How do you all respond when someone says "I'll pray for you" or "you'll be in my prayers" when you know what they are really saying is "I'll pray that you abandon your current religion and accept Jesus as your savior"?
I've had this happen to me a couple of times on another board (a Scouting board) where people know that I am pagan, and it seems inevitable that when we get into a religious/political discussion where I disagree with the other person's viewpoint (who is almost always a Christian), they seem to always fall back on the old "I'll add you to my prayer list" type of thing. I'm never quite sure how to respond, because I believe that if someone wants to pray for my general wellbeing, that all those prayers produce positive energy, and are welcome. So, I feel like I don't want to sound ungrateful to someone who might be praying for my general wellbeing, but at the same time, I am uncomfortable with the thought of people prayer for me to abandon my religion (when I'm pretty sure that is what they are really doing). I know if I told any of them that I will pray for them to abandon Christianity and turn to enlightenment, they would be mightily offended! (As they should be)
So would you:
1. Say thank you and respond that you will also pray for them (my general response, and let them read into it what they will about what I will be praying about for them....)
2. Be explicit and say, "if you want to pray for my wellbeing, thank you. If you want to pray for my conversion, no thank you."
3. Just generally say, "no thank you" to all such responses.
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