America is climbing out of the hole. Slowly.

According to the American Religious Identification Survey, non-believers now make up 15% of Americans, and I believe this is a wonderful achievement.

There are some who believe it's a waste of time trying to educate the public about religious dogma and ignorance. Who are we (atheists) to tell others what to believe in, or more accurately, what not to believe in. Why should we ruin a good thing for the believers?

Daniel C. Dennett put it best in his book Breaking the Spell:

The problem is that there are good spells and then there are bad spells. If only some timely phone call could have interrupted the proceedings at Jonestown in Guyana in 1978, when the lunatic Jim Jones was ordering his hundreds of spellbound followers to commit suicide! If only we could have broken the spell that enticed the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo to release sarin gas in a Tokyo subway, killing a dozen people and injuring thousands more! If only we could figure out some way today to break the spell that lured thousands of poor young Muslim boys into fanatical madrassahs where they are prepared for a life of murderous martyrdom instead of being taught about the modern world, about democracy and history and science! If only we could break the spell that convinces some of our fellow citizens that they are commanded by God to bomb abortion clinics!"

We could try to stop these events from happening by punishing the radicals, but that's not going to be the solution to the massive problem of ignorance. Ignorance is bliss until somebody gets hurt, and in the case of religion it happens much too often to ignore. It's not enough to punish the radicals, by then it's too late. We need to ensure that religion does not escape the scrutiny of scientific investigation and question. If we can get a Christian to even read an atheist book - that is a massive achievement. Regardless of whether he chooses to accept its facts or not.

We're on our way to making good progress.

Is There Really Life Beyond The Grave?

As I got on the bus today, it was fairly empty. People usually like to leave various newsletters on vacant seats as they leave. I find this quite convenient because then I can pick one up and read while on my way to school. I'm able to re-use the newsletter, thus save some trees, and I save myself the time of having to go to a newspaper stand.

However today, instead of the typic daily newsletter I found an Awake! magazine on one of the seats with the front page title called "Is there Life Beyond the Grave?". As I flipped over the cover I realized that it was a Watchtower magazine (a huge Jehovah's Witness publication here in Canada, and I believe in the US as well).

I've always wanted to read one of these and tackle some of the issues inside and today seemed like an excellent opportunity, especially because the title was so straightforward. I was curious to see how they were going to explain life after death in a way that made sense to the general population. Unfortunately, their approach was quite poor - a standard, inverse-thinking approach that preachers often use.

I'm going to take the article part by part and look closely at the problems in the way they arrive to their conclusions.

Death: Is it really the end?

The first section begins by telling the story of an 85-year-old skeptic who get converted by his son as he finds out he is terminally ill and decides to discontinue using the dialysis machine that has been keeping him alive. It's the infamous death bed conversion.

"That final time together provided an opportunity for the two to reflect on a subject they had discussed before: Is life possible beyond the grave? The father, a college-educated man, was a skeptic. He had been influenced by the teaching of evolution and was repelled by the hypocrisy of religion. He called himself an agnostic -- believing that the existence of God is unknowable."

Right off the bat my hope that the article would remain fairly neutral was shot out of the park. Just a few sentences in, the author is already setting up evolution, and hence college-education, to be the villain.

"The son, desiring to provide comfort and hope, shower his father why life beyond the grave is a real possibility. As death approached, the father acknowledged that living again, enjoying another life with renewed vigor and health, would be desirable."

The entire article's main argument for why there is life after death is set up right at the beginning. Life after death is desirable, therefore it exists. This is all possible because God wants us to be happy and he can do everything. Just because we want to live forever, we can. It's that simple. Miracles are possible.

However, at this point, the author starts telling us that there is a price to pay and there are certain rules. So it's not all that easy.

"Most people, if not all, would want to live again if they could do so with restored health and vigor in a world where peace prevails. Humans are unlike animals, which are described in the Bible as "unreasoning," or as "Creatures of instinct." (2 Peter 2:12; New International Version) We bury our dead. We contemplate the future. We do not want to grow old, get sick, and die. Yet, these are realities of human experience."

This paragraph begins to emphasize the heightened status of the human over animals. The author completely avoids the fact that humans are animals as well. There are several major issues with this paragraph and I will briefly go through them.

