\u00a0I am returning to the Ed Feser exchange because it relates to a question I have been pondering about sophisticated Catholics and other Christians.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0I had asked <\/a>Mr. Feser if he could suggest an experimental design to test the efficacy of petitionary prayer, in light of his claim that religion is \u201cscientific.\u201d\u00a0 <\/a>He pointed me <\/a>to his book, where I will find sophisticated arguments for the existence of God as the \u201cuncaused first cause,\u201d he says. \u00a0<\/p>\n The answer was nonresponsive, and not only for the \u201ccourtier\u2019s reply\u201d <\/a>problems so ably set out by Bradlaugh and several readers.\u00a0 I\u2019m not asking for a logical proof of God, but simply for a way to verify an oft-praised sign of his love for mankind: his response to believers\u2019 prayers.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cRational arguments\u201d for God\u2019s existence answer the question of how to test the efficacy of prayer only if answering prayers is a necessary attribute of God\u2019s existence as the \u201cuncaused first cause.\u201d\u00a0 That assertion strikes me as an even more imaginative leap of theology than usual.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mr. Feser displays an impatience with the practice of religion, so I will remind him of one of the most frequent topoi of Christians: If someone recovers from a devastating heart attack, say, it\u2019s because God answered the prayers of friends and family (we won\u2019t ask why the cardiac patient in the next hospital bed, equally prayed-over and–we should surely assume–equally worthy, died).\u00a0 After nine miners were pulled from a collapsed mine in Pennsylvania in 2002, believers posted a sign:\u00a0 \u201cThank you God, 9 for 9. (Either God was busy or the prayers were defective in 2006 when twelve miners died in a West Virginia mine explosion).\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 (Perhaps the apologist\u2019s response is: well, we can\u2019t measure the incidence of prayer efficacy, because it happens on such a random, sporadic basis.\u00a0 But if that is the case, then the claim that \u201cGod is just\u201d falls apart.\u00a0 A just God would treat equally meritorious petitions alike\u2014the bare minimum standard for justice.)\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Several readers have suggested approvingly that the church \u201cspoon-feeds drivel to the masses\u201d in order to bring them into the fold.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell if Mr. Feser shares this cynical view of the priesthood.\u00a0 Perhaps he thinks that ministers and priests merely tolerate \u201cpartially mistaken, and sometimes even grotesquely off base\u201d beliefs, rather than actively promote them.\u00a0 (Though the Fra. Galvao pills and petitionary prayer are<\/em> official practices.)\u00a0 But whether the priesthood solicits or merely allows false beliefs, shouldn\u2019t sophisticates like Mr. Feser (and also Michael Novak, who has\u00a0said<\/a> that he does not \u201clike\u201d the Fra. Galvao pills) strive to combat them?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t it matter whether someone lives in truth or in falsehood?\u00a0 We hear that God is Truth.\u00a0 Why, then, not make sure that everyone has a shot at it?\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe Mr. Feser or any other religious sophisticate could put together a list of the \u201cpartially mistaken, and sometimes even grotesquely off base\u201d beliefs of everyday believers, so that the Church can correct them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0But maybe sophisticated believers think that certain delusions are acceptable in the service of a greater Truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0I am returning to the Ed Feser exchange because it relates to a question I have been pondering about sophisticated Catholics and other Christians.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I had asked Mr. Feser if he could suggest an experimental design to test the efficacy … Continue reading
\n\u00a0I was not asking for an empirical test of God\u2019s existence<\/em>, but just of his effects in the world, which are claimed to be real.\u00a0 The Templeton experiment, while crude in its details, was at least a start.<\/p>\n
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\n\u00a0Mr. Feser is equally miffed to be asked about the Fra. Galvao pills<\/a>, which contain tiny scrolls with prayers written on them.\u00a0 The Vatican attributed a live birth following multiple miscarriages and a recovery from kidney disease to the ingestion of the pills, when it canonized the Brazilian eighteenth-century friar Antonio de Santa Ana Galvao last year.\u00a0 Mr. Feser can\u2019t even bring himself to name the pills, referring instead to the \u201cmagic pills or whatever the hell it is she was going on about.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0In dismissing my questions, Mr. Feser chastises me for taking my cue from \u201cunsophisticated religious believers,\u201d whose understanding of religion is \u201calways oversimplified, usually at least partially mistaken, and sometimes even grotesquely off base.\u201d\u00a0 But the religious beliefs that I have asked Mr. Feser to explain are not some fringe behavior of untutored yokels, they are propounded by Church authorities themselves.\u00a0\u00a0 It is ministers, priests, and pastors the world over, not just their unwashed flock, who thank God for answering prayers.\u00a0 And the Fra. Galvao pills are manufactured and distributed by nuns, with the presumed blessing, so to speak, of the Vatican, not to mention being officially recognized by Rome in canonizing their namesake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nUnlike Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, I don\u2019t take a consequentialist approach to religion.\u00a0 Hitchens and Harris argue against religion on the ground that it has caused great harm in the world.\u00a0 That line of reasoning does not interest me.\u00a0\u00a0 Even if it could be proven that on balance, religion has done more good than harm\u2014and clearly, religion has achieved great good–I would still argue for religious skepticism, simply because I believe that it is better to live in truth than in delusion.\u00a0 The idea that we are superintended by a loving, just God strikes me as a delusion, in light of the daily slaughter of the innocents.\u00a0<\/p>\n