(April 23, 2015 at 1:02 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote: I'm have a no-thinky kind of week, or maybe my brain is just mush because of the rest of the email I've been dealing with, but I received this from my theist penpal and I know there's shit wrong with it but I can't exactly put my finger on it yet.
The topic being discussed here is how you know when something constitutes an "actual" answered prayer.
Then penpal's answer is as follows with the part making my brain hurt being italicized (by me):
Quote:- If there's something I want and the answer is 'no' then my emotions probably didn't interfere.
- Conversely, if it's something I don't want and the answer is 'yes', then my emotions can safely be ruled out
- If there's something I want and the answer is 'yes' then I have to be more careful and I usually ask multiple times in different ways
- Ditto with something I don't want and the answer is 'no'
- If I don't get an answer, I know I didn't put enough study into the matter and I have to repeat the process or it is something that I don't need an answer for.
My thought as it currently stands is that this amounts to an argument against self-interest: "It has to be answered prayer otherwise I would have gotten the answer I wanted!" but to the best of my (admitted drained) abilities right now, I can't figure out if that's a fallacy or not.
My other thought is that it's some kind of round about Begging the Question fallacy wherein the suppressed premise is something like "I want a particular answer" and the conclusion is "because I didn't get the answer I wanted, God must be real!"
Thoughts?
Ug, my brain hurts.
My guess is that she isn't talking about praying for something concrete. Instead she believes that god tells her things through her emotions. So, she might pray for god to let her know if she should apply for a certainjob, for instance. The bible says that the heart(emotions)is deceitful so she can't trust that god is actually talking to her unless she tests what she feels. The way she determines the validity of these messages is if the 'answer' goes against her inclination then she assumes it must be correct. So, if she wanted to apply for a job and felt god said not to then she would trust she heard god right. If she feels god gave a positive answer then she will become uncertain and ask the same thing again and again
That seems like a situation that would cause someone a lot of stress. Please ask her for specific examples
