If God interevened in the world, science wouldn't work

[_cksalmon]

As a group, Mormons strike me as a generally-deistic lot, at least in the general sense that you're highlighting.

Heck, Mormons consider God to be so hands-off that he utterly refuses to meddle with human agency. If he stays hands-off in that regard, I don't know why you'd be so concerned that he would mess with ballistics on a mere whim.

ck,

I ceased all activity in the church only in the last year or so, but was completely active until right around three years ago. So I had to read what you wrote twice to be completely sure I read it right.

It has been my experience that LDS are among the most theistic (vs. deistic) people, ascribing divine intervention to a host of events on a weekly, even daily, basis. Intercessory prayer is a staple of LDS meetings, priesthood blessings, family home evenings and virtually any childhood or adolescent emergency. Assistance in finding lost car keys, helping Sister Rheinhart with her diabetes, asking for God himself to adjust the chemical and physical properties of post-fireside refreshments so as to make them nourishing and strengthening... are these platitudes? Empty rhetoric? Purely symbolic? I'd wager that most LDS you talk to on Sunday would say 'no'. They are literally expecting the invisible hand of God to reach down and help rearrange the whatnots and wherefores of their daily lives. Frequently and regularly.

Did I read you wrong?

No, you read me correctly, beefcalf. I'm a neverMo, so I'll take your word for it and consider myself corrected on the matter.

I didn't realize Mormons took such an interventionist position. I suppose that with the heavy LDS emphasis on the inviolability of human agency, I'd assumed the hands-off approach held across the board.

Do Mormons ever ask God to change people, or just physical objects?

Apologies to Buffalo for any confusion I've injected into his thread.

[_Buffalo]

No, you read me correctly, beefcalf. I'm a neverMo, so I'll take your word for it and consider myself corrected on the matter.

I didn't realize Mormons took such an interventionist position. I suppose that with the heavy LDS emphasis on the inviolability of human agency, I'd assumed the hands-off approach held across the board.

Do Mormons ever ask God to change people, or just physical objects?

Apologies to Buffalo for any confusion I've injected into his thread.

No problem. I'm an always mo, so I don't have a feel for non-Mormon thought on intervention.

Mormons ask God to change both people and physical objects - and sometimes time and space ("Heavenly Father, please help me not to be late!")

[_krose]

When was the last time a court relied solely on eye witness testimony?

I think a better question would be to ask how reliable an "eye-witness" account would be if it were written down decades later by an anonymous person who heard about the alleged event no better than second or third hand, and the account was then passed down, rewritten and copied countless times by countless scribes.

I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that stretches the definition of eye witness.

[_cksalmon]

No problem. I'm an always mo, so I don't have a feel for non-Mormon thought on intervention.

Thanks.

Mormons ask God to change both people and physical objects - and sometimes time and space ("Heavenly Father, please help me not to be late!")

I asked a close friend--a former Mormon--about this. She echoed what you and beefcalf have stated. ("In the mouths of two or three witnesses....")

Take the Mormon view (or, what I thought was the Mormon view).

If (arguendo):
(1) Human agency is inviolable
and
(2) Physical laws are brute facts for God,

the type of faithful LDS prayer you three have described seems, to me, metaphysically incoherent.

What gives?

(1) seems hard to get around. (2), perhaps not as much. Maybe God is powerful enough to override physical laws as he sees fit on the Mormon view, even though they predate him and constrain his actions in some relevant way(s).

NB: I'm assuming a Law-of-Progression sort of Mormonism, which I take to be fairly normative among lay LDS.

Of course, my own perspective--which is very nearly antipodal to the Mormon view--generates its own set of questions regarding consistency, but I think I can answer objections consistently in accord with my presuppositions.

What am I missing?

[_beefcalf]

I asked a close friend--a former Mormon--about this. She echoed what you and beefcalf have stated. ("In the mouths of two or three witnesses....")

Take the Mormon view (or, what I thought was the Mormon view).

If (arguendo):
(1) Human agency is inviolable
and
(2) Physical laws are brute facts for God,

the type of faithful LDS prayer you three have described seems, to me, metaphysically incoherent.

What gives?

(1) seems hard to get around. (2), perhaps not as much. Maybe God is powerful enough to override physical laws as he sees fit on the Mormon view, even though they predate him and constrain his actions in some relevant way(s).

NB: I'm assuming a Law-of-Progression sort of Mormonism, which I take to be fairly normative among lay LDS.

Of course, my own perspective--which is very nearly antipodal to the Mormon view--generates its own set of questions regarding consistency, but I think I can answer objections consistently in accord with my presuppositions.

What am I missing?

I think what you are missing is that the LDS concept of intercessory prayer is incompatible with the LDS (or Western Christian) concept of a loving, merciful, all-knowing, wise God. See my post here for details.

Of course, most believing LDS are similarly unaware of this problem.

[_GR33N]

Prayer may be gibberish and nonsense to the carnal mind; but to the saints of God it is the avenue of communications with the Unseen.

