I hadn't know, until today, that one of the co-founders of "Focus on the Family" actually came forward to repudiate James Dobson and the organization as it currently stands. It was 9 years ago, and got almost no press coverage.
"On August 15, 1997, a man named Gil Alexander-Moegerle held a press conference in Colorado Springs. Co-founder with James Dobson of the group Focus on the Family, he had just authored a book, James Dobson's War on America, the first insider expose of a major religious- right organization. Amazingly, Alexander-Moegerle, taking his Christianity seriously for a change, offered a public apology to all women, men of color, Jews, Muslims, homosexual people, and others harmed by “actions and attitudes on the part of the Christian Right in general and James Dobson and Focus on the Family in particular.” He also revealed how corruptly the Christian right operates behind the scenes, urged an end to political lobbying by such organizations, and issued a warning to the American people. There was virtually no coverage of his press conference (though it is still available in full at www.ralliance.org/Alexander-Moegerle.html). His book was barely reviewed."
You know things are bad when one of your founding partners publicly apologizes for your behavior.
W.C.S., I know what you're going to say if I ask the question... "No one ever said Christians are perfect. We make mistakes just like anuyone else.", but I have to point out yet again the clear evidence of the *absence* of any devine involvement in the affairs of even those organizations that claim to be aligned with the devine.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
The response you anticipate goes without saying. I'll just explicate a bit:
No person or organization "here down below," as it were, is completely "aligned with God." Every human endeavor will be tainted with some kind of "absence." The Bible is very clear about this. For this reason, the Bible is also replete with demands for internal criticism within the local church and the church-at-large. Given what we learn in the Scriptures, FOF's failings and the criticisms of Alexander-Moegerle are very apropos. "Schizm" is shocking at first but, in the end, it provides balance. The manner in which FOF reacts to these criticisms will be revealing to many, serving as an indicator of their sincerity and humility.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
I know, but my point has always been that not only is there an overwhelming evidence of "absence", but there is an overwhelming absence of evidence for any "presence".
That infant that was stolen from her mother that got found two days ago... her grandfather is certain that his prayer helped bring that child back. What do you think? Do you think that:
A) Had he (or whomever) NOT prayed for her safe return, that she would still be mising? or
B) She would've been found by authorities whether anyone prayed or not?
I'm looking for an answer here (not just a response).
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
I don't know. I can't answer your question. I'm not sure how the grandfather knows this either, at least with such confidence. What makes you think that I would know or purport to know such a thing?
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
I was just asking what you think. Do you think A is a true statement, or that B is a true statement? None of the above? Undertermined? If you don't know that either is true, which do you suspect is true, or do you suspect either to be true? I'm just asking, because any answer will have certain implications that can be explored. I'm not asking you (nor will I) to prove the truth of either proposition... I'm just asking if you believe either to be true. As a praying man, I'm sure you have some sort of position on it.
And I think the answer to how the grandfather is so confident is that he sees no need to demonstrate cause and effect. He danced, and it rained, therefore the dance obviously caused the rain, as far as he is concerned.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
Again, I don't know. However, at your request, I'll engage in some, I pray careful, speculation. To this end, I should get clear about what you are asking. If you don't mind, I have reformulated your questions in a way that makes them better suited for logical analysis. I forgot the names of our characters, so I just refer to the father as John and the daughter as Becky.
1) If it is not the case that John prays, then Becky is missing.
2) If either John prays or John does not pray, then it is not the case that Becky is missing.
Do these more formal recastings retain the meaning of your questions?
(Your rain dancing example is a good and interesting. I want to make a few points about this in relation to Hume's critique of causality. But let's continue as we are, perhaps, bracketing this for another time.)
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
Very well, one can only ask for clarification. The issue here is that these are hypothetical statements and formalizing them makes their meaning clear. All I can say is that the above post expresses the way I understand them. So, if you can’t throw me a bone here, I’m left to work with my own understanding of the statements that you ask me to verify. These statements are tricky for a few other reasons that I’ll outline briefly, but I’ll do my best to verify them, nonetheless.
