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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2638 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 8, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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For those of you who were not born into/raised with some kind of religion, how did you find your way to it in your adulthood?

I'm a male lawyer in my mid-40s. I was raised by irreligious boomers (who have drifted into extreme anti-religion in their old age). My childhood experience of religion was essentially zero. I'm not a hard atheist or anti-religious, but I also don't feel a "god-shaped hole" where many people seem to try to shove some kind of belief system (including the Current Thing) in an attempt to fill it. It seems more like I'm lacking the socket where some kind of faith module would even go.

I do much outdoors (pondering hiking the PCT next year, which wouldn't be my first thru-hike) and enough time outside will have me thinking "this has to be intentional Creation to explain why it's so amazing in so many ways." But it's a big gap from there to "sin is real and Jesus Christ was the son of God and sent to cleanse me of my sins" (yes, I'm aware that gap is where faith comes in).

I have investigated some churches around me, but all feel very culturally Alien (discounting the ones that would clearly be a bad fit since their doctrine appears to be "We Support the Current Thing, but we do so with a sprinkling of Jesus"). Church websites alone are enough to give me that Alien feeling. It's like the "Women Lawyers" associations that are technically open to all (to avoid problems with anti-discrimination laws) and some men do join, but it would take a Hannibal Lecter gurney and straitjacket to get me there--it is so obviously Not My Place that I would never go voluntarily. I get that feeling from any church I've looked into, too. So I can't say of the options I have near me call me into trying to learn more.

Read through the gospels. Read them slowly, meditatively. Use lectio divina on one of them. And while you're doing it, go to church. There are lots of them; the alien-ness is just a perception. And pray.

Christianity is not something which we shape to suit ourselves. It's something which changes us into the better. Don't worry about a fit, worry about keeping on because the spiritual life is a marathon and not a sprint.

You were not raised religious in any way, and that's how you found your way to it?

I am cradle LDS but needed to find my way back to the church after an atheist period.

For me, the beginning was reading the Sequences and realizing the LDS church had extremely satisfying answers to every anti-religion argument they made. Our answers for theodicy, the Invisible Dragon in the Garage, the nature of consciousness, free will, etc. are all quite good imo, if you are starting from a rationalist-adjacent perspective.

But what really brought me back was simple, undeniable, tangible evidence. I decided to try to pray for something (freedom from an addiction I had) and the result was spectacular, far beyond anything I'd have expected. I then set about more formally testing prayer and related things and found consistent, similar results.

But it's a big gap from there to "sin is real and Jesus Christ was the son of God and sent to cleanse me of my sins" (yes, I'm aware that gap is where faith comes in).

I think "sin is real" at least should be fairly self-evident. There are self-destructive behaviors which both make you feel worse as a person, and decrease your capacity. Making an effort to avoid them makes us both happier and more capable of accomplishing unrelated goals. One can (and I have) run a series of tests to confirm this.

As far as faith in Jesus, I don't think there are any knock-down philosophical arguments that prove Christianity more true than, say, Hinduism. But I do think there are practical tests that work. Prayer and fasting get results. God doesn't ask for totally blind faith (that would be silly) nor for us to rationally consider philosophy in a vacuum to determine the correct religion (something very few, if any, humans are capable of). He provides hard evidence to those looking and ready for it.

The fact that prayer is what brought you back is really strange to me. Do you think there is any statistical evidence that prayer works? What about other statistical evidence, like people who live on coasts that have earthquakes tend to die more to tsunamis? Completely area-based, unless you make the argument that people who live on coasts are more sinful and thus encounter the wrath of God more often. How many people are mired in addiction that try everything, including prayer, and never make it out? Knowing that statistics has incredible predictive power is enough to dissuade me that prayer does anything at all.

From a non-Mormon perspective, the sophisticated argument for prayer is that it changes a person’s disposition or spirit, and that this is what it means to receive something from God. This would have especially strong results where the desired object is itself a change of disposition, eg the addiction OP mentions. How could prayer help or cure addiction? Addiction entails the pursuit of pleasure where pleasure goes against one’s own social, prosocial, identity-determined goals. God solidifies a person’s social identity in ways impossible to accomplish with secular language or materialist understanding alone, for a variety of psychological reasons. Prayer works to recollect and elaborate upon social identity. It makes prosocial decisions salient and forefront, and even existentially significant. It involves an omnipresent social superior, social confident, and social lover. Many more things can be said about this. But there’s a reason even Huberman the neuroscientist prays every day.

