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[jimwalton]

> So you agree that we need evidence to lead to conclusions.

Well of course.

> The logistics of having 1 million plus people

Whoa, Nellie. More like 25,000 people.

> then suddenly the wind stopped blowing and the water came back, fast enough to wash away so many soldiers that they just decided to pack up and go home?

The miracle is in the timing. If the water washing back bogged down their chariots and killed enough of them, they would halt the pursuit. Ex. 14.25 says their chariots "had difficulty driving." They interpreted (according to the narrator) that YHWH was fighting against them, and they turned back. Enough of them were caught in the flow that they didn't resume their pursuit. I don't see what's so dubious and a "far stretch" about this.

> Also, you mentioned there were Egyptian forts at the upper route. Wouldn’t the Egyptians just send troops from there to capture the Israelites on the other side?

Recent discoveries have been made of military outposts on a road leading from Egypt into Canaan, along the Mediterranean, built by Pharaoh Seti I and earlier kings in the 13th century BC. After the water crossing, the Israelites turned south into the Arabian peninsula, away from these forts. If their main army was routed, why would we think Egypt would send some of these contingency forces after a group of 25K people?

> So you have millions of people that somehow escaped the most powerful army in the world at the time

More like 25,000 people.

Scholars estimate the size of the Egyptian army at this time to be less than 20,000. Pharaoh released 600+ chariots (NOTE: This number is probably warfare rhetoric and hyperbole; "600" is the size of a battalion; there is no evidence for a chariot force that large in Egypt at the time; scholars estimate 200-250), along with some troops, to pursue them (Ex. 14.7). This was not war so much as a police operation.

> and only one person decided to record it?

Egyptian inscriptions praise the prowess of the Pharaoh. Who's going to inscribe for posterity, "We got our butts kicked"? No one. The lack of direct Egyptian evidence doesn't prove that this didn't happen. Egyptian sources could have been indifferent to the Exodus because the event didn't shake the foundations of the political and military scene of the day. I don't see it as unlikely at all that the Egyptians didn't record a failure for them.

> When I said geographic and physical markers I meant things that would corroborate the existence of a land ridge, or evidence that water would have been blown into other areas allowing the Israelites to pass through the sea.

I mentioned that it is guess that perhaps the Exodus went through the area of the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah. That region has lots of water, generally not very deep, with fords over it for passage. Some traces of these ancient fords have been found. Ricciotti, in his History of Ancient Israel says, "It is possible that the Israelites, bearing toward the south, had intended using one of these fords. There did exist in historical times, between the actual basin of the Bitter Lakes and the tip of the gulf of Suez, a communication, precarious without a doubt, and perhaps intermittent according to the average depth of the sea—that leaves the passage of the Israelites its full miraculous character—but still sufficient to constitute an important obstacle between Egypt and the desert to the east. While crossing through this low area with its lakes, lagoons, canals, and swamps was possible only at the ford of Suez, which is still used in our own day—and is the principal crossing—or across the fords of Little Bitter Lake in the vicinity of its present-day southern extremity. One of the last-mentioned fords would have been at Migdol, eventually called Abu Hasan.

"The very nature of this ford explains the fatal mistake committed here by the Egyptians. No one would have known better than they, not only of the existence of the ford at this place, but also of the many delicate (and not always realizable) conditions of its use. It must have appeared perfectly obvious to the pursuers that favorable conditions for crossing really existed that morning, once they saw the pursued actually advance into the ford; moreover, the east wind which had blown all during the night would have told them that the ford would be passable. The next morning, for ordinarily the east wind pushes the lower waters toward the Bitter Lakes and thus facilitates the passage."

Here's another longer quote from from Biblical Archaeology (I'll edit it down somewhat to save space and reading): "This entire area, from the northern limit of the Gulf of Suez to the Mediterranean coastline, is not at all as it was in antiquity. Evidence suggests that the Gulf of Suez extended further north in antiquity than it does today, although we do not presently know how far north (Hoffmeier 1997: 209). Also, the Mediterranean coastline during the 2nd millennium BC was much further south than it is today (Scolnic 2004: 96–97; Hoffmeier 2005: 41–42), so the isthmus between the two was much narrower than today. What has remained consistent about the region throughout history is the fact that it has always been known for marshy freshwater lakes. ...

"Noting Bietak’s important paleoenvironmental study of the region, Hoffmeier added that Tell Abu Sefeh, at modern Qantara East on the west side of the present Ballah Lake area, probably reflects the ancient Egyptian name for that lake (p3 twfy) and its Hebrew counterpart (yam suph) (2005: 88–89). Hoffmeier also points out that excavations at Tell Abu Sefeh have uncovered remains of an impressive harbor with quays that once handled multiple trading vessels (2005: 88). While archaeological evidence has identified remains later than the Exodus period, it is obvious that the Ballah Lake was once a substantial body of water on Egypt’s eastern border.

