Question One of the biggest problems I have found in my struggles understanding common religions is the idea that we as humans always give God praise for his feats of glory, humanity, and miracles, however, it is dispicable or even pure heracy to suggest that he is at fault in something not having your desired outcome. I know this is a broad topic with many ways to go but i'm completely stuck. For instance, If a mass murder were attempted and all were spared due to someone performing a heroic act. The press, the public, our Govt. would immediately flood our country with "praise God", "our prayers were answered", "I told you he performs miracles" etc. On the other hand, if the complete opposite happened and many were murdered, first of all, most people would quietly try not to mention him, but the more bold person would respond like "God has everything happen for a reason", "only God knows" or "pray for the victims". Aren't these completely opposite outcomes to this tragic situation that result in responses that aren't so opposite? Very few are negative or questioning; it almost seems like the ultimate cop-out, like when your kid asks you a question that you don't have the answer to and you say b/c I said so. This is a hypothetical, however, you see and hear it everyday from people getting sick, the sun rising, waiting on test results... Sorry for jumping all over the map and thanks for any responses.

Accepted:
January 10, 2013

Comments

Good question and set of concerns. I gather you are dismayed by how some persons' faith may seem irresistible to counter-evidence. I suppose an analogy would be a case when I continue to trust my husband is a good man on the grounds that he sometimes demonstrably cares for me and I explain the times that he neglects or seems to injure me on the grounds that he must be so very wise that his action or inaction is actually good for me. That's a problem. When it comes to reflecting on God in response to your concerns, perhaps three points are worth considering.

First, according to the major theistic traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, God is a reality that is omnipresent and immanent to creation, but also the transcendent creator and sustainer of the cosmos. So the concept of God seems vastly to outstrip any ordinary, finite agent. So, when reflecting on God we should think not of the ethical ways of finite creatures but, as it were, the values that would be in play if there is a Creator God. More on this below.

Second, prayer as a practice is much more than a matter of petitions and answers (or non-answers). Prayer is (I think for most practicing Christians and others) a constituitive part of one's relationship with God (I am writing as though this is a matter of 'one person' but obviously in these religions, there are whole communities who pray and see themselves in relation to God). So, in prayers of praise (that you reference) or meditative contemplation, the person places themselves intentionally before the presence of what (he or she believes to be) God. Some philosophers (such as myself and Richard Swinburne, Keith Yandell, William Alston, Caroline Franks, Kai Man Kwam) believe that such experience can count as bona fide evidence that God exists. There are many ways to develop "the argument from religious experience" and you might check out the Philosophy of Religion entry in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to get an overview.

Third, and this is a point that the entry also speaks to, is the problem of evil. If God is all good, all powerful, all knowing, why is there so much evil? Or, more specifically, why is it that when one prays (as I am praying these days) that a good friend does not die of cancer, does the person die? This is too big of a concern to solve (!!!) in this response. But one way to see matters is that through prayerfuul experiences, some of us believe that there is an evident divine, good reality. And yet the evidence is not always apparent experientially. Here one must come to terms with a question such as: When does the absence of evidence of some reality (my husband, God, weapons of mass destruction, whatever) count as evidence that the reality does not exist? I am probably like some of your friends; while I think evil and unanswered prayers count as an impediment to faith, there is a reasonable case that can be made that there is a living, good God. Although one of the books I wrote, Philosophy of Religion: A Beginner's Guide, is not apologetics and I bring to bear reasons for and against belief in God's reality, and explore non-theistic Hinduism and Buddhism, you can see there an overview of how the reasonability of religious belief can be deep, comprehensive, and not rest on, say, "successful" petitionary prayer. In that book I explicitly take on the difference between thinking about the problem of evil as when one compares God with what we expect of a husband or created agent versus when one takes seriously God as a creator and sustainer of the cosmos. And also, for those of us who are Christians, God became incarnate as the Christ who prayed to the Father, and some requests were granted and some not (in the New Testament on the eve before crucifixion Jesus asks the Father for a means of escaping the passion and death) and there is no escape, at least at first, and Jesus has to pass through passion and death to get to resurrection.

Sorry if I sound more like a homilist than a philosopher per se, but I think that when you look at your friends and the broader set of evidence and reasons that may be in play, their trust and practice may seem more reasonable to you. Actually, the perfect book on such matters may be Robert Audi's most recent book Religion and Rationality. It is non-dogmatic, well argued, and balanced (in my view) and will speak to you of how to assess the reasonability (or unreasonability) of religious faith.