The statistical evidence that prayer works is that religious people, especially those who pray to a loving God, have greater wellbeing and are protected against addiction. Really, all that we want at the end of the day is greater wellbeing. So it works in toto. If establishing prayer in your life is more conducive to your happiness than otherwise, then it is established that prayer works and ought to be done, as any reasonable organism seeks greater wellbeing.

Regarding disasters —

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Unsophisticated shepherds dealing with unsophisticated dangerous feral sheep have often claimed that natural disasters are allowed by God or are the punishment of God. This is to promote society-wide prosocial behavior in an efficient way. But it is not the case.

How many people are mired in addiction that try everything, including prayer, and never make it out

Many, but they die in hope and conversation with their perfect Love One. The alternative is less prayer is unlikely to be more conducive to success and wellbeing. But the advice should never be “only pray” — of course you do everything else, but you also pray.

tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks ford a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

You make some great points, but not any that I don't already agree with. I fully admit that greater wellbeing and protection against addiction are great things and can reasonably be attributed to belief in God, prayer and everything else that goes with it.

Critically, @Tenaz's posts are going outside the scope of this and claiming that prayer can positively affect factors outside of your control, as long as you're praying for things that God wants. If he kept inside the scope you and FCfromSSC typically stay within when you talk about prayers being more about relationship with God, I would never have posted what I did.

I wish more people mentioned the tower of Siloam as you have. The Christians I have talked to have not noted its significance, and they don't usually have very well reasoned responses to my problems of evil, which goes against what @AnonymousActuary says when he writes

though it seems like you are just hoping bringing up the problem of evil will somehow magically turn someone atheist again like they've never thought about it in their life?

Many of them have not thought about it.

I think "why is this bad thing happening to me" sorta a diet-problem of evil is an extremely common thing for people to think about? But yes, I doubt the median Christian has read the Bible through even once. I remember when I was ~10 talking to a Sunday school leader and mentioning I was starting my 3rd time through reading a chapter a day and he was shocked. I was like "wait doesn't everyone do this?" haha.

And the Bible as a whole definitely addresses it frequently - think the Tower of Siloam story, the story of the cripple ("who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?") or like, the entire book of Job. I don't think the answers that come out are ones that are going to intuitively solve the problem for someone who doesn't already believe, but it is certainly considered.

I think there is still value to this sort of “illogical prayer”. Imagine you want to run a marathon. If you’re constrained to logic, then you can pray for the spirit (mood / feeling / aim) to practice every day; the praying would help to increase salience and craving for the activity. But you can also enter into the post-logical realm: you can believe that God guarantees that you will complete a marathon, and actually changes reality provided that you practice. And now you have no wavering or double-mindedness about your practice and pursuit. There’s now no room for doubt about whether you obtain it, it’s just a matter of when. It’s hard to convey this beneficial goal certainty without eschewing logic, but you see it in a lot of high-level performers across domains, eg Magnus Carlsen saying that the optimal mindset for chess is “between delusional and confident”. It seems essential for the instrumentalization of cognition toward a goal.

Humans need to be certain that they will accomplish a goal and “God will make it so” is no less delusional than “I simply believe it” or “if you believe you will achieve” (at the very least, religious language is more poetic). But the utility of prayer is more clear when you factor in more variables: someone is more likely to take the time to pray when they believe (when they know) that they will be heard, answered, and gifted something materially. It’s easier on the mind and increases interest. “My act of praying gives myself a spirit” turns a person into an actor playing a part. “My loving Father is eager to give me my request and only asks for prayer and practice, that I prove my interest and allegiance” turns someone into a social animal, a human. It’s simpler, there’s no pretending. And it activates much more cognition and interest, because every time you pray you are speaking to the maker of all things and the ruler of time. That dogma itself will make the content of your prayer more striking in your mind, increasing the chance of it occurring.

As for the problem of evil, my view is firmly in the minority but I believe in a sovereign force of evil which evades the problem completely. From the Wisdom of Solomon:

God did not make death. For he fashioned all things that they might have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome […] It was the wicked who with hands and words invited death, considered it a friend, and pined for it, and made a covenant with it […] God formed us to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made us. But by the envy* of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are allied with him experience it.

