Chapter 5 - Why won't God heal amputees?

Rather, "Chapter 5 - Why won't Mr. Brain get a clue?"

Does God answer prayers? According to believers, the answer is certainly yes.

For example, at any Christian bookstore you can find hundreds of books about the power of prayer. On the Internet you can find thousands of testimonials to the many ways that God works in our lives today. Even large city newspapers and national magazines run stories about answered prayers. God seems to be interacting with our world and answering millions of prayers on planet Earth every day. Do you find this suspicious? Does this ever make you think that, possibly, there actually is something interacting with these people, rather than blind coincidence?

God's power often can be quite dramatic. Take, for example, this story from Marilyn Hickey Ministries:

Prayer is a communication system we have available to fellowship with our heavenly Father and which activates His promises in our lives. No one can beat this system. It's quick. It's efficient. And it's available to you right now! Prayer reaches our heavenly Father instantly. Years ago my mother's doctors found a tumor in her brain. When I heard the news, I was out of town so I could not lay my hands on her. That night as fear swept over me, the Lord quickened Psalms 107:20 to my spirit: "He sent his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions." I sent God's Word long distance to my mother's brain. When she was X-rayed again by her doctors, there was no evidence that any tumor had ever existed! Hallelujah! Our prayers are swifter than any medical technique. Only born again believers who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord can have a relationship with the Father and prayer is the communication method you must use to develop that relationship. [ref]

Stories like these can be easily found all over the Web. I'm sure they can. But Marilyn Hickey Ministries doesn't appear to be that credible of a source, given her interpretation of Psalms 107:20. This passage is clearly referring to a very specific group of people: those whom God "redeemed from the hand of the foe," which would probably have been the Israelites. It talks about how they were subjected to forced labor, wandering in the deserts, imprisonment, etc. But there's more: in the verses just before Psalm 107:20, it's talking about how they became "fools through their rebellious ways," and essentially starved themselves. That's what God apparently delivered them from.

Thus, this is not any kind of verse that can be given as a reason for why God answers prayers.

For believers, it is obvious why so many prayers are answered. In the Bible, Jesus promises many times that he will answer our prayers. For example, in Matthew 7:7 Jesus says:

Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Ask and you will receive. What could be simpler than that?

Mr. Brain, I feel it necessary to call to your attention that, essentially, this verse has nothing to do with prayer. This whole passage is about judging others and how you should relate to others, and is ripped completely out of context. The very next verse even cites the Golden Rule, confirming that this isn't about prayer, but how you should act towards others. The very mild hint at a prayer reference at the end certainly doesn't go towards supporting your interpretation of the passage.

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus reiterates that same message:

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

Since a mustard seed is a tiny inanimate object about the size of a grain of salt, it is easy to imagine that the faith of a mustard seed is fairly small. And yet, I bet it's much more faith than I have. So, paraphrasing, what Jesus is saying is that if you have the tiniest bit of faith, you can move mountains.

A strict literalist could merely say that we don't have the faith of a mustard seed. This is illustrated by the fact that the disciples in the Bible continually fail and lack faith, according to Jesus himself. If they lacked faith, and they were in his presence constantly for three years, how in the world could we possibly have enough faith?

This is a valid argument, but I feel the point is better made by studying history. This is a classic example of dramatic orientation. "Moving mountains" is a documented Jewish metaphor for accomplishing something that's difficult or impossible.

Jesus says something similar in Matthew 21:21:

I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

If you don't doubt, huh? Did the disciples themselves, in the presence of Christ, doubt? Of course they did. They even doubted as they saw him resurrected, even to the point where he's about to ascend into Heaven after being on the earth for around a month, according to Matthew's account. And you expect us to pray and not doubt?

The message is reiterated Mark 11:24:

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

And yet again, context is everything. Not even literary context, per se, though I could make an argument there; historical context is key too. This verse wouldn't have been interpreted as such by the actual audience of Jesus. Why should you be arrogant enough to claim to understand it in such a way that is so far removed from what it was intended to say?

In John chapter 14, verses 12 through 14, Jesus tells all of us just how easy prayer can be:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

It's as if you just breezed through the verse without actually reading it. There's a huge, HUGE qualifier for getting your prayers answered right there at the beginning. You must keep God's commandments. That's what it says right after that verse: keep God's supreme command. Love one another. And you know how much we both fail at that every day.

In Matthew 18:19 Jesus says it again:

Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Jesus is actually in our midst and God answers our prayers.

Yet another example of how important context is. This is about pursuing lost members of the congretation of the church, NOT answering prayers about anything. In fact, verse 18 refers to binding and loosing, a metaphor in Jesus' day to judicial authority.

The miracle of Jeanna Giese

There are so many examples of the power of prayer, but one in particular deserves special consideration because it is so well documented. In December of 2004 a girl named Jeanna Giese survived a bite from a rabid bat through prayer. Hundreds of newspapers (including the Raleigh News and Observer in my home town) ran stories about the miracle of her recovery with headlines such as "Rabies girl in miracle recovery." In Raleigh, the headline was "Web weaves global prayer circle - Petitions circle the world as girl beats rare case of rabies." [Source: by Sharon Roznik, Raleigh News and Observer, December 17, 2004]

The summary of the story goes like this. Jeanna was in a church service in Wisconsin when a brown bat fell into the aisle. She picked the bat up and carried it outside. No one gave it a second thought.

A month later it was obvious that something was wrong. Soon Jeanna had a full case of rabies. No human has ever survived this disease without being vaccinated. Up until 2004, full-blown rabies had been 100% fatal.

According to the article, a global prayer circle helped Jeanna survive. Once she got sick, Jeanna's father called friends and asked them to pray for Jeanna. People around the world heard about her story through the press and by word of mouth. They prayed. They sent emails. They passed the word along. Millions of people heard about Jeanna's plight and they said prayers for her.

