I totally agree. It makes no sense. And how do the prayers for the little girl dying of cancer go unanswered, but yet some pioneer is given the exact amount needed for the news tires on his car?
Maybe this is what really happens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaZDcS-rMf4&feature=user
Whenever this comes up, I am reminded of this excellent essay:
The Happy Heretic
Judith Hayes
SEPTEMBER 1997
The Power of Penguins
There is an old, tasteless joke about the "blind leading the blind." In the case of Christian fundamentalist evangelists, you might say it is the shrewd leading the blind. Freethinkers can usually spot the phoniness in most of the well known Televangelists. Their personal power agendas worn clearly on their sleeves, they are nothing more than con artists, stealing from the elderly, the lonely, the shut-ins and the gullible.
The honest evangelists may truly believe in their "callings," but somehow their coffers fill up too, don't they? The people filling those coffers are willing to follow their leaders blindly. Blind faith frees you from thinking, of course, which is why it's so appealing. But that very willingness to follow like sheep is what makes True Believers such formidable opponents in church/state separation issues. Blind faith is virtually impossible to challenge, because believers will not allow reason to be dragged into the discussion.
Blind faith can be dangerous (David Koresh) or goofy (Jim and Tammy) or tragically desperate, as it was with my friend, Jenny. Her story is heart wrenching and almost unbelievable. But it really happened.
Jenny's first born son, Timothy, was long awaited and loved beyond measure. I have never seen such love for a child, before or since. She worshipped that boy. So when Timothy developed a malignant brain tumor shortly after his 8th birthday, you can imagine the terror in Jenny's heart. For Jenny, the world ceased to exist except for her son.
Not just Jenny and her family, but an entire 1,000-member Presbyterian congregation, began praying for Timothy. They held special church services just to pray for him. There were easily ten thousand prayers offered to God for the recovery of this one, sweet little boy.
God was asked to bring about the success of the chemotherapy, and to ensure improvement in the successive CT-scans. Finally, God was asked to make the high-risk brain surgery a success. But Timothy never reached his 9th birthday. He died in Jenny's arms.
Jenny's grief was immeasurable. As if her anguish were not enough, the doctors immediately announced that they wanted to perform an autopsy. Why? The official reason was that any time an unexplained death occurs, the law requires an autopsy. Unexplained? Well, anyway, this pushed Jenny over the edge. She could not bear the thought of her precious Timothy being autopsied, and she would not sign the consent forms. She was then informed that they could legally perform an autopsy anyway, and they intended to do so. Jenny cried and begged them not to do this thing. To no avail.
So, Jenny positioned herself in the doorway of Timothy's hospital room, blocking the way, and announced that she would not let them take his body until they agreed not to perform an autopsy. Arms stretched across the doorway, Jenny began praying. She prayed for God not to allow the autopsy. And she stayed in her position, crying and praying, until someone finally came and granted her request. There would be no autopsy.
Jenny and I lost touch some years ago, being separated by the miles. When last I spoke with her, she said that the only reason she didn't kill herself (and thereby join her precious son in Heaven) was because she had another child. She feared that, because of that child, her suicide would be frowned upon by God and she would not be allowed in Heaven with her Timothy. Other than that, her husband and living child didn't matter to her. Last I heard she was spending most of her time in the cemetery talking to her dead son.
The point of this awful story is not to minimize, in any way, the agony that poor woman went through. The point is that, when it was all over, Jenny cried triumphant tears of joy as she told me how grateful she was that God had answered her prayers. The cancellation of the autopsy was unequivocal proof that God answers prayers, and she would not let go of the subject until I agreed with her. I agreed with her. But even if I had been callous enough to disagree, I would not have known how to. I was too dumbfounded.
Jenny was positively exultant in her "proof" that God answers prayers. It never occurred to her that the hospital staff was seeking to end an ugly scene and thwart a possible lawsuit. No, in Jenny's mind, God had intervened. Faith like that is frightening to behold in its irrational fierceness.
