Am I missing a leg again?
There are many popular arguments that atheists like to bring up when discussing prayer with a person of faith. One such argument, that I know Sam Harris has often used before, is, if prayer really works, how come there have been no cases of people regrowing (or regenerating) their missing limbs. It's a sad and tragic scenario. A soldier (of religious faith) loses his leg on the battlefield, gets sent home and while lying on the hospital bed asks God, "Why did this happen to me? Please Lord, give me back my leg." His family prays for him and prays that God will heal his leg, too. Nothing happens.
The argument is a strong one, because it asks the question, "What can and can't we pray for? And why?" Some people believe it is absurd to ask God to regrow limbs because it's impossible for humans to grow back missing body parts. But then the question arises, "Well if we can only pray for things that are physically possible, and might occur by chance or through other means other than faith, what is the point of prayer? Where is the miracle?" Isn't prayer supposed to a miracle?
Some people pray for their favorite sports team to win, and when their team loses the game they believe that it was unfair of them to ask God, an all-knowing, omniscient creator of the Universe to take time out of His busy schedule for some irrelevant football match. However, when their team does win, they thank Him and believe that it was with His help that the team won the game. Again, I must ask, where's the miracle? This is not the will and power of a divine being, it's the ignorance of the individual that drives this belief.
So while the poor, religious amputee soldier is praying to the Heavens, what are scientists doing? Well, as it turns out, they are actually finding ways to help people like him. Scientists are constantly developing technology to regrow limbs, if not naturally, then artificially. One recent article about a bionic hand caught my attention:
Milestone for unique bionic hand
I found this to be quite ironic. While people are praying to God for something that a lot of them believe to be impossible, the scientific community is actually doing something about it - they're doing the "impossible".
The argument is a strong one, because it asks the question, "What can and can't we pray for? And why?" Some people believe it is absurd to ask God to regrow limbs because it's impossible for humans to grow back missing body parts. But then the question arises, "Well if we can only pray for things that are physically possible, and might occur by chance or through other means other than faith, what is the point of prayer? Where is the miracle?" Isn't prayer supposed to a miracle?
Some people pray for their favorite sports team to win, and when their team loses the game they believe that it was unfair of them to ask God, an all-knowing, omniscient creator of the Universe to take time out of His busy schedule for some irrelevant football match. However, when their team does win, they thank Him and believe that it was with His help that the team won the game. Again, I must ask, where's the miracle? This is not the will and power of a divine being, it's the ignorance of the individual that drives this belief.
So while the poor, religious amputee soldier is praying to the Heavens, what are scientists doing? Well, as it turns out, they are actually finding ways to help people like him. Scientists are constantly developing technology to regrow limbs, if not naturally, then artificially. One recent article about a bionic hand caught my attention:
Milestone for unique bionic hand
I found this to be quite ironic. While people are praying to God for something that a lot of them believe to be impossible, the scientific community is actually doing something about it - they're doing the "impossible".
posted by Evgueni Naverniouk | 11:28 AM
8 Comments:
In this post and in several prior posts that I have just read, you ask some very good questions. The issue of prayer is even disputed within Christianity, as what we call "the Faith Movement" treats it like a cause-and-effect principle or a magic spell - "say these things, believe enough, and it will come true."
There is no simple answer to these questions, at least as framed in a Modernist context. I will say this: what Christians call prayer is simply speaking to God. What God chooses to do, or not do, is really the issue, not whether prayer "works." It is interesting, if you study the miracles of Jesus as recorded in the 4 Biblical Gospels, that he never did anything according to a formula that people could try to copy. I believe that was on purpose... Christianity is not, in any sense, a "cause and effect" religion, although many Christians, raised in a Modernist society, have confused the 2 worldviews.
Again, to try to present a simple, easy answer would not only be impossible, it would be an insult to your questions.
Hi Alden, thanks a lot for your comment.
I think there is a simple answer to this question. There really is no need for it to be any more complicated than, "Prayer does not work."
If we start ourselves off at a condition where we know for certain that prayer doesn't work and then try to do experiments in order to prove that prayer DOES in fact work - we will quickly see that no such experiments exist or can exist. We've tried to do them before and the results have always been inconclusive. Heck, in some instances, studies in prayer have shown that it makes things worse. In others it was better. It's simply a coin-flip situation. There's no conclusive evidence to point in the direction that prayer works, so we must assume that it doesn't. Just like we know that praying to a table, or a chair makes no difference either. The results are the same. We use our common sense.
If prayer is simply Christians speaking to God, and Christianity is not a "cause and effect" religion then the logical question to follow is, "Why have Christianity at all?" If it is purely for personal satisfaction and comfort, then we can only conclude that it's a delusion and it needs to be treated like an illness.