And the prayer circle worked. Through the power of God, Jeanna recovered. Jeanna was the first human to survive rabies without the vaccine.

That could be how it happened.

Dr. Charles Rupprecht of the CDC in Atlanta called Jeanna's case a miracle. The family and everyone in Jeanna's huge, global prayer circle know that God heard their prayers and answered them. This could be true. God could have actually answered these prayers. But as we've already seen, there isn't a definite reason to think so. If it helps them to think he did, I encourage them to do so, but we can't exactly test that.

This is amazing stuff. The dictionary defines a miracle as "An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God." [ref] I disagree with such a definition. Miracles don't always subvert the laws of nature, and sometimes have nothing to do with their existence. Let's put this fallacy away right here and right now.

If I were to pick up a box off of the ground, is that a "violation" of the laws of gravity? Certainly not.

If God picks up a box off of the ground, is that a "violation" of the laws of gravity?

If someone thinks the second is, and the first isn't, then it's up to them to prove that there is a legitimate discrepancy.

So we must ask a fundamental question: Did an all-loving, all-powerful God hear the prayers from Jeanna's worldwide prayer circle and then reach down from heaven to help Jeanna? Did God actually interact with Jeanna's body, making the impossible happen and curing her case of rabies through a divine miracle? It's possible.

Or did something else happen? Like what?

We can actually answer this question with a simple experiment....

A simple experiment ... No kidding.

For this experiment, we need to find a deserving person who has had both of his legs amputated. Deserving? What exactly qualifies someone as "deserving" of having their legs back? For example, find a sincere, devout veteran of the Iraqi war, or a person who was involved in a tragic automobile accident. So service to your country is on equal plane with freak coincidence, in your mind?

Neither of these people "deserve" anything. If the "devout" veteran of the Iraqi War understood what he was getting himself into, he would know it's possible for him to be wounded in such a way. And since you're not being specific about the automobile accident, we don't know the circumstances, but I imagine that it's the fault of someone if its severe enough to have to amputate both legs. Some one broke God's laws and became drunk, I suppose?

Now create a prayer circle like the one created for Jeanna Giese. The job of this prayer circle is simple: pray to God to restore the amputated legs of this deserving person. I do not mean to pray for a team of renowned surgeons to somehow graft the legs of a cadaver onto the soldier, nor for a team of renowned scientists to craft mechanical legs for him. Why not? Those are perfectly legitimate methods for God to allow the prayer to be answered. Scientists have developed many incredible ways of solving this problem, and God gave them the brains to figure that out. Why shouldn't they use it? Pray that God spontaneously and miraculously restores the soldier's legs overnight, in the same way that God spontaneously and miraculously cured Jeanna Giese and Marilyn Hickey's mother. I hardly think this is anywhere near "the same way," Mr. Brain.

If possible, get millions of people all over the planet to join the prayer circle and pray their most fervent prayers. Get millions of people praying in unison for a single miracle for this one deserving amputee. Then stand back and watch. Stand back and watch? You make it seem like a spectacle, which is probably the primary reason why nothing is going to happen.

What is going to happen? Jesus clearly says that if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. He does not say it once -- he says it many times in many ways in the Bible. No, he didn't. I have explained that at least a hundred times on this blog alone, and there have been many other legitimate scholars who have answered it much better than I can.

And yet, even with millions of people praying, nothing will happen.

This isn't surprising. If God had seen fit to regenerate our limbs, he probably would have given us the ability to do it ourself in the first place, like several other organisms on the planet. The fact that we can't is probably because that's simply the way things are. And as a Christian, I can say that God will give them their limb back in the afterlife, which makes this struggle relatively nil. In addition, such a condition is not life threatening as rabies is.

But you know, I think we should actually try this experiment. Really. Let's actually do it, and then we'll make a judgment. Try organizing it.

No matter how many people pray. No matter how sincere those people are. No matter how much they believe. No matter how devout and deserving the recipient. Nothing will happen. The legs will not regenerate. Prayer does not restore the severed limbs of amputees. You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously. Of course, there are many stories circulating around that things like this actually have happened. But you've set up a criteria (albeit a good one) for determining whether they're true or not that naturally eliminates those. And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us. If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day. Not so. Even if God was regularly in the habit of doing magic shows in front of our eyes, I don't see that it would be that common.

Isn't that odd? The situation becomes even more peculiar when you look at who God is. According to the Standard Model of God:

1. God is all-powerful. Therefore, God can do anything, and regenerating a leg is trivial. Is it really "trivial?" I feel like this is a pretty huge deal, actually.
2. God is perfect, and he created the Bible, which is his perfect book. In the Bible, Jesus makes very specific statements about the power of prayer. None of which mean what you say they do. Since Jesus is God, and God and the Bible are perfect, those statements should be true and accurate. They are. You, of course, have distorted them with your radical interpretations that literally every Christian on the planet disagrees with 100%.
3. God is all-knowing and all-loving. He certainly knows about the plight of the amputee, and he loves this amputee very much. Which is why he sent his son to bleed and die for that amputee, and provided a way for him to receive a new body in Heaven.
4. God is ready and willing to answer your prayers no matter how big or small. All that you have to do is believe. He says it in multiple places in the Bible. Oh, no. That's merely a misunderstanding on your part. But who can blame you? When you merely consult pop-Christianity as your source, of course you'll arrive at that conclusion. Surely, with millions of people in the prayer circle, at least one of them will believe and the prayer will be answered.
5. God has no reason to discriminate against amputees. If he is answering millions of other prayers like Jeanna's every day, God should be answering the prayers of amputees too. Because that's "fair," huh?

