Idea to convert atheists to prayer

[thyrodandstaff]

If someone assumes God doesn’t exist and the universe has no personal creator they see no point in praying. The two possibilities are that a personal intelligent God is the creator or there is no such being to explain the existence of the universe. If this person is right and they do not spend their life in prayer then they didn’t waste that time. But if they were wrong they missed the opportunity to have a interactive personal relationship with the Most High with its great benefits. It seems that there is very little to lose, a little time, and so much to gain by trying to pray to God. Never giving it a good try makes the person seem like a dolt.

 

[NonServiam]

The two possibilities are that a personal intelligent God is the creator or there is no such being to explain the existence of the universe.

Or an impersonal intelligent God is the creator. Or an impersonal unintelligent God-like natural force is the creator. Or a personal unintelligent God is the creator. Or multiple personal intelligent Gods are the creators. Or multiple impersonal intelligent Gods are the creators, etc., etc., etc. There are many, many possibilities.

What if, for example, the Hindus are the ones who are right and their Gods are the creators of the universe? Or what if the Norse were right and it was their Gods who were the creators of the universe?

Never giving it a good try makes the person seem like a dolt.

By your own logic, would you be a dolt if you never tried to engage in Hindu rites or pray to the Norse gods?

 

[Marc_Anthony]

If someone assumes God doesn’t exist and the universe has no personal creator they see no point in praying. The two possibilities are that a personal intelligent God is the creator or there is no such being to explain the existence of the universe. If this person is right and they do not spend their life in prayer then they didn’t waste that time. But if they were wrong they missed the opportunity to have a interactive personal relationship with the Most High with its great benefits. It seems that there is very little to lose, a little time, and so much to gain by trying to pray to God. Never giving it a good try makes the person seem like a dolt.

This is a very old idea known as Pascal’s Wager. It was originally thought up by philosopher and Catholic Blaise Pascal.

The problem with the wager is that it can be used for any number of ridiculous situations. For example, you should do a dance in the sidewalk right now to the tune of Beethoven’s ninth symphony because there’s a chance that a man is waiting there ready to award the first person who dances to that song a billion dollars.

Unlikely? Extremely. But possible, so by the “Pascal’s Wager” logic we should all go dancing into the sidewalk right now; there’s essentially nothing to lose and a billion dollars to gain!

Pretty ridiculous, right?

Ultimately Pascal’s Wager fails because for people to try the Wager they need to be dishonest. One should not deceive themselves in order to feel happy. Eventually the weight of the lie will come crashing down and the “praying atheist” will come out of the scenario hating God more than ever.

Being perpetually dishonest with yourself is never a recipe for success in life.

 

[fred_conty]

In hearing conversion stories of atheists, I’ve noticed that some became so down in their life that there was a spontaneous cry to God(if there is one) for help. And these have said that they were given a moment when they did experience the some sort of touch from God soothing them in their pain. And after that, they started to talk(pray) to God, knowing that he was real.

God always answers genuine heartfelt prayers of need. Jesus said the same thing when he asked the question about any father giving his son a stone instead of a loaf of bread in his need.

I think it a bit unreasonable to think that an atheist should not give prayer a try. They tell us all the reasons why they don’t believe at great length taking up hours of thought. Yet, why don’t they just take 1 minute of their time to just say something like “God, if you are real, please help me to know you.”

If they intend to be honest about this whole thing of atheisim then why not say an honest short prayer once in a while and give that a try if nothing more then to be just honest. This prayer is an honest prayer, “God, if you are real, please help me to know you.”

Now as a christian, I know that God will answer that prayer because Jesus said so and I know he would only tell us the truth. He wants to come into our lives, but only if we open the door and invite him in, as those others did.

Just a thought.

 

[Poseidon]

God always answers genuine heartfelt prayers of need. Jesus said the same thing when he asked the question about any father giving his son a stone instead of a loaf of bread in his need.