I read this as a sovereign force of evil always existing, later in the form of the devil, who unleashed death when our archetypal ancestors disobeyed the Good in paradise. The evil in the world is both due to evil as a force and mankind’s own alliance with it (Adam isn’t just “first human”, but we all existed in Adam and we inherit his temperament etc). This is very satisfying. God has ultimate control over everything in the end, and ultimate control over the Good, but there currently and forever was a sovereign evil force. Every attempt to make God all-powerful including over evil is ultimately making Him less moral and less loving.

Well, prayer is (among other things) making requests of God. When I say it works, I don't mean that you can ask God for just anything and it will always happen. But if you know what you can ask for, and ask in faith, then it will work.

Just like with any other test, every piece of evidence one way or another helps to refine your model of reality. If you pray for something and it doesn't happen, you should shunt probability from models of the world which predicted the request fulfilled, into models of the world that predict the opposite. This means both decreasing your overall probability estimate of God existing, as well as studying to figure out the character of God and the nature of prayer, and pushing some probability towards hypotheses of a different character of God who would not have fulfilled that request.

In other words, every prayer is an opportunity to learn more of God's character and what he wants of you, as well as gathering evidence of whether he exists in the first place. There are other tests too; I think the most reliable are tests of God's commandments. Pick one, make an effort to follow it, and if it's truly one of God's commandments the results will be good. God encourages these sorts of tests.

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

In regards to addiction, I believe in a God whose primary goal is to help us grow. He rarely denies us the opportunity to test ourselves. Addictions are really rough, but they're great training, and he'd much prefer to strengthen and change us (something he will not do without our cooperation) than remove the temptation. This model of God leads me to pray very differently from someone with a different model. I don't expect to see the addiction (or whatever it is) completely defeated on my behalf, but I do expect all sorts of revelation regarding how I can best go about fighting it, what my next step should be, etc. as well as direct help when I'm in a truly desperate situation.

My own freedom from addiction was certainly more than the null hypothesis (strict materialism) would predict but certainly not sufficient evidence alone. But the much more involved tests I set up later were more than satisfactory. Basically it involved testing out commandments, particularly commandments which distinguished between alternative likely models, and tracking the results. For example, we've been commanded to take care of our bodies, eat well, exercise, etc. but I would expect that to work regardless of whether it was a commandment or just a good idea. I would not expect prayer and/or fasting to work better than doing nothing or meditation, so those commandments are better for initial testing.

Do you think there is any statistical evidence that prayer works?

I know there is because I made some myself. If the tests had turned out the other way, though, I certainly wouldn't have believed any study saying otherwise (that prayer does in fact work).

If you really think that this is something that works empirically, it should be easy to design some studies that properly prove it. Has anyone done it? Or maybe there are too many confounding factors like true belief? If you fail to pray for something and it happens anyway, did God do it?

I'm perfectly happy to let Christians have their faith. I think it's healthy. But I really can't stand these kinds of outrageous claims about how prayer really works when it's been pretty clear that it does not work at all for years. If God only grants you specific, insignificant, entirely-taking-place-in-the-mental-realm prayers, can you say it's that useful, especially if something like stoicism grants you similar results? Is God pleased by secular stoicism? If we compared prayers made to God to prayers made to stoicism, what would the results look like?

If God only grants you specific, insignificant, entirely-taking-place-in-the-mental-realm prayers

Yeah, that's not what I'm talking about at all. I saw (and see) entirely tangible results. My claim is specifically that if you pray for things, with a good understanding of who God is and what prayer actually is, you're likely to get those things. It's not limited to revelation or other mental changes.

If you really think that this is something that works empirically, it should be easy to design some studies that properly prove it. Has anyone done it? Or maybe there are too many confounding factors like true belief?

Well, studies can't truly prove anything, ever. But I've seen plenty of relevant studies. Some tested whether crops which were prayed over did better than others, some tested whether people who were prayed for survived longer than others. Some have positive results, some negative (no effect) results. I'm not satisfied with any of them.

If you look at some of the popular commentary on these studies it is shockingly bad. Just look at the first study mentioned:

Probably the experiment cited most often by advocates of prayer is the one performed by Byrd, a cardiologist at San Francisco General Medical Center. According to his report, he studied 393 patients between August 1982 and May 1983. He divided the group into 192 patients who were prayed for, and 201 who were not prayed for.7 He reported that, among other things, the people who were prayed for were five times less likely to develop pulmonary edema. None required endotracheal intubation, and fewer patients died.

