God and Math Don’t Mix

Jimmy at Fluid Faith asks an interesting question:

Why doesn’t anyone pray for God to suspend or violate the Laws of Math?

People always pray for God to intervene in scientific realms like helping a patient deal with a biological disease, but they never pray for the rules of math to be broken. For example, Jimmy writes, you would never hear the following prayer:

“God, we pray that these Ds and Fs that Sean has earned in his classes will add up to a 3.5 GPA so that Sean can avoid academic suspension. We pray that when his instructors compile his grades for the semester they’ll discover that these low scores on tests and assignments average out to an ‘A’ on his grade reports. And that these [instructors] will be amazed by the work you’ve done on Sean’s grades and praise you for this miracle. Lord, we don’t care how you do it, we simply ask that it be done and we pray trusting that you have the power to make it so.”

Is there a reason people don’t do such a thing?

If the rules of Math are simply the way things are, and prayer will not change that, why is that not the accepted case for other areas in life? If there’s a car accident, why do people feel prayer will make a difference in the passengers’ outcome? Why do people think a virus’ course of action in the body will change if they ask God for it to do so?

(Thanks to Brett for the link!)


[tags]atheist, atheism, math, Fluid Faith, God, Biology, GPA[/tags]