It's not just the American Christians, although the ones I know are in churches probably most influenced (and connected to) the American evangelical movement. Funnily enough, I have brought out Matthew 6:6, though not for people who said they would pray for another person - but people who PRAY on their facebook statuses! The only response I got was from someone whose argument was that prayer is good and helpful so whether it's said in public or not doesn't matter - the rest were very quiet. I think they fancy they weren't rising to my challenge out of a sense of 'knowing better' but I think the reason none said anything is because they actually don't have a leg to stand on even by their own standards.

I tend to be lenient when Christian friends say they will pray for me or people in my life who are going through a tough time - I say neither yay or nay. I really think it depends on the person and whether they know about my atheism or not - although it does irritate me that it's taken for granted that I'm anything but. I am tempted to tell Christians having a hard time (usually because they can't live up to the ridiculous expectations of their religion, ironically) that I'll go away and wish very hard for them to feel some resolution. That way when and if they're feeling better I can say it's because the Wish Fairies were listening. But I doubt they would get the point.

My recent post Ink on my wall- paper- my skin- my mind

Hey, I'm an atheist and blogger from South Africa, and I saw the show the other day. Blogged about it myself very briefly. It's interesting to see how along with the introduction of Christianity and western religion into some of these places, there's also a strange transfer of other western/ non-African originated superstitions into the communities, like believing these 'witches' feed zombies at night and go visit mermaids in rivers.

I joined the online atheist community just over a year ago, and though I appreciate that each person wants to talk about their experiences and the discoveries they make on their personal journey (out of religion, that is), I find in a lot of cases that we're harping on about the same things over and over again. If I had a buck for every post I've seen in the last couple of weeks entitled "What Christianity needs in order to be true", I'd be able to buy entirely too much chocolate than is good for me. I think all of those posts, especially the questions and the arguments are great and definitely need to keep in circulation, but I feel like we (the majority) haven't seemed to move on from that.
Incidentally, one of the things I do miss most since leaving the church IS the sense of community, the social benefits. It would be great to get involved in an atheist community where topics of religion and atheism are open for discussion but not always the main aim.

The kind of people who'll read a fictional account of God's power in a Francine River's novel and count it proof of 'God's great power'. Can't argue with people like this, they see ghosts everywhere they look. From experience as an ex-evangelical Christian, I understand to some extent how this happens - just like the commentator mentioned, everything done on earth is seen to have a spiritual effect/parallel. Because nobody can quite explain what that might even look like, war analogies are most appropriate for description. That would explain why a 'war-cry' like the HP "spell" is seen as a direct threat. Still? Beyond irrational.