Outsider's Test of Faith (OTF)

[Esquilax]

I really do not mean some of the stuff that you assume that I mean.

I do not think of you as ignorant, Esquilax. You present yourself as a level head that is genuinely thoughtful. I have debated with you over morals and, based on your ardor in that arena, I would guess that you put a lot of weight on and consideration into being a good person.

I am merely suggesting that we all have the responsibility to continue to challenge ourselves and our beliefs everyday. It is one thing to stay open to the truth. It is a completely different thing to get a glimpse of it and fail to clamp down hard on it when it comes around.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think you were doing it on purpose, it's just that a lot of the chatter surrounding the atheism/theism debate is dominated by inaccurate theistic impressions of atheism that become background noise and sort of sink in, one of those being that atheism is a position in itself that's opposed to theism, so that we wouldn't be open to prayer if it worked, and so on. For the most part, an atheist is merely looking for the truth, wherever that may lead, and so I agree one hundred percent with your sentiment, I just wanted to add the connection that many of us already have tried prayer, and it didn't work... hence our current position.

There are a lot of christians who would make the assumption that any ex-religious atheist was never a real believer, and anyone who prays and gets nothing back wasn't doing it sincerely- and I'm actually pretty stoked that you don't seem to be sinking to that level, because that's awesome- but I always feel the need to cover my bases, I guess.

[Zazzy]

... and after my prayer yesterday morning, my cousin's white blood cell count crashed yesterday and she's in the hospital.

There are a few ways to look at this in light of my prayer:
1.) God is angry at me for having made my first prayer ever yesterday, so he took it out on my cousin by delivering the exact opposite of what I prayed for.
2.) The crash had nothing to do with God because God hasn't gotten around to answering my prayer yet.
3.) God wants my cousin to suffer because he's punishing her.
4.) There is a God but he isn't listening.
5.) There is no God to hear the prayer.

In any case, I'm not impressed with the results. What will help my cousin is for me to go clean her house and stock it with groceries while she's in the hospital trying not to die, so I think I'll do that today instead of praying.