Miracle or lack of one - why aren't they treated the same way?
So, I was loitering around a beach when a group of nice Christians asked if they could pray for me. They kept asking if I was hurting or aching anywhere, and then said a nice prayer asking god to heal my aches and pain. Then they kept asking if I felt better or different or what (it was getting rather awkward by now.... as if they had expected me suddenly throw my cane into the ocean and start running laps up and down the beach like in a Hollywood miracle movie or something).
Well... nothing happened. My usual arthritis kicked up on schedule after a while of walking. Worse... not 2 hrs later I crashed down this little bluff and hurt my back and wrists (yes, plural).
So I was just wondering about it all. I don't believe in a god, so I'm not cussing at one since I didn't expect anything. What bugs me, though, is that had I happened to have a pain-free rest of the evening (it wouldn't have been all that unusual) they would have immediately chalk that up as a 'confirmed miracle' and 'proof of god', wouldn't they?
But how come when I get the opposite of the prayer said by a bunch of well meaning and religious Christians, the opposite of a 'confirmed miracle' or 'proof of god' wouldn't be even a possibility to them? Why is this double standard where only the positive outcome is seized upon as 'Aha! We told you so!' and all negative or unfavorable outcomes are simply ignored as if they don't exist (or worse yet, simply brushed aside as 'god don't always give you what you wanted')?
So, I suppose the question is; why is it that when a prayer is coincided with what happens next, it is taken as 'proof of god's power', but when the 'what happens next' doesn't jive with the prayer, it isn't taken as 'disproof of god's power/mercy/etc'? With that sort of thinking, it is impossible to ever rule 'god' out of anything since one simply refuses to treat evidence as such without manipulating it to match one's philosophy (instead of the other way around, letting the evidence dictates what to believe).
- Ha! Then I would have ended up with a Jim Bean. On hindsight, that'd be a cool prayer, Spunky.
- Ugh. Peter, I'm sorry, dude, but that sort of witnessing rather than attempting to consider the question is really off-putting.
- Hey, Alberich. I hope you don't get reported, man. That was just calling it like it is, I think. :)