I was only talking about prayer a couple of days ago and now it gets into the news. This story has been all over the news and was even in my local paper tonight. Until I saw that, I hadn't realised it was a local incident. A community nurse has been suspended for asking a patient if she wanted to be prayed over (prayed upon? Not sure what the correct terminology is). Of course she is now being portrayed as a martyr, being persecuted for her faith. When you read the details of the story, it turns out that she had done this sort of thing before and had been told to stop, so I guess she doesn't have much of a complaint against her employers.
The strange this is that, as an atheist, I don't think it really would have bothered me if a nurse offered to pray for me (I'd obviously refuse!). My wife actually works as a nurse in the same health authority, albeit in a different area of nursing. She said it would be very unprofessional for a nurse or doctor to do what this nurse had done and she shouldn't have done it.
Relating to my earlier post about praying, does this nurse actually believe that a prayer for one of her patients would actually swing the decision with the big guy upstairs? Does she think that she could direct some supernatural force that would change the laws of nature just because she asked (while shutting her eyes tight and putting her hands together)?
The other odd thing is why she bothers to ask whether her patients want a prayer or not. If she really cares for her patients and really believes that prayer works, why wouldn't she just pray for everyone? Why does the recipient need to know? Perhaps the nurse knows deep down that the only possible effect of prayer would be a placebo effect on a credulous patient, in which case you don't really need to pray for them, just tell them that you are...
I don't understand where the confusion is.
ReplyDeleteThe laws of nature aren't understood fully or aren't always followed as we understand them. Anomolies happen. Occasionally those anomolies happen around a person who believes whatever action they just took caused the anomoly. Clearly the nurse believes that she's caused some such thing and that she can do it again by following the same course.
That belief can only be enhanced when someone agrees with her - thus she asks for them to join in or whatever. Not to mention, asking whether the patient would like to join in would cover her butt in that they wanted her to pray for them.
Would that annoy the patient? Maybe. I think, unless the nurse is threatening the patient in some way - Like saying, "f you don't let me pray, I'll unplug this machine here" - then who cares?