1 Yes your prayers count. And one of these days we'll sit down and have a wonderful discussion about that. No preaching, just explaination. I seem to have a knack for that..... And every good thought, well wish is appreciated. BTW - Tonite while I was talking to LeeAnn she had a car accident. I'm still waiting to hear back from her. She said she is ok - but I need to talk to her first. Add her to the list.

2 ...do you want an honest answer to that question, Harvey? Or, is it a rhetorical question? The short answer will take a couple of hours. The long one takes a lifetime.

3 HD - Your time. If you want to tackle it...

4 As a fellow atheist here is my take on it. I don't pray, 'cause I don't believe there is anything out there to hear or care. I do believe in sending people good wishes, by telling them I'm hoping for the best for them, am thinking about them, and will do anything within my power to help them. Sending the emotional care package out from yourself would only work if you actually tell the people you care about what you are feeling,otherwise there is no effect. That's my two cents worth, anyway.

5 Do you believe energy is powerful? Remember the nameless answers to many names but requires none.

6 Wow, you've read what I've been thinking. I guess you would call me agnostic...and when people as for my prayers .... I usually reply with, "You are in my thoughts" and things along that line. But you brought up a good point...is praying only for those who believe in God? Thanks for bringing this up...I don't get to talk about this sort of thing as often as I would like...just because I'm still interested in many opinions.

7 In my mind, everyone's prayers count as long as they are sincere and from the heart.

8 Who does an atheist pray to? Harv, you're an agnostic. You don't know if God exists or not. You don't deny He exists.

9 I'm not a particularly religious man, my wife, the lovely and gracious Linda Lou is a strong believer. Before we married I agreed to go along with her so as to present a united front for the children. She was willing to be flexible enough to attend the Church of my Department's Chaplain who, in addition to being a Minister was a Reserve Deputy. I have a point, I'll get to it. I feel the background has some small value. I believe that the Church we raised our children in gave them a way to tie the important moral and ethical values together, our now-adult kids all live ethical lives, none have been locked up, none have become the emotional, moral or addiction-riddled train wrecks that we parents fear so much. As an added bonus, they are all four reasonably happy and, while not scaring Bill Gates, are reasonably prosperous. So, that part worked. I make no claim that another church or no church might not have worked as well. I do suspect that tying the morality and ethics together was easier the way we did it. I was probably the picture of hypocricy in my church going, right up until the day my drinking finally got the better of me. I went to church only because it was expected of me and because of the deal I had made with my wife. Then came August of 1985. I came to in a cell in my own jail, fortunately I'd managed to get locked up before I killed someone driving blind drunk. What brought me to semiconsciousneess was the very loud voices of my wife, my Lieutenant and the Chaplain, all very irately and loudly telling me what I had to do to avoid losing my marriage, my family and my career. The first, second and third things I had to do was stop drinking, enter substance abuse treatment and continue in AA after treatment. One of the tenets of AA is prayer. I got hung up there for quite a while as I simply did not believe. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I simply did not know what I believed. Fortunately our Preacher and Chaplain is a very smart guy. He explained that it wasn't important to work out my beliefs then, merely important that I follow directions. He solved my problem with a simple directive. In the morning I got up out of bed, hit my knees and said "To Whom It May Concern, please give me the strength to get through this day without drinking." At bedtime I hit my knees again "To Whom It May Concern, thank you for the help today." As the weeks sober turned into months I started asking fior a little more help in some other areas of life. As the months of sobriety turned into years I started helping other alcoholics, including those who had multiple relapses into drinking. To this day I believe that the single biggest predictor of successful sobriety is that daily prayer of first asking for help and then giving thanks for that help. I no longer begin my prayers "To Whom It may Concern" although I'm not sure that it would matter if I did. I know a little more about my beliefs, although I'm not even sure that THAT matters. What I do know is simple. He does answer the prayers of the nonbeliever. I'm living proof. I asked for some help to keep my family, my career and my life together. I got all of that and more. It didn't matter that I didn't believe in Him, you see, because He believed in me. Oh, and be careful of selfish prayers. While all prayers are answered, not only is the answer sometimes no, but He has whopped me alongside the head for being an asshole a time or three. I use the term He, it would not surprise me a whole lot if instead I found Her. Sorry if this was long and boring.

10 I'm agnostic but... When I was abroad in an oriental country they had this idea of positive energy being released into the universe via a type of praying so I don't see any reason why your prayers should be any less an attempt to release that kind of energy. I won't go into the idea of organised religion vs Alex coz I've done that on my blog before.

11 Peter - Long, yes, boring, no. Would the world be a better place if you had a blog? Yes.

12 I believe in the sending of positive energy and well thoughts out. I was raised in a very religious family, however as I got older it didn't seem to fit with me. I played musical religions for a while. And I ended up where I am. The one thing that seemed constant in all of them was: If you wish well to others, your wishes may be granted. So now I just send happy thoughts to whomever is in need.

13 I always like it when Peter visits. I never find anything the man writes, boring.

14 Uh Peter...that was beautiful. And if I were you, I'd just save yourself the aggrivation and start looking into Blogspot.... :-)