Nonetheless, the amputated legs are not going to regenerate. Which is not an issue. The only problem here is that God is not doing exactly what you say, exactly when you say it. This makes you come across as just like a spoiled child that throws a temper tantrum because Mammy doesn't buy you that toy you really want right right right right now.

What are we seeing here? I'm seeing you once again tripping over your rabid fundamentalist atheism. No surprise anymore. It is not that God sometimes answers the prayers of amputees, and sometimes does not. Instead, in this situation there is a very clear line. God never answers the prayers of amputees. It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them. But, of course, after a little education in Christian doctrine, they would understand that the amputees would be given a new leg after death.

Understanding amputees

You can see that the amputee experiment reframes our conversation. No longer are we talking about "religion" or "faith". What we are talking about here is more fundamental.

At the beginning of the chapter we highlighted a number of promises that Jesus makes about prayer in the Bible. Summarizing, here is what Jesus promised:

1. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. [Matthew 21:21]
2. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. [John 14:14]
3. Ask, and it will be given you. [Matthew 7:7]
4. Nothing will be impossible to you. [Matthew 17:20]
5. Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. [Mark 11:24]
6. If you're just tuning in, check this essay, along with countless other essays on this blog, explaining why his interpretations are extremely fallacious.

The question, therefore, is simple: Are Jesus' statements in the Bible true or false? Your interpretations are false.

For example, in John 3:16 Jesus says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." People take that at face value: if you believe in Jesus, you will have eternal life. For good reason. Such an idea is coherent in the rest of the context of Jesus's ministry, and it makes sense when we perform exegesis. So when Jesus says, "Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours," isn't it the same thing? No. Can't we take that statement at face value as well? You're not taking it at face value, though. Please don't pretend you are.

By looking at amputees, we can see that something is wrong. Jesus is not telling the truth. God never answers prayers to spontaneously restore lost limbs, despite Jesus' statements in the Bible, which don't actually mean that he'll spontaneously answer all your requests. Accepting this piece of factual information, rather than denying it, is the first step in understanding something extremely important about how prayer really works. What you need to accept is that your interpretations fly in the face of thousands of years of Christian thought, including that of the early church, who knew that these verses didn't mean as such. In fact, if they had actually thought of those verses as you did, they would have taken them out of the Bible, right? Since we all pray for things we don't get, they would immediately call Jesus a liar and remove those statements. And yet, there they are.

Even if you take a liberal rather than literal stance on the Bible, this feels strange, doesn't it? I don't imagine it would. You may not literally believe that "nothing will be impossible for you" nor that "faith can move mountains," but I think we can agree that there is something very odd about the way that God treats amputees. No matter how many people pray. No matter how sincere those people are. No matter how much they believe. No matter how devout and deserving the recipient. Nothing happens when we pray for amputated limbs. God never regenerates lost limbs through prayer, even though Christians believe that God is answering millions of other prayers on earth every day. Liberal Christians don't. So why must you put them in the category with the fundamentalists?

Does God answer prayers? When it suits his will and divine providence to do so. If so, then how do we explain this disconnection between God and amputees? It's simply the way it is. I've given numerous reasons already. What should we do with the piece of empirical data that amputees represent? We need to somehow explain why God would answer millions of prayers on earth, yet completely ignore prayers for amputated limbs. I must ask you to stop pretending these prayers are in the same category as the other "millions of prayers on earth." Let's examine the possible explanations one by one. Oh dear.

Rationalization #1

Here is an explanation that you might have heard or used before:

The reason God cures thousands of cancers, infections, etc. each day but never intervenes with amputees is because it is not God's will to do that. It is not part of God's plan.

I agree with this. God only answers prayers according to his will...That should be quite evident. Bruce Almighty is an excellent example of what would happen if this were not the case.

This explanation seems a little odd to you, who doesn't seem to have intent to critically think about religion. Amputees really do seem to be getting the short end of God's plan if this is the case. For the time being. For an unimaginably small portion of time when compared with the eternity they will experience with their limb back. If God answers prayers as promised in the Bible, and if God is performing all of the medical miracles that we read about in inspirational literature, then God should also be restoring amputated limbs. And yet, the prayers are in an entirely different kind of category. Why would God help cancer victims (e.g. Marilyn Hickey's mother) and people bitten by rabid bats (e.g. Jeanna Giese), but discriminate against amputees like this? Because cancer and rabies are life threatening, and amputations often are live saving. What a surprise. (See Understanding God's Plan for an in-depth look at how "God's Plan" works). I've responded at this current time to something very similar to that here. But for completions sake, I will respond to that essay too. Stay tuned.

Keep in mind what Jesus promised:

1. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. [Matthew 21:21]
2. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. [John 14:14]
3. Ask, and it will be given you. [Matthew 7:7]
4. Nothing will be impossible to you. [Matthew 17:20]
5. Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. [Mark 11:24]
6. Ditto to the above.
   

There is no indication from Jesus that amputees will be ignored when they pray for medical help. The fact is, all five of these statements are completely false [as I interpret them] in the case of amputees.

The five quotes in the previous paragraph are all simple, straightforward statements. No, they're really not. Doesn't "nothing will be impossible for you" mean "nothing will be impossible for you"? In this case, "nothing will be impossible for you" is an expounding on an ancient Jewish metaphor, which makes it clear that this is an example of dramatic orientation. And even if it wasn't, there's absolutely no indication that this verse was meant to apply to all Christians from Jesus on. Jesus is God, and as an all-knowing being God knows how humans interpret sentences. Meaning, God should once again make up for your willful ignorance? If Jesus did not mean "nothing will be impossible for you," it seems like Jesus would have said something else. Yawn. He also would not repeat that sentiment so many times. And Jesus is supposedly answering millions of prayers each day, so prayer-answering seems to be his intent (See this short video for a more in-depth discussion).

