Agnosticism / Atheism: Comment of the Week: How Much Faith Do Believers Really Have?

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Comment of the Week: How Much Faith Do Believers Really Have? Nov 22nd 2011, 08:00 Believers are persistent in asserting the value and importance of faith. But just how much faith do they really have? Believers, and particularly Christians, are persistent in asserting the need to place faith in God over "worldly wisdom". But when push comes to shove, which of the two do most believers, and particularly Christians, actually rely upon? Put another way, do the actions and behavior of believers actually conform to their rhetoric or not? Most of the time, I think it's "not". Ryan writes: Best sign of that lack of faith you are talking about: How often do people pray for cancer to go into remission? Or a heart condition to go away? Or someone with a spinal injury to walk again? Fairly often, I'd wager. How often do people pray for missing limbs to regrow? Much less often, I'm guessing. Wouldn't one be as easy as the other to an omnipotent and loving deity? So why no prayers for what the evil-utionary scientists tell you is impossible? [original post] It's noteworthy that cancer is the sort of disease that can go into spontaneous remission, even without modern medical treatment, and it frequently does get better even with basic cancer treatments. If enough people pray for the remission of a cancer, there are bound to be quite a few where it actually happens, regardless of what sort of modern medical treatment the person is getting. That's statistics, not supernatural intervention. Missing limbs, though, are another matter entirely. Missing limbs don't grow back under any circumstances, whether through medical intervention or prayer. Why not? Shouldn't people pray equally for things like the regrowth of missing limbs as they do for the remission of cancer? If their faith was strong, or even just consistent, then they would -- and they would expect similar overall results. Only praying for things that have a chance of getting better on their own or through the efforts of the "worldly wisdom" which they otherwise denigrate suggests very strongly that their "faith" is more artifice than real. And if they don't have real faith, why should anyone else?

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