Back in late July, a letter appeared in our local paper's editorial page. It was one of those letters that causes us freethinkers to sigh and shake our heads. I'd thought about writing a response to it, but our paper limits the number of letters we can publish in a month (the limit being one), and there were far more pressing topics to address.
And given that I need things to write about here, I thought I'd "reply" in these pages.
The title of the letter was, "Baby's life is evidence that miracles do continue to happen." That should tip you off as to the content. Briefly, the author wrote of a family pregnancy, and how the ultrasounds and tests showed that the child had a severely malformed heart. It was so malformed that funeral arrangements were made! Naturally, friends and family members prayed for the baby, and when he was born, he was strong and healthy. The cardiologist said the baby's heart problems weren't that bad, and could be fixed.
I can guarantee you that there's nothing in the world that will convince the writer of this letter that it was anything other than God's doing that the baby lived. They will never accept that the doctors simply read the ultrasounds wrong, or that the tests were inaccurate. No. The baby's deformed heart was miraculously aided by God.
Never mind that doctors have been known to determine an infant's gender incorrectly. Never mind that doctors have been known to amputate the wrong limb of a patient by accident. Never mind any of the human errors that obviously went into the misdiagnosis of the baby's condition.
None of those things matter. The only thing that matters is the belief of the people involved, a belief that their prayers caused God to save the baby.
I'm sure it will also never occur to these people to wonder why God would've saddled the baby with a malformed heart in the first place, and only "fixed" it when people prayed to him. Nor will it occur to them that the will of an omnipotent God can be changed by prayer. Nor will it occur to them that prayer is an act of self abasement, worse than begging for dimes on a street corner.
These people believe what they want to believe because it's comfortable to them. And nothing you or I can say to them will make them question their comfort, make them step into the real, sometimes uncomfortable world.