So, in other words, you didn't actually answer the objection at all. You merely said it was odd and restated yourself. By my count, that's one for me and zero for you.

Rationalization #2

In a similar vein, many believers will say, "God always answers prayers, but sometimes his answer is 'no.' This is also true. If your prayer does not fit with God's will, then God will say 'no' to you." This feels odd because God's answer to every amputee is always "no" when it comes to regenerating lost limbs. And why is this a problem? Is God's will not more important than ours? Is God's stated aim of giving them back a new limb in the afterlife not good enough for you? Jesus says, "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." He does not say, "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it, unless you are praying about an amputated limb, in which case I will always reject your prayer." Such specificity is only required for you, not anyone else. Jesus also says, "Nothing will be impossible to you," and regenerating a limb should therefore be possible. Thanks to science, something about as good is now possible. The fact that God refuses to answer every prayer to regenerate a lost limb seems strange, doesn't it? Not to me. Just like the fact that God refuses to answer every prayer to kill all [insert race/people group/organization members] here. That's not strange to me either. It makes a lot of sense.

This short video offers a perspective on the "no" response to prayers. You do it by comparing prayer to God to prayer to an inanimate object, which is about as effective as me disproving evolution by going up to a horse and screaming "EVOLVE" at the top of my lungs.

To understand how strange it seems, compare God's treatment of amputees to the concept of God described in this article. Your link appears to be broken.

Rationalization #3

Here is another explanation that you might have heard: "God needs to remain hidden -- restoring an amputated limb would be too obvious." We will discuss this idea in more detail in later chapters, but let's touch on it here. Does God need to remain hidden? Not necessarily. But it seems to be his method. He gets more praise when we come to him on our own power rather than forced.

That does not seem to be the case. In general, God seems to have no problem doing things that are obvious. Think about the Bible. Writing the Bible and having billions of copies published all over the world is obvious. I disagree. If it was so obvious, why aren't you a Christian? So is parting the Red Sea. Which only a small number of people witnessed...Those same people ironically falling into apostasy shortly after. So is carving the Ten Commandments on stone tables. Again, why aren't you a Christian then? So is sending your son to earth and having him perform dozens of recorded miracles. Which apparently still leaved room for doubt, as even his closest disciples doubted him to the very end. And so on. It makes no sense for a God in hiding to incarnate himself, or to do these other obvious things. Incarnation is in no way obvious. If it is, then why wouldn't you immediately believe someone who walked up to you and claimed to be an incarnation of God? Why send your son to earth, and then write a book that talks all about his exploits, if you are trying to hide? Because it still leaves room for people like you to not believe, as you clearly are doing.

In the same way, any medical miracle that God performs today is obvious. If it actually were, you would be a Christian. This really isn't that complicated. The removal of a cancerous tumor is obvious because it is measurable. It is indeed measurable. And there are many examples of this occurring from prayer. But you don't believe them. One month the tumor is visible to everyone on the X-ray, and the next month it is not. If God eliminated the tumor, then it is openly obvious to everyone who sees the X-ray. There is nothing "hidden" about removing a tumor. Ironically, these people would already believe in God anyway. So, why not regenerate a leg in an equally open way? If God intervenes with cancer patients to remove cancerous tumors in response to prayers, then why wouldn't God also intervene with amputees to regenerate lost limbs? Once again, because cancerous tumors are life threatening, and amputations are life saving, and afterwards, merely inconvenient.

Another example is seen in Jeanne's rabies case discussed earlier in the chapter. Tens of millions of people are aware of the Jeanna's rabies miracle. Personally, I read about it in a big article in my morning newspaper. That is pretty obvious. And yet, you don't believe it was actually God. What is hidden about her recovery? Apparently enough for you not to believe it.

Why, then, does God ignore the prayers of amputees? (see Chapter 19 for a complete discussion of the "hidden God" theory) If it's as terrible as this response was, I look forward to it. Then again, this proof was terrible too.

Rationalization #4

Some people might say, "Everyone's life serves God in different ways. Perhaps God uses amputees to teach us something. God must have a higher purpose for amputees." While this argument is true, I wouldn't use it. That may be the case -- God may be trying to send a message. But, again, it seems odd that he would single out this one group of people to handle the delivery. Wait...Didn't you just admit that it could potentially be the case? Isn't singling out one particular group of people exactly the point? To quote Marilyn Hickey once again:

No matter what has happened in your past, no matter what is happening in your present, seek out your heavenly Father in prayer as often as you can. Take my word for it -- He loves you and wants to answer your prayers. [ref]

Wow, so Marilyn Hickey is a certified expert at ancient Jewish interpretations of prayer ideals?

You see this logic all the time in inspirational literature and hear it every Sunday at thousands of churches: "God loves you! God hears your prayers and will answer them for you!" See this article for an example. Yet, for some reason, miracles never happen when it comes to regenerating lost limbs. It does not seem to make sense that amputees would be cut off from the blessings that Jesus promises in the Bible. And it also does not mesh with all of the prayers that Jesus seems to be answering for other people. Sadly, all you do is repeat yourself again.

Rationalization #5

Some people ascribe the problems that amputees face to free will. They will say, "Well, if you go into a war zone and get your legs blown off, that is your own free will. God gives us free will. You made a free choice to be a soldier. It is not God's fault, and therefore he has no obligation to repair the damage." True in some cases, obviously. This logic is fascinating. What about all the people who are born with missing limbs [there are many ways of providing them with substitutes...Either that, or refer to "Rationalization 4"] or the people who lose limbs to diseases through no fault or choice of their own? In the latter case, the amputation is obviously life saving, once again. How are these people any different from cancer victims, who, supposedly, are constantly being healed by God? I've already explained that many times in this essay.

