Do you Have Enough Faith?

Many apologetics have sprung up to explain away the passages in the Bible that declare that those who pray will get what they ask for - in light of the fact that this seems to not be demonstrably true. In a previous post I give the passages in question and I took on the apologetic excuse that god only answers prayers that are concurrent with his will. There are other excuses though, and one commenter continually decided to try and harp on one (even though I explicitly stated that the OP was about a different argument). I've also previously argued against other apologetics, like the argument that prayers are answered, but on god's timeline and that Jesus was only empowering the specific people he spoke to (although the latter one does not deal with this verse specifically, it's good enough for the purpose of dispelling any notions that the issue has been dealt with).

Never-the-less, I decided that perhaps I should deal with the others. So, this post will focus on the apologetic tactic of trying to interpret the phrase, "If ye have faith." This argument from the apologist focuses on the conditional phrase that is uttered in Matthew 21:21

Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. 22:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

So, the obvious tactic here is to claim that Jesus was not incorrect, and that those prayers that are not answered are coming from people who don't have faith - which is generally interpreted to be not having enough faith or not having the right kind of faith. How convenient - and how very post hoc. This allows the Xian to claim after the fact that an "answered" prayer fit the description and a "non-answered" prayer did not. It's the same as painting a bulls-eye around an arrow that has already been shot.

Yet, it still falls apart under investigation, as no Xians claim to have 100% success rate for prayer (that I know of at least). If any do claim this, then we only need to have them pray for something immediate (like the regrowth of an amputated arm for instance) to test and see if this person can validate their success rate claim. Invariably it will fail.

Also, this is nothing more than the no true Scotsman fallacy, writ large. I can imagine someone saying, "True Xians have their prayers answered, so if a prayer is not answered, then the Xian in question is not a true Xian." It's fallacious though, no matter how you slice it. Once again, we see apologetics that fail to answer the objections brought forth.

Prayer vs. god's Will

The Bible claims in a few places that whatever one prays for, god will answer that prayer. For example:

Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. 22:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Or maybe this one (although one could argue that it's specifically talking about asking for god to show himself, but that's a bad argument to make since it's demonstrably not true):

Luke 11:9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread[d] from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Or maybe this one does it for you:

Matthew 17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

For the Xian, these passages are troublesome for the obvious reason that prayer is rather ineffective. It is obviously not true that whatever one asks for, one receives. So, they have to conjure up reasons for why this is not so. I want to focus on one of those reasons, which is the idea that god only does what is according to his will, so the prayer must be in accord with god's will for it to be carried out.

And, in response to that, I have to say that it's a rather spectacularly bad argument.

First, the text does not give mention that what one prays for must be in accordance with god's will. Secondly, having to pray for things that god is going to do anyway completely negates the idea that prayer does anything at all. If the apologist is right, then prayer is completely ineffective, since one must first ask for something that was going to happen anyway, since it was part of god's will. The prayer has no effect since everything that happens was always a part of god's will or it wasn't. So, in trying to save the efficacy of prayer, the apologist has thrown it out the window and hoped that no one would notice. But, drastic measures must be taken when your beliefs do not agree with reality I suppose.

Marjoe

I had another post in mind for today, but after watching the excellent documentary called Marjoe last night, I had a new topic for today.

I first found out about this documentary by a passing reference to it in Daniel Dennett's book Breaking the Spell. It's rather old, having come out in 1972, so I'm disappointed that I haven't watched it sooner.

Marjoe Gortner was born to two evangelical parents who were both fire and brimstone types and tent revivalists. He is the fourth generation of preachers in his family, and by the age of 4 he was an ordained minister himself. By the age of 5 he was performing marriages.

The film picks up with him as an adult, as he tours around the country holding tent revivals. He preaches, he sings, he struts, he lays on hands, he speaks in tongues, he heals people, but there's only one problem. He's a sham, and he admits it. He's playing these people for their money. He has no special powers, yet the people are still sent into paroxisms of supposed joy with the feeling of Jesus. They are supposedly healed, and they are convinced they are healed, even though Marjoe is a fraud. He even talks about how once one person does it, everyone else wants to follow suit. They want so much to not be shown up, they want so much to be the most pious one there. I feel sort of bad for some of them, but I'm also reminded of the old adage about a fool and his money.

In summary, I highly recommend this film, especially for anyone who's familiar with these tent revivals. (Confidential to Robert Madewell: I really think you'll appreciate it very much.)

My Prayers Have Been Answered

Hallelujah, my prayers have been answered. Yep, you heard it right. Here's the story:

See, my car fob didn't work. I couldn't unlock the door without the key...or lock it for that matter. So, I prayed to god for the thing to start working again.

After that, I did some online research. I figured out that the battery was probably dead and that I would have to replace the battery. I found a tutorial online for opening up the fob and finding the battery. I went to Radio Shack and bought the batteries, opened up the fob and put the new ones in. And then it happened...

Yes, that's when god answered my prayers and miraculously made the fob work again - right when I had replaced what was a dead battery. Oh, praise be god. I never would have been able to do it myself...

Will You Get What You Ask For?

Luke 11:9-10 tells us that if we ask, we shall receive. If we seek, we shall find. I've seen two interpretations of this verse. The first is that when we pray, what we pray for will be provided. The second is that if we seek god, we shall find him. I'll deal with that one first.

If we seek god, we'll find him, right? Well, this is a rather easy assertion to deal with. The existence of atheists that have deconverted from Xianity is empirical evidence that this simply is not so, especially those atheists who were once fundamentalists - and they do exist. These people wanted to find god, they asked, but no god would present itself to them. If this is not enough, it's been reported that even Mother Theresa (a horrible woman no doubt, but none can deny that she truly wanted to see god) was even unable to find god.

As for the first interpretation, that our prayers will be answered, this is also easily dealt with. Simply pray for a million dollars. When it doesn't appear, you will have disproven this passage. But, the apologist might object that god could still answer your prayer, just on his own timeline! OK, then pray to receive one million dollars right now. Objection defeated. I honestly can't figure out why so many people take this book so seriously.

Unbelievable

I'm laughing so hard at this that I simply have to share it.

Check this out

Prayer

Why do Xians pray? Apart from the fact that prayer studies have shown that prayer is not effective, does it really make sense to pray? Does god not know what you want to have happen? Isn't god aware of everything? Do you really think that god will heal some child of cancer if you simply remind him that he should?

BTW, why does Jesus pray? Isn't he simply praying to himself? What's the point in that?