For me it's very frustrating to think that Christianity is merely a personal need to communicate with an imaginary being, when we can constantly observe so many negative effects of Christianity and religion in general around the world (child abuse, paranoia, violence, murder, etc...)
Ah... I think you've made some fundamental errors. In your first scenario, the problem is that the statement "prayer doesn't work" simply does not make sense in the Christian context. Prayer is not something that can be described as either "working" or "not working." Besides that, you are limiting yourself to a worldview (modernism) which as I said earlier, fails in that it sees everything as cause and effect.
You could say, however, that prayer does "work" in that communication with God does happen; however if the question is, can prayer force God to act, the answer is a resounding "no."
Your question, "why have Christianity at all?" indicates a lack of understanding of what Christianity is. It's not for personal satisfaction or comfort, although these are certainly "side-effects." Let's stop thinking of Christianity as a religion, as we normally think of religions, but rather, as a relationship between man and God. Do I need a purpose to have a relationship with my wife? The answer of course, is no, other than I "fell in love." You can argue that procreation is the purpose for a sexual relationship, to which I would answer, "one purpose," as of course, there are other reasons to have sex.
That same purpose, "procreation" is similar to our need for relationship with God: Jesus used the illustration of a vine and it's branches. Branches wither and die if they are cut off from their source. God, of course, is our source... Christianity, or relationship with God, is for us, to connect us to the source. This has present-day benefits, but greater future benefits, as we do believe in a spiritual life which continues on - for those connected with God - after physical death.
To a materialist's ears, this possibly sounds as wacky as the Tooth Fairy. (I'll add that so does the multiverse theory...) However, Christianity is, in fact, a very logical belief. However, you have to look beyond the portrayal of Christianity by folks like Dawkins. Try NT Wright's "Simply Christian," and you'll at least get a better understanding of what Christians actually believe.
(And, the negative effects of religion are not specific to religion... they are the negative effects of evil men, whatever label they may wear. I believe that people should actually communicate with God rather than using religion in evil ways; that would take care of the apparent evil effects of religion.)
Hello Alden,
You have a very interesting approach to Christianity. It's always fascinating to meet new people who approach the same questions in different ways.
Alright, so let's say prayer is not about hoping that God will do work for you. If a mother prays that her child be sparred from having to be drafted into the army where he will certainly die, let's say that it is simply her communicating with God. Certainly, there is nothing to say that God will act on her prayer. That all sounds fine to me (probably doesn't sound great to the terrified mother though), except that it makes me wonder why you would pray for anything at all? And why it's called "prayer" rather than simply "communication" or "talking" or "chatting" with God... What making communication with God, so different from communication between you and I?
Now if the only means of communication with God is through "prayer" then the religious point-of-view starts to look really grim. If God can only communicate with a person through the person's own mind, then from the outside, it looks like madness. And there's no reason to consider it anything other than madness. How can we distinguish between a person who is communicating with God by talking to him (to himself), and say a person who is talking to an imaginary unicorn floating above his head. And how do we know that God isn't a unicorn floating above our heads? If the person then tells us, "It's okay, I'm just talking to this unicorn that's floating above my head, " we would then politely escort him to a psychiatrist. But if the person says, "I'm just praying to God, " we apologize for disturbing his prayer. Why?
If Christianity is simply a relationship between man and God (and a lot of Christians believe it's much more than that), then there simply is no reason to be a Christian. Let's use your example of marriage. Marriage few benefits. In fact, I'm struggling right now to think of even a single benefit that would be a worthwhile point. Marriage has many negative aspects, especially if the marriage doesn't work out and results in a divorce. That's why many couples now-a-day chose not to get married, even though they continue to live with each other, have children, buy houses and cars, and grow old together. There are families who even have other sexual partners besides for their "wifes" and "husband" (mutually agreed upon). The only reason that is left to get married is because it's tradition. I mean, even I wouldn't feel right if I didn't end up married. It's expected of us. And all this goes for God.
There really is no reason to pray or believe in God left. And this time, I have to speak as a modernist, because we live in a modernist society. Back in the middle ages, it's obvious that a belief in a super being was completely rational and logical. Just like it was completely ration and logical to believe in Zeus thousands of years BEFORE that. Dawkins expands on this point further in his book.
You said, "... "procreation" is similar to our need for relationship with God." But it's really not. We do not need God, but if want to survive as a species - we need procreation. There is nothing that a relationship with God can provide us with that we cannot get from somewhere else. The same is not true for procreation. If we do not have sex - we will die. Until of course, cloning reaches a level of scientific knowledge so potent that it can actually help us reproduce. And again, this is another point where science takes the impossible and makes it possible. Science gives our race progress and discovery. The only thing religion gives our race is hatred, war and dogma. Any love or compassion a person learns from his or her religion is delusional and could (and probably was) learned from another source.
You said, "God, of course, is our source." What does this mean? What is "the source"? And what is it the source of?
