(November 19, 2013 at 11:09 am)Jacob(smooth) Wrote: It could well be that in that context a prayer works that way yes. But we're back into the realms of how it works.
What I mean is that those examples indicate that it's something other than prayer that is working. In that case there is the risk that the next time the person is in need, she will pray and those prayers go unanswered. She could do what many theists do and claim that the prayer was answered in some way she cannot fathom, but I wonder if there isn't some part of her subconscious mind that starts to make a troubling connection: prayer only reliably works whenever she takes the steps to make it work. In which case she can take those steps and get what she needs without bothering to pray. Which could mean that... -gasp-
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
