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Prayer for Atheists
Legend has it that the physicist Niels Bohr had a horseshoe hanging above his
door. A colleague asked him why, to which he responded, "It's for luck." The
colleague then asked him if he believed in luck. Bohr reassured him that as a
scientist he did not believe in luck. Puzzled, the colleague asked again why
Bohr had the horseshoe hanging above his door. Bohr responded, "I'm told that
you don't have to believe in order for it to work." William Irwin is a Professor
of Philosophy, and author of 'God Is a Question, Not an Answer: Finding Common
Ground in Our Uncertainty.'
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