We know that God ignores all amputees, regardless of the cause of the missing limb. Why doesn't God heal thalidomide babies, who are by definition completely innocent? That condition is caused by the taking of thalidomide, which means that it's someone's responsibility. There is someone at work who isn't "completely innocent." Or the innocent children who lose their limbs in mine fields? Because of the carelessness and waring of the adults who should have known better? Why would God heal millions of other diseases, but completely ignore any disease that results in a lost or missing limb? You have asked this question a ridiculous amount of times, Mr. Brain. I shall henceforth ignore it.

Rationalization #6

Some believers say, "God does help amputees - he inspires scientists and engineers to create artificial limbs for them!" I wouldn't say God "inspired" the scientists. I would say that he has given us all brains to figure things out. This logic is interesting, especially if we look at other examples. Take the case of smallpox. Millions upon millions of people died of smallpox until the vaccine was invented in the twentieth century. If God is the one who inspired the scientists, why did God wait until the twentieth century to do it? Why would God want to be the source of the massive suffering that smallpox caused prior to the twentieth century? And why do we pay the scientists, given that their work is simply God's inspiration? (we will discuss the question of divine inspiration in more detail in Chapter 7)

Rationalization #7

Someone might say, "Thou shalt not test the Lord. It says so in the Bible." True. This is hard to swallow because every prayer is a test. Wait...Are you joking about this? When I pray to God, I'm not "testing" him. Testing implies that I want to see if he is able or not to accomplish a task, and of course most of the examples of people testing God (like Satan testing Jesus) involve asking for some spectacular feat to be performed in front of their eyes. Either God answers the prayer or he does not. There is no difference between praying for an amputee and praying for Jeanna Giese and her rabies. Ignoring.

Note also that many believers track their prayers with prayer journals. See, for example, prayer-journal.com. Why not pray to God to heal an amputee, and then track the results of the prayer in a prayer journal? Yeah, why not?

Rationalization #8

Some people might say something like, "Jesus never says when he will answer your prayers. Maybe your prayer will be answered in the afterlife." I'm glad you recognize this as an explanation. But that seems uncomfortable. Why? Jesus is answering millions of prayers for everyone else in the here and now. Clearly that is what he means with all his verses in the Bible. Why single out amputees for treatment in the afterlife when Marilyn and Jeanna get their prayers answered almost instantaneously? This is once again not an answer. You completely dodge the point once again. I think that's at least four times you've done that so far. Not looking good, since we're only eight in.

Rationalization #9

Someone might say, "God will answer your prayers, but not immediately. You must be patient." This is nearly identical to the eighth explanation, isn't it? They will point to a situation like that found in Mark 6:47-51:

And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw him, and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; have no fear." And he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased.

A person might say, "you see, he came in the fourth watch (generally understood to be 3AM to 6AM), not in the first or second or third. You must be patient and wait for the Lord to answer your prayers." This is just as uncomfortable as the previous explanation. God does not answer the prayers of any amputee to restore lost limbs. Five times now. Thanks again for nothing.

Rationalization #10

A believer might say, "You are taking the Bible literally." No. A believer would say, "You are taking the Bible too literally. Hyperliterally, in fact." But how else are we supposed to take it? Hahaha. That's the million dollar question, isn't it? Jesus clearly says, "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." When Jesus says that, what does he mean? Presumably, Jesus means that if you ask for anything, he will do it. What else could he possibly mean? This here is why I call you a fundamentalist atheist. You look at the Bible in exactly the same way as a fundamentalist does. Wait, I take that back. You look at it even more literally than a fundamentalist does.

Believers often respond with, "Look, Jesus was using poetic embellishment when he said, 'nothing will be impossible for you,' and 'faith can move mountains.'" Which leads to the following question: What prayers does God answer? Well, the idea of what to pray for is set forth quite clearly in The Lord's Prayer, which is literally God's instruction on how to pray to him. It is the response to that question that is fascinating. Because the response inevitably is, "God is omnipotent, so God can do anything." Um...?

Which leads us right back to the question, "Why won't God heal amputees?"

Rationalization #11

Finally, there is this oft-used chestnut: "There is no way to understand the mysteries of our Lord. People have believed in Jesus for 2,000 years, and there must be a very good reason for it." In principle, this is true, but as an argument, it's not very useful. This feels like a sad point in the conversation. On one side of the conversation is a person who is defending the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator of the universe. This person's position should be unassailable. On the contrary, the fact that it's not unassailable is in fact the beauty of it. Yet, if God exists, and answers prayers as described in the Bible, there is no explanation for what we see in the world around us. The Bible is silent in this case. God is silent. There is not a good, comfortable explanation for the situation faced by amputees except to say, "We cannot understand the mysteries of the Lord. We have no explanation for why God refuses to answer prayers to regenerate lost limbs."

Explaining the case of amputees

Just for a moment, I would ask you to consider the possibility of another explanation. If you believe in God, then this explanation will initially appear to be complete nonsense. However, it is interesting in light of the conversation we will be having in this book.

One explanation for the evidence that we see before us is this:

God exists, and God answers prayers, but for some reason God chooses to ignore the prayers of amputees. We don't have a good explanation for why God acts this way, and it does seem to contradict what Jesus teaches about prayer in the Bible, but clearly God has his divine reasons.

Lets correct. God exists, and God answers prayers, but for several reasons that I have outlayed, God chooses not to answer the prayers of amputees in a positive way. This perceived problem is a product of a misunderstanding of the concept of prayer.

Now let's look at the situation with amputees from another point of view. This explanation is more straightforward:

God is imaginary.

So if we work this out logically:

1) God is supposed to answer prayers.
2) God doesn't answer [x].
3) Therefore, God is imaginary.

This is a non-sequitur. The conclusion in no way follows from 1 or 2. A much better explanation is that God has chosen not to answer for good reasons.