Jenny's wonderful God, who had answered her heartbreaking prayers about the autopsy, had, for some reason, not thought it preferable to answer her (or anyone else's) heartbreaking prayers about the chemotherapy. Or the surgery itself. Or, for that matter, her daily prayers to keep her beloved son healthy and happy before his illness ever occurred. Not seeing this glaringly obvious point is what blind faith is all about.
Jenny was displaying an extreme form of the sort of rationalization that is necessary to reconcile a benevolent God with a cruel world. Even knowing that thousands of the world's children die of starvation every day, True Believers see nothing wrong with $3,000,000-per-year football players asking for, and receiving, God's intervention to influence the outcome of a game. Likewise, in offering a silent prayer during a lengthy search for the car keys, a believer has no doubt that his prayer has been answered when he finally finds them. It never occurs to him how absurd and inappropriate such a use of godly power would be.
True Believers will chuckle with disdain and condescension, and ask how our ancestors could have believed in, say, volcano-worship. They don't realize that we rationalists are asking that very thing about True Believers. Mystical, magical thinking is always the same no matter which century or which country it occurs in. This is precisely why we are having such a struggle today in maintaining the separation of church and state.
Believers cannot tolerate the certainty and serenity of those of us who acknowledge no god and no spirit world. (Just as Jenny could not tolerate mine.) Not long ago a freethought essay of mine was published in a local newspaper. In a responding letter to the editor, a Christian pointed out that I nevertheless had a belief system because I believed in not believing. I'm not kidding. This is the height of irrational thought, but it demonstrates the threat believers feel when confronting nonbelievers. The very serenity of nonbelievers is what unnerves believers, because it effectively challenges their supernatural, always difficult to explain, beliefs.
One of the best ways for True Believers to defend their indefensible claims is to have the State give those beliefs some sort of stamp of approval. This is what we're witnessing today in the Religious Right's push for public school prayer, the public posting of the Ten Commandments, and so on. What should have been settled law decades ago, the doctrine of separation, is now being attacked by insecure fundamentalists.
Perhaps life would be easier if there were a god-one single, easy to recognize, worldwide god. It would certainly end all of this UFO, numerology, reincarnation and astrology stuff. And it might make life a more soothing experience all the way around. But then, come to think of it, I guess that's why we invented gods in the first place, isn't it?
There are doubtless thousands of stories similar to the one about my friend, Jenny. You probably have to pause for only a moment to think of one-not necessarily as tragic, but equally illogical in assigning cause to effect. Even if you are a believer, you must admit that when you have prayed for the really big things-an end to a metastasizing cancer, or peace in the Middle East-your success rate is almost nil, yet you never blame God. But when you pray for the smaller things-passing a test in school, a safe airplane landing-and they happen, you immediately credit God for them. This is not only illogical, but opens the door for experiments that can "prove" the power of almost anything. And I conducted just such an experiment.
The parameters were simple. When I wished for something to happen, I decided that, instead of praying to an invisible, unknowable God, I would rub the tummy of a stuffed animal, in this case a penguin. This was no ordinary stuffed animal, mind you. This was given to me by a very special person for a very special reason. So, whenever I had a thought that in my Christian years would have prompted a prayer, I just closed my eyes, thought intently about the problem, and rubbed the penguin's belly. It was a most interesting exercise. It brought back memories of praying, and I realized that at this point in my life the two activities seem equally sane and equally silly.
Anyway, I kept this up for about three weeks, and here are the results: My penguin failed to bring peace to the Middle East or Northern Ireland; world hunger was not eliminated; inner city drug dealing did not disappear; and a beloved, ill, elderly dog died in spite of my actions.
However, on the positive side, my Grand Penguin lowered the crime rate in a major city; ended the UPS strike; reunited a married couple on the brink of divorce; cleared up a friend's sinus infection; and helped a good friend find much needed employment. I'd certainly call that remarkable. So then, what's to be learned from my efforts? Well, if you're allowed to count only the "hits" while ignoring the "misses," as do all the people who extol the power of prayer, then it turns out that my fuzzy little penguin is one hell of a miracle-worker.
