Normally I'd jump in on the practicality bandwagon, but this really is not constructive. People who are going to pray will; people who are going to donate will. Your denigration of their faith, justified or not (and we'll never really know until we die), helps no one, particularly in this context.
Nobody's denigrating his faith, as much as his transparent attempt to leverage it for social credibility by advertising his piety on Hacker News while (evidently) doing nothing actually helpful.
If that's not worthy of denigration, take it up with Jesus himself, who said pretty much the same thing.
This is even more cynical than I'm willing to be. Yes, a lot of what goes on on HN is just "hey look at me," but really? Someone says "I'll pray for you" to a guy dying of cancer and your reaction is that he's attempting to "leverage [his faith] for social credibility?"
Maybe you should get out more. Or perhaps just be even a little more generous in your assumptions. Many people do believe in... well, lots of things they pray to. You don't have to; I don't either. But that doesn't mean everyone else's motives are somehow always shallow and selfish.
Sorry, but your comment is a whole lot worse than his.
"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you…"
it's not an attempt for social credibility, it's a way of expressing sympathy. seriously, it's such a common way of saying "i have read about what you say and wish you well" that you have to be particularly cynical to read it as a show of piety.
Magical thinking is probably the single greatest threat to the longterm survival of the human race. I can think of no situation where it is not appropriate to criticise it. Furthermore, illness and death are exactly the times when human beings are most likely to abandon rationalism and cling to magic, so these are the very times when the fight is most important, and we shouldn't shy away from that just because it makes us uncomfortable to tell the dying their fairytales are untrue.
The only person you are trying to benefit when you are trying to convince the dying of atheism is yourself. We should let people live their final days believing whatever they want. Even as an atheist, its clear to me that the right thing to do is allow the dying to be happy and comfortable, however they want that. Furthermore, there are many, many threats to longterm survival, not just mysticism.