The first question seems to suggest that the fact of not praying somehow implies that the girl would still be missing. It seems here that not praying is the sufficient condition for the girl not being found. If this is the case, then I don’t think that this is true. Many other factors besides the act of praying are necessary to the girl’s being found.
The second question becomes a question of probability. In my formalization, I interpreted it in light of the deductive stance that is expressed in your first. However, here, I’ll think of the proposition this way: “What is the probability that this girl would have been found under the condition that no one prayed for her?” This is difficult to answer. I really do not know how to measure this. I my hunch is that it is rather high. There is a rather high probability that she would be found even if the father didn’t bother praying for her. However, this is not do say that God had nothing to do with this, as if God needs our prayers to act.
Lastly, I should say that you seem to be working from a particular conception of what pray is for. Let me say that prayer is first and foremost and act of relationship, of meditation and communion. It is not a way of asking favors. We are not taught in this vain: “pray for a car and get a car,” “prayer for money and get money,” “pray for a healthy kidney or heart and get a kidney or heart,” “pray for safety during a flood and life and property will not be lost.” No! The point is that in prayer one surrenders his burdens and concerns to God in thought and prayer, come what may.
Prayer is not about the world unfolding in the way that you desire. The function and purpose of prayer has everything to do with the nature of the soul and its relation to the source of its being. If there is any effect of prayer it would be a sense of equilibrium, equanimity, and peace. The outward expression of the efficacy of prayer is this: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Read the Scriptures more thoroughly, Snow, so that you may have a better of idea of what your are investigating.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
Per the usual, my response involved a bit more than you asked for. Sorry about that. It is often difficult for me to contain my thoughts. So, with this said, I'll repeat my findings in regard to your request that I verify the two statements and leave the commentary aside. Here goes:
The first statement seems to suggest that the fact of not praying somehow implies that the girl would still be missing. It seems here that not praying is the sufficient condition for the girl not being found. If this is the case, then I don’t think that this is true. Many other factors besides the act of praying are necessary to the girl’s being found.
The second statement becomes a question of probability. In my formalization, I interpreted it in light of the deductive stance that is expressed in your first. However, here, I’ll think of the proposition this way: “What is the probability that this girl would have been found under the condition that no one prayed for her?” This is difficult to answer. I really do not know how to measure this. I my hunch is that it is rather high. There is a rather high probability that she would be found even if the father didn’t bother praying for her--but, again, this is only a hunch.
So, what are the implications of this that you would like to consider?
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
A) Do you believe that had grandfather (or whomever) NOT prayed for her safe return, that she would still be missing?
The first statement seems to suggest that the fact of not praying somehow implies that the girl would still be missing. It seems here that not praying is the sufficient condition for the girl not being found. If this is the case, then I don’t think that this is true. Many other factors besides the act of praying are necessary to the girl’s being found.
B) Do you believe that she would've probably been found by authorities whether anyone prayed or not?
The second statement becomes a question of probability. In my formalization, I interpreted it in light of the deductive stance that is expressed in your first. However, here, I’ll think of the proposition this way: “What is the probability that this girl would have been found under the condition that no one prayed for her?” This is difficult to answer. I really do not know how to measure this. I my hunch is that it is rather high. There is a rather high probability that she would be found even if the father didn’t bother praying for her--but, again, this is only a hunch.
The point of these questions was to ascertain what, if any, effect (in your judgment) prayer has on a given situation. Although I appreciate that you have made an honest attempt at providing true and honest answers to these questions, there is still a lot of tap-dancing going on – enough so that if someone were to ask me “What impact does WCS think prayer has on a given situation?”, I would not be able to provide a clear answer. I’d have to say “I honestly don’t know. I asked him, and he switched it into a question of probability and then said he couldn’t tell me with certainty, nor did he even provide a ball park figure.”