I think it a bit unreasonable to think that an atheist should not give prayer a try. They tell us all the reasons why they don’t believe at great length taking up hours of thought. Yet, why don’t they just take 1 minute of their time to just say something like “God, if you are real, please help me to know you.”

Now as a christian, I know that God will answer that prayer because Jesus said so and I know he would only tell us the truth. He wants to come into our lives, but only if we open the door and invite him in, as those others did.

Just a thought.

Just to address these points, I and probably many other atheists have tried that. Especially when I was initially losing my faith, and still wasn’t sure, I prayed that prayer many times, but there was no answer. Which only furthered me along my path to atheism. You could say that my prayers weren’t heartfelt or something like that (although they definitely were) but the fact remains that I prayed for some sign to help my failing faith, but never got one. I now know why I never got one, but that’s beside the point.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Just to address these points, I and probably many other atheists have tried that. Especially when I was initially losing my faith, and still wasn’t sure, I prayed that prayer many times, but there was no answer. Which only furthered me along my path to atheism. You could say that my prayers weren’t heartfelt or something like that (although they definitely were) but the fact remains that I prayed for some sign to help my failing faith, but never got one. I now know why I never got one, but that’s beside the point.

Likewise.

Also, have you ever had a “friend” that was only available when he or she needed something, but always busy when things are well? I don’t want to be that person. And I felt that continuing to pray for the sake of possibly getting something out of it was in one way or another being that person. Keeping my actions aligned with my thoughts seemed like the more honest thing to do. I don’t think there is any one/ anything there listening, so I don’t try to speak to it.

 

[atheistgirl]

God always answers genuine heartfelt prayers of need. Jesus said the same thing when he asked the question about any father giving his son a stone instead of a loaf of bread in his need.

If I were the mother of Madeleine McCann right now, I’d feel I’d been given a stone to eat, instead of bread. Years and Years of masses and prayer vigils for the safe return of my daughter - and nothing.

And you can’t seriously suggest the prayers of her parents, practicing and devout Catholics, and the prayers and vigils that continue to be offered by the world’s faithful, including the last Pope, are not heartfelt and genuine!

Sarah x

 

[MPat]

This is a very old idea known as Pascal’s Wager. It was originally thought up by philosopher and Catholic Blaise Pascal.

The problem with the wager is that it can be used for any number of ridiculous situations. For example, you should do a dance in the sidewalk right now to the tune of Beethoven’s ninth symphony because there’s a chance that a man is waiting there ready to award the first person who dances to that song a billion dollars.

Unlikely? Extremely. But possible, so by the “Pascal’s Wager” logic we should all go dancing into the sidewalk right now; there’s essentially nothing to lose and a billion dollars to gain!

Pretty ridiculous, right?

Ultimately Pascal’s Wager fails because for people to try the Wager they need to be dishonest. One should not deceive themselves in order to feel happy. Eventually the weight of the lie will come crashing down and the “praying atheist” will come out of the scenario hating God more than ever.

Being perpetually dishonest with yourself is never a recipe for success in life.

The counterexample doesn’t seem to work…

First, the utility of “a billion dollars” is finite, while the negative utility in the contrary case (possibility of fall etc.) might be small, but non-zero (of course, if one actually likes such dance, things will be different).

Second, the Wager is meant for the case when reason doesn’t tell us what should be done. In this case we know that getting “a billion dollars” is “unlikely”. But in the case of God’s existence an agnostic (though probably not an atheist) would have no idea how likely one or another possibility is.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

The counterexample doesn’t seem to work…

First, the utility of “a billion dollars” is finite, while the negative utility in the contrary case (possibility of fall etc.) might be small, but non-zero (of course, if one actually likes such dance, things will be different).

Second, the Wager is meant for the case when reason doesn’t tell us what should be done. In this case we know that getting “a billion dollars” is “unlikely”. But in the case of God’s existence an agnostic (though probably not an atheist) would have no idea how likely one or another possibility is.

