Protestantism

» HeadZenCards - Cognative Dissonance

From www.biblical nonsense.com

Suppose we wanted to test the power of God and prayer in order to verify or debunk related Christian claims.

To begin the study, we gather a group of fifty atheists and a group of fifty Christians who volunteer to have an extremely lethal dose of bacteria injected intravenously.

Following the injection, we provide the fifty atheists with a regimen of broad-spectrum antibiotics to counteract the infection.

We then isolate the atheists in a secret location and tell no one that they are involved in the experiment. Essentially, they don't exist to the rest of the world.

Likewise, we isolate the Christians in a secret location but refuse them the antibiotic regimen.

News of the fifty Christians injected with the lethal bacteria will then be broadcast over the entire Christian world. The report will ask everyone to pray to God for their facilitated recovery from the infection so that deductive reasoning will force the world to acknowledge the one true religion because of the unquestionable and verifiable power of God and prayer.

Because no one knows about the atheists in isolation, no one is specifically praying for them. All they have are antibiotics, while the Christians have the power of prayer from hundreds of millions of certain volunteers and the omnipotence of God. After two months, we will end the experiment and see which group has the most survivors.

Whether or not the public is willing to admit it, I think everyone knows which group would fare better in this study. No semi-rational Christian would ever sign up for this deadly experiment even with the added promise of a great monetary compensation for the survivors.

They know that God isn't really going to answer the divinely directed requests of hundreds of millions of Christians because God only seems to answer prayers in some mystical and unobservable fashion.

Deep down, these Christians may even realize that they can't consider prayer dependable. Thus, the failure to acquire volunteers who won't receive antibiotics creates friction with what the typical Christian believes is absolute truth. The uneasy feeling felt throughout the body creates a drive within the mind to explain and/or separate from the logical contradiction. We call this internal phenomenon cognitive dissonance.

As a way of irrationally explaining the lack of activity from God, a Christian would quickly assert that the almighty doesn't like us putting him to a test.

In addition, we would also hear that God wants us to believe in him based on faith, not what we determine from our own limited human understanding.

As I mentioned previously, because of this proposed choice, God performs his miracles in superstitious ages or in scenarios disallowing falsifiable tests or independent observation.

In other words, the power of God is there even though there's no logical way to draw such a conclusion.

This irrational explanation is a little too convenient for me. An enlightened person will realize that Christians receive answers for prayers just as often as atheists receive answers for problems.

Sometimes prayers are "answered," and sometimes they're not; sometimes problems will have solutions, and sometimes they won't.

It's because of this suppressed "futileness-of-prayer" realization that I feel there is a subconscious mechanism trying to protect individuals from illogical thinking.

In such a case, this hypothetical defense mechanism has simply been repressed from years of conditioning. Naturally, I don't have the means to prove this hypothesis and wouldn't expect any believer to accept it without the necessary support, but it makes perfect sense when you've been on both sides of the fence.

Matthew 21:22 and a few other biblical verses tell us that we will receive whatever we ask for in prayer. This statement is not taken out of context, and we can easily disprove a literal interpretation of Jesus' proposal through objective testing. 2 Chronicles 16:12 condemns Asa for consulting physicians with his health problem rather than seeking God's help.

As you can see, the Bible is unambiguous on its demand for prayer over medicine, yet common sense and observation tell us how deadly a combination of prayer and medical rejection can be.

This is why no Christian would sign up for the experiment. This is also why it's illegal for parents in America to refuse medical services for their children, regardless of the parents' personal beliefs.

Medicine has proven its effectiveness; prayer has not.

Because the evidence contradicts their deepest convictions, Christians provide nonsensical solutions to the perplexity and ignore valid rebuttals when they can't answer them.

-- posted by HeadZenCards