Religious logic or lack thereof.

I have a relative who is very, very religious. This relative has been religious all her life. I get religious emails from her frequently and generally trash them. A recent email got my attention.

Here is part of her email –

“I have been sick and the problem comes from my back.  My back did not hurt, just a pain down my leg.  I had every symptom but the back.  It took a year to finally figure out just what was happening, but God is good and does heal.  Hope everyone is doing good.  God's Blessings, …..”

I’m not a doctor but it seems to me that from her description of the problem, I would suspect she had a sciatica nerve issue. My wife had similar symptoms with a pain down her leg and the doctors suspected a vertebrae pinching the sciatica nerve. This is pretty common. I’m not saying that this is exactly what my relative had but that’s what I suspect. Again, I’m no doctor nor do I play one on TV.

But the second part of her email is what peaked my interest. It took a year to figure out what was going on (she and or the doctors?) but God is good and does heal. Huh?

I’ve had back issues most of my life. When it acts up I generally take it easy and over time it resolves itself. What if during one of these events, I prayed to God to heal my back and over time it did get better? Did God heal me or did it resolve itself without God’s help?

I imagined my relative saw doctors during this time and since it seems from the email that the problem was “figured out” by, I’m assuming, doctors, who then had the most impact on fixing her issue? God or the doctors?

The issue with evangelicals and those who fervently believe in prayer, is that no amount of reasoning will convince them that God and prayers had nothing to do with solving the problem. If the issue didn’t get resolved, then they didn’t pray enough, or the right way, or loud enough. If the problem got resolved then, of course, God, not the doctors, get the credit. Either way God comes out smelling like winner.

From the TV show “House” this quote sums it up – “If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people.” Can I have an “Amen!”