Prayer Really Works! Again!
A friend whom I haven’t spoken with in like 12 years got hold of me recently. She’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve met, and is easily the most gifted Catholic apologist I’ve ever met. We talk a lot about Catholicism, which I’m not nearly as well-versed in as I am Protestantism. But I digress.
The other day she tells me that prayer has worked for her numerous times, and that in general prayer can work for anyone. In short: prayer works.
Except when it doesn’t, and that’s a lot.
Let’s do another exercise again, shall we?
- How many little girls say prayers to Jesus when their father forces his genitalia inside of them?
- How many families have prayed not to lose their jobs and their houses when the economy took a dive?
- How many single mothers have prayed for some other choice between paying the rent and giving their children ketchup soup?
- How many people have prayed not to be burned alive in fiery auto crashes or house fires?
- How many people prayed not to have to choose between burning alive and jumping out of the WTC?
- How many women have prayed not to be raped in a dark parking lot?
- How many children have prayed for anything other than starvation?
- How many people prayed when they were being held down and soldiers cut their limbs off with machetes?
- How many people prayed to be rescued before their lungs filled with water after their boat sank?
- How many American soldiers have prayed for their legs, arms, or faces back?
- How many slaves prayed while being whipped by cruel masters?
- How many children have been kidnapped? How many of them have been raped? How many of those have been tortured? How many of them cried and prayed with their last breath to be returned to their parents before their ruined corpses were left to the birds?
To have the ability to stop evil and to do nothing about it is to be complicit with evil. To state that prayer works when it clearly doesn’t is to be complicit in a lie. To say that prayer doesn’t always work is to say that prayer doesn’t work.
God supposedly raises galaxies from thin air, extinguishes suns, makes and destroys kings. Above all else, we’re supposed to believe that he us ultimate good. And yet, he can’t even keep a promise to any number of little girls and boys, scared and crying mothers, or desperate fathers who need nothing more than a little help at the worst moment of their lives. Instead, their reward for faith is terror, misery, and heartbreak.
The thing with frameworks is that they’re indestructible. If you’re forced to admit that prayer always works, then the answer is simple: in all those cases where people prayed for something and their prayer wasn’t answered, it actually was answered, but in a way which humans simply can’t comprehend. It’s easy if you have an infinite, all-powerful deity: the deity can do things that don’t make sense to humans, but which make sense to the deity, and so it works.
Ta da!
Comment by Dave — 17 May, 2009 @ 11:55
The difference here is that my friend–and most others–are not merely saying that God answers all prayers. They are stating that praying works to effect change. If you pray, your cancer will be healed. If you pray, you will get that new job. If you pray, god will feed you. If you pray, god will free you from the scary cabin in the woods where the man is doing horrible things to you.
If all I wanted was to have some of my prayers effect change and some of my prayers not effect change, I could get the same odds by praying to a carton of milk. If my cancer is healed, the carton of milk obviously directed the scientists how to fix me. If I die from cancer, it must have been the milk’s will that I not be cured.
No, this is different. This worldview says that I pray and god does stuff. It’s like he’s each Christian’s personal monkey butler.
Comment by jake — 18 May, 2009 @ 08:26
I’ve been struck with an idea: a comic strip that pits a monkey butler against a carton of milk in their endless quest to gain followers.
Jake, you’ve done it again!
Comment by Dave — 18 May, 2009 @ 14:22
i’ve been praying for a new job for years… i’m gonna start prying to a shoe box. i have high hopes.
Comment by your daddy — 27 May, 2009 @ 21:03
This post won’t stop me from praying for you and believing that God will answer that prayer.
Comment by Becky — 2 August, 2009 @ 09:30