Let's look at what happens when we consider this explanation and see how it stacks up. Well, to be frank, its fairly obvious what happens: you suddenly have to explain a whole lot of things that you've already mentioned that don't seem to fit with the idea of God not existing, like the fact that there appear to be thousands of miracles all over the place. Commence your rationalizations.

Assume that God is imaginary. The beauty of this explanation is that it fits the facts perfectly. But it doesn't. Its a non sequitur. It leaves a great deal unexplained. In the case of amputees, it is a valid way to explain the reality that we see in our world. The logic goes like this:

If God is imaginary, then he does not answer any prayers. Therefore, the prayers of amputees would go unanswered too.

The thing that is so appealing about this explanation is that there is no hand waving. Of course there's hand waving. Why do you think that atheism has been in such a minority for thousands of years of recorded history? Why do you think atheism is still, in this scientific age, a minority? There are no contradictions. Of course there are contradictions. All of the positive evidence for religion goes in sharp contrast. It is completely fair. Not if your concealing the other side like this. There is no paradox. And yet, millions of people claim to have spiritual experiences. This explanation makes complete sense in light of the evidence we see in our world. What world are you living in, exactly?

Interestingly, this explanation also happens to cover the case of Neva Rogers in Chapter 1. I feel as though I sufficiently explained that. And Steve Homel's subdivision in Chapter 2. Same. And Ranika in Chapter 4. Same. If you assume that God is imaginary, then the paradox of God evaporates in all of these cases. Why did Ranika die? Because there was no all-powerful, prayer-answering God to save her. Ranika died from heat, not because of lack of saving. You seem to be switching the responsibility. Why did Neva die? Because there was no all-powerful, prayer-answering God to save her. Neva Rogers died because a deranged atheist shot her in the face. I wonder why she believed in God for all of the rest of her lifetime. Why did Steve's house remain standing while 39 others burned to the ground? Because there was no all-powerful, prayer-answering God to save any of the houses (and Steve's house was a fluke). Why did 200,000 people die in the tsunami? Because there was no all-powerful, prayer-answering God to save them. And so on. It explains amputees too. The paradox of God vanishes completely. Etc.

In response to this proposal, a thoughtful person might say, "Just because God never answers the prayers of amputees, it does not mean that he does not answer other prayers. I agree with you that it is unfair to amputees, and I agree with you that it contradicts what Jesus teaches in the Bible, but God has his reasons. For some reason, it is not part of God's plan to help amputees by regenerating their lost limbs. There is no way to understand the mysteries of our Lord, but he does have his reasons and they will become clear to us when we die and go to heaven." If anyone is really convinced by the amputee question, or your arguments about prayer, I would not dub them as a "thoughtful person." That is one possible explanation, but words like "unfair" and "contradicts" feel, somehow, uncomfortable. Why is that? Are you admitting the reality of fairness? Remember that link I posted not to far back? They do not fit with our mental image of an all-loving and perfect God, nor with the words of Jesus in the Bible. No, it fits perfectly. Your attempt to address the "rationalizations" were pitiful. Why would God have such a problem with amputees that he completely ignores their prayers to regenerate lost limbs, while at the same time he is answering all of these other prayers millions of times a day? When it comes to amputees, why would Jesus renege on his promises to answer prayers in the Bible? Sigh.

You can see that what we have here is a paradox:

1. On the one hand we have an all-knowing, all-loving God who has made very clear and specific statements in his Bible about the power of prayer. It's obviously not clear enough. I feel like I'm doing the equivalent of "reading a broken record" here. You keep restating it so many times, probably in the hope that if you say it enough, we'll start to believe it. But literally every Christian in the world disagrees with you, and for good reason. We have billions of people who believe that their prayers are being answered. We have thousands of examples of the power of prayer published in inspirational literature. We have prominent doctors at the CDC declaring that God is reaching down onto earth and performing medical miracles. We have major newspapers and magazines reporting on the power of prayer and prayer circles. Which now you must explain.
   
2. On the other hand, we have a piece of explicit evidence that does not make any sense if God exists. No matter how many people pray, no matter how sincere they are and no matter how much they believe, God does not answer the prayers of amputees to regenerate their limbs. Then the problem is with our understanding of the evidence, not with the actual conclusion. Shouldn't that be evident? Isn't that how the courts work? If there is reams beyond reams of evidence pointing to someone being guilty, and there is one thing that doesn't seem explainable if they are, that doesn't immediately mean that they're not guilty.
   

Who is right? Well, if we keep our methodology consistent...We are.

The thing about amputees is that the evidence is rock solid. This solidity is what makes this example so compelling. So solid and compelling that it hasn't bothered Christians in the slightest for nearly two thousand years.

A cascade of problems

It's not like I am revealing some hidden truth here. The funny thing about amputees is that this evidence is obvious to everyone. We have all seen that God ignores the prayers of amputees. This evidence has been plainly visible for centuries. And yet, we all continue to believe, because we all know that to interpret the evidence as you have done is simply misguided.

Amputees are not the only ones either. For example:

1. If someone severs their spinal cord in an accident, that person is paralyzed for life. No amount of prayer is going to help.
2. If someone is born with a congenital defect like a cleft palate, God will not repair it through prayer. Surgery is the only option.
3. A genetic disease like Down Syndrome is the same way -- no amount of prayer is going to fix the problem.

Or what about this. What if we get down on our knees and pray to God in this way:

Dear God, almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. We pray in faith, knowing you will bless us as you describe in Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19 and James 5:15-16. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

We pray sincerely, knowing that when God answers this completely heartfelt, unselfish, non-materialistic prayer, it will glorify God and help millions of people in remarkable ways. Doesn't this seem awfully, word-for-word familiar with Proof #1? Will anything happen? Of course not. If prayers like this worked, Christians would have prayed every disease on the planet into extinction centuries ago. But if God were to exist, why would he ignore such a worthy prayer? [We will discuss this particular question in much more detail in chapter 6.] Then let me keep from chomping at the bit until then.