The problem with this and any so-called controlled experiment regarding prayer is that there can be no such thing as a con-trolled experiment concerning prayer. You can never divide people into groups that received prayer and those that did not. The main reason is that there is no way to know that someone did not receive prayer. How would anyone know that some distant relative was not pray-ing for a member of the group that Byrd had identified as having received no prayer? How does one control for prayers said on behalf of all the sick people in the world? How does one assess the degree of faith in patients that are too sick to be interviewed or in the persons performing the prayers? Even Byrd acknowledges these problems and admits that “`pure’ groups were not attained in this study.”8 Since con-trol groups are not possible, such purported scientific exper-iments are not possible.

Basically the guy is saying "ok, evidence says prayer works, but maybe people in the control group were prayed for too, so it doesn't count." OK, but the experimental group was likely prayed for much more. It's like saying that a vitamin C supplement study (with a control that doesn't take the supplement) is impossible because the control group will still eat some vitamin C. No, that's not how studies work. The same calibre of commentary (easily dismissed by anyone with half a brain to think about these things) can be found everywhere. The studies themselves are not much better, and I think you can dismiss those that find positive results for prayer as easily as I can dismiss those that find negative results.

I could go on. Maybe a smarter person than me could define a good study. Maybe they already have and I haven't seen it yet. But in the meantime I think it's up to each person to figure this out for themselves. It's really not hard to do, as I did, a "controlled" study of the efficacy of prayer. Make a list of twenty things you want, good things that you think God wants you to have, come up with a rough estimate of how likely they are to happen, and pray for a randomized half of them. It doesn't take that long.

If you fail to pray for something and it happens anyway, did God do it?

Yes? God works the same way reality itself does--we don't fully understand him or have perfect knowledge of every detail of his mind. I don't understand the objection here, is God not allowed to do anything unless we pray for it? I don't believe prayer is guaranteed to achieve results--for that to happen I'd need a perfect understanding of who God is, rather than a pretty good one. I just think it raises the odds, basically proportional to how good my understanding of God is (and reality, too).

For example, say my dad is depressed because my mom is on her deathbed. So I pray for her to live a bit longer so that my dad can have more time with her before she passes. But, say I don't know some crucial detail--maybe he'll be happier and more at peace in the long run if she passes now. Let's assume I have a correct model of God, too, and I'm asking in faith. This doesn't necessarily mean the prayer will be answered, simply because my model of reality is correct. God knows my heart, and my prayer (which is really about alleviating my dad's suffering) doesn't force him to ignore the spirit of my request.

Now, I've been down this road before, with other interlocutors. So I'm going to politely request, using enough lines that you're sure to not miss this part--

please

please

please

please

please

please

please

think through the implications of this before typing up a snarky response. Assume I've done the same. My only claim here is that prayer increases the odds of the thing you requested happening. I'm not saying it's guaranteed. I'm not saying you're stupid, bad, or wrong if you pray for something and it doesn't happen. Please assume I've actually put ten seconds into thinking through the implications of this.

But I really can't stand these kinds of outrageous claims about how prayer really works when it's been pretty clear that it does not work at all for years.

Have you seriously tried to test it? It will take perhaps an hour to get started, and then five minutes a day for a few weeks. Provided you go into it with an open mind I'm confident you'll see results. Plenty of people put that much time into meditation on a whim.

Let's say that the study really did prove that prayer works.

Okay. What kind of wording was used during the prayer? How many people prayed for the subject? Did they pray a long, individual prayer, a short, individual prayer, or multiple prayers throughout the days? Does length of time spent praying increase the statistical likeliness that the prayer works? Do acts of faith (fasting, attending worship, displaying faith artwork) improve the outcome? Does Biblical conduct (charity, honoring the Sabbath, honoring one's parents) improve the outcome? Does the intensity of the prayer (praying for one's child recovering from cancer as opposed to praying for one's stubbed toe to stop hurting) affect the outcome? Are people in the faith more likely to have a support group that helps them relieve stress?

Do you see that there are an impossible amount of factors involved in such a study? I guarantee the study was not so rigorous as to specifically probe every single aspect that I've listed here. Even if you asked them, you wouldn't get straight answers. People forget, people don't understand their own minds or why they think certain things or do certain acts.

