“In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.” -William Kingdon Clifford, The Ethics of Belief (1877)
I present to you a challenge: demonstrate the power of prayer.
The Bible is clear: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. (Matt 7:7-8)
And: Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matt 18:19-20)
And again: For with God nothing shall be impossible. (Luke 1:37)
There are a host of Biblical assertions that a Christian can expect his or her prayers to be answered. So I ask you to demonstrate the truth of these statements. Can God answer your prayers? Can His answer be seen and verified?
I would like you who are Christians to choose a topic for the prayer. Please choose a prayer that is:
- Specific
- Verifiable
- Not a normal or expected occurrence
I would also like you to choose a reasonable time frame in which the prayer will be answered. I think we all may tend to lose interest or become forgetful if the target deadline is more than ten or twelve months in the future.
When several topic suggestions have been presented, I will give a chance for you who are Christians to choose by vote the one prayer that you will all pray. I will ask each of you to commit to pray for the selected topic as regularly as you see fit, and then we will wait for the result.
To avoid the possibility of manipulation, I suggest that we choose a public figure, location, or event to be a key component of the prayer, and that each participant pledge to limit his or her involvement to prayer.
Will you accept this simple challenge? Can you demonstrate the power of God through prayer?
Joram had two sons, and both were named Ahaziah.
The two Ahaziahs had some pretty remarkable parallels in their lives. They were both crowned king when their father Joram died. Both were terrible kings, following in the footsteps of their most villainous predecessor.
Both Ahaziahs were close friends and allies of a neighboring king who we will call Joram II. Both went into battle with Joram II against a foreign king named Hazael. In each case, Joram II was fatally wounded in the battle, and went home to die. Both Ahaziahs went separately to see Joram I, and unexpectedly, both Ahaziahs were murdered during the visit. Even more shocking: They were both murdered by a man named Jehu.
In all the parallels between the two Ahaziahs, there is only one recorded difference between the two: One Ahaziah assumed the throne when he was 22 years old, and the other when he was 42 years old.
Same father. Same mother. Same name. Same throne. Same friend. Same battle. Same death. Yet two different people.
Make sense so far?
You see, the elements of this story are found in the Bible. In fact, the same story is told twice, in two different places. One account, in II Kings 8, describes the Ahaziah that began to reign when he was 22 years old. The other account, in II Chronicles 22, describes exactly the same story, with the exception that Ahaziah began to reign when he was 42 years old.
You may read the accounts and think that the Bible was describing the same Ahaziah, and that a simple mistake was made in his age (22 versus 42). In fact, the Bible itself gives no indication that there were two separate Ahaziahs. However, for a fundamentalist Christian, Biblical mistakes are an impossibility. Therefore, they are required to invent a story like the one above to explain away this obvious error. This story was given to me, in fact, by one such Christian. It makes far more sense for him that “Joram had two sons named Ahaziah” than to assume that his sacred book may have a minor typographical error.
As long as he applies this sort of nonsensical approach to the Bible, a believer will always feel secure in his belief. If, however, he decides to subject his belief to the type of reasonable analysis that is required in the rest of his life, perhaps he will begin to understand the error of his belief.
This evening my daughter Kindness called to me from her bed, as she does on occasion: “Daddy, I’m scared.”
“What are you scared of?” I asked.
“Monsters,” she responded.
After consoling her and reminding her that there are no monsters, I took time to consider her fear. For her, the monsters are real. She can hear them. She can sense when they are close. In her mind, the monsters manifest themselves in very real ways.
Recalling my childhood fears of monsters and ghosts, I pondered the reason that those fears, which seemed so real at the time, are now gone. How could a strong and sincere understanding of such things be discarded?
As a child, I was required to take a lot on faith. I trusted that my dad would keep me from falling while I learned to ride a bike. I trusted that my mom was right when she said “Eat your beans. They’re good for you.” I trusted that the bus would take me home after school, that the earth was round, and that long division really would be useful someday.
I also trusted my friends who told ghost stories. I trusted my books that described monsters and goblins. I trusted the TV when it displayed vampires and werewolves. Since I lacked experience and knowledge of these matters, I believed.
Now I am grown. I can ride a bicycle without falling. I can see the consequence of eating more donuts than green beans. I can drive my car to my home, use a telescope to study the stars, and do my own taxes.
I have never seen a ghost or a vampire, and I know enough about the properties of the universe to recognize that they cannot exist. I know there are no monsters hiding in the shadows. I know these things because I have experienced life. I no longer need to accept such things on faith. True things can be experienced and accepted, and false things can be rejected.
In short, I have grown up. In time my daughter will grow up, and she will no longer believe in monsters. I look forward to that day, for her sake.
“If you were to ask how you might by rational discussion convince a committed fundamentalist of errors in his beliefs the answer would have to be that it is probably not possible. Any questioning of any detail of his dogma is an attack on God, on his sect, and on him personally. Show him blatantly obvious errors in the Bible and he will assume that a complete explanation exists; show him a conflict with observed fact and he will assume that the observations are in error, show him that a different interpretation of something is more logical, or better supported by facts, and he will just assume that you are wrong. If you urge him to check the facts out for himself he will say that there is no need, the Bible tells him the truth. The armour of dogma (which he will call faith) is impervious to fact or reason.”
Faith is belief in an idea when little or no evidence exists. Dogma is a belief held in spite of evidence. Which do you hold?
Reference:
http://www.users.bigpond.com/wyndkelm/Fundamentalism.html