Had you provided clear answers consisting of “yes” or “no”, the implications would’ve been assertions that were testable, and I suspect that somewhere inside you, you are acutely aware that if you ever were to make a definitive statement, you would have to concede that it is subject to testing, and this is why a more vague answer, sprinkled with “Well, it’s tough to say” and “I’m not entirely sure” is preferable. I doubt that you are doing this deliberately, because I think you are an honest person. However, I believe that somewhere inside you, you know that you cannot make a clear statement about the effects of prayer to me because you know me well enough to know that I will take you to task on it. And a testable, fasifyable assertion is not something any Christian usually wants to make, especially not to me.
Case in point: Had you answered “Yes” to question 1 – you would’ve been, in essence, saying that prayer was wholly responsible for the girl’s safe return. This is a testable hypothesis, and I suspect that’s what makes it an undesirable answer. I would’ve immediately pointed out dozens of high-profile, recent examples of cases where tons and tons of prayer resulted in nothing but disappointment, such as the recent story of the 13 miners who died in a mine while dozens of people held a prayer vigil.
Had you answered “no”, you would’ve been conceding that prayer had no relevant impact on the outcome of the situation, which is also an undesirable position for a Christian to take.
Had you answered “Yes” to question number 2, you would’ve again been admitting that prayer had no relevant impact on the outcome of the situation. Unacceptable for a Christian.
Had you answered “no”, you would’ve been once again been positing a testable hypothesis, albeit a bit more complicated to test. It would require a situation in which a tragic situation was averted without the help of prayer, and anyone could claim that “someone, somewhere must’ve been praying for this situation.” But it wouldn’t be difficult for me to produce evidence of situations where tragic situations were averted without the help of prayer, such as any case where a non-Christian society performed some ritual in order to produce a desired result where the result occurred (such as a tribe performing a rain-dance to avoid a drought, and it actually rains). This would provide strong evidence against the idea that prayer to the correct God is required in order for tragedy to be averted, and that would repudiate a “no” answer to the second question.
In her essay “The Anatomy of Comprimise”, Ayn Rand outlined three basic rules about the relationship of principles to goals, as they pertain to people who assert different positions on a proposition:
“1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.
“2. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.
“3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.”
(First, let me point out that her use of the word “conflict” is used in the context of ideas.)
Now, I want to focus on her third rule, and demonstrate how it applies to my questions and your answers, and more broadly, how it applies to every conversation we’ve ever had where I asked a question and received responses/answers that were ambiguous at best. The last time I brought this up, I hadn’t known about Rand’s formulation, but now that I’ve seen it, I understand why I used to get so frustrated. It is clear that I understood on some level that the lack of clarity in the conversation was working to my disadvantage. I am also beginning to understand why it is that people get so frustrated when I go over posts point-by-point, and delineate each issue separately.
But in the interest of staying on topic (too late now hehe), I believe it should be clear that the answers you have provided were ambiguous, and therefore inherently un-testable, un-falsifiable, and exactly suitable for your purposes. Any answer of “yes” or “no”, or even a ball-park probability figure would’ve been challengeable, testable, and ultimately verifiable. Or falsifiable.
I assert that this un-falisbility and un-verifiability is the crown jewel of faith. Prayer is a faith-based activity. Worship and belief are faith-based. And the crown jewel of faith is its absolute, abject un-falsifiability, un-testability, and ambiguity. People love to believe that if you can’t prove their beliefs wrong, then they must be right. And since we can’t prove that prayer had nothing to do with this girls rescue, we can all happily swallow the idea that prayer helped save the day.
But if a Christian as articulate, well-informed, and philosophically aware as WCS will not provide clarity on the topic, and apparently cannot show the causal relationship between a prayer and the event prayed about, imagine how muddled and confused the minds of the average Christian must be. It’s no wonder that a grown man can appear on national TV and credit his own appeal to his mystic incantations with the heroic rescue of his granddaughter, without once mentioning the tireless efforts of the heroes that actually worked to discover her whereabouts and the identity of her kidnapper.
