This gets under my skin.
Most of us know the amputee argument.
Well the folks at https://www.gotquestions.org/God-heal-amputees.html are misrepresenting the whole thing.
For starters, they say that atheists ask, "Why won't God heal amputees?" No atheist is asking this question! The question is "Why don't people pray for God to make amputees grow their limbs back?" The question, put correctly, shines a light on belief in the "power of prayer."
Theists pray for someone to recover from cancer. According to them, what they are doing has real world effects. Here's the process:
1. They find out their friend has cancer.
2. They pray for God to intervene.
3. God hears their prayers and uses his holy power to make the impossible happen.
4. The person with cancer recovers.
5. Everyone says, "Praise the Lord"
Isn't it funny, though, how the recovery could have happened without God? Cancers go into remission unexpectedly all the time. But since everyone prayed, God now gets the credit. Bullshit. The above sequence of events in no way demonstrates that God intervened on anyone's behalf. And even the people who participate in prayer circles know deep down that this is the truth.
How do we know? Because no one with any sense of good taste is going to go into church and say, "Hey guys, let's all get together and pray that veteran Bob grows his arm back."
But why not? Can't God make miracles happen? It appears so only when some of the die rolls are being made behind the dungeon master's screen. When something is simply not naturally possible, people don't pray for it.
Anyway, the purpose of this post isn't to reiterate the argument, but rather to point out how shamefully misleading gotquestions.org is. I can imagine that many Christians who have this question posed to them go home and google it and think that this piece of shit article puts the issue to rest. It's not that the article produces a bad counter-- it's that whoever wrote the article KNEW that they were misrepresenting the argument and without any kind of couth put this crap together as if to say "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." This at least suggests that the author saw that there was no real counterargument to be made. How does a person justify being so dishonest in service of their God?
Perhaps it's just cognitive dissonance, but I think some more sinister impulses are at work. (Check out the article if you think I'm exaggerating its deceptive qualities. I'm not.)
Most of us know the amputee argument.
Well the folks at https://www.gotquestions.org/God-heal-amputees.html are misrepresenting the whole thing.
For starters, they say that atheists ask, "Why won't God heal amputees?" No atheist is asking this question! The question is "Why don't people pray for God to make amputees grow their limbs back?" The question, put correctly, shines a light on belief in the "power of prayer."
Theists pray for someone to recover from cancer. According to them, what they are doing has real world effects. Here's the process:
1. They find out their friend has cancer.
2. They pray for God to intervene.
3. God hears their prayers and uses his holy power to make the impossible happen.
4. The person with cancer recovers.
5. Everyone says, "Praise the Lord"
Isn't it funny, though, how the recovery could have happened without God? Cancers go into remission unexpectedly all the time. But since everyone prayed, God now gets the credit. Bullshit. The above sequence of events in no way demonstrates that God intervened on anyone's behalf. And even the people who participate in prayer circles know deep down that this is the truth.
How do we know? Because no one with any sense of good taste is going to go into church and say, "Hey guys, let's all get together and pray that veteran Bob grows his arm back."
But why not? Can't God make miracles happen? It appears so only when some of the die rolls are being made behind the dungeon master's screen. When something is simply not naturally possible, people don't pray for it.
Anyway, the purpose of this post isn't to reiterate the argument, but rather to point out how shamefully misleading gotquestions.org is. I can imagine that many Christians who have this question posed to them go home and google it and think that this piece of shit article puts the issue to rest. It's not that the article produces a bad counter-- it's that whoever wrote the article KNEW that they were misrepresenting the argument and without any kind of couth put this crap together as if to say "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." This at least suggests that the author saw that there was no real counterargument to be made. How does a person justify being so dishonest in service of their God?
Perhaps it's just cognitive dissonance, but I think some more sinister impulses are at work. (Check out the article if you think I'm exaggerating its deceptive qualities. I'm not.)