1. Humans are not unlike animals. Humans are animals. We are no different, except that we have a bigger and better brain. Like giraffe's have bigger necks, anteaters have longer tongues, falcons have better eyes, and dogs have better noses - we have a better brain. The reason is simple. It's because we use our brain to survive, and thus natural selection used that as the driving force. If we relied on sheer force and power to stalk and kill our pray, we would probably have huge muscles. Instead, our ancestors were fox-like, clever inventors who found cunning ways of survival. This requires brain power. The smarter humans were favored because they survived and therefore our brain and its power grew. There's no reason to favor a better brain, anymore than a better neck or tongue. Who's to say that thoughts and brain power are better than good eye-sight, or really strong muscles?

2. We have no way to prove that other animals are "unreasoning". Consciousness science is still in its infancy, and we still don't understand our own consciousness, much less the consciousness (or lack thereof) of other animals. To claim that other animals are unreasoning is to make a blind guess. This is not a good way to approach an argument or to convince people to join your side. We simply don't know if it's true or not. Now certainly, it could be true, and the author could have a point, but until we know for sure this statement has to be completely rejected as myth.

3. Now although we can't prove that animals can reason, we can certainly observe animals behaving in ways that go beyond natural "instinct". There are tons of stories of animals behaving in incredible ways that defy our common preconceptions. Things like eye-seeing dogs, and dogs that have rescued their owners (risking their own lives in the process) are the first examples that come to mind. Animals certainly do not rely purely on instinct. They adapt to environments in the same way that we do. Or if you want to think about it in reverse, you could also make the argument that humans behave purely on instinct too. It all depends on what the author means by "instinct". Again, we don't really know how much they reason, but to say that animals behave solely on instinct is not true. The fact that we bury our dead and contemplate the future does not separate us from animals. There are plenty of things other animals do that we don't. Why are the things we do so special?

4. "We do not want to grow old, get sick, and die." And who says that animals do? That's why they hunt, eat, sleep, drink and reproduce. This is not "human" experience. It's the experience experienced by all life forms. The inherent nature of life is that it wants to go on. It wants to survive. All life, not just human life. Even plants don't want to die. They spread their seeds, and sprout in new places. They evolve bigger leaves and longer roots.

5. Finally, this paragraph raises quite a bit of concern for animal and pet lovers. Do you not get to see your beloved pet in the afterlife? What if your entire life you've lived with an animal, and they have been your loyal companion? I would imagine that your "paradise" land after life would be to be with them again. Even if we admit that animals are not worthy of God's love, are they not worthy of our love? And if God loves us, how could he not allow animals amongst us? Why is there this favoritism for humans?

Next the article explains exactly why we don't want to die.

"For one reason, we have an inborn desire to live and enjoy life in peace and security. Death -- nonexistence -- is inherently repulsive. It is difficult, if not almost impossible, to accept. The Bible explain why: "[God] has put eternity into man's mind," or "in their heart." *(Ecclesiastes 3:11; Revised Standard Version) We want to live -- no die. think about it: Would that desire be so strong if it were not our Creator's original purpose for us to live forever? Is another life in endless health and happiness possible?"

Why yes -- yes -- the desire would be so strong if it were not our Creator's original purpose for us to live forever. This argument doesn't make any sense. We don't need a creator to want to live forever, all we need is a reason to live... Not even that. All we need is to be alive. Love, simple pleasures, entertainment... all these things are a reason to live. We don't need a creator to plant desires into our mind. Doesn't this violate some sort of freewill rule that Christians are always so concerned about?

Also, what about those people that no longer have the desire to live? The people with no love, no simple pleasures, no entertainment, no Creator - only suffering, pain and heartache? Are people who commit suicide not created by the Creator, since they have no desire implanted in their heart? What about those people who attempted suicide and then later found some desire to live? Were they first created by the devil and then reincarnated by God?

The answer is that the desire to live comes from how we live our lives. There are times when things are so hard that our desire to live may fade.