"Kitchen suggested that the Reed Sea terminology might have been used by the ancients for all the bodies of water in the series of reedy lakes that ran the full north-south length of the isthmus (2003:262). By extension, it was also applied to the last of these bodies of water—the Gulf of Suez. This would also explain Numbers 33:10, where the Israelites again passed yam suph (so-called “yam suph II” [Kitchen 2003: 271]) later in the Exodus narrative, after the miraculous yam suph crossing earlier. Maybe at that time, or even later, the same term also came to be used for still another “connected” body of water—the Gulf of Aqaba.

"Geological studies indicate that natural factors have produced great changes in both the Nile delta and Isthmus of Suez through the millennia. More recent human activity has changed the region most of all. Completion of both the old (1902) and new (1970) Nile River dams at Aswan have dramatically affected the river’s flow and greatly reduced its flooding. ...

"The region’s geography and the Exodus account fit together. The Israelites departed from Rameses to the north of Wadi Tumilat and headed south after the last plague (see Ex 13:17–14:3). They came to Succoth in the Wadi Tumilat then headed east to Etham in the vicinity of Lake Timsah. Turning north, they were overtaken by the pursuing Egyptians at Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea and before Baal Zephon (Ex 14:2)."

As I previously mentioned, the scientists from Florida State suggested that the exposure of an underwater ridge could explain the event. No one knows where the Israelites actually crossed.

> The fact that you have over a million people

About 25000

> people and all their livestock and artifacts traveling through an area, and yet not leave a single trace is very suspect.

Traveling people usually don't leave things behind. They escaped quickly from Egypt. They don't have tons of stuff, and they don't leave it behind. Secondly, we don't know exactly where to look for traces of their trip. Third, it's a swampy mess there. Fourth, the construction of the Suez Canal has changed the entire landscape.

> if the Egyptians had so many people and chariots and weapons buried in the sea, we should be able to find something.

The chariots of the time were wooden (Google images: 18th dynasty Egyptian chariot). It was the bronze age, not the iron age. And we don't know where to look. The fact that we don't find anything is no surprise at all.

> The fact that given a certain hypothesis we would expect to find certain things and we don’t find those things is a reason to discount the hypothesis.

Everything we know supports the account. There is nothing questionable about any detail given.

• Foreign rulers ruled Egypt during the time we estimate for Joseph
• Semitic foreigners often worked in Egypt
• The Leiden Papyrus 348 shows that Ramesses built a new capital called Pi-Ramesses
• The Mernapthah stele mentions a people group called Israel
• A non-Egyptian like Moses could be raised in a royal family
• Foreign slaves made bricks and farmed
• The Papyri Anastasi show that Egyptians maintained tight border control, explaining why Moses would need to ask permission for the Israelites to leave.
• we know about the military outposts along the northern route

Every detail we have (we have many more than I've just listed) corroborates the Bible narrative. The text is dead-on accurate and evidenced. The only thing we DON'T have is evidence of the Israelites and their departure.

> Basically the only reason you accept the story is true is that it’s in the Bible.

I accept it because (1) all the other details are correct, and (2) the continuing story the Bible tells necessitates a historical exodus, by my way of thinking. It's not "just because it's in the Bible."

> There is nothing outside the Bible that can confirm it.

Every piece is confirmed except the major piece: the Israelites. We have Semitic people groups in Egypt as slaves, tight borders, etc. I wouldn't say it's "just an assumption."

> What kind of evidence would I accept regarding angels? I would really consider any evidence beyond hearsay. If you have some, I would gladly consider it.

What are you expecting besides someone's account of what they saw?

[Wicker]

> Whoa, Nellie. More like 25,000 people.

Numbers chapter one counts 600,000 men over the age of twenty. There would have been roughly as many women and probably twice as many children. That’s going to be at least 1.5-2 million people. Plus all their livestock. That’s a logistical nightmare to move that many people.

> This was not war so much as a police operation.

If this was just a small police operation, why were the Israelites fearing for their lives? Another problem comes to mind. The Bible says that the Egyptians has cornered the Israelites. They were within eyeshot of the Egyptian forces, but suddenly the water disappeared, then all these families on foot were suddenly able to outrun the Egyptian forces?

So, we could go back and forth on the story quite a bit. Basically though, if your version is correct, all you have is a weather event that was convenient for the Israelites and caused some embarrassment to the Egyptians. This is in no way an account of God intervening. Weather is very chaotic and changes in the blink of the eye all the time. There are so many random weather events throughout history that happened to help certain people groups and harm others. It’s just how weather works. Look at Dunkirk for a recent example. I don’t see weather being an evidence for God.

[jimwalton]

> Numbers chapter one counts 600,000 men over the age of twenty.

Here's the deal. The Masoretic text consistently puts the number of the Israelites at that, but many many many scholars think it's a textual flub, and here's why.

