Will God Answer This Prayer?
My de-conversion from Christianity is fairly recent and has been difficult for my family. My father is convinced that the reason I am no longer a Christian is that I have never personally experienced God. My Dad is probably right. If I had a sense that God was communicating with me, even if it were to say no to my every request, I never would have questioned the truth of Christianity. This weekend my father and my non-Christian brother Jon are visiting. My father has proposed that this weekend, we all get together and pray that God give us a manifestation of himself. I have agreed to do this. My case against Christianity is inferential and I don’t hold to it with certainty. A manifestation such that occurred to Doubting Thomas would certainly have a large effect upon my assessment.
If you are a Christian that believes that God answers prayer, feel free to pray that God answers my Dad’s prayers. My Dad believes that God answers prayer and is actively performing miracles even today. However, I do fear the disappointment that my Dad will experience if he goes through with this. Of course, the disappointment could eventually be good for him. I’ll let you know how it goes after this weekend.
If you are a Christian that believes that God answers prayer, feel free to pray that God answers my Dad’s prayers. My Dad believes that God answers prayer and is actively performing miracles even today. However, I do fear the disappointment that my Dad will experience if he goes through with this. Of course, the disappointment could eventually be good for him. I’ll let you know how it goes after this weekend.
17 comments:
I know that dealing with your Dad must be tough, but how would you respond if someone asked you to pray the Mormon prayer? Or to go to a séance? Or to practice yoga? What if he asked you to go up on a hill to meet aliens? What if he asked you to forgo medicine and just pray for healing? Surely there are things that you wouldn't even attempt, correct? If someone asked me to participate in a prayer service I'd simply say, "go ahead and pray for me if you want to. If prayer works, then why do I need to be there? I've got other things to do than this. I don't have the faith to believe and if I don't believe how can my presence help in the prayer session?"
I know. It's your Dad. But ask him if he'd be willing to admit that prayer doesn't work if it doesn't. And ask him if it doesn't work if he'd be willing to allow you to present YOUR case?
Then ask him if he wants to read my book! ;-) Sorry, couldn't resist.
Good luck! You know, nothing fails like prayer.
Hi John,
I am in a weird and uncomfortable situation here. You are probably right that I wouldn’t participate in a séance or pray to tree spirits and wood nymphs, etc. But some of that might be cultural. If the majority of my family were into yoga or were druids, I would probably give either a try. I would try the Mormon prayer if it meant a lot to my family. Based upon what I think now, the prayer would be merely a waste of time.
There is an asymmetry between what my family beliefs and my belief and I could see why you might think that this is unfair. Asking them to pray to another God would be a huge deal for them. No way would they do it. I think that if I pray to a false God, then I’ve at worst wasted a couple of hours. So I guess I am going the extra mile here.
As unfair as it might seem, I think that my family would interpret my failure to participate as a sign of hostility and disrespect to them personally. I certainly want to avoid that. I also think there is a huge potential upside here, and that is my family may be on the road to being honest about their beliefs.
However, I am not going to get my hopes up too much. I know how easy to rationalize God’s lack of action. However, I will ask them “if Christianity were false, what do you expect would happen as a result of our prayer, and doesn’t it look like what we experienced?” That is the question that started my on my inquiry. I don’t think most of my family is ready for an intellectual case until some emotional barriers are crossed. But after this, they may be ready.
I certainly wouldn’t forgo medical treatment for their faith. There the potential downside is a lot more a couple of wasted hours.
Sorry to be as flippant as to use a bumper sticker to enter into such a personal conversation, but this scenario reminds me of a bumper sticker that I saw the other day:
Try Jesus:
If you don't like Him, the devil will always take your soul back!
While I am a big believer in trying things out for yourself, and I am a Christian because of my own religious experiences, I think that this sort of approach, which like the bumper sticker almost commoditizes the sacred, is not the most healthy approach to religious practice.
For one, it doesn't seem like there is a very well established set of criteria for success or failure. What would it take to convince you that God in some important way acted? What would it take to convince your father that God failed to act, or even fails to exist. Absent some sort of discussion about that, I have a hard time seeing any good coming from this experiment.
But, most importantly, perhaps, it fails to respect your beliefs or your father's beliefs. You are engaging in a spiritual act with no clear expectation, and no real sense of purpose for the act. And he is using a private spiritual discipline as an evangelical tool. Both of these seem to be a misuse of prayer.
I recognize that this is a difficult situation for both of you, and honestly cannot say how you should approach it. For one, I don't know you or your father, or the dynamic between the two of you. For another, I'm probably not the best person in the world to give unsolicited advise on how to handle difficult family and faith issues, as I've struggled with both.