It's really not hard to do, as I did, a "controlled" study of the efficacy of prayer.

This is the same problem we ran into last week with the gender dysphoria thing. It's impossible to look inside someone's mind. Do you tally your successes to failures? For how long? Are they correlated at all with the other upswings of your life?

In my youth, I thought that when I was worried sick about my dog, calling for it to come back over and over, praying desperately for it to come back, that it was certainly a miracle when it did, in fact, come back. The problem is that there is no evidence for this whatsoever. There is no way to run two exactly matching sets of reality, one where I prayed that my dog came back, and one where I did not pray that my dog came back. For such a trivial matter, it is easy to say that my calling had more effect than prayer. What about for not-so-trivial matters? The feeling that a miracle happened would be even greater, but it would have no more basis than my dog anecdote. I felt spiritually uplifted by that event, just as I guarantee a girl who mistakenly thought she was a boy would feel great relief at wearing boys' clothing and being called by a masculine name. But feelings are not proof of anything. We are not scientific beings. We are animals, a big ball of emotions, tightly wound at times.

I can tell you I prayed for a troubled girl once every night, and despite my devotion, despite pledging I would never ask for anything more besides if this wish was granted, she ended up shooting herself due to chronic abuse that I had no idea about. It was after some years of sustained nightly praying that her soul did not go to Hell that I realized the utter stupidity of such a venture.

Let's say that the study really did prove that prayer works.

Okay. What kind of wording was used during the prayer? How many people prayed for the subject? Did they pray a long, individual prayer, a short, individual prayer, or multiple prayers throughout the days? Does length of time spent praying increase the statistical likeliness that the prayer works? Do acts of faith (fasting, attending worship, displaying faith artwork) improve the outcome? Does Biblical conduct (charity, honoring the Sabbath, honoring one's parents) improve the outcome? Does the intensity of the prayer (praying for one's child recovering from cancer as opposed to praying for one's stubbed toe to stop hurting) affect the outcome? Are people in the faith more likely to have a support group that helps them relieve stress?

Do you see that there are an impossible amount of factors involved in such a study? I guarantee the study was not so rigorous as to specifically probe every single aspect that I've listed here. Even if you asked them, you wouldn't get straight answers. People forget, people don't understand their own minds or why they think certain things or do certain acts.

Well, look, I don't put any faith in the study at all. I only brought it up to critique what I see as both typical, and extremely lackluster, commentary around that kind of study (and by extension, the quality of the studies themselves). Like I said, I'm sure either of us could absolutely tear it apart.

But these objections you've listed really aren't great. Just as quantum physics adds up to normalcy, all these factors add up to a statistically significant difference between the experimental group and the control. If it works, that's an enormously important thing to know about the world, and it would be worth first replicating, then attempting to control for each of these factors in turn.

Do you tally your successes to failures? For how long? Are they correlated at all with the other upswings of your life?

Yes, for a few weeks. I would have gone much longer but the results were extremely definitive quickly, to such an extent that continuing the test felt quite disrespectful. I recognize this means that the test really isn't worth much as far as evidence goes to anyone other than myself--I can only ask you to try to replicate it.

In my youth, I thought that when I was worried sick about my dog, calling for it to come back over and over, praying desperately for it to come back, that it was certainly a miracle when it did, in fact, come back. The problem is that there is no evidence for this whatsoever. There is no way to run two exactly matching sets of reality, one where I prayed that my dog came back, and one where I did not pray that my dog came back. For such a trivial matter, it is easy to say that my calling had more effect than prayer. What about for not-so-trivial matters? The feeling that a miracle happened would be even greater, but it would have no more basis than my dog anecdote.

Well this is why I made a list of things I wanted, estimated their outcome probabilities, chose half at random, prayed for them, and then compared my average error in that group to my average error in the group of outcomes I didn't pray for.

Human reasoning isn't perfect but I do think it's capable of overcoming this sort of error with enough study. The dog will probably come back eventually, so if you want to use [dog comes back] as your test of prayer then it probably needs to be focused on timing. How long does the dog normally take to come back? How long did it take to come back when you prayed for it? A few of my desired outcomes were this sort of test (though a bit less trivial). I certainly agree that the feelings themselves aren't good evidence.