In Moses, the word for "thousand" was vocalized "elep" but was written "lp" (Gn. 20.16). But a similar word vocalized "alup" (meaning clan, or troop, or chief) was also written "lp" (Gn. 36.15; Judges 6.15). If the numbers shown in Numbers 1 were intended to use "alup" instead of "elep" (just different vowel pointing), then the "fighting men" numbers would look like this:

Reuben: 46 clans (instead of 46,000): so 500 fighting men
Simeon: 59 clans: 300 soldiers
Gad: 45 and 650
Judah: 74 and 600

etc. You get the point. We end up with an army of 5,500, not one of 600,000. Reading it as "alup," we get a population of 25,000 instead of 2.5 million, which makes a WHOLE lot more sense.

1. With only 5,550 fighting men they would certainly have had reason to fear the Egyptian army (Ex. 14.10). The army of Egypt was no more than 20K. If Israel had an army of 600K, why would they be afraid? If the population of Egypt were only 1.5-5 million, the Israelites at 2.5M could have conquered the country instead of running away.

2. Firstborn males. Numbers 3.46 says that there were 273 more firstborn males than there were male Levites. If there were 1010 male Levites (half of 2020), this would mean that there were 1283 firstborn males (1010 + 273). Total males are 11,100 in 11 tribes, divided by 1283 firstborn gives us 8.6 males per father. Equivalent females makes 17 children per father (high, but not like 108! My grandmother was one of 24 children.) Nobody has 108 children! The number 273 is not rounded like the rest, but is a very precise number because it deals with redemption, an extremely important issue (Num. 3.40-49).

3. The land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, could only support a population of 25000. There wasn't room or resources for 2.5 million.

4. The Israelites crossed the Reed Sea in one night (Ex. 14.42), absolutely impossible if they are 2.5M.

5. The road to Sinai is rugged, and in several places so narrow only a few people abreast could walk. If 2.5M, their line would be over 100 miles long.

6. Water from the rock (Ex. 17). You would need a large lake for enough water for that many people at once. Ridiculous.

7. The retranslated number for the Exodus would also help to explain the paucity of graves in the Sinai. It also helps us understand the fear from the report of the spies in Canaan.

8. Jericho is only 4 miles from the Jordan River. That's not enough room for 2.5M campers.

9. Ancient Jericho was only 10 acres. A population of 2.5M could not march around it.

10. The total population of Canaan at the time was only 1M. 2.6M people could have easily conquered them.

Needless to say, 2.5M is a ridiculous number, and 25K makes a whole lot more sense.

> If this was just a small police operation, why were the Israelites fearing for their lives?

The Israelites were farmers, not soldiers, like the U.S. Militia coming against the British in the War for Independence. 5000 Farmers vs. 10000 trained soldiers = Fear.

> but suddenly the water disappeared

It didn't "suddenly" disappear. Ex. 14.21 says it was a strong east wind that blew all night long—what, 8-10 hours?

> then all these families on foot were suddenly able to outrun the Egyptian forces?

Ex. 14.23 says that the army was thrown into confusion and it slowed them down. It's possible that it started raining, bogging down the chariots.

> Basically though, if your version is correct, all you have is a weather event that was convenient for the Israelites and caused some embarrassment to the Egyptians.

That's correct, but the timing of the event was more than serendipitous.

> This is in no way an account of God intervening

Why not? God often uses very natural events. A rainstorm bogs down the Egyptians, just at the right time; a strong wind pushes the water back, on the exact evening. The wind subsides and the water returns, just at a particularly beneficial moment. too many coincidences add up to the likelihood that it wasn't a coincidence.

> Look at Dunkirk for a recent example. I don’t see weather being an evidence for God.

You're right that there have been many random weather events important to history. Your illustration of Dunkirk is a good one. But it's difficult, if not impossible, to sort out which ones are of God and which are not.

If I were to pray for a person to get free from cancer, and at that very moment his cancer disappeared, is it more reasonable to credit dumb luck or at least to entertain the possibility of the power of prayer and the reality of God? And what if this happens 100 times? We get to the point where "dumb luck" is a stupid explanation, and we'd only reject the explanation of God if we're biased, which is an unreasonable way to think things through.

[Wicker]

Those are some interesting details regarding the numbers in the Bible. I appreciate the time you took to present it, I’ve never heard of these details. However your explanations kinda highlight my problem with believing the stories. Anything seemingly miraculous or hard to believe can be made entirely mundane depending on how you rationalize it. At a certain point, God just becomes something of an allegory and the stories just become, perhaps, moral parables. You’ve turned the exodus story that most people learned into just a story of a small group of slaves that happened to escape Egypt because of some entirely normal weather/nature events.

> God often uses very natural events. A rainstorm bogs down the Egyptians, just at the right time; a strong wind pushes the water back, on the exact evening. The wind subsides and the water returns, just at a particularly beneficial moment. too many coincidences add up to the likelihood that it wasn't a coincidence.

