Over the weekend I was browsing the Evangelical Examiner's column about what was then the upcoming National Day of Prayer and some of the incredible claims that the author made about the alleged effectiveness of "prayer warriors" in Orlando, FL. My BS Detector went into full alert mode, but what I found more of interest was the comment section following the article.
Responding to a taunt by Kira that "the Prayer Warriors keep asking God to make all Teh (sic) Gays, atheists and other infidels to disappear," the "Real Believer" informs us that the National Day of Prayer will accomplish a "change of heart, and most importantly, their souls" to these otherwise recalcitrants of the faith.
Well, as you know the NDP failed. It did not "change the hearts," or the "souls" of anyone. To me, it seems, that the Christian is saying that they want God to personally step in and alter the mind of the atheist or the unbeliever through force of His will when they pray for this "change of heart." At this point, the believer is acceding any reasoned argument for why their beliefs are reasonable. They also accede the alleged authority of the Bible, and more importantly they have made the Bible irrelevant if gerrymandering by God is all that is really necessary for belief in the first place.
Which is ironic. In my many years debating Christians (online, before this blog), the losing Christian backed into a corner, will state that I have "freewill" in a final gambit to salvage justification for why God has not answered their prayers and altered the mind of the unbeliever, or why their arguments have failed to be convincing. Meaning, the Christian doesn't either understand that praying to God to alter the unbelievers mind and this freewill argument are mutually exclusive and that one argument refutes the other.
Yet, I find the underlying sentiment of a comment like that of the True Believers pretty offensive. Just who the hell do you think you are? Excuse me, but I like the way I am. I am proud of the fact that I no longer let the mythologies and the cultures of bronze-age men dictate how I embrace the world and how I interact with people. I am proud that my expanding skepticism demolishes the woo of pet and human psychics, superstitions, magical thinking, and other dubious claims. I rather embrace a world of probables or improbables, and not impossibles.
What are we to you? Robots?