I can tell you I prayed for a troubled girl once every night, and despite my devotion, despite pledging I would never ask for anything more besides if this wish was granted, she ended up shooting herself due to chronic abuse that I had no idea about. It was after some years of sustained nightly praying that her soul did not go to Hell that I realized the utter stupidity of such a venture.

I'm very sorry. I think this absolutely should reduce your faith in God. But it should take most of that probability mass from theories of God, and reality, that most strongly predicted otherwise. In this case, I'd say a lot of that probability mass should be taken from the theory that being alive was actually good for her--that what you were praying for is actually what you would have wanted with full knowledge of all the details.

It's pretty trite to say "she's in a better place now" but I truly do believe she is--with family members who care for her a lot more and a lot better than it sounds like her living family did. You were praying against that outcome, and God didn't answer your prayer.

This is the same problem we ran into last week with the gender dysphoria thing. It's impossible to look inside someone's mind.

I'm not asking you to--I wouldn't expect anyone to take my results on faith. In fact, not only would I not believe my own results if someone else told them to me, but I often don't believe they happened myself, and it takes a fair bit of convincing to remind myself they actually did happen.

In this case, I'd say a lot of that probability mass should be taken from the theory that being alive was actually good for her--that what you were praying for is actually what you would have wanted with full knowledge of all the details.

Ha. Haha.

I have sometimes thought that someone being dead means that you will never worry about them again, because their story has ended; they are right where you left them, and you will always know where they are, what their status is.

Offense taken, all the same. What an absolutely awful way to view life. I suppose everyone who is dead is better off dead, otherwise they wouldn't be dead, right? Not to mention the conclusion that perhaps the suicidal ought to take their own lives since their earthly ones suck so bad.

Regardless, I wish you the best in your theories, though I will continue to doubt them.

More comments

I don't understand why you think someone could believe that prayer sometimes works and not also believe that plate tectonics exists?

It's the idea that absolutely awful things can happen to you for reasons outside of your control at any time for many multitudes of reasons that were decided by seemingly nobody.

I honestly can't tell if this is some kind of gotcha or you are trying to make some profound point that is whooshing right over me haha

I am not really the person to make the point, anyway. I saw @Hoffmeister25 make the point much better than I can, and if @FCfromSSC had any satisfying response to it, he sure didn't seem to post it there.

But it's an old question: the problem of evil, the problem of random things inherent in nature hurting you for no reason. Why are there so many things that are absolutely awful, caused by immutable nature, and are only explainable to us modern humans? To ancient humans, it seemed functionally equivalent to being smitten by God to get tuberculosis and die slowly. They likely thought that prayer had something to do with getting bubonic plague and dying, similar to Tenaz's idea that prayer causes better outcomes. The Aztecs thought that sacrificing people was statistically likely to keep the world from ending. Perhaps they sacrificed something and felt some sign from God twitch within themselves. But they couldn't have been further from the truth. Do you think we modern humans are more pious than ancient humans? Not a chance.

I have seen from some young earth creationists the idea that it's because humans are fallen ever since the Tree of Knowledge was eaten from by Adam and Eve. But that only works in a young earth model of the world. If there is no young earth, there was no Adam and Eve, and we are just animals, and the world was always fucked up, right from the start, before any human was involved at all.

I am not really the person to make the point, anyway. I saw @Hoffmeister25 make the point much better than I can, and if FCfromSSC had any satisfying response to it, he sure didn't seem to post it there.

The conversation continued here. @Hoffmeister has the last word there as well, as most people I engage with do. I have a lot less time for discourse than I used to, and on deeper subjects like this one, formulating replies can take awhile.

The LDS model is that God is not conceptually omnipotent. He is not capable of preserving human agency and simultaneously allowing us to grow of our own free will. We can remain like Adam and Eve, in an innocent, childlike state forever, or we can venture out into the fallen world, separated from God, with all the suffering that entails, and grow in the process.

The reason suffering exists in this fallen world is due to the absence of God--because God is voluntarily choosing not to constantly exert his power at all times in all areas. God in our view did not create the universe ex nihilo or invent concepts such as good, evil, joy, or suffering, and the universe in its natural state (without God) is one of evil, disorder, and suffering.