This message has been edited by MourningWould on Sep 26, 2006 2:17 PM This message has been edited by MourningWould on Sep 26, 2006 12:00 PM
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
I think that my analysis and verification of these statements were rather brief. There wasn’t a lot of “tap dancing,” especially in consideration of the complexity of the statements that you asked me to verify. I mean I responded to these hypothetical situations in rather short order. Once I established what was being asked, I believe that I answered each with three short sentences. As your lengthy explication demonstrates, these questions were packed to the hilt and exceedingly complex. I think I did a rather good job with them.
Instead of providing comments regarding the strength of my verifications, you write, “’What impact does WCS think prayer has on a given situation?,’” I would not be able to provide a clear answer.” Now, Snow, this seems a bit unfair when one considers that I was not asked this question. (Although I’ve answered part of it in my comments on the efficacy of prayer as it relates to the condition of the soul and its relationship to the source of being. I’ll say more about this later and make an effort to apply it the particular situation you cite). Instead, I was asked to assign a truth value to this, which is something related but quite different:
“Do you believe that she would’ve probably been found by authorities whether anyone prayed or not?
Then, you follow-up with this: “…..he switched into a question of probability and then said he couldn’t tell me with certainty, nor did he even provide a ball park figure.” Let me say that one has to look no further than the original question to see that the “question of probability” is already there in the original question, expressed by the words “probably been found.” I did not change a thing but simply recognized something that I missed in my original analysis that more accurately expressed the nature of the question as it is presented by you. Now, in regard to your comment that I could not provide the probability “with certainty,” this is an understatement--again, I really do not have a clue as to how such a thing can be measured. Such a measurement is profoundly un-falsifiable. This is honest enough.
Now with this said, I am eager to answer the new question: “What impact does WCS think prayer has in given situation?” When I have more time, I’ll tell you what I think. I will tell you what I think about the efficacy of prayer and then apply these thoughts to the particular set of circumstances you cite. Toward this end, I am glad that you bring in Rand’s speculations, this relates nicely to my thinking on the issue. I’ll make the connections later but, for now I just say that they surround the false dichotomy she creates between the rational and the irrational. In fact, if there is value in Hyatt, I would say it’s in his ability to see the shortsightedness of this idea. Lastly, I imagine that all of this will perhaps come to a head on the issue of falsifiability in one way or another. Nonfalsifiablity in the formal sense that we a talking about here just might be the "crown jewel" of faith, as it is with many other things, as well. We'll see. Enough for now; more later.
True and friendly, wcs
*This message was edited at posters request - SD*
This message has been edited by MourningWould on Sep 27, 2006 9:14 AM
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
What impact does WCS think prayer has in given situation?”
In order to know what I think, it is important to understand what prayer is and what it is for. To this end, I will simply paste and revise what I wrote previously in this thread. Prayer is first and foremost and act of relationship, of meditation and communion.
It is not a way of asking favors. We are not taught in this way: “pray for a car and get a car,” “pray for money and get money,” “pray for a healthy kidney or heart and get a kidney or heart,” “pray for safety during a flood and life and property will not be lost.” No! The point is that in prayer one surrenders his burdens and concerns to God.
Prayer is not about the world unfolding in the way that you desire. The function and purpose of prayer has everything to do with the nature of the soul and its relation to the source of its being. If there is any effect of prayer it would be a sense of equilibrium, equanimity, and peace. The outward expression of the efficacy of prayer is this: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (All of this is consistent with what the Scriptures say. If there is time and interest, I'd be happy to provide a brief exegesis of all this.)
Interestingly, given what prayer is what it is for, it is falsifiable in a subjective and experiential way. If this kind of earnest, extended effort at some kind of communion with the source of being and your own raw existence does not engender a state of equibrium, equanimity, and peace in your soul, then prayer is not efficacious. Of course, the draw back of this is that all this takes place within the deepest reaches of the individual psyche and not publically observable in definitive sense. One simply must make an effort to enter into this kind of relationship.
However, the efficacy of prayer is certainly not empirically falsifiable in this "given situation," at least in the sense of efficient causation that you are implying here. All I know is this:
The boy was taken, the father prayed, the boy was found.
