Many people are drawn to atheism not because of the philosophical arguments for it but because they are egalitarians suspicious of any form of hierarchy. They are not just suspicious of hierarchy, they are downright uncomfortable with it. This suspicion and discomfort make prayer almost impossible. After all, prayer is the act of addressing an infinitely higher being.

The egalitarian who attempts to pray is similar to a man dressed in a T-shirt, jeans and baseball cap appearing in the court of a king. To the man in the baseball cap, the regalia of the court is absurd and embarrassing. He may approach it with the interest of an antiquarian visiting a museum, but not as something real. The trappings and ceremony are so unnecessary. But more than that, the authority of the king makes the egalitarian intensely uncomfortable. He can either ridicule the ceremony that surrounds him or feel how primitive his own position is, which would be a shattering discovery.

The egalitarian finds it difficult, if not impossible, to pray. (I am referring to serious praying of course, not the squishy, self-centered emoting, in which God is a guy in a baseball cap too, that often substitutes for it today.) The problem with this is that God often does not communicate with a person until the person communicates with him first. This puts the egalitarian in a bind. He cannot discover God because he cannot speak to him.

For the egalitarian who truly wants to pray but feels that to do so is alien and foreign to him, there is a solution.

He must present himself in the court and say nothing. Even with his baseball cap on.

He should, as St. Francis de Sales once wisely advised, stand in this magnificent court like a statue and simply offer his presence. That is the first step for the person steeped all his life in equality to learn how to pray.