It is also easy to find corroborating evidence outside the medical arena. At the global level, we see the evidence every day in many different ways. For example, we all see the millions of children who die every year from the tragic effects of poverty. Seems like that's technically still in the medical arena, isn't it? Unicef puts it this way:

Every year, more than 10 million children die totally preventable deaths. Some are directly caused by illness – pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles – and others are affected by indirect causes such as conflict and HIV/AIDS. Malnutrition, lack of safe water and inadequate sanitation are contributing factors to more than half of these deaths. [ref]

Ah yes. Preventable. So who is to blame? If we humans are totally able to prevent all of those, and we do not, who's fault is it? Wait...God's? How, exactly?

Jesus is supposed to love all the little children of the world: "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight." Popular songs now, Mr. Brain? So we can ask this straightforward question: If children are precious to Jesus, then why is he killing 10 million of them every year with abject poverty? Why do you play word games? He isn't killing anyone. We are to blame. That's 27,000 dead kids every day -- more than 1,000 dead children each hour. If Jesus answers prayers as he promises in the Bible, then why haven't the prayers of billions of people to end world hunger caused Jesus to solve the problem of global poverty? (We will discuss this situation in more detail in chapter 22.) Watch the video to find out why.

We all know that holes like these exist. It is easy to find them. The holes suggest that something very odd is going on. Only to someone like you, who has already decided against the reams of scholarly opinion to misinterpret the prayer verses.

Ambiguity and coincidence

The question, "Why won't God heal amputees?" probes into an extremely interesting aspect of prayer and exposes it for observation. This aspect of prayer has to do with ambiguity and coincidence.

Imagine that you pray for something -- It does not really matter what it is. Let's imagine that you have cancer, you pray to God to cure the cancer, and the cancer actually does go away. The interesting thing to recognize is that there is ambiguity in your cure. God might have miraculously cured the disease, as many people believe. But God might also be imaginary, and the chemotherapy drugs and surgery are the things that cured your cancer. Or your body might have cured the cancer itself. The human body does have a powerful immune system, and this immune system has the ability to eliminate cancer in many cases. When your tumor dissappeared, it might be a coincidence that you happened to pray. Drugs, an immune response or a combination of the two might have been the thing the cured you. I would say that it could easily have been a combination of all of them: Drugs, immune system, prayer.

How can we determine whether it is God or coincidence that worked the cure? One way is to eliminate the ambiguity. In a non-ambiguous situation, there is no potential for coincidence. Because there is no ambiguity, we can actually know whether God is answering the prayer or not. Yes, and fortunately for you, you're the one setting the categories. I want to make God do exactly what I'm asking exactly when I say so, because apparently I have swaying power over an omnipotent, omniscient being as such, and I want that to occur precicely because I don't observe it happening, and because it stays that way, he must not exist. I see what you did there.

That is what we are doing when we look at amputees.

When we pray to God to restore an amputated limb, there is only one way for the limb to regenerate. God must exist and God must answer prayers. Do you really believe that? If you saw a limb regenerate, would you really immediately fall down on your knees and convert to Christianity? I truly don't think so. I think you would demand something else. You've already decided that the current level of evidence is not good enough for you, so what should make me think that you would be satisfied with God performing a magic show for you? What we find is that whenever we create a non-ambiguous situation like this and look at the results of prayer, prayer never works. God never answers prayers if there is no possibility of coincidence. For the reasons stated above. You tried to rebut them, but as a rebuttal you merely restated yourself a few times. We will approach this issue from several different angles in this book, but Chapters 6 and 7 are particularly important.

The fact that prayers are never answered when the possibility of coincidence is eliminated meshes with another fact. If we analyse God's responses to prayers using statistical tools, what we find is that there is never any statistical evidence for prayer. In other words, when we statisically compare prayer to coincidence for explaining any situation, they are identical. For example, this article points out:

One of the most scientifically rigorous studies yet, published earlier this month, found that the prayers of a distant congregation did not reduce the major complications or death rate in patients hospitalized for heart treatments. [ref]

It also says:

A review of 17 past studies of ''distant healing," published in 2003 by a British researcher, found no significant effect for prayer or other healing methods.

No scientific study has ever found any evidence that prayer works. False. I think you know this by now, but continue to leave this statement in because you want to trick people. That seems to be the only explanation.

http://www.physorg.com/news93105311.html
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/prayer.html

Those are merely two examples. I could go on. But as I've already mentioned time and time again, all studies (whether positive or negative) are invalid, simply because testing prayer is rather like testing coin flipping.

There are two possible conclusions to draw from these statistical studies and the situation with amputees:

1. God somehow detects every non-ambiguous situation (like amputees) and every situation where a statistical study will be done and he "refuses" to answer prayers in those situations. In light of the two studies above, that doesn't seem to make sense. It seems as though he did allow at least some studies to be positive.
   
2. God is imaginary and does not answer prayers at all. In every case where it appears that God "answers" a prayer, it truly is nothing more than a coincidence. Ah, there it is. The coincidence card. Play it every time something goes contradictory to your belief system, and it's a win for you, isn't it?

One problem with the first explanation is that it contradicts what Jesus teaches about prayer in the Bible. For the last time, it simply does not, and your pathetic attempt to say that it does is quite easily seen as misguided. Jesus says that he answers prayers. But never does he say, "I'll always answer you immediately and positively." He never says, "don't pray to me unless the situation you are praying about is ambiguous." Another problem with the first situation is that it is possible to analyse any prayer with statistics, meaning that God cannot answer any prayer. Wait, I'm not following that at all. I think your train of thought hit a bump in the tracks.