You’re just describing every storm ever: there’s wind and rain. The Egyptians just got stuck in a storm. It was really bad timing, but I’ve been in a lot of storms that came out of no where and caused me trouble, and I’ve had storms subside at just the right time to remedy a problem. At least here in the Rockies, that’s an everyday occurrence.

> But it's difficult, if not impossible, to sort out which ones are of God and which are not.

That’s exactly my point. There is no way to differentiate between one storm being caused by God and another just being a natural occurrence. If there’s no difference, it’s unreasonable to conclude that God is involved.

> If I were to pray for a person to get free from cancer, and at that very moment his cancer disappeared, is it more reasonable to credit dumb luck or at least to entertain the possibility of the power of prayer and the reality of God? And what if this happens 100 times? We get to the point where "dumb luck" is a stupid explanation, and we'd only reject the explanation of God if we're biased, which is an unreasonable way to think things through.

Cancer and other illnesses goes into random remission all the time, with or without prayer. That’s just how nature works. Say you know someone with an illness, wether you have an atheist sit with the patient, a Christian pray for the patient, a Muslim pray for the patient, or a Hindu pray or a pantheistic pagan chant, the chance of remission is the same.

[jimwalton]

> Anything seemingly miraculous or hard to believe can be made entirely mundane depending on how you rationalize it.

That's why we have to interpret carefully and responsibly, not superficially.

> Anything seemingly miraculous or hard to believe can be made entirely mundane depending on how you rationalize it.

No, some of the miracles are irreducible: walking on water, multiplying bread to feed 5000, and the resurrection are a few. I mean, sure, the falling of the Jericho walls could have been a perfectly timed earthquake. This parting of the "sea" could have been a vicious rainstorm in one place with just the wind in another. But we can't explain all the miracles by natural occurrences.

> At a certain point, God just becomes something of an allegory and the stories just become, perhaps, moral parables.

Not at all. If I have given that impression, then I've given the wrong impression. God is very real, and the stories are history. There are just degrees of intervention, so to speak. When God "stopped the sun in the sky," that's the way the author described a natural phenomenon of the sun and the full moon being on opposite horizons at the same time. No miracle. When the donkey "spoke," the angel was speaking through him. Donkeys can't talk. When there was the miracle of quail—that kind of thing happens off and on. It's was the timing. But when the 3 men didn't burn in the furnace, or when Jesus healed the blind, there is no natural explanation. And it's no allegory or parable. Something divine was happening. We just have to be good scholars of the text.

> You’ve turned the exodus story that most people learned into just a story of a small group of slaves that happened to escape Egypt because of some entirely normal weather/nature events.

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. But it doesn't undermine the reality of it or the description of how the Israelites got into Canaan. It doesn't have to be Cecil B. DeMille grand to be true and to accomplish what the Bible says it was all about.

> You’re just describing every storm ever: there’s wind and rain.

It's all in the timing. And in their minds (and in the minds of many since), "lucky coincidence" is not a good enough explanation.

> That’s exactly my point. There is no way to differentiate between one storm being caused by God and another just being a natural occurrence. If there’s no difference, it’s unreasonable to conclude that God is involved.

I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude God is involved. When you've seen such things several dozens times, God get to be a pretty reasonable explanation. At least in my life, "lucky timing" and serendipitous events are not so common. Life is hard, "Murphy's Law" reigns, and things go wrong all the time. Life is stinking frustrating. But then in response to prayer when things happen, time and again, "dumb luck" gets to be a dumb conclusion. Something else is going on, for sure. I've seen enough of life to know life doesn't work this way, especially for me.

> Cancer and other illnesses goes into random remission all the time, with or without prayer. That’s just how nature works.

To some extent, yeah, but those explanations don't fly all the time. Let me give you one. My son had a debilitating stroke in his brain stem at age 19. The doctors called us and said his life functions were affected and they didn't think he was going to make it. He was on a ventilator, and they waited. They told us there was nothing more they could do.

We got on social media and asked people to pray. He was a 6-hour drive from where we were, so we left to go to him. Our church met for special prayer. We arrived in the morning and walked in his room. His vent was out. He said, "Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad." He was back in college within a month. Are there natural, medical explanations? Possibly. You won't convince me, though. This was too weird to be "dumb luck" or "It just happened." When it coincides so specifically with the prayer, it's not unreasonable at all to conclude God was involved. And I've seen it too many times.

And, by the way, I don't hear the same stories from the Hindus and Muslims I know. Muslims believe that Allah is transcendent and does not involved in human affairs. Hindus believe in karma, and you get what you get.

[Wicker]

> That's why we have to interpret carefully and responsibly, not superficially.

You said earlier it may be impossible in order to identify a miracle.