I would wish you luck, but I don't believe in it. I'd offer God's blessings, but you don't believe in God, and I don't believe that I get to speak for God. So let me just say that I empathize with you, and wish you the very best. May you and your father be able to communicate openly, honestly, and respectfully.
Bill,
I, too, am a recent deconvert with a family full of christians. At first, I wasn't sure that my marriage would survive. I've had both my parents express thier disappointment with my "choice."
I can understand your desire to find a middle ground where you and your father can come together. Having those you love and respect think that you have made a terrible choice can be difficult.
However, I feel strongly that I can predict how your prayer request will turn out. Nothing of consequence will happen. You will see this for what it is: further evidence that there is no god there to answer your prayer. Your father will simple decide that some random event was a sign, that god doesn't want to be tested, or some other rationalization that allows him to keep his faith in the absence of any real evidence.
I would suggest that you lay down some rules as to what is a sign and what is not. Pin him down. Christians don't usually fare too well with specifics, since their beliefs are based on only counting the hits and ignoring the misses.
I agree that you have very little to lose here. At least you can try and provide your father with a dose of reality.
Remember, yours is the worldview based on reason and logic.
Bill Curry,
Can you call God? Is this a situation where you know God’s phone number and stubbornly refuse to dial it? Can you e-mail God? Is there some reluctance within in you that is preventing you from dropping God a note?
Do you know where God lives? Because of some character flaw, be it sin, or pride or incorrect beliefs, do you balk from climbing that mountain and meeting God?
Of course not! The reality is: if there is a God and a “personal experience” is to occur—it must be initiated by God. We, as humans, do not have a “spiritual phone” or a “spiritual travel agent” whereby we are able to access God.
Nor is it dependant on our desires. It is solely up to God. I have never encountered a Christian that did not desire to have a personal experience with God. “Oh, I am a Christian. But I am not all that interested in having a personal experience with God.” Does any Christian believe that?
I would be absolutely floored, Bill Curry, if you (or any other person going through spiritual flux) would tell me that, as a Christian, you did not desire to have a personal experience with God.
We do not have the capability to do it, despite our desire or intention. It is completely up to God.
If God did not have the inclination to do it when we believe he existed, and we craved it with our entire being—why would he bother to do it now? (Especially if, like me, one is completely convinced he does not exist.)
How genuine can you be in praying to a God you do not believe exists? John W. Loftus has a very good point. Could your father pray to the god(s) depicted by Native Americans? Or the god(s) of the Aztecs? Or the god(s) of the Norse? He could not be sincere in such a prayer. Not through any fault of his own, but because of the current state of his beliefs. He is firmly convinced that such a prayer is meaningless babble. Again, this is not a character flaw, nor something “terribly wrong”—it is a matter of the current belief of the person.
You might explain to your father that while you will pray—it cannot be sincere. You do not have the ability to do so.
Which brings me to my second point. We tended to create Gods in our own image. If we are convinced by personal experience—not surprisingly God appears in personal experience. If convinced by miracles—we seek out stories of miraculous events. If we are convinced by reason and logic—we tend to read apologetical material and philosophical debate. If convinced by science—we are enamored by the creation vs. evolution discussion.
We accept that in humans. I understand, even as I write this, that you, John W. Loftus, Jon Curry, Sandalstraps, Inquisitor, and every person that posts here will learn and be persuaded by methods and systems unique to that person. And, in that understanding, will communicate differently to each individual. I would be remiss to respond to each person in the same way, and as if every poster learns in the exact same way. It is myopic to speak as if everyone must believe in the same fashion as I do.
Shouldn’t a God also figure this out? That each person must learn and be convinced in their own idiom? Is it equally myopic to claim that the ONLY way in which God can demonstrate himself is through “personal experience”?
One of the hardest concepts for Christians to grasp is that their God could be bigger than them. That their God can actually interact with people differently. One of the points that, during my deconversion, I kept coming back to was that the concept of the God I held had made me a certain way. To process information a certain way. I could find nothing that said that process was a sin, nor incorrect.
If God made me to think that way—why couldn’t I use it to discover him? Why was I to utilize that process in every other area of my life, but when it came to God, I was to completely and utterly disregard that process in every way? Does that make sense?
Can your father have a God big enough that it will be able to demonstrate itself in more than just “personal experience”? That it would demonstrate itself in the way in which you think? Tough question.
Finally, thinking about it from your father’s perspective, it must be very frustrating. To him, it is like watching a son become increasingly convinced that the government is spying on people through the fillings in their teeth. To him, we are walking a path that leads to madness. And there is nothing he can do about it.
