Sat, 5. December 2009
Silence on the Other End of the Phone
If new facts later contradict the argument, then it is accepted that the theory is wrong and it gets ditched. In a court of law, strong evidence is required for a court to come to a rational decision. Speculation; or a hunch; or a belief that someone committed a crime is not enough. Similarly, the NSW Department of Fair Trading (and it's world-wide counterparts) demand that all product advertising claims must be accurate and provable.
Not so in the murky world of religion, where 'belief without evidence' is mandated by the hierarchy and meekly accepted by the masses. Millions of people around the world believe their prayers get answered. This is not because it actually happens - but because they listen to priests who instruct them to believe in it happening. So we get claims that are upbeat about a single positive which is outnumbered by a host of negatives. For example: "Thousands killed in earthquake - parent's prayers answered by miracle - one child survives".
At best it's a pathetic abuse of statistics and what's more it grossly demeans the efforts made by rescue teams, health professionals, the pharmaceutical industry and the like, who should be getting the credit for such matters. Instead, we hear of prayers being credited for 'saving' any person who 'miraculously' survives.
Recently in the USA, the parents of a very sick young girl refused to call for medical help, preferring to pray instead. Sadly, she died at home. Here in Australia, a poor young girl was twice badly maimed in horrific vehicle accidents but narrowly survived both times - thanks to prolonged and dedicated hospital treatment – but her parents bizarrely attributed her recovery to their own prayers to a dead nun.
(Greybeard recommends www.jesusandmo.net )
Surely if enough people around the world prayed long enough, hard enough and often enough to rid the world of (for example) malaria, then a compassionate god would grant their wish? I am sure it's been tried - but obviously not with sufficient force to attract any supernatural intervention. By way of contrast, in 1979, the world was declared rid of small pox for ever, not by praying but by human scientific intervention – world-wide vaccination. Prayer definitely fails that test.
It's time prayer-power was really put to the test. It's time for the 'God Answers My Prayers' hypothesis (GAMP) to be given a bit more scrutiny. The prayer test that I propose be examined in more detail is the 'prayer for world peace'. Every xmas, every church leader and countless followers go to church and earnestly pray for world peace. They do it over and over and over..... (I am embarassed to admit I probably did it myself when I was a boy).
As if the xmas peace prayerfest were not enough, the USA has held a national prayer day on 11th May every year since 1950, specifically designated as 'a day of prayer for permanent world peace'. Crikey, surely that will fix it? Hundreds of millions of people praying for world peace on two days specifically set aside to do it. Year after year. It's arguably the most prayed for event in the history of our species. With all that prayer-power, it's got to work, hasn't it? It's mega-praying on the grandest scale. Year on year. Probably for centuries.
How have these gazillions of multi-mega-prayers been answered by their god? Ermmm.............only by silence. Maybe she is just "working her purpose out as year succeeds to year." The smart money is on the most likely explanation - that there is simply no-one listening at the other end of the phone. One pair of hands working will achieve more than the hands of the entire world population pressed together in prayer.