If God were to exert his power more, not only would the suffering disappear, but our freedom would as well. There would be no meaningful distance between action and consequence. In this world, evil actions are often rewarded. In a world closer to God, they would be punished instantly, and good actions would be rewarded. We would remain children, lacking any opportunity to exert ourselves physically, intellectually, or spiritually. I'm not sure we'd even know what exertion is; nor would there be any reason to try to do anything, since God would provide for our every need. The Bible hints at this (1, 2), but it's a primarily LDS belief as far as I know.

There would be no need for effort in the first place. We wouldn't even be capable of exerting effort. Effort is intrinsically tied to suffering, after all.

"But it doesn't have to be"

Remember that I'm talking about LDS beliefs here, not broader Christendom. Our God can't reinvent concepts at a whim.

"But can't God at least step in for the worst suffering?"

If he steps in too much then he limits our agency and our ability to grow. But I believe both that he does step in, and that suffering is very, very rarely so bad as to be intolerable. I struggled with severe ulcerative colitis for nearly a year, and found that even at the very worst moments, if I just focused on taking it one step at a time, life was still significantly better than neutral. Even in the throes of physical agony, things are basically fine. I expect this follows for literally any level of physical pain.

The worst pains we experience are losses of joy. The loss of a loved one hurts much more than any amount of physical pain. I think it should tell us something that life is, for most people, so good that our worst moments are when we lose just one of the many sources of joy given to each of us.

And then we die, our proximity to God increases, our suffering and ability to improve as people are greatly diminished, and we enter what's been aptly called a "rest".

"What about dead children? Why is a human lifespan eighty years instead of a thousand or a million?"

I can go into more detail here if you want, but suffice to say that there will be other opportunities for moral growth, and I have faith we're all given what we need to flourish.

"But what about animals?"

They have spirits too. We don't know as much about why they need to be here (it's not nearly as relevant to us humans) but they probably do have some degree of agency, and thus moral growth, and they definitely have the capacity to distinguish pleasure from pain, good from bad, on some level. They're learning just as we are. Anyways, their main form of suffering is physical.

With that out of the way. My wife read what I wrote here and told me (in nicer words) that I was being excessively callous and autistic. Sorry about that. What I wrote was not even correct, really--God doesn't ever want his children to commit suicide. But he'll also never make a choice on our behalf. His ability to step in without harming our agency is ultimately pretty limited.

In the end I have faith that your friend will be okay, faith based not in high-and-mighty philosophical arguments from first principles, but in my personal experience with God's love. I understand if you don't feel the same. Probably the most consistent response I have seen to prayer is when I have asked for relief. I can't think of a time I was suffering greatly and asked for relief and it was not quickly given to me. I sincerely believe that if you take a minute to say a prayer now, and ask for relief, or ask God if he loves you, you'll feel peace and comfort. This is nowhere near proof of anything I've said--but it's a start.

I do appreciate your sincerity, and your honorable attempts to explain the gospel remind me of the valiant and zealous missionaries of the past, as shown in movies like Black Robe (1991). Growing up, I thought Mormons were really weird, and you are another in a long string of non-weird Mormons who challenge that stereotype. I thought the same about Catholics, as well, until @SubstantialFrivolity made a post giving quite the steelman of the branch. Like him, you are perfectly willing to wade into the difficult stuff.

With that out of the way. My wife read what I wrote here and told me (in nicer words) that I was being excessively callous and autistic. Sorry about that. What I wrote was not even correct, really--God doesn't ever want his children to commit suicide. But he'll also never make a choice on our behalf. His ability to step in without harming our agency is ultimately pretty limited.

No problem. To be honest, you did articulate something that it is not polite to think, yet I think many people think it privately to themselves - that some unpleasant lives would be better off if they were not alive. It is humanitarian to strive for the best for everyone, and that they continue living for as long as possible, but in many cases, the thought springs up anyway. If we actually take that thought seriously, we get some scary hypotheticals, like "at what point is it acceptable for lifelong chronic depressives to just give up and step into traffic", or "maybe you should kill your kids so they don't get a chance to lose the faith as adults". And if it was okay for her, as an abuse victim who was awfully messed up herself, to take her own life, then that has bad implications for other people who struggle with chronic depression or bad childhoods. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you, though, especially since you realized your mistake later anyway.