> But we can't explain all the miracles by natural occurrences... but when the 3 men didn't burn in the furnace, or when Jesus healed the blind, there is no natural explanation. And it's no allegory or parable. Something divine was happening. We just have to be good scholars of the text.

I think this is kinda where the conversation started. I said that since the stories in the Bible contradict everything I know about reality, it is more reasonable to believe that they are just made up stories in order to prove a point and not actual events.

> It's all in the timing. And in their minds (and in the minds of many since),

That would be my point, people are just ascribing events to God, god isn’t actually interacting with reality.

> When you've seen such things several dozens times, God get to be a pretty reasonable explanation. At least in my life, "lucky timing" and serendipitous events are not so common. Life is hard, "Murphy's Law" reigns, and things go wrong all the time. Life is stinking frustrating. But then in response to prayer when things happen, time and again, "dumb luck" gets to be a dumb conclusion. Something else is going on, for sure. I've seen enough of life to know life doesn't work this way, especially for me.

This perfectly illustrates my point. You say for the most part that your life seems random and chaotic, but occasionally things work out in a way you like or in a way that seems unusual or unlikely. You’re discounting the majority of the data and focusing on the anomaly to draw your conclusions. Another way to illustrate it is falling in love. If it’s ever happened to you, you start to see every little detail as a sign that you’ve found the one. Once the butterflies and rainbows settle down it’s easy to look back and see that the things you interpreted as signs were just mundane random events, but because you were high on love, you chose to view them as a sign at the time.

> We got on social media and asked people to pray. He was a 6-hour drive from where we were, so we left to go to him. Our church met for special prayer. We arrived in the morning and walked in his room. His vent was out. He said, "Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad." He was back in college within a month.

I’m so happy to hear that your son is okay. That must have been a pretty tough event to go through. However, medical anomalies are a natural phenomenon. It wasn’t that the prayer worked, because whether or not you prayed, the chances of him recovering would have been the same. There is no causal connection. Most of the time people pray and nothing happens. Sometimes people don’t pray and something happens. Chance is happening in both scenarios.

> And, by the way, I don't hear the same stories from the Hindus and Muslims I know. Muslims believe that Allah is transcendent and does not involved in human affairs. Hindus believe in karma, and you get what you get.

That’s probably because I assume you live in a western nation. My point though is that regardless of the religion, medical anomalies happen at the same rate across the board, so prayer can’t be shown to be a factor.

[jimwalton]

> I said that since the stories in the Bible contradict everything I know about reality

Just so we're being realistic, it's not that the stories in the Bible contradict everything you know about reality, but instead that some of the miracles are not part of the natural order of things.

> people are just ascribing events to God, god isn’t actually interacting with reality.

How do you know He's not?

> You’re discounting the majority of the data and focusing on the anomaly to draw your conclusions.

What I'm actually saying is that too many anomalies motivate me to question that the natural world is all there is.

> Once the butterflies and rainbows settle down it’s easy to look back and see that the things you interpreted as signs were just mundane random events, but because you were high on love, you chose to view them as a sign at the time.

No, see, this is just confirmation bias, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a series of anomalies that all have a common denominator (someone just prayed) that motivate me to doubt the naturalistic explanation. That's very different from confirmation bias.

> However, medical anomalies are a natural phenomenon.

Of course they are, but too many anomalies conforming to a pattern (prayer) make me more than suspicious that the prayer is a legitimate factor.

> It wasn’t that the prayer worked, because whether or not you prayed, the chances of him recovering would have been the same.

How do you know this? How do you know it's not that the prayer worked? It sounds like just "disconfirmation bias" on your part. "I don't believe in prayer, so we'll just assume that can't possibly be an explanation."

> That’s probably because I assume you live in a western nation.

No, it's because I know a lot of Hindus and Muslims (we live in a cosmopolitan university town), and I've done a lot of reading. You don't hear the same stories from them. And, as I said, Muslims don't believe in that. Allah doesn't intervene; their prayers are about other things. nor do Hindus believe God intervenes; one gets the karma he deserves. That's why you don't hear the same stories from Muslims and Hindus.

[Wicker]

> Just so we're being realistic, it's not that the stories in the Bible contradict everything you know about reality, but instead that some of the miracles are not part of the natural order of things.

I don’t see how that’s different? Reality behaves in a certain way, miracles contradict that certain way. Now if you could show that Miracles actually happen in reality, then that would change the conversation.

> How do you know He's not?

That was sloppy speech on my part. Perhaps God is literally holding the subatomic particles in their orbit through his power. However, not only has he not been demonstrated to existed, he has also not been demonstrated to serve that function. Maybe he does, anything is possible, in a sense. However, I think the smart thing to do is believe that which has been demonstrated.

> What I'm actually saying is that too many anomalies motivate me to question that the natural world is all there is.

