop trying to include people like me in your illusions. If you are a Christian, Muslim or Jew, the main theological difference from me is that I believe in one less god than you. Kindly desist from theological preachments in AARP. — Ron Weinert, 81, Arizona
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I usually enjoy reading my copy of AARP and find much good advice, but I cringed at your article on prayer. However, I do want you to know that I am a believer. I believe in being a good person, and that being a good person takes the expenditure of time, energy and money.
Now, if you are a good person, a fair person and a good editor, you will solicit an article from a freethinker/agnostic/atheistic organization and provide balanced reporting. — Charles Golden, California
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I’m a member of AARP and an atheist. Can anyone seriously believe there is a great being somewhere, holding puppet strings, making humankind do its bidding? Read about any of the atrocities being done to women and children in countries torn apart by religion. Do you think a loving God of any kind would let these things happen to a human being, especially an innocent child? I think not. — Charles James, New York
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As an AARP-age atheist, I do not pray and please don’t make unwarranted assumptions about people like me. — Tom Hays, California