Hmmm, good post, but a couple of thoughts:

1. The thread title talks about converting ATHEISTS to prayer, not agnostics. The Wager may make more sense for agnostics but if agnostics take the wager and find it lacking they should stop instead of continuing to live a lie. Even from a religious perspective the devil is the father of lies.
2. Even if one decides to take the Wager, as other posters have pointed out why should he assume the Christian God should be the one to be prayed to with all of the other religions in the world?
3. I’m not sure what you mean by your first example…the negative of dancing might be non-zero but the positive of a billion dollars is such a great advantage I don’t know any sane person who would say, “Meh, it’s not worth it,” if they were told dancing could get them a billion dollars.

Does dancing on the off chance that you can get a billion dollars make sense though? No, it does not, but by following Pascal’s Wager it seems as if dancing WOULD make sense, right?

1. Ultimately though it comes back to what I said originally. Faking belief in God isn’t going to help you. I think believers and non-believers both believe that living a lie is not the right way to live.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

But in the case of God’s existence an agnostic (though probably not an atheist) would have no idea how likely one or another possibility is.

Just an FYI, some one can be both an atheist and agnostic. The attributes are not mutually exclusive.

 

[MPat]

Hmmm, good post, but a couple of thoughts:

1. The thread title talks about converting ATHEISTS to prayer, not agnostics. The Wager may make more sense for agnostics but if agnostics take the wager and find it lacking they should stop instead of continuing to live a lie. Even from a religious perspective the devil is the father of lies.
2. Even if one decides to take the Wager, as other posters have pointed out why should he assume the Christian God should be the one to be prayed to with all of the other religions in the world?

Presumably, one would pray to “God, whoever He is”. Otherwise, one would try to look for the religion that is most likely to be true. In the worst case one can try to imitate the method of St. Vladimir (from Wikipedia’s article, citing a chronicle citing his envoys: “We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on Earth… We only know that God dwells there among the people, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations.”)…

1. I’m not sure what you mean by your first example…the negative of dancing might be non-zero but the positive of a billion dollars is such a great advantage I don’t know any sane person who would say, “Meh, it’s not worth it,” if they were told dancing could get them a billion dollars.

Does dancing on the off chance that you can get a billion dollars make sense though? No, it does not, but by following Pascal’s Wager it seems as if dancing WOULD make sense, right?

OK, let’s look at the numbers (of course, they will be “taken from the ceiling”, but I hope that it will be enough for illustration). Let’s say that the utility of getting a billion dollars in this way is 10^10 “utils”, utility of dancing without gaining anything is -10^(-1) “utils”, the utility of not dancing is 0 and the probability of getting the money by dancing is 10^(-20). In such case the average utility of the strategy “dancing” is:

10^10 * 10^(-20) - 10^(-1) * (1 - 10^(-20)) = 10^(-20) - 10^(-1) + 10^(-20) = -10^(-1) + 2 * 10^(-20).

As you can see, the average utility of such strategy is negative, while the utility of “non-dancing” strategy is zero. Thus the “non-dancing” strategy is better. In short, the Wager doesn’t work that way.

1. Ultimately though it comes back to what I said originally. Faking belief in God isn’t going to help you. I think believers and non-believers both believe that living a lie is not the right way to live.

Well, would it really be a lie, if one would sincerely try to believe or pray? I will note that St. Vladimir is considered to be a saint, although his choice of religion was not based on pure reason either. Also, while the perfect contrition is considered to be far better than imperfect contrition, the later is still considered to be sufficiently good for confession.

Furthermore, the Wager is meant to be applied when reason doesn’t tell us which belief is more likely to be correct. In a sense, the Wager is a tiebreaker.

Thus, let’s look at the medical science. Someone goes to a screening. Some simple and cheap tests are performed. Unfortunately, those tests do not always conclude that the man is or is not healthy with full certainty. So, what do the medics do? Sending the unhealthy man home might end up in death, while sending a healthy man to the hospital will only end up in some inconvenience. Thus they assume that the man is unhealthy, unless it has been shown that it is highly unlikely. In short, “The man is not healthy” is a “null hypothesis”.