"Last year, AARP The Magazine, published by the American Association of Retired Persons, featured the article "Life After Death." Interview of scores of people who were over 50 years of age revealed that "nearly three quarters (73 percent) agree with the statement 'I believe in life after death.'" On the other hand, the magazine reported that nearly one quarter agreed with the statement "I believe that when I die, that's the end." But is that what people really want to believe?"

What people "want" to believe has no importance. Certainly, when things are going well we want to live. Most of us want to live forever. This is not a valid point for an argument. Some of us want to believe that we can fly. Some of us want to believe that we are rich. Wanting to believe doesn't make things so and false hope is often more harmful than realism.

Giving people, especially dying patients false hope is a terrible thing, and a crime. A crime blatantly disregarded by Christian Science practitioners.

"... many are skeptical -- as was the father mentioned at the outset, who would often say to his son, "Belief in religion is OK for those who can't handle the reality of death." yet, as he and other skeptics have had to acknowledge, belief in an all-powerful Creator provides an answer to otherwise incomprehensible miracles."

The authors decides not to mention any such "incomprehensible miracles". Instead he uses the following example,

"For example, just three weeks after conception, the human embryo begins to form brain cells. These cells multiply in spurts, at times up to a quarter of a million of them a minute! Nine months later a baby is born with a brain that has a miraculous capacity to learn. Molecular biologist James Watson called the human brain "the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe. When considering marvels like this, are you -- as most are -- filled with awe? Have such reflections helped you arrive at an answer to the question raised by a man long ago: "If an able-bodied man dies can he live again?""

The author's example is what Richard Dawkins refers to as the 'Argument from Beauty' in his book The God Delusion. It is quite possibly the most common argument religious people use in defense of creation and quite possibly the weakest.

I am not going to delve very deeply in explaining all of its problems, but will simply quote Dawkins, "If there is a logical argument linking the existence of great art to the existence of God, it is not spelled out by its proponents. It is simply assumed to be self-evident, which it most certainly is not. Maybe it is to be seen as yet another version of the argument from design: Schubert's musical brain is a wonder of improbability, even more so than the vertebrate's eye. Or, more ignobly, perhaps it's a sort of jealousy of genius. How dare another human being make such beautiful music/poetry/art, when I can't? It must be God that did it."

Life Beyond the Grave - It is Possible!

In this section the author tries to give us "evidence that provides reason for us to believe that life after death is possible." The way this is achieved is by explaining exactly why we die,

"Regarding Jehovah God, our Creator the Bible says: "Perfect is his activity." (Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 83:18) The first man, Adam was created perfect, and he had the potential of living forever in Eden, the earthly Paradise garden in which God placed him. (Genesis 2:7-9) Why did Adam lose that Paradise home and grow old and die? Simply stated: Adam failed to obey the command not to eat fruit from a particular tree. God had clearly warned Adam of the penalty for doing so, saying: "You will positively die." (Genesis 2:16, 17) Adam joined his wife, Even, in disobeying that command, so God evicted them from Eden. The reason for God's prompt action is significant. The Bible states: "That [Adam] may not put his hand out and actually take fruit also from the [garden's] tree of life and eat and live [forever]." -- Genesis 3:1-6,22. Adam and Even died for their disobedience, but why do all their descendants grow old and die? Because they inherited sin from Adam, and sin has resulted in the imperfection and death of every one of his offspring. The Bible explains: "Through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned." -- Romans 5:12."

Alright, so let's tackle the problems of the story of Genesis, and some of the questions that get ignored.

1. We've seem favoritism towards humans above, but why the sudden favortism towards Adam? Simply because he's the first one, does that really justify the sin to be passed down to all mankind? I mean, it's God and He can do as He wants, but you have to wonder about His motives and reasons, right?

2. Next I'll throw in the whole feminism problem, being why should Eve pay for Adam's sin? Christianity in general has a lot of sexist statements all over the place, so I won't say much more about it.

