{"id":978,"date":"2024-01-30T05:42:44","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T05:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/01\/30\/prayer-a-fall-back-position\/"},"modified":"2024-01-30T05:42:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T05:42:44","slug":"prayer-a-fall-back-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/01\/30\/prayer-a-fall-back-position\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayer: A Fall-Back Position"},"content":{"rendered":"

Suppose there is no God. That might be so even if I am a believer. (And it seems that I must be a believer, actually or potentially, if I am to pray sincerely.) Whether or not God exists, when I sincerely pray for someone I produce benevolent thoughts that benefit me even if they do not reach beyond me.  Intercessory prayer, then, is good for me even if God does not exist. <\/span><\/p>\n

What about petitionary prayer? I take a dim view<\/a> of  petitionary prayer for mundane benefits for oneself. Petitionary prayer for another, whether for material or spiritual goods, falls under the rubric 'intercessory prayer' which is good for the one who prays whether or not God exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for non-petitionary prayer to God, prayer in which I do not ask for anything material or spiritual for myself or for another, but simply aim to elevate my mind\/heart to God<\/em> in worshipping and loving him, this too is beneficial even if there is no God. In this case there is a self-elevation and self-ennobling in a God-ward direction. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, I won't be able to engage in this sort of aspirational prayer unless I sincerely believe that the object of my worship, love, and aspiration exists.  My point, however, is that I become a better man when I engage in this sort of prayer whether or not God exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the 'fall-back' should it turn out that there is no God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Objection<\/em>: If you pray in any of these ways, and God does not exist, then your prayer life is one of self-deception and you waste your time on an illusion!<\/span><\/p>\n

Response<\/em>: Not so! For the objection to hold water, the objector would have to know that God does not exist. But he knows this just as little as the believer knows that God does exist. Both the existence and the nonexistence of God are epistemically possible, that is, possible given what we can claim legitimately to know in the strict sense of 'know' which implies impossibility of mistake.  One cannot prove either the existence of God or the nonexistence of God, if 'prove' is used strictly and responsibly. <\/span><\/p>\n

An objector who thinks otherwise is himself guilty of self-deception. If he is an atheist, he fools himself into thinking that it is objectively certain that God does not exist, and if he is a theist, he fools himself into thinking that it is objectively certain that God does exist.  There are rationally acceptable<\/em> arguments on both sides of the question, but no rationally compelling<\/em> (rationally coercive, philosophically dispositive) arguments on either side.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suppose there is no God. That might be so even if I am a believer. (And it seems that I must be a believer, actually or potentially, if I am to pray sincerely.) Whether or not God exists, when I sincerely pray for someone I produce benevolent thoughts that benefit me even if they do … Continue reading “Prayer: A Fall-Back Position”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-exercises"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}