You also said, "This has present-day benefits, but greater future benefits, as we do believe in a spiritual life which continues on - for those connected with God - after physical death." I have already mentioned about why I believe there are no present-day benefits for God above. If your argument is that the benefit for believe in God (and prayer) is that we will get to Heaven, then we are back to 1st century thinking. We don't know if there is Heaven and Hell. And all evidence so far seems to say that there is not. To change our entire world-view and philosophy based on an irrational fear of death is absurd. We are all going to die. And if there is no Heaven - that's okay. We don't need to have seven virgins at our side of eternity. We don't need to live in a place where there are rivers of milk and honey. Isn't the world we live in now enough? This is not a logical position. It's a position based on an irrational belief and a fear of death.
We are afraid of death. And that's okay. We're programmed to be afraid of death as part of our evolutionary development. That's why we have instincts. We someone is about to hit you in the face with a crowbar, your instinct is not shield yourself so you don't hit your head on the pavement and die. But religion is not the eternal answer to death. Religion is not a cure for death. Religion is simply a story to make us feel better while we are here. It's like Santa Claus.
The multiverse theory is certainly wacky and difficult to get a grasp on. I personally don't find it very compelling. But we have a lot of evidence to suggest that it is very possible. There is NO evidence to suggest that God or the Tooth Fairy is at ALL possible. There simply isn't. All you have to do is go visit the Creationist museum in Alberta to see for yourself how far some people are willing to bend the truth in order to try to create the illusion that we have evidence for God. Therefore, Christianity is NOT a logical belief. There are no logical beliefs. It's not logical to believe anything. It's like Sam Harris said, "When we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith." We do not value beliefs. We value reasons. If you present me evidence, I will have no choice but to believe in the same things you do.
The negative effects of religion are certainly the negative effects of evil men, but religion creates those evil men in the first place. These men communicate with God (this is usually done with the help of a sacred book) and are told to do awful, and terrible things. And because of their irrational fears and beliefs - they do them. It's terribly sad and something must be done to stop them.
"I have to speak as a modernist, because we live in a modernist society."
We actually, by most accounts, live in a post-modernist society. However, I suspect there will be modernist remnants in our society for quite some time.
In general, your arguments are circular, always coming back to your fundamental belief (I will even say faith) in modernism & materialism. You really have presented no other basis for your thoughts.
I may sound like a different sort of Christian, but my beliefs are consistent with orthodox Christianity (not a reference to Eastern Orthodoxy). There are, obviously, Christians who hold to a more Modernist version, or believe in a performance-oriented copy of Christianity, but the apostle Paul makes it clear in Galatians that to hold such beliefs means they've lost hold of the Gospel, which is salvation by grace (God's sole doing).
Again, get a copy of NT Wright's "Simply Christian;" it is a layman's introduction to the essence of Christian belief and how it addresses our common human issues.
I don't think modernism and materialism can be construed as something to have faith in. It's not something you believe. It's something you are part of. Like, when you live in Australia - you are Australian. If you live in a post-modern/modern society - you are a modernist. You can't really decide whether to be a materialist or not. If you aren't, then you are probably just uneducated.
I believe in science and reason. If it is more scientific and reasonable to believe in modernism than in faith/religion - then that's what I'll believe because of the astounding amount of evidence for it.
If one day we are presented certain evidence for the existence of ghosts, I will undoubtedly believe in ghosts. Until then, all evidence suggests that ghosts do not exist.
"I don't think modernism and materialism can be construed as something to have faith in. It's not something you believe. It's something you are part of."
You have no free will?
Dawkins argues strongly against the idea that he has "faith" in anything. However, it is abundantly clear that he has adopted philosophical materialism as a worldview or meta-narrative. Many of his comments, such as his belief that science will eventually fill in the gaps - is nothing more than a decision to trust in his worldview (in other words, faith). The only way he can avoid this is to define "faith" as something which applies only to religion; which of course, is absurd.
"I don't think modernism and materialism can be construed as something to have faith in. It's not something you believe. It's something you are part of."
"You have no free will?"
I'm not really sure what free will has to do with here. It's not that a person is making a decision to believe in a materialist world-view or not. Materialism, isn't quite like religion. You can just choose to believe in it. Materialism is simply the belief that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter. I don't see how someone could have or not have faith in materialism.
Materialism does not induct any difficult propositions or theories about the world. It is the most simplest view of the world and the one that makes the most logical sense. You could even say it's a very dull view of the world. It's definitely an Occam's Razor.
A "belief that science will eventually fill in the gaps" is not faith. It's simply a logical, and scientific prediction based on history and based on our current situation. You don't need to make a leap of faith, or imagine something extraordinary to believe in science. You simply need to do your work and read your books. In order to believe in a supernatural being, you really need to make a big jump. You basically need to believe that there is a whole other world out there. To say the least - it's very illogical.
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