And the Wager, using almost the same reasoning (if “God exists.” is not sufficiently similar to “Man is unhealthy.”, we can reword the later as “Disease exists.”) shows that “God exists.” should be the “null hypothesis”. If the reasoning is fine in the case of medical science, why would it be completely wrong in this case…? And then it’s up to the (potential) atheist to demonstrate that he can reach something like “The null hypothesis has been rejected (alpha < 0.05).”.

Oh, and, by the way, the analogy works in one more way: there is more than one potential disease. Existence of “differential diagnostics” should be a good hint for the way to choose one of different religions…

 

[wanstronian]

Presumably, one would pray to “God, whoever He is”. Otherwise, one would try to look for the religion that is most likely to be true. In the worst case one can try to imitate the method of St. Vladimir (from Wikipedia’s article, citing a chronicle citing his envoys: “We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on Earth… We only know that God dwells there among the people, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations.”)…

Probabilistically speaking, none of them are likely to be true, so trying to select which one is “least not true” would be a challenge.

OK, let’s look at the numbers (of course, they will be “taken from the ceiling”, but I hope that it will be enough for illustration). Let’s say that the utility of getting a billion dollars in this way is 10^10 “utils”, utility of dancing without gaining anything is -10^(-1) “utils”, the utility of not dancing is 0 and the probability of getting the money by dancing is 10^(-20). In such case the average utility of the strategy “dancing” is:

10^10 * 10^(-20) - 10^(-1) * (1 - 10^(-20)) = 10^(-20) - 10^(-1) + 10^(-20) = -10^(-1) + 2 * 10^(-20).

As you can see, the average utility of such strategy is negative, while the utility of “non-dancing” strategy is zero. Thus the “non-dancing” strategy is better. In short, the Wager doesn’t work that way.

All you’ve done here is assign some arbitrary probabilities to the dancing scenario then asserted that it’s different to Pascal’s Wager. Where are your corresponding probabilities for likelihood of God’s existence?

Well, would it really be a lie, if one would sincerely try to believe or pray?

Of course it would. You can’t “try” to believe something that you don’t. Try it - believe that the moon is made of cheese. Sincerely try. Do you think that trying makes any difference?

And what’s the point of “trying” to pray to a deity you don’t believe in? If you were to do that, surely the absolutely best gambit would be to pray to every god that’s ever existed, as others have rightly pointed out. If you’re going to hedge your bets, might as well do it right. If you’ve decided to waste your time, why not waste all of it!?

I will note that St. Vladimir is considered to be a saint, although his choice of religion was not based on pure reason either. Also, while the perfect contrition is considered to be far better than imperfect contrition, the later is still considered to be sufficiently good for confession.

Furthermore, the Wager is meant to be applied when reason doesn’t tell us which belief is more likely to be correct. In a sense, the Wager is a tiebreaker.

That’s not it at all. It has nothing to do with selecting a particular god - it assumes that you know which god to pray to. It’s purely a “nothing ventured, nothing gained” exercise.

Thus, let’s look at the medical science. Someone goes to a screening. Some simple and cheap tests are performed. Unfortunately, those tests do not always conclude that the man is or is not healthy with full certainty. So, what do the medics do? Sending the unhealthy man home might end up in death, while sending a healthy man to the hospital will only end up in some inconvenience. Thus they assume that the man is unhealthy, unless it has been shown that it is highly unlikely. In short, “The man is not healthy” is a “null hypothesis”.

And the Wager, using almost the same reasoning (if “God exists.” is not sufficiently similar to “Man is unhealthy.”, we can reword the later as “Disease exists.”) shows that “God exists.” should be the “null hypothesis”. If the reasoning is fine in the case of medical science, why would it be completely wrong in this case…? And then it’s up to the (potential) atheist to demonstrate that he can reach something like “The null hypothesis has been rejected (alpha < 0.05).”.

