Could you see yourself praying for Gods intervention were you dying?(for atheists)
Honestly I don't think I would. Although it's not such an extreme scenario I didn't pray for my mum when she went into hospital for her operation(she had cancer, surgery to remove it), I was 13 at the time. Basically because so many people die of cancer every day, I'm sure many of them are mothers with children, wouldn't be surprised if many single parents died of cancer each year.(I mean a lot of people do die of it each year)
Why would God somehow help my mother recover when so many other mothers die, why would be care about my mother in particular? I have a father, he may not live with us but if my mum had died he would have taken care of me. I'm sure many children only have one parent and what happens when that parent dies of something like cancer and they have no other family? Does God stop their parents death? No he doesn't.
Even if God exists it is rather obvious by the number of people who die each year a human life is insignificant to God, no matter how damaging the death is to others.
When someone prays to God they survive their surgery and they do, they often thank God for it. However why not thank the surgeons who saved their life, God certainly didn't save their life. When the other 100 people who pray to God they survive their surgery so their children are not left without a mother(lets say their women) and die, does everyone blame God? No. They say it's just something which can't be helped, death happens, people die of cancer and other diseases.
It's like when someone says they can turn off street lights with their mind. You can drive under hundreds of street lights which don't turn off and they will say nothing, but when one does they will say they did it. It's the same with God, he is thanked for helping those who survive disasters or surgery, but what the large majority of people in a town who die when a tsunami hits? Why when at the Church service praising the Lord for helping many survive do they not say " but why Lord did you let so many die, now there are hundreds of orphans, hundreds of parents have lost their children, why did you do this?".
It will never change though, so I accept that is how religion works. So I will say again I will not ask God to save me. I my ponder about the possibility of an afterlife but then I will fall back on logic. Even the Bible says animals do not go to heaven, so what makes a human special. Take the frontal lobe out of a human and they lose their personality, their emotions, what makes them who they are, what many would call their soul. I believe there is nothing after death, maybe in my final few minutes my mind will wander in desperation for all creatures strive for self preservation, however I will know myself I am thinking foolish and desperate thoughts and I will know in my heart there is nothing else but this life.
I'd be interested in others responses. I don't believe that desperately praying for Gods help at death necessarily means one is not an Atheist though. it would be more an act of uncontrollable desperation, even if one does not believe in his one prayer he may do one out of some sudden last desperate act of fear.
