It is me again. I write little blurbs when I am thinking or trying to come to a conclusion. I just put them together for emails such as this one. Yu might want to read this in sections
Statistical laws that govern the lives of six billion human beings tell us that somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. He will rape, torture and kill her. If it is not occurring at this moment it will in hours or days at the most.
The same statistics also suggest the girl’s parents believe, as you say, that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family.
The city of New Orleans was destroyed by a hurricane. More than a thousand people died; tens of thousands lost all their earthly possessions; and nearly a million were displaced. It is safe to believe that almost every person living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck shared a belief in an omnipotent, omniscient and compassionate God. Surely he heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled to safety only to be drowned. These were men and women of faith who prayed throughout their lives.
There had been ample warning that a storm “of biblical proportions” would strike New Orleans, and the human response to the ensuing disaster was tragically inept. It was inept in response to the information provided by science. God told no one his plans. Had the residents of New Orleans relied only on the goodness of God, they would not have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down on their city until they felt the wind on their faces. And interestingly the Washington Post found that 80 percent of Katrina’s survivors claim the event has only strengthened their faith.
As New Orleans was being battered by Hurricane Katrina, nearly a thousand Shiite pilgrims were trampled to death on a bridge in Iraq. These pilgrims believed in the God of the Koran. Their lives were organized around the indisputable fact of his existence: their women walked veiled before Him; their men regularly murdered one another over rival interpretations of his word. It is doubtful a single survivor lost his faith. More likely, the survivors imagined that they were spared through God’s grace.
I find it insulting to God for the survivors of a catastrophe to believe they were spared by a loving God, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs.
Remember "Kitty" Genovese, the New York City woman who was stabbed to death near her home? At the time her neighbors were criticized for failing to respond to her aid. People who believe God answers prayers include God on the list of those being unresponsive though he had the ability to help he chose to not intervene. Belief that God answers prayers makes God responsible for willingly permitting evil in the world. I do not believe that. God does not intervene because if he did it would require that he suspend natural laws and take away free will.
Now to the point: You have said and wrote “Please pray that God will shower His grace on Dan and Sheryle and grant healing to her.” He lets children be raped, tortured and murdered, he lets children starve to death every day, and he lets horrible evil occur in the natural world, lets Wilma, as well as thousands of others with cancer die and heals Sheryle? I do not believe that but it describes a God I do not like and would not trust.
I find it odd that what Christians say indicates they believe God will only help if asked nicely in the right way i.e. when they pray hard or fervently by a large group of people. Ever wonder who prayed for the Ethiopian Eunuch when he became sick?
Many Christians are convinced that prayer can heal a wide variety of illnesses, it is curious that prayer is only ever believed to work for illnesses and injuries that can be self-limiting. No one ever seriously expects that prayer will cause an amputee to regrow a missing limb. Why not? Salamanders do it routinely as do starfish and squirrels. If God answers prayers, ever, why wouldn’t He occasionally heal a deserving amputee? And why wouldn’t Christians expect God to answer prayers to work in such cases? How about Downs Syndrome as well as other conditions?
Why won't God heal amputees? It may seem like an odd question but it just might be one of the most important questions that we can ask about God. It probes into a fundamental aspect of prayer having to do with ambiguity and coincidence.
Imagine that you visit your doctor one day, and he tells you that you have cancer. Your doctor is optimistic, and he schedules surgery and chemotherapy to treat your disease. Meanwhile, you are terrified. You don't want to die, so you pray to God day and night for a cure. The surgery is successful, and when your doctor examines you again six months later the cancer is gone. You praise God for answering your prayers. You believe with all your heart that God has worked a miracle in your life. You tell your friends that prayer works.
The obvious question to ask is: What cured you? Was it the surgery/chemotherapy or was it God? Is there any way to know whether God is playing a role or not when we pray?
Unless you take the time to analyze this situation, it looks ambiguous. God might have miraculously cured your disease, as many Christians believe. But it might have been the chemotherapy drugs and surgeries are the things that cured you. Or your body's immune system might have cured the cancer itself.
When your tumor disappeared, in other words, it might simply have been a complete coincidence that you happened to pray. Your prayer may have had zero effect.
How can we determine whether it is God or coincidence that worked the cure? One way is to eliminate the ambiguity. In a non-ambiguous situation, there is no potential for coincidence. Because there is no ambiguity, we can actually know whether God is answering the prayer or not.
That is what we are doing when we look at amputees. Think about it this way. The Bible clearly promises that God answers prayers: Mark 11:24
Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." And billions of Christians believe these promises. You can find thousands of books and magazine articles on the power of prayer. According to believers, God is answering millions of their prayers every day.
So what should happen if we pray to God to restore amputated limbs? Clearly, if God is real, limbs should regenerate through prayer. In reality, they do not.
Why not? Notice that there is zero ambiguity in this situation. There is only one way for a limb to regenerate through prayer: God must answer prayers, at least occasionally. What we find is that whenever we create an unambiguous situation like this and look at the results of prayer, prayer never works. God never "answers prayers" if there is no possibility of coincidence.
Tomorrow when the prayor thanks God for letting the folks be present know that God decided he prefers I be at Dollywood where I will see hundreds of children and adults not blessed with good health as the people the prayor is praying about are blessed and I will wonder why?
There is no purpose in responding. I already know what you say you believe. I listen to what you say and so I finally let you know there is at least one who does not concur. For years I have asked various folks including you and generally received no responses what specifically does one expect when they pray and do they find bible support for such expectations? One Christian man told me he doesn’t expect anything. I asked him why he prayed, He said the bible says he should. I believe James says he is unstable and I do concur.
I doubt you are still reading this but if you are you get credit for good old fashioned doggedness.
Fini…..
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
http://alumcave.blogspot.com/
“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When life gives you a broken dryer, you make wet socks, lots of them."
AHS
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