Woah, woah, woah. This is all wrong. You can’t equate “God exists” to “Disease exists.” For a start, we have evidence of disease. We can see it in people’s blood, we can see its effects, we can in many cases interact with it with objective results. None of this is true in the case of God.

Oh, and, by the way, the analogy works in one more way: there is more than one potential disease. Existence of “differential diagnostics” should be a good hint for the way to choose one of different religions…

Sorry, but your analogy sucks.

 

[fred_conty]

Several atheists responded to my request that they pray. One said that he did, especially when he was a believer but then prayed when he was losing his faith. Another replied that his prayer was not convincing when he said it since he didn’t believe in it when he was saying it. So it really meant nothing.

I’m not going to disagree with your answers but I think your thinking does need a reply.

In the catholic faith, numerous catholics, including those that have been declared saints in the church, have had problems with prayer. Also I’ve seen right here on CAF many times posts started on that very subject, namely, that a person is having difficulty in prayer.

There are many books written on the spiritual way of life that cathoics experience. And one point that they invariably make is that of the dark night of the soul, which means that God’s presence is not felt and the person’s faith seems dull and weak. Yet we know that these authors tell us that God is right there by their side unbeknown to them. He does not let his presence be known to them to see how they respond without any joy or good feeling to lift their spirits. It is a desert that the catholic goes thru and it is a very difficult time. This is a condition that happens off and on.

You too are being tried. What in life do we ever get by giving up. If you would ask God and continue your asking he will give it to you. No matter what your current life may be or what you life has been, God loves you. Give him another try and remember to give it a good try not just a “maybe” try. What he wants to see is if you will invite him into your life.

Scot Hahn when he was studying the catholic faith, before he entered the church, was having a difficult time accepting the importance of Mary. So one day he took out the rosary, and made a prayer to God, “Lord if this is a sin in your eyes please forgive me because I am going to say the rosary with good intentions.” And then after he said it, he knew in his heart that it was the right thing to do. It was a leap for him which ended his doubt.

Make the leap. Just a thought.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Although perhaps I wouldn’t have worded it the same way I actually agree with wanstronian.

As you’ve all probably gathered by now I’m not really a fan of Pascal’s Wager…

 

[Poseidon]

Several atheists responded to my request that they pray. One said that he did, especially when he was a believer but then prayed when he was losing his faith. Another replied that his prayer was not convincing when he said it since he didn’t believe in it when he was saying it. So it really meant nothing.

I’m not going to disagree with your answers but I think your thinking does need a reply.

In the catholic faith, numerous catholics, including those that have been declared saints in the church, have had problems with prayer. Also I’ve seen right here on CAF many times posts started on that very subject, namely, that a person is having difficulty in prayer.

There are many books written on the spiritual way of life that cathoics experience. And one point that they invariably make is that of the dark night of the soul, which means that God’s presence is not felt and the person’s faith seems dull and weak. Yet we know that these authors tell us that God is right there by their side unbeknown to them. He does not let his presence be known to them to see how they respond without any joy or good feeling to lift their spirits. It is a desert that the catholic goes thru and it is a very difficult time. This is a condition that happens off and on.

You too are being tried. What in life do we ever get by giving up. If you would ask God and continue your asking he will give it to you. No matter what your current life may be or what you life has been, God loves you. Give him another try and remember to give it a good try not just a “maybe” try. What he wants to see is if you will invite him into your life.

Scot Hahn when he was studying the catholic faith, before he entered the church, was having a difficult time accepting the importance of Mary. So one day he took out the rosary, and made a prayer to God, “Lord if this is a sin in your eyes please forgive me because I am going to say the rosary with good intentions.” And then after he said it, he knew in his heart that it was the right thing to do. It was a leap for him which ended his doubt.

Make the leap. Just a thought.