3. Now, lets question the whole scenario for a second. So let's say you are God, all-powerful and all-knowing. Why would you create a tree of fruit that cannot be eaten? There are really only two reasons; 1, you're evil and you want to cause your human creations pain and 2, you're purposely setting up a situation for Adam to fail and then feel bad - which again doesn't make you look very good either. There is no reason for that tree to be there. There is no reason create a trap for Adam. Since God is all-knowing, He must have known that Adam would eat from the tree. So firstly, why bother with the whole charade at all and why not just create humans as creatures that eventually get old and die, instead of doing the whole sin thing? And secondly, why does God care so deeply about fruit? If it's an "earthly Paradise garden" then certainly we should be able to do as we please and have an abundance of fruit and freedom?

The reason why the Bible contains this passage is to instill fear into its worshipers to do as God says. It's a means to demonstrate that if you do something that God doesn't like you'll be punished, and to set up a situation which states that your actions will reflected upon others. In principle this isn't all bad, you should always be aware of your actions, but in this particular case the concept of sin and fear and doing as you're told needs to be taken lightly and questioned.

Had I been Adam I would have asked God, "Well what is so special about this tree? Why can't I eat from it?" I'm curious as to what God would have said. "Because I say so?" seems like the only possible response, and if that's the case - then perhaps God really isn't very nice at all.

My point is backed up when the author continues with,

"What is it that makes possible a righteous standing with God and the enjoying of everlasting life?"

It's all about serving God and doing as He says. It's about pleasing Him. Which we know from studying history is a terrible way to go about life. Life should be about being in a righteous standing with your fellow human beings (and animals), not some omnipotent being.

"Why, though, is Jesus the only human who could "give his soul [as] a ransom" for us and thereby save us from the deadly consequences of sin? -- Matthew 20:28. Jesus is the only one who could give his soul as a ransom because he is the only human who did not inherit sin from the first man, Adam. Why so? Because the life of Jesus was miraculously transferred from heaven to the womb of Mary, who was a virgin. So, as an angel told Mary, her son was "holy, God's Son." (Luke 1:34, 35) That is why Jesus is called "the last Adam" and why he did not inherit sin from "the first man Adam" and why he did not inherit sin from "the first man Adam." (1 Corinthians 15:45) As a sinless human, Jesus could thus give himself as "a corresponding random" -- his life corresponded to or was the once perfect, sinless, first man. -- 1 Timothy 2:6."

It seems like mankind's existence and our whole lives are based on a single event - a virgin birth 2000 years ago. It seems like the entire Christian faith would fall apart without this event occurring.

We have to blindly believe in so many things in order for this story to be true. We have to believe to God impregnated a random woman in Jerusalem, we have to believe that there are angels and that one of them spoke to Mary. We have to believe that God cares only about sinless people. We have to believe that no man (aside from Adam and Jesus) are even sinless. We have believe so many things, a lot of them relying on us believing in more things. What's worse is that a lot of the things we are required to believe in have to support other than the story of the Bible. A few have other references (like the existence of Jesus). But none of these things can be tested in the modern day.

So in the end, if you really want there to be an afterlife it seems easier to just believe in an afterlife rather than believe in the story of the Bible. If you're at the stage where you're about to die and you don't want it to be the end, believe in anything you want. It's likely that what you want is more plausible than the Biblical story.

Why Care? Part 3

Still not convinced?

Here's one more article to prove my points:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D91DVT200&show_article=1

Why Care? Part 2

In the original "Why Care?" post I described my feelings about why everyone should care about religious dogma.

Today I stumbled upon this video:

http://current.com/items/88929480_baby_tossing

And now I realize that that one video alone could have entirely summarized my original post.

Why care?

I often get asked, usually by my friends, "Why do you care so much about what other people believe in? Why be so aggressive about changing people's minds about subjective topics?"

Richard Dawkins addresses this question fairly well in The God Delusion and this particular question is a focus point of every Sam Harris lecture. But because this question is usually a question of personal opinion I thought I would explain the reason why I am so adamant about fighting religious dogma.

When I was a child, I would have referred to myself as a Christian. Later I became an agnostic. A year ago I firmly believed I was an atheist. Several months ago, I escalated my status to antitheist. The reason for this last escalation was a direct result of the reasons below. I'll describe them in point-form, in no particular order other than the order in which I happened to think of them.