I would challenge this. Trillions of minor things happen to you every day, from biological functions, physical functions, etc. What percentage of these functions would you say are an anomaly and how did you determine that it was an anomaly?

> Of course they are, but too many anomalies conforming to a pattern (prayer) make me more than suspicious that the prayer is a legitimate factor.

This is demonstrably false and would be very easy for you to test. There have been many studies on the efficacy of prayer, by Christians, and they all show that pray does not increase ones chances of recovery any more than random chance. In fact one of the biggest studies has shown that there may actually be a NEGATIVE correlation, that prayer may actually DECREASE your chances of recovery.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/

“In the two groups that did not know for certain whether or not they were being prayed for, complications occurred in 52% of patients who received intercessory prayer and in 51% of those who did not. In contrast, complications occurred in a significantly larger proportion of patients (59%) who knew for certain that they were being prayed for. Major events and 30-day mortality rates, however, were similar across the three groups.”

[jimwalton]

> I don’t see how that’s different? Reality behaves in a certain way, miracles contradict that certain way.

I'm not sure you know this. We define reality by "the way things usually go." So it's a bit of circular reasoning to say "reality behaves in a certain way."

The Newtonian picture of science ("the way things usually go") represents the world according to fixed laws. These laws can be thought of a reflecting the way God has made things, or the way things work without God. Obviously, the laws of nature describe what we see (that's how we derived them), but their source (God or naturalism) can't be known from science.

But the Newtonian picture is insufficient to deny God. First of all, Newton himself accepted the Newtonian picture (duh, of course), but Isaac Newton didn't accept athiesm or naturalism. Newton believed God was intimately involved. According to Newton himself, natural laws describe how the world works when, or provided that that world is a closed (isolated) system, subject to no outside causal influence. The laws work only in times of non-intervention by other forces. Sears and Zemanski, in their classical university physics text, say: "This is the principle of conservation of linear momentum: When no resultant external force acts on a system, the total momentum of the system remains constant in magnitude and direction” (italics theirs). They add that "the internal energy of an isolated system remains constant. This is the most general statement of the principle of conservation of energy." In other words, "reality" as we know it only applies to isolated or closed systems. If so, however, there is nothing in them to prevent God's intervention or from His changing the velocity or direction of a particle, for instance. There's nothing to prevent God from parting the Reed Sea, changing water to wine, or even bringing someone back from the dead, for that matter, without violating the principle of conservation of energy. That's because our very definition of conservation of energy depends on the understand and praxis of a closed system.

In addition, it is not part of Newtonian mechanics or classical science generally to declare that the natural universe is a closed system. You won't find that in any science text, because once you claim that, you're not doing science any more, but philosophy or theology. The question of causal closure of the physical universe could never be addressed by scientific means. Classical science, therefore, doesn't assert or include causal closure. The laws ("reality") describe how things go when the universe is causally closed, subject to no outside causal influence. They don't purport to tell us how things must or always go. Instead, they tell us what reality is like when no agency outside the universe acts on it. Indeed, that's all science can tell us.

>However, not only has he not been demonstrated to existed

There are actually quite reasonable arguments to that effect, far stronger than the arguments against (which barely, if at all, exist).

> he has also not been demonstrated to serve that function

And how would one go about demonstrating such? Do you have a way of doing that? Have you thought this accusation through? What are you expecting?

>> What I'm actually saying is that too many anomalies motivate me to question that the natural world is all there is.
> I would challenge this.

I'm sure you would, from our conversation.

> Trillions of minor things happen to you every day, from biological functions, physical functions, etc.

Of course they do.

> What percentage of these functions would you say are an anomaly and how did you determine that it was an anomaly?

A very low percentage, by definition. If it were a large percentage, it wouldn't be an anomaly.

> how did you determine that it was an anomaly?

Usually we define and determine anomalies by their infrequency and inexpectancy.

> This is demonstrably false and would be very easy for you to test. There have been many studies on the efficacy of prayer, by Christians, and they all show that pray does not increase ones chances of recovery any more than random chance.

God isn't our organ-grinder monkey to do our bidding. But let me suggest this in reply to your "easy for you to test." I claim it's not so easy.

Science works on hypotheses, control groups, reliable data, and reproducibility. How do ANY of those pertain to the subjects of prayer? They simply don't.

For instance, here are a few things you'd have to know to scientifically assess the effectiveness of prayer:

1. We have to be able to isolate those events on Earth that are actions of God and those that aren't. If we can't create clean categories here, our data may be inaccessible or tainted.

2. We have to be able to guarantee that only certain people (and none others anywhere else in the world) are praying in a certain way for a certain outcome. Any stray prayers unknown to the researchers may skew the data. In addition, we would have to know that absolutely no one in the world was prayer for those in the control group. One pray-er, again, may skew the data. If we can't guarantee exactly who's praying with absolute certainty, then the data may be invalidated.