All he knows is that there is a Great Resolver in existence that can “fix” any problem. And if he prays right, and has enough faith, the Great Resolver will appear and save the day. Unfortunately for him, if it doesn’t happen, a teeny-tiny part of his mind is telling him it is his fault. There is some guilt associate with it.
My advice? (And please feel very free to ignore it!) Sit with him. Let him pray. It will give him some comfort. But I would carefully explain that it is impossible for you to pray sincerely. You may as well be praying to a wooden Buddha, as far as the extent of your genuineness. And, in that state, it is better you not pray.
I gotta say I cannot fathom why any skeptic here would think this is something Bill and I should not agree to do. What is the down side here?
John, you ask if I would do this if he asked me to pray to the Mormon god. Of course I would. Why wouldn't I? My Dad is putting himself on the line here. He's the one that expects God to act as a result of this prayer. When nothing happens (and it won't) this will be a huge blow to my Dad's whole worldview. He thinks God answers prayers. He's not like some of these Christian apologists that say things like none of what happened in the Bible applies to us today. He thinks it does. If I care to have my Dad face reality, what better way than to indulge him here?
But suppose nothing happens and he rationalizes it away. What's the harm in that? That just means nothing has changed.
DagoodS, you say that God has to initiate the experience. We can't just dial his number. Well, that's not my Dad's view. My Dad thinks if you cry out to God he will answer you. My Dad thinks if you ask God for bread, he's not going to give you a stone. You can disagree if you want, but that doesn't matter. What matters is, this is what my Dad expects of God. When God doesn't respond as my Dad expects him to respond, maybe my Dad will realize that he's wrong about God. And since he certainly is wrong about God, why wouldn't I want to take actions that result in him recognizing that fact.
I would go through with this for anyone, not just my Dad. If a Mormon says to me "Jon, I can prove Mormonism is right. Let's pray and I promise fire will come down and consume this sacrifice even though it is covered with water." I say sign me up. I'll pray that prayer. And if fire comes down I'll say great. I guess the Mormons are right. That's what I want to believe. But when nothing happens I'd be tempted to ask "Perhaps your God is sleeping. Perhaps he is going to the bathroom. Cry out louder." Not that I would because that would be mean. But the Mormon would have to face the fact that his god does not answer his prayers. He may not change his overall view, but it's still a huge dose of reality.
There's no down side here and plenty of upside. I don't see the problem.
This seems like a terribly frightening and emotionally dangerous approach.
It's obvious that your Father isn't praying for God to appear right in front of both of you. At the most, he's praying that you just believe again. That you find that believing feeling again. And that belief or feeling is highly subjective. And if it fails, he may blame noone but you, saying that you just aren't open-minded enough, or are afraid to take that leap of faith.
By praying, you're already entering into that religious world. This has been compared to many things in these comments. I'd like to liken it to a anti-intervention. It's like you got off of drugs, and some drug-using friends of yours asked you to re-think your decision by shooting up.
I think revisiting Chrisitianity is fine, as long as it isn't done within the boundaries of Christianity. You can't prove any system using the rules inside the same system. By praying, you're deciding that praying works.
By the way, I myself am in a similar situation. My mother has been distraught for years that I no longer believe in Jesus. And last time I visited her, she tried to talk me back into Christianity. The talk went nowhere. But I did say to her, the only way I could believe in Jesus is if he appeared in front of both of us, performed some epic miracle, and spoke to my heart explaining away all the problems I have with Christianity.
Then, the next morning, after I night I'm sure she weeped and tossed and turned, she told me that God told her long ago that all her children would be saved. And if the only way I'd believe is that he would appear to me, she was convinced he eventually will.
Now, I must explain this was a few months ago, when I was more Deist than Atheist/Agnostic. I am essentially Atheist/Agnostic now and would no longer make the same "I'd believe only if.." statement. I am fully convinced that Jesus was either just a spiritually-minded person, or never existed at all.
I am also fully convinced, that if there is an intelligent will behind all reality (which I doubt), it would have no resemblence to any of the concepts of God presented in any of the world's scriptures.
Bill,
Well, there is scriptural precedence for such. I assume this is the basis for your families beliefs? How many times did God purportedly do things at the request of a David or Elijah (as recorded in the Tenach0, so that "all would know there is a God in Israel?" So, why not? I would think some specific request would be in order so that "all will [indeed] know." Like killing a Goliath or preparing a little sacrifice and wetting it down and having it consummed by fire.
Good luck!
Sounds like an interesting time. I'm glad my family was not evangelical. When I deconverted they were exasperated at first but then accepted it and pretty much became atheists themselves when I discussed it with them.