If I called your cell and got a voicemail, I’d call again. If I called your cell 10 times on 10 days and always got voicemail, I’d think that you might have lost your phone, or just weren’t carrying it around. If I called your cell phone every day for a year and never got you I’d assume that you had a new number. If I then proceeded to look for you in the phonebook, went to your house, emailed you, wrote you letters, and still never got a response after years of this, I’d have to assume that you were either dead, in a coma, or disappeared for some other inexplicable reason, and I’d stop trying to contact you. If it’s logical to stop looking for someone you know after a time, why should I continue trying to find someone I seriously doubt even exists?

 

[MPat]

Probabilistically speaking, none of them are likely to be true, so trying to select which one is “least not true” would be a challenge.

All you’ve done here is assign some arbitrary probabilities to the dancing scenario then asserted that it’s different to Pascal’s Wager. Where are your corresponding probabilities for likelihood of God’s existence?

Of course it would. You can’t “try” to believe something that you don’t. Try it - believe that the moon is made of cheese. Sincerely try. Do you think that trying makes any difference?

And what’s the point of “trying” to pray to a deity you don’t believe in? If you were to do that, surely the absolutely best gambit would be to pray to every god that’s ever existed, as others have rightly pointed out. If you’re going to hedge your bets, might as well do it right. If you’ve decided to waste your time, why not waste all of it!?

That’s not it at all. It has nothing to do with selecting a particular god - it assumes that you know which god to pray to. It’s purely a “nothing ventured, nothing gained” exercise.

Woah, woah, woah. This is all wrong. You can’t equate “God exists” to “Disease exists.” For a start, we have evidence of disease. We can see it in people’s blood, we can see its effects, we can in many cases interact with it with objective results. None of this is true in the case of God.

Sorry, but your analogy sucks.

OK… Strangely enough, almost all of those objections seem to have one answer: the Pascal’s Wager has a precondition - the user must be an agnostic. In other words, he must have no idea if God exists (for all he knows, the probability that God exists might as well be 0.5). If you have looked at the evidence and are certain that it shows that God does not exist, the Pascal’s Wager isn’t going to change anything. If I have looked at the evidence and am certain that God does exist, the Pascal’s Wager also doesn’t change anything. But, presumably, agnostics exist - and in their case the objections do not seem to apply.

For example, it is true that generating belief that Moon is made of cheese is hard (and I suspect that successful generation of such belief would result in insanity - which, by another Wager-like argument, shows that perhaps I shouldn’t try it). That’s because we know that Moon is not made of cheese. But let’s take some question where we have no certainty. For example, I do not know if NP complexity class is equal to P complexity class (nor does anyone else - as far, as I know). Now generating a weak belief that “P=NP” or “P<>NP” doesn’t seem to be very hard. In one case one would probably concentrate on the fact that no algorithm to solve a NP-complete problem in polynomial time has been found, in the other case one concentrates on the fact that no proof that such algorithm does not exist has been found. And, by the way, generation of such belief might be a precondition for trying to solve this mathematical problem… For it might be hard to force oneself to look for algorithm or proof without even a weak belief that it can be found…

Although perhaps I wouldn’t have worded it the same way I actually agree with wanstronian.

As you’ve all probably gathered by now I’m not really a fan of Pascal’s Wager…

Yes, that is hardly a secret. Anyway, it would still be nice to see how you would have worded the objections. For example, I am sure that you wouldn’t have said that there is no evidence for God’s existence. Although, I suspect that many atheists, trying to be precise, would also have to say that they consider the evidence to be inadequate, misleading, perhaps fake, but not non-existing…

Also, I would like to know if I managed to correct your misconception that the Pascal’s Wager-like reasoning must show that “dancing” is reasonable if there is an extremely small probability of a big win. For, well, it might (for some values), but it might show the contrary as well (for other - perhaps more reasonable - values). And I only needed to give one counterexample to demonstrate that. While wanstronian obviously misunderstood what the calculation was meant to show (essentially, the soundness of use of probabilities in economic context - not something necessarily related to the Pascal’s Wager as such), but I hope that you didn’t.