3. We have to establish objective criteria for what constitutes an answer to prayer and what doesn't. After all, in the Bible God at times uses very normal people and normal circumstances to answer prayer. If we can't define clearly what constitutes an answer to prayer, then the data is invalid. Also, sometimes God answers prayer not in the ways people prayed, but in other ways to answer their prayer by arriving at a different end by a different means, but still what they prayed for. We'd have to be able to define that. And sometimes God answers prayer partially. We have to be able to define that.

These are a few things that come immediately to mind to show us that there is no scientific experiment that can be devised with enough control of input and criteria to discern whether or not prayer has been effective. But there is even more than that. In the book of Job, the author deals with the dicey question of "Can righteous people expect to be blessed at a higher rate than average? Can we rightfully expect that God will actively and obviously bless the righteous and harass the wicked?" The answer of the book is a resounding NO. Practically speaking, if God were to bless the righteous at a higher rate, the first effect we would expect to see is people acting righteously just to get the prize, which, of course, wouldn't be acting righteously. It would only be a show to force the hand of God. Secondly, the motives of any and every "righteous" person will come under question, because the idea of "blessing" will even subconsciously be lurking. Ultimately, such a policy will devastate any notion of righteousness on the Earth.

But what if the righteous fare worse than the average? That scrapes against all sense of justice. What kind of God punishes his own people by deliberately making things worse for them. Ultimately, such a policy will frustrate any motivation toward righteousness.

Is there a 3rd Choice, where it all seems haphazard, non-sensical, unpredictable, and sometimes just downright irrational? Our choices are actually narrow: God be accused of ruining righteousness because he blesses people, God be accused of unjust cruelty because he doesn’t bless people, or God be accused of not even being there in any detectable way. Hm. Sounds like a Catch-23, -24, and -25.

Let’s move on to the specific question of prayer. Maybe prayer is like the moral of Job. "Can I rightfully expect that God will actively and obviously answer my prayers at a rate greater than average?" It's an intriguing proposition. The answer should be "Of course." Practically speaking, if God were to answer the prayers of his people at a higher rate than average, I would form certain (no doubt self-oriented and self-centered) expectations about how I can, more often than not, get what I want. It's an insidious attitude, but impossible to avoid. "Yes, look at me—I can turn the hand of God!" The motives of every pray-er would come under question, because the idea of "control" will even subconsciously be lurking. Ultimately, the such a policy will devastate the purity of the human heart. Prayer was not given to people to make them master over God.

But what if my prayers are the kiss of death? If I pray for it, I can almost guarantee you that it won’t happen. What kind of tragic relationship with God is THAT?

Is there a 3rd Choice, where where it all seems haphazard, non-sensical, unpredictable, and sometimes just downright irrational? Our choices are actually narrow: God will be accused of ruining godly hearts because he has an OBLIGATION to answer prayers for them at a higher rate, and we all know about the corrupting leverage of power; God will be accused of cruelty as he deliberately ignores the cries of his people when he has asked them to pray to him, or God will be accused of cavalier apathy because he’s not responsive in any detectable way. Hmm.

The reality is certainly in the middle. We cannot expect reliable and repeatable results. Prayer isn't like that. We can't expect to be the ones holding the cards and managing the output. Prayer isn't like that. We can't expect remarkably better results from a scientific and statistical viewpoint. Prayer isn't like that either.

But let's take this one step further. You are trying to find evidence that God exists in the efficacy of prayer. You are thinking (I am guessing) my argument goes something like this:

1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was answered.
3. Therefore God exists. (!Q>!P)

This is an inadequate argument for a host of reasons, all of which involve #2 being impossible to prove or verify, as previously mentioned. But I'm inclined to see the culprit as correlative fallacy rather than confirmation bias ("What I wanted happened after I prayed, therefore it happened because I prayed"), but the ultimate failure is the same. The case in which #2 CAN be proved is if the "answer" involves something so astoundingly coincidental and/or something that our current understanding of nature considers impossible, such that Ocham's Razor indicates that the simplest answer is divine intervention. But this is not longer the argument from efficacy of prayer, but rather the argument from miracles, which is a different discussion.

But then you seem to be asserting a contrasting proposition: If God exists we should see some scientifically confirmable answers to prayer. This is also wrong. The syllogistic form of that statement is:

1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. Therefore God does not exist. (Q>P)

This is a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent." Instead, what actually happened when prayer is not answered is this:

1. If God does not exist,my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. No conclusion is possible ( = we don't know if God exists or not).

The difficult in making this statement is that you have to prove its first premise. When Christians say that " 'no' is still an answer," they aren't trying to prove premise 2 of the argument from the efficacy of prayer, they're refuting this premise (i.e., providing a [legitimate] reason other than nonexistence for non-answer). After all, it is possible that God can exist but not answer prayer or answer them in the way we want, expect, or can prove.

