Random thought - God can't answer prayers

I once found myself arguing with someone that I did not need to thank God for my food because I bought it. The person I was arguing with said that I needed to thank God anyway because he allowed me to get the job that earned me the money that bought the food. That got me thinking about one of the least recognized contradictions in Christianity.

Let's start with a scenario. You are walking down the street when you notice yelling. You turn your attention to a man screaming at a little girl. Presently the man begins to beat the little girl unceasingly with closed fists. What do you do? You intervene, of course. You stop it. You do not know this child, but you certainly care enough about her to not let her be beaten to death right in front of you. So it is fair to ask why God didn't stop this. He does, of course, know this little girl intimately. He knows everything about her. He has loved her since before she was born. Yet he does nothing to stop the abuse.

Of course the believer will argue free will. The man has free will so God will not intervene with his will to beat the littler girl to a bloody pulp. (Let's just ignore the fact that you do not have to interfere with a person's free will to smite them with a plague...or a stroke) So we have established that God will not protect this little girl whom he loves so much because he will not interfere with free will. So let's go back to this food thing.

Why is it, again, that I have to thank God for my food? How, exactly, does God come into play here? Did he lead me to the job? Then I do not have free will. Did he sway the person who hired me? Then he does not have free will. Did he sway the circumstances around me without directly interfering with me or the one who hired me? An indirect manipulation of my will is still a manipulation of my will. An all knowing God would have no reason to manipulate anything if he knew it would not work, so he would know the outcome before he did it and, thus, would be interfering with my free will.

So how could God answer prayers without giving proof of his existence (such as, "Poof! There you go!") and without interfering with free will? He could not. It would be impossible. This is great news! You no longer have to ask God to bless the food because, guess what, it's all you, baby! You don't have to thank God for that raise because he didn't do it, your hard work did! (All that ass kissing didn't hurt either) So stop thanking God for what you have and thank yourself because it was your free will that got you what you have!

And yet some theists will argue that God used you to save that little girl... so, where is that free will thingy again?

Typical contradictions of insanity.

BTW, Answering your prayers would mean changing the physical laws of the universe in order to satisfy your needs over others, fair much?

Yeah, I didn't want to add two more paragraphs to get started on the arguments the theist will commonly use, but apparently I didn't have to anyway as they are so obvious. That exact argument was going through my mind as I was writing that. And yes, it is EXTREMELY self indulgent to think that God would either bend the rules of the universe or deny someone else free will to satisfy your petty desires when children are born with AIDS all the time and he does nothing about it. But you'll never get a theist to see the conflict there because they don't want to, so they simply won't.

When I was in a fundamentalist church as a youth I noticed that I never really got credit for anything good I did, but I did bear all the blame for everything bad I did. If I did something good then God was to be thanked for giving me the strength or guiding me to my good deed. If I did something bad then I was to be blamed for letting the devil in. The only thing to feel good about was a lack of shame. To this day it bugs me when someone asserts that God is constantly meddling in our lives, just not to protect children. Unless, of course, a child survives a horrible accident. THEN God protected him.

The whole way of thinking is a convoluted mess of rules and and escape clauses where God can be attributed to everything good, nothing bad and what he didn't do was "his plan" because he "works in mysterious ways" or, somehow, by not saving a child he is doing us a favor by giving us "free will". This mass of rules and escape clauses is the core problem with fundamentalist thinking. They become capable of coming up with a way out for everything so that, while we have these absolute, unbreakable rules, there's always a way around them that sounds perfectly reasonable. This is exactly the reason why Christianity can be used as an excuse to condone any behavior. There's always a way around the rules and a Bible example to support it.

LOL, yeah, but with marriage I at least get to secretly give myself credit. My wife can't look into my head and catch me crediting myself like God can.

Perhaps that an interpretation of God is weak, susceptbile to contradictiions, is itself no argument against God; it is merely a refutation of the interpretation.

Free will? Well perhaps that is NOT an attribute granted to humans by God at all. That it has been stated as such does not make it so. There are many faiths which do not grant free will as that which God has granted to humans.

You seem to be arguing that the logic of free will and God's benevolence cannot be reconciled--the assumption being that the Christian faith is the sole interpreter of God.

Which God are you refuting? The Christian God, the fundalmentalist Christian God? Then you have pointed out the obvious defects of the Christian interpretation of God, not that God is not.

Perhaps if you were to explore a possible personal interpretation of God, that which can withstand your own attempts at refuting, the you would have a reason to give grace before dining.

Originally Posted by Blondin

Anyway, I don't see the above as refutation so much as simply pointing out the flaws and contradictions in the basic claims of many believers. It is a basic premise of many religions that God given free will is the reason that God doesn't intervene to prevent suffering and misery (except when he does).

And I think this is an implication of the idea that God punishes us for our sins, since if we don't have free will, then God would effectively be punishing us for actions that all ultimately trace back to him, implying that God is unjust.