Jon Curry: I gotta say I cannot fathom why any skeptic here would think this is something Bill and I should not agree to do. What is the down side here?
*shrug* We are just sharing our opinions in the matter. None of us know you situation, nor your father’s personality, nor the extent of the history of your upbringing. We can only bring to the table our own experiences, and let you choose or disregard whatever you desire.
I am sure many of us have done things we do not believe, to pacify others. (How I interact with my wife and children would have many skeptics slamming their heads against the wall, I am sure!)
The down side (since you asked :-) ) is that you are building false hopes in your father. I could see where it would be confusing to my family members if I insisted there is no God in one breath, but am praying to him in the next. Do you really believe that by your praying to a God, your father will start to question whether there is one or not? I would think (again, not knowing your full situation) that it would do more to confirm the existence of a God in his mind. He has his boys praying to it, doesn’t he?
More: My Dad thinks if you cry out to God he will answer you.
Really? So up until now, he has not asked God to bring you and Bill Curry “back” to Christianity? Because if he has, and God has not answered him…
I will go out on a limb here. (And will probably be flat wrong.) I suspect your father has logged hours praying that you and your brother will come “back” to Christianity. Yet God has not answered. Now he has convinced himself that YOU need to make the prayer. What happens when God does not answer that?
He will then convince himself that YOU need to make some change, either in your desire, or your faith, or your belief, or your method, or something, in order to “open up to God.” You need to read the write books, do the right things, pray the right prayer. Yet when that does not happen, what will he say? Will he convince himself that your heart has become hardened? Will he convince himself that you have become a vessel of wrath?
At what point, along this path of justification, will you draw a line and say, “Enough. I will do no more to pacify something I do not believe in.”?
For some of us, it is here. For others, perhaps yourself, it is farther down the line. For some sad few, they will never, EVER let their family know, for fear of reprisal.
Be glad you have the chance to exercise your ability to say, “No.” Whether you choose to do so or not must be your own choice.
Hello Bill,
I think your points are well-made, and I see no problem with your participating in this prayer. However, I can virtually guarantee that if nothing happens (as nothing will), this won't be the last time you'll be asked to do it. Your family will come up with some excuse as to why it didn't work - you weren't sincere enough, you have to read the Bible front to back before doing it, you have to attend six months of Bible study at their church first - that will require significant additional effort on your part, and then probably will make the same demands of you, plus more, all over again. In my experience, that's the way it always happens. If you're not willing to accede to limitless demands, I suggest you make it clear to your family that this is the last try, and that you are not going to indulge them further if it does not produce results.
I would not respect you if you did anything contrary to what you see as reality. When I was a Christian, I would pray because my worldview at the time included God as part of reality. Now that I am an atheist, I would not deliberately do something like pray, because I see it as nonsense of the same reality-rejecting stamp as taking LSD and attempting to fly by jumping off a tall building. If you are willing to be talked into praying, what else will you let yourself be talked into? Handling snakes? Playing in traffic? Stopping taking chemotherapy for cancer?
Thanks all for the comments. You've given me a lot to think about. The one thing that is most liberating about my new beliefs is the freedom I have to follow evidence wherever it leads. My Dad proposed a test, and we'll see where it goes. (Of course I am over 99.9999% sure I already know the outcome.) I hope that by indulging my Dad, he can to start to look at evidence as well. I understand better the down side, but I still think this has at least a 5% chance of turning out well. I think that improves the situation more than not taking part in his experiment.
http://bahai-library.org/writings/abdulbaha/saq/
Albert makes a good point, though in a less-than-ideal way--there's no need to introduce improbable aliens into this.
The issue is: in the mind of a skeptic, what constitutes proof of God, etc? Michael Shermer and others have pointed out just how easily we can be fooled.
Applied to the current discussion, what if someone put a hallucinogenic (or other mind-altering) drug in Bill's coffee before this test? You could imagine the experience could easily be taken as a sign from above. Don't the Indians use peyote or something?
The problem with arguing with those who have faith is that their faith requires no evidence, yet they still assume God interacts with the physical universe. This in turn is something that should be testable with the scientific method.
For me then proof of the existence of God would be a scientific consensus of such a thing. I'm talking peer-reviewed papers in reputable journals. Clearly there would need to be a great deal of evidence before this would happen, and this would not rely on my having one weird experience that I couldn't explain.
You're an idiot.
Is your disillusionment with Christianity or with a Higher Power? Do you believe in a Higher Power. Not all of us who believe in a Higher Power are Christians. Please get your language straight, you're very confused/confusing.
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