There is no empirical test for causal connection between these specific events. After all, it is often the case that people pray and left to suffer what ever circumstances they seeked to alter, as when the apostle Paul was left to suffer the "thorn in the flesh." And I am sure that at some recent time there was a boy taken from a father who did not bother to pray and, then, later found.
I all I can say is that all of this was "in the cards," as it were; In our particular case, antecendent events were such that the boy was taken, the father prayed, and the boy was found.... perhaps only to be taken again. Who knows?
In my own prayer life, I grieve in the suffering of those that I love and rejoice in their flourishing, and in my quiet moments I open my mind to God and make these states of being transparent, holding nothing back. If I am worried about not having food to eat, I open my thoughts on this matter to him. Sometimes my mind is completely clear and I just sit and meditate and contemplate the source of being and the truth of things, all of which is a species of prayer.
I was going to say bit about a-rational contributions to our beliefs and truth claims, but I have written of this before in our discussions on the falsifiability of claims involving natural, human rights and the like. This is beyond the scope of our concerns here.
No time for revision. Please forgive my typos and ackward language, connecting the dots when necessary.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
Forgive me. I write, "The boy was taken, the father prayed, the boy was found" when this "given situation" involves a grandfather and granddaughter. This was careless. At any rate, my points hold nonetheless.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
I guess that answers the question, although I have to confess I’m still not sure what purpose you believe prayer serves.
As a Christian, I was always taught “God answers prayer”. “Prayer requests” were always solicited in my church, as an opportunity to share with the crowd what you wanted them to help you pray for. And an ordinary prayer request was something like “My husband is undergoing testing for cancer cells. Please pray for him.” And there was never a pretense of “Please pray for him with no desired outcome in mind whatsoever.” – It was always prayer with the intent of bringing about a desired result. I was taught about a biblical parable (the specific story eludes me now) about how a woman asked for something over and over until she received it, and I was told that the moral of the parable was the value of repeated prayer. I was taught “Ask, and ye shall receive”.
But yet you’re saying that the function of prayer has nothing to do with asking God to do you favors. I have to believe that you’re in the minority in that belief.
“The point is that in prayer one surrenders his burdens and concerns to God.”
But what does it mean to surrender your burdens and concerns? What exactly does that mean? I know that when Leilani surrenders her burdens to me, it means I jolly-well help her out! When a task becomes more than she can handle, she asks for help, and I help her. I don’t leave her flagging, or let her fall on her ass to teach her a lesson. Sure, I might let her feel some discomfort sometimes in order to teach her that her actions bear uncomfortable consequences, but that’s as far as I go.
That’s what I do when my child surrenders her burdens to me. What does your heavenly father do when his children surrender their burdens to him? Well, when a church full of people surrendered their burden (which was that a dozen or so of their loved ones) were stuck in a mine, he let them die. I’m sure if I took the time, I could cite a hundred more similar examples of what happened when people burdens were surrendered to Biblegod. Do you think that some of the people on the upper floors of the WTC were surrendering their burdens to him just before they were crushed?
But my overall point is that “surrendering one’s burdens” really doesn’t have any meaning that I can decipher. What does it mean? If it means just letting God do what he wants to do, then isn’t that what God’s going to do anyway, prayer or no prayer? If it means asking him to do something for you, then isn’t that exactly what you said prayer isn’t? If it’s just meditation, then why call it prayer?
You said that if prayer has any effect, it’s that it gives you a sense of equilibrium, equanimity, and peace. Firstly, I would assert that many people, myself included, possess exactly those sorts of feelings without any prayer at all. Secondly, I’d say that many people (the majority, in fact) of people who pray do NOT feel those feelings, by any stretch. Thirdly, I’d assert once again that you are in the minority in terms of your belief in the purpose of prayer. Most folks I’ve ever met pray for people, and pray for events, and by for I mean exactly that they are praying for favors and for certain outcomes to certain events. When a football team is huddled up on a sideline praying, I’m pretty confident they aren’t doing it for a sense of equilibrium.