In other words, we reach the same conclusion: God is imaginary. But it's still flawed.

Incredibly Interesting

Whether you are religious or not, you have to admit that what we see here is incredibly interesting. Despite the fact that billions of people around the world believe in God, in this chapter we have seen a credible piece of evidence that indicates that God is imaginary. Yes, something that has somehow evaded the minds of Christian thinkers for all of history.

We also have many other pieces of evidence that indicate the same thing. Let's step back and look at several of them.

First of all, we have this fact: there is no scientific evidence indicating that God exists. Define "scientific evidence." We all know that. For example, God has never left behind any physical evidence that shows that he is real. Physical evidence as in what? You continually ask this question, but never actually clarify what you mean. Do you want a photograph? Do you want a carving into a rock that says "Yahweh is the way? None of Jesus' miracles left behind any physical evidence either. How in the world would that be possible? What sort of evidence would they leave behind? God has never taken over all the TV and radio stations and broadcast a message to mankind. What purpose would that serve? Besides, it would only be viewable to people who had a TV and a radio, and there are probably millions and millions of people who don't. And honestly, if someone walked up to you and said, "God came on the TV and spoke to all of mankind!" would you consider him to be credible? There is the Bible, but as we will see in Section 2 the Bible has problems of its own. I'm already familiar with the artifical problems you have manufactured. They amuse me greatly, as a matter of fact. They make for good jokes over coffee with my Christian friends. And so on. So let's agree that there is no empirical evidence showing that God exists:

1. If we had scientific proof of God's existence, we would talk about the "science of God" rather than "faith in God". Notice the shift in terminology. First, you said there is no scientific evidence. Now you are saying "proof." I agree with you that there's no proof, but I definitely disagree that there's no evidence. But even disregarding this, yet another false dichotomy. Faith is not a blind shot in the dark, but is trust based on prior performance, as the word pistis clearly shows.
2. If we had scientific proof of God's existence, the study of God would be a scientific endeavor rather than a theological one. Ironically, you're trying to study God scientifically right now.
3. If we had scientific proof of God's existence, all religious people would be aligning on the God that had been scientifically proven to exist. Proof, or evidence, Mr. Brain?
   
4. Etc.

Second, we have the fact that there is no statistical evidence that God answers prayers. No non-fradulent scientific study has found any evidence that prayer works. Well, how in the world is that fair? Any test that goes against your predetermined definition of truth is "fraudulent." That sounds more like a fundamentalist than anything else. For example, if we have a prayer group pray for certain people in a hospital but not for others, the people who were prayed for don't get better any faster or live any longer. The prayers have zero statistical effect. We will discuss this in much more detail in Chapters 6 and 7. Not always the case. There are many studies where exactly the opposite is true. But both are equally meaningless. I just urge you to stop being dishonest.

Simply think about the world around you. First, if there were conclusive statistical evidence that God answers prayers, that would provide scientific evidence that God exists. Well, prayer isn't something that can be scientifically tested. There are simply too many unknowns. Second, we can see that there are not two laws of probability -- one for Chistians who pray and one for everyone else. There is a single law of probability that applies equally to everyone. Which is exactly how it should be. I don't expect God to alter the laws of the universe in my favor, ever. Nor should you. Prayers have zero effect in any statistical study. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Third, we have quite a bit of daily evidence that also suggests that God is imaginary. For example, there is the paradox of Neva Rogers from Chapter 1. In this case Neva prays openly to God and then gets shot in the head four times. There is the paradox of Steve Homel's house, where Steve prays and his house is saved. Unfortunately, the 39 other houses on his street are cursed and burn to the ground. That 97.5% failure rate for prayer makes it feel like the survival of Steve's house is pure coincidence rather than a miracle. Assigning such a number is beyond ridiculous, and you're making a great deal of assumptions to go along with it. You're assuming that the other 39 people prayed at all, which is a big assumption. We see paradoxes like that constantly, and they all point to the fact that God is imaginary. And yet, you still haven't recognized the paradoxes that your faith brings in.

Fourth, we have the fact that all of the gods of the past truly were imaginary. Which doesn't seem to have any bearing on our situation. We all know with certainty that the Egyptian gods, the Roman gods and the Aztec gods were completely fictitious. Otherwise we would not have started to worship Jesus. Where did you get that logic from? Hinduism predates Christianity, and yet we started to worship Jesus. Hinduism is still around, too. We would be worshiping Ra or Zeus rather than Jesus if Ra or Zeus were real. I really don't see how that's even close to true.

Now we can start adding pieces of new evidence showing us that God does not exist. For example, we have the case of amputees as described in this chapter. If God is real, it is apparent that there is something very odd about amputees. God is supposedly answering millions of prayers on earth every day, but he completely ignores amputated limbs and refuses to restore them. That makes no sense according to the Standard Model of God and Jesus' statements in the Bible. God's treatment of amputees is inexplicable if God exists, but makes a lot of sense if God is imaginary. As we have already seen though, the supposed "rationalizations" you give are ultimately fatal to your argument. Your attempt at dismissing them ultimately shows the weakness of your case.

We have all of this evidence to show that God is imaginary. If we were in a court of law looking at this question, the judge would quickly rule that God is imaginary. I think that's extremely arrogant of you to say, considering you've really only given one argument, and I've given many of them. There is no concrete evidence that God is real and lots of evidence that he is imaginary. When you're the one defining what is "concrete evidence," I suppose so. You've decided that historical evidence apparently doesn't count.

If you are a thoughtful, curious person, the case of amputees really makes you wonder: Is God real or is he imaginary? Let's try looking at another example and see if it sheds any light on this situation...Done.

This is ridiculously long.

© P-Dunn's Apologetics, 2008. All Rights reserved.