How many theists really believe?

Theists claim to believe that prayer will influence an omnipotent deity. And yet they never pray for anything they know can’t happen in the natural world. They pray that the sick heal, and that hospital stays and operations go well. But those things happen all the time, and they happen just as often for atheists, or for Buddhists, as they do for theists. Theists don’t pray that someone who has lost a leg grow a new one, or that a loved one who just died of cardiac arrest be resurrected. Why? Such miracles should be a piece of cake for a God who is omnipotent and capable of speaking the entire Universe into existence in one big poof.

Theists pray for safety, but not that the damage of a natural disaster be reversed. An omnipotent God should have no trouble at all reversing time and undoing the damage of Katrina, or the Japanese Tsunami, or the bomb that recently blew up a Christian Church in Pakistan killing a congregation full of Christian believers because, to the Islamic fundamentalists believers, the Christians who believe in the same God as do the Muslims believe in that God the wrong way.

And why mourn the deaths of those Christians who the Muslims blew up? When a theist dies, their belief system claims that they are transported to heaven where they eternally enjoy the most glorious of possible existences, reunited with all their departed loved ones and basking in the glory of God. Why then all the tears at the funeral? Shouldn’t theists be giving thanks that their loved one finally escaped this world of suffering? Sure, that loved one is no longer with them, so there’s a sense of loss; but if the heaven thing is true, in short order all the theists in the crowd will be reunited with the dearly departed. Strangely, though, atheist funerals are generally more joyous than those of theists who claim to believe death is the path to eternal perfection and bliss.

If you have time for it, here’s a 33 minute video from Aron Ra that deals with how firmly we humans are able to convince ourselves of things we actually know probably are not true. It details how, even when confronted with incontrovertible evidence a belief is wrong, believers will dismiss the truth and cling to the lie. The Texas trees that cry the tears of Jesus are a perfect example of this. It’s a form of willful ignorance.

But listen to the video or not, today’s Sunday School question is, if theists really believe what they claim to believe, why are their actions so out of sync with the claims of their belief system?