I grieve in the suffering of those that I love and rejoice in their flourishing. Don’t need to pray to do that.
And if you don’t have enough to eat, and you open your thoughts on the matter to God… what does that mean if you neither expect assistance nor are asking for it? Is he some indifferent monolithic presence that just listens to you and says “Gee, that must suck”? Is he a heavenly father that will feed you, lead you to food, or help you to get fed? You’re saying that this is not the point of prayer at all.
I still can’t ascertain what the purpose of prayer is, from WCS’s standpoint. It sounds to me like you’re saying that the value of prayer is in the prayer itself, completely irrelevant to the personalities on either end of the communication. It sounds to me like what you achieve by praying to Jehova is no different that what I could achieve by praying, confiding in, and surrendering my concerns in all faith and earnestness to a block of cheese.
After all, the cheese won’t do me any favors either.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
This is thoughtful. Your concerns are fair and you ask good questions.
First of all, note that the words "Ask and you shall receive" do not follow such a parable. (I'm not sure what parable you're talking about.) The "good gifts" in this passage relate to a relationship with God; his presence in the life of the soul. It is fitting that Jesus uses an analogy with bread here, for he will later refer to himself as the "bread of life." In this relationship, in prayer, in this asking and seeking, one opens herself up to God as she is, with her concerns fully transparent. So, your church is right to have "prayer requests." Together in prayer the congregation acknowleges its concern: "This person has cancer; Our desire is that this cancer be destroyed." Now the Bible does not suggests that world will always unfold as according to this desire, creation is granted a certain autonomy, but it does promise that what one has "asked for" what one has "received" will not be taken away. After all, we are taught by Jesus not to fear what can destroy the body; what matters is the condition of the soul. This connection between the soul and source of its being remains, regardless of the outcome. In prayer we attend to this connection, and in this attention, the connection is strengthened, felt, lived out, and expressed through the fruits of the spirit.
Now, whether or not I hold a minority view on this, I do not know. I've simply pointed out what the Bible suggests concerning these matters.
In regard to what I mean by burdens and concerns, I think the meaning is rather transparent. We enter into prayer as we are, and it is only human to be concerned to have burdens. These can be as seemingly trivial as safety during a football game or as heavy as the prospect of the death of your body as the WTC burns beneath you. These are examples of burdens and concerns. However, again, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that one will not break their leg during the game or that she will be swooped off the WTC and lowered to safety. It teaches only that in all things, whatever the outcome, the presence of God will remain in the soul. The act of prayer strengthens this bond.
The Bible does not teach that God is a "monolithic presense" that simply "says 'Gee, that must suck.'" On the contrary, we learn that God is a living presence who loves us and weeps over our suffering. You have it completely wrong when you say that WCS "believes that prayer is irrelevent to the "personalities on either end of the communication." It has everything to do with both entities and everything to do with the quality of communion between the two, come what may, through whatever we are to suffer in this body.
It is in the quality of this communion where one has equilibrium, equinimity, and peace. I have no doubt that many have a sense for these these things outside of any kind of spiritual source, but it is important to recognize what conditions this. If this state is conditioned by finances, cars, bikes, and property, or the beating of the heart or one's breathing, or significant other, then all of this fleeting.... dust in the wind. The equilibrium, equanimity, and peace that prayer nurtures is grounded in divine source of all being and the belief and trust that there is something about you that us intimately connected with this source. This transcends the contingencies of the world and cannot be touched by that which can destroy the body. In the end, it is this belief and trust that marks the difference between us. It is this belief and trust that motivates prayer.
I write in haste, with no time for editing. Please forgive the atrocious errors in grammar and spelling that the above most likely contains. Again, thank you for your thoughtful and honest response, but, of course, I never expect anything less from you.
True and friendly,
wcs
P.S. You write, "I grieve in the suffering of those that I love and rejoice in their flourishing. Don’t need to pray to do that." This is nicely stated. The difference between our points of view lies in what and were this joy and grief are directed.
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
"The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."
-Philipians 4:23
Scoring disabled. You must be logged in to score posts.