1. Education. Although I fully support diversity, as Sam Harris says, we should not respect people's beliefs, but rather evaluate their reasons. If someone's reasons for believing in something are good enough, I'll have no choice but to believe what they do. The reason why I use the word 'reasons' instead of 'evidence' or 'proof' is because certain things might simply not have substantial 'evidence'. Therefore, a more tolerant approach is required. For instance, it's (at this point in time) impossible to prove that The Big Bang really happened, but I have reasons to believe that it did because just about everything we observe in the universe supports the theory. At this time, it's the most plausible and simplest theory (and I am an avid supported of Occam's Razor). Until a better alternative comes up, we have no choice but to believe that this is really how the universe originated. Believing in an alternate theory, is rather silly.

This is to say, I am not against the idea of reducing everyone's beliefs to those of my own. My goal in life is not to instate some sort of global mass-conversion where everyone will start believing in the same things I do. Not that it would be possible, anyway. My goal in turning antitheist is to give people reasons for believing in what I do, and let them make up their own minds. The problem is that most people are quite simply uneducated, or don't ask the right questions. A lot of people simply don't care about certain issues which they take for granted. Issues that could mean life and death for others, eg. abortion, gay marriage, blood transfusion, etc...

So quite simply put, the first reason for being antitheist is simply to generate a flow of information in the world and inform and educate others about possible (and in this case, better) alternatives to religious practices and a frame of mind based upon faith.

2. Prevention of miseducation. This one is closely related to the first point, but I think it deserves a separate mention because it's incredibly important and because this is the one that gets me the most upset.

There are countless cases of religious activists pushing certain agendas and spreading misinformation to large populations. From the Creation Museum to Abstinence-only Sex Education, there are cases when being tolerant of other people's beliefs becomes stupidity and ignorance. At this point, we have to draw the line and get off our butts and do something. It's one thing to teach people (especially children) theories that are highly plausible yet not confirmed, but it's a whole other thing teaching people theories that are just plain untrue.

We know that the Earth is far older than several thousand years old. We know this without a shred of doubt. Teaching children (who don't know better) that the Earth is a few thousand years old and was created in 'several days' is, as Dawkins implies - child abuse. Teaching teenagers not to have sex is just plain stupid. They'll still have sex, but if you don't teach them about safe sex, they might (and often do) have serious complications from the act. These are preventable problems that arise due to religious dogma and ignorance.

There is a point when you need to take a stance and take some responsibility into your own hands. If a religious group trying to open a Creation Museum in your city, being agnostic and passive is the wrong thing to do. You may not immediately see the problem with it, but the problem is not a short-term problem. It's a problem that will result in the long-term and will probably haunt your children.

Although, short-term problems exist too, and also require special attention. A good short-term problem is that of Christian Science, see an older post I made about it below for more information. Basically, instead of taking people to the hospital when they're sick, some Christians believe it's up to God to heal their loved ones. The result is that the person usually dies. In the rare case that the sickness goes away - they call it a miracle.

3. Dismissal of organized religion. This is another goal that all rational people should have. As I stated above, I support diversity, but I don't support the politicization of organized religion. Religion must be kept separate from politics, but the more a religion becomes organized - the more it pushes its way into politics and therefore causes problems for the rest of us. Keeping religion and its associated acts a private organization is at the top of my list of goals. The government should not provide ANY monetary or other forms of support for ANY religious organization, movement or activity. I am not saying this because I'm an antitheist, I'm saying this because I'm a constitutionalist. I wouldn't want the government supporting any atheist organizations either. That seems wrong to me. People's beliefs are their own, until they start to interfere with other people. The reason why atheism is so different, is because it doesn't interfere with other people's beliefs and relies 'mostly' on science.

Giving religion power causes such catastrophes as gay marriage bans, abortion bans, stem-cell research bans, etc... Things that do not affect the religious zealots banning them, but that affect everyone else. Stem-cell research saves lives. I can't seem to come up with any examples of funded religious organizations that save lives in an unbiased way. Dawkins goes into detail about this in the God Delusion so I won't say more about it here. Go read his book.

4. The Bible as a portal. Although I have many Christian friends who are not religious fanatics and are genuinely good people, they read the Bible too. And because the Bible is open to interpretation, certain people interpret it differently.