We are mostly left with God may or may not exist, but his answers to prayer are inadequate for determining God's existence. This is pretty much true, though it would be more proper to say, "We have no idea whether He will answer any specific prayer," since one would need only ONE example (not a statistical majority, or even a statistically significant minority) to prove that he "answers prayer" (meaning "grants requests") in general. The Bible records several examples of answered prayers, and since the same Christians who believe that God does answer prayers believe that the Bible is the accurate record of the activity of God, it is not inconsistent for them to believe that God DOES answer prayer, though this gives them no assurance that he will answer any given (or any at all) prayer of THEIRS. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Most Christians will affirm that they have no way of knowing whether or not God will grant a particular request, and most of the ones that won't affirm that are operating under faulty theology that I have no desire to defend.

We know that God answers prayer didactically, not empirically. Causation (of any kind) can't be measure empirically without fully isolating variables and replicating results. Revelation ( = being told by God) is the only way we know ANYTHING about what God is like or how God acts. Generally, when we affirm something as an "answer to prayer," this is not on the basis of an absence of physical/biological efficient causes, but on the belief that God works by means of those causes.

If the efficacy of prayer were the only argument for the existence of God, people who wanted to believe in God would have a pretty bad time of it. But it isn't. If your objective was to force me (Christians) to admit that there is no assurance of answered prayer, fine, because we were doing that anyway. If it was to prove that the argument from the efficacy of prayer is invalid, well, technically it isn't. If anyone could manage to prove that even ONE incident, ever, in the history of time, occurred as an answer to prayer, and NOT from some other cause, it would prove that God exists (or existed at that point in time). I have no idea how one could possibly go about proving this, however, so I will admit that the argument, while technically valid, is practically useless.

There is also the truth that the purpose of prayer is not to motivate God to do something. God does what God will do according to the will of God, which is not contingent on anything that anyone else does. This is a corollary of a divine attribute called Aseity.

So if you were trying to produce a defeater for Christian theology, this isn't one. But the impression I get is that you think the LACK of answer to some/many/most prayer is significant of something. Initially, at some point, we receive a description of God and what he is like. We hear that he is powerful, kind, loving, merciful, cares for us, answers prayers, etc. We hear this and we get an idea of what we can expect to experience in light of such a God. Then we go out and experience life and none of what we expected happens. At this point, we have a choice to make. Either the definition we received of God was wrong, or our ideas about what that description meant was wrong, and one of the two must be abandoned. The true disciple will abandon their conceptions and try to develop a better understanding of the God of whom they have been told. Everyone else will look for a new god who will either give them what they want or, as a consolation prize, at least fall into line with their self-generated conceptions.


As I hear it, your conception of "God answers prayer" is people who pray for things [would] get them at a rate better than random chance would predict. You KNOW that this is not how a Christian understands "God answers prayer." So now this is the question you need to ask: What use do you have for a God who will not give you things you ask him for?

If your answer turns out to be "none at all," than nothing I (or anything in Christianity) can say can help you. We do not serve God because we get things from him. God cures our sins and makes us like him, and that has nothing to do with answering our prayers (unless that is what we are praying for, which it should be, and note that these things can't be empirically measured). If the answer is anything else, however, this issue is really a technicality. Why do we pray if not to motivate God to action? Why does God not make his existence self-evident (in this case by answering prayers?) What is the significance of God hearing and acknowledging our prayers if he does not intend to respond? Theology can answer all of these (some more clearly than others), but these discussions are really only apprehensible after divine existence is established; you can't really debate the character and behavior of something that doesn't exist.

Remember:

This is a fallacy:
1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. Therefore God does not exist.

This is not a fallacy:
1. If God does not exist, my prayer will not be answered.
2. My prayer was answered.
3. Therefore God exists.

This is not a fallacy either:
1. If my prayer is not answered, God does not exist.
2. My prayer was not answered.
3. Therefore God does not exist.

You can't prove that last one metaphysically, empirically, or theologically, but you can easily state it heuristically: "If my prayer is not answered, I don't want anything to do with the God who wouldn't answer it." This, however, is not scientific or even primarily evidentiary, but an opinion based on false premises.

[Wicker]

You brought up quite a few points there. I’m going to try to simplify things so we don’t get bogged down in too many details. Basically what I understand is this:

1. Things exist and operate in a certain fashion, this is called reality.
2. We use observation, testing and logic do understand what reality is and how it works.
3. Based on those criteria, we can make statements about reality.

I would assume you’d agree with these three points. My problem is that you’re adding another few steps:

1. There is God.
2. He is outside of reality, so not subject to our tools of observation and testing.
3. Despite this, he can interact with reality and affect it in ways we can’t understand.

The glaring problem here is now we have two models for understanding reality. Now presented with some anomaly or thing you don’t understand, instead of using the tools from the first set, you can just assume the second set. The problem with the second set is that it tells you nothing about reality and it is impossible to demonstrate.