I hope she will be okay too, but an entire childhood of fundamentalism telling me that people who commit suicide go to hell and unbelievers go to hell cannot be washed away by the same fundamentalists backstepping with "God is perfectly just, so you can trust Him to make the right decision". You didn't say that, but there are so very many interpretations of the Bible that many people who genuinely were looking to God to give them the interpretation came to it. All of them genuinely feel their way is the right one and can cite scripture and cite their own internal spiritual uplifting upon praying. For Mormonism, the problem is even more acute, as @TracingWoodgrains found out through testing Moroni's Promise on an open minded Christian.

For these reasons, and more, I am afraid my faith is permanently disrupted. I don't think it's a good thing, so I appreciate your defense anyway.

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If anyone satisfyingly resolves the problem of evil in a forum post they are clearly misusing their talents.

I also will not solve the problem of evil for you here either. There are lots of books you could read by smarter people than me if that is what you are searching for (including books of the Bible), though it seems like you are just hoping bringing up the problem of evil will somehow magically turn someone atheist again like they've never thought about it in their life?

Based on a few interactions on this forum, I think everyone who brings up the problem of evil is personally pretty troubled by it and convinced it's a big problem. It may also be an argumentative tactic, but not a disingenuous one.

I'm not asking anyone to become atheist. But the idea that prayer does anything is chafing enough to me to cause me to comment. As I said elsewhere, I think religion is healthy, though I struggle to accept the good with the bad.

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I am a cradle catholic, but with two caveats. First, I was raised in the very definition of a "leafy suburb Novus Ordo" parish. Second, almost all of my 20s I was totally away from the church - zero mass attendance, zero daily prayer.

I'm now a (developing) traditional catholic. Latin mass, much better (re)cathechesis, real theological reading and study - although this last part is largely just do to my ability to sit still now.

However, I didn't have any specific moment of reawakening. The journey was longer and sort of ... academic? I started reading about epistemology when I was working in Data Science. I did this because I found it profoundly preposterous how professional "data scientists" and their managers would find some very weak frequentist statistical relationship between two variables and present it as 100% iron clad evidence for some sort of business decision. After letting myself become jaded with business data science, I wanted to at least recover faith in an analytically rigorous process of both induction and deduction. So, lots of books on epistemology and prob/stat.

Pair this with a growing awareness of culture war topics starting in the mid 2010s. That led me to a much quicker "conversion" from a wishy-washy tits-and-beer lib to an Old Right style conservative. Philosophically, I went hard into the idea that at least the conception of an absolute morality is required for a functioning society.

Thus, you have a combination of adherence to the concept of absolutely morality paired with a constant suspicion in how humans reason and come to believe things (side note: a pure rationalist / empirical stance is epistemic downs syndrome). That's a pretty good petri dish for faith formation. I think that maybe the specific bridging function was reading Alasdair MacIntyre (RIP, homie) combined with all of my latent catholicism - as lame as suburban NO history is.

I'm a big hiker and I do "find God" out there more than I do in other places. I think you said it well in your own post - looking at something the Wyoming Rockies and shrugging it all off as "ehh, random collision of atoms over billions of years. All noise." seems far too trite. It's overwhelming beauty that your brain can't fathom beyond "oh my god this is wonderful" (see what I did there?).

Obviously I'm going to make the unsolicited recommendation that you look into the Roman Catholic Church. Adult cathechesis - at a traditional parish - will tickle your lawyer brain. It's very structured, very grounded in philosophy and theology often in the tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas.

In terms of finding that personal spark, sorry to be trite, but that's on you, bud. There's no way to force it.

Mine was a combination of psychedelics and meditation slowly opening my mind over years to other possibilities, then having an odd string of coincidences leading to me taking Christianity a bit more seriously. Over time I began to learn more and more including listening to Jordan Peterson's lectures, John Vervaeke, and reading a good amount of the sort of "post-modern" Christian apologists. Eventually I decided to go to a church and slowly work on my faith.

In terms of the culturally alien thing... yeah. That's kind of the point if you want to fill the God-shaped hole. Anything that fills that is going to be alien to you, because your worldview is basically secular materialism. Even if you don't realize it, you have a 'religion' right now with extremely strong precepts. A big part of the journey to a "real religion" is recognizing that secular materialism is a philosophical system with axioms that must be investigated as well.

If you want a super dry book to read on all this, I'd recommend All Things are Full of Gods by David Bentley Hart.

EDIT: Sorry misread the God shaped hole thing. Also it helps to think of sin as "error" or "missing the mark" which is the Greek translation.

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