To the unbelieving and rebellious it may seem as an act of senseless piety born of mental instability; but to those who have tasted its fruits it becomes an anchor to the soul through all the storms of life.

Prayer is of God—not the vain repetitions of the heathen, not the rhetoric of the prayer books, not the insincere lispings of lustful men—but that prayer which is born of knowledge, which is nurtured by faith in Christ, which is offered in spirit and in truth.

Prayer opens the door to peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come. Prayer is essential to salvation. Unless and until we make it a living part of us so that we speak to our Father and have his voice answer, by the power of his Spirit, we are yet in our sins.

A persons understanding of prayer is indicative of their relationship to God. To pray is to communicate with God and therefore build a relationship with Him.

[_Some Schmo]

A persons understanding of prayer is indicative of their relationship to God. To pray is to communicate with God and therefore build a relationship with Him.

Translation: By talking to your imaginary friend, you breathe life into him.

[_jon]

Prayer may be gibberish and nonsense to the carnal mind; but to the saints of God it is the avenue of communications with the Unseen.

To the unbelieving and rebellious it may seem as an act of senseless piety born of mental instability; but to those who have tasted its fruits it becomes an anchor to the soul through all the storms of life.

Prayer is of God—not the vain repetitions of the heathen, not the rhetoric of the prayer books, not the insincere lispings of lustful men—but that prayer which is born of knowledge, which is nurtured by faith in Christ, which is offered in spirit and in truth.

Prayer opens the door to peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come. Prayer is essential to salvation. Unless and until we make it a living part of us so that we speak to our Father and have his voice answer, by the power of his Spirit, we are yet in our sins.

A persons understanding of prayer is indicative of their relationship to God. To pray is to communicate with God and therefore build a relationship with Him.

For it to class as a relationship doesn't the communication have to be two way?
We have already seen on the thread about Paul H Dunn that feeling the spirit can come by way of listening to lies so its hardly a reliable way of God communicating with us.
I think we pray to try and understand our own minds.

To understand God's ability in interfering in this life let us consider the situation in Japan recently when a lot of God's children lost their lives.
One of the following must be true:
1. God was powerless to stop it
2. God could have prevented it but doesn't interfere physically in this life
3. God could have prevented it but picks and chooses when to interfere physically in this life


Which do you believe it is?

[_Mad Viking]

For it to class as a relationship doesn't the communication have to be two way?
We have already seen on the thread about Paul H Dunn that feeling the spirit can come by way of listening to lies so its hardly a reliable way of God communicating with us.
I think we pray to try and understand our own minds.

To understand God's ability in interfering in this life let us consider the situation in Japan recently when a lot of God's children lost their lives.
One of the following must be true:
1. God was powerless to stop it
2. God could have prevented it but doesn't interfere physically in this life
3. God could have prevented it but picks and chooses when to interfere physically in this life


Which do you believe it is?

I think that most believers don't have a problem with #3, with the addition of some qualification. That being that God picks and chooses with to interfere in a way that may not make sense to us because we are not capable of understanding his methodology or agenda.

Obviously, for a non-believer, this is rife with pitfalls.

[_cksalmon]

I think what you are missing is that the LDS concept of intercessory prayer is incompatible with the LDS (or Western Christian) concept of a loving, merciful, all-knowing, wise God. See my post here for details.

I don't find it incompatible with my view of a loving, merciful, all-knowing, and wise God, beefcalf. As I wrote, I find the sort of intercessory prayer you and others have attributed to faithful Mormons to be metaphysically incoherent if, on Mormonism, the propositions I listed are true. Correction welcomed. Your linked post doesn't address those issues, but as you're not defending the reported practice, that's fine.

(As an aside: I believe GR33N is a good, faithful LDS thinker, and has prompted some useful thinking on my part in the past. I would like to hear his response to that particular line of inquiry, if he cares to make one.)

Moreover, while you titled your linked post "My argument against intercessory prayer," I discerned no argument there. You sketched a hypothetical scenario involving an evil man with many intercessors and a righteous man with none. You then asked four questions about the hypothetical scenario you posed without providing any answers (either your own or those you assume believers might give). But, that's not an argument.

You close with a tentative assertion--I hesitate to label it a conclusion, as it's not argued for: "It seems as if those who pray for intercession assume that God doesn't know what the hell he is doing."

But your hypothetical appears to hinge on human ignorance rather than divine incompetence. Your hypothetical humans don't know there's a pious man with a TBI in the gully. Humans don't know of the evil man's duplicity. It in no way follows from your hypothetical sketch that your hypothetical intercessors "assume that God doesn't know [what he is doing]." I could just as easily, and with equal justification, say, "It seems as if those who pray for intercession assume that God does know what he's doing," and there you go.

Of course, most believing LDS are similarly unaware of this problem.

I'm not unaware of the sorts of objections you've raised, beefcalf, and have given a bit of thought to such things.

P.S. I don't why you single out a "Western Christian" perspective. On your view, do the Eastern Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox, the Presbyterians in South Korea, the Christians in China, &c, have it over us in that regard? I don't see how, but I'm interested.