Clever religious activists at this point might say something about people who have used Darwin's Origin of Species as a justification for genocide and discrimination. But that's completely absurd. The main difference is that Darwin doesn't leave anything to interpretation. We know exactly what he is talking about, and people who misinterpret the book and use it for other purposes other than learning about the concept of natural selection and evolutionary biology, are entirely to blame for their actions. The Bible isn't like that, unfortunately.

The reason why the Bible is different, and we have reasons to blame it for numerous violent conflicts, is because we don't know what the correct interpretation is. We don't know if the passages inside it are true (well, for certain things we do, but not for others). It's completely irresponsible for us to teach anything out of this book, using any interpretation. Not to say that the Bible doesn't have good lessons and good messages, but we need to teach these lessons independent of Jesus, Heaven, the Apocalypse and the whole shebang. We can't pick and choose which passages we like and which we don't. The book should be tossed into that dark corner of the library that's used merely as a collection of historical artifacts.

But let's not stop at the Bible. Let's throw the Qu'ran and the Torah in there as well. And that Scientology book as well, whatever it's called.

5. Because they'll do it to you first. The reason why it's sometimes (not always) necessary to be hostile towards religious fanatics is because they're already being hostile towards you. Although, it's best to resolve conflicts peacefully, sometimes religious people simply won't listen. I'm not talking about using violence. I do not support waging war, but sometimes you need to take aggressive action in order to fight off crazy religious people. There's just no way around it, be it political or judicial.

Living in Canada (as I do), it's a little hard to understand just how much discrimination there is against atheists. This isn't going to be solved by agnostics. It's going to be solved by antitheists who take things seriously and raise awareness and generate publicity (and request political interference if necessary).

I know I'm making religion sound incredibly bad and evil. It's usually not. Most people, of various beliefs are good people. But some people have these dogmas, usually as a result of their parents' teachings. It's just the way it happens and it's nobody's fault. We just need to wake up and make sure that our children aren't brought up with the same fallacies about the world.

The "it's just a theory" argument

I've never personally run into this argument before; I guess it's because I've only tried to discuss religion and science with educated people, but recently this argument came up in a debate surrounding American presidential candidate Ron Paul and his refusal to "accept the theory [of evolution] as a theory".

Apparently, after discussing this topic with an anonymous reader online, I've come to realize that this is more common than I thought it was. So firstly, for those who are lost and aren't quite following the issue I'm addressing, let me briefly explain it.

There are people in the world who reject the theory of evolution simply because it is a theory that has not yet been proven. Usually these people are religious, and therefore their logic goes as follows, "The theory of evolution clearly contradicts my beliefs as a person of faith, but since the theory of evolution is only a theory and not a scientific fact, I am going to reject it and continue to believe in my faith."

What I say to these people is, "You are uneducated." However harsh that is to say to their face - it is true. Clearly these people do not understand what the theory of evolution is, and more importantly they do not understand the meaning of the words 'scientific theory'. So let me try and explain, exactly what is a 'scientific theory'.

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary states that a theory is "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact". A scientific theory is more than just that, as it follows the scientific method. A scientific theory is not simply a person who proposes an idea and leaves that float there in the world for people to choose to believe in or not. A scientific theory goes through three very important stages of analysis: observation, proposal of a hypothesis and finally rigorous and communal testing.

This simply means that before a scientific theory is even called a 'scientific theory' hundreds of scientists (usually experts in the field) have observed and tested the theory under scrutiny. If it passes their review, it gets published in a scientific journal for everyone to test and investigate further. The only reason why at that point it is not called 'fact' is because science never likes to call something a fact unless there can simply be no other imaginable alternative.

At this time, let me put forward an example: the theory of gravity. This theory (and yes, it is a theory) states that all objects with mass attract one another. Certainly any educated person in this world accepts this theory as truth, although nobody has ever yet proven this to be as undeniable fact. The reason why people have accepted this theory as fact is because the evidence for it vastly outnumbers the evidence against it. And when I say 'vastly', I really mean it.

Well, the theory of evolution is no different. Yes - it is still a theory, and it is possible that there are alternatives, but the evidence for this theory to be truth is so great that to not accept it simply because "it's just a theory" is not only absurd, but childish.

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".