Four things to say after skimming through this article:
1) If God listens to prayers, he certainly is selective in what he listens to... which almost renders the point of request praying moot.
2) I know there are plenty of studies about the effects of prayer on healing and outlook, but I can't think of any way to provide a psychological control (i.e., separate the psychological effects of prayer from the supernatural effects). Are there any studies that essentially have other people praying for test subjects, with the controls being a group that doesn't get prayed for and knows it, and another group that doesn't get prayed for, but is told that it is?
3) The quantum mechanics idea of simultaneously occurring worlds (as discussed in the article) raises this question to me: is there a separate human soul for an individual in each of these umpteen worlds, or is there one continuous soul? And if the latter, and each possible choice ends up playing out in the cosmos, then how is the soul to be judged. If faced with the choice of killing or not, regardless of the choice I make, both of them have happened, so will the soul get punished and rewarded for both? Huh?
4) In a play Bridget and I saw last year, "Anger Box," there's a powerful monologue in which the speaker has her faith questioned because of 9/11. (found the script online:
www.jeffgoode.com/scripts/angerbox/thisrock.htm)From the text:
Maybe they didn't need to be tested.
Maybe they've already been through the wringer
And they passed.
And now they're sipping Mai Tais with the Holy Ghost in Heaven.
Or maybe they're in hell.
But God already knows that's where they're supposed to be.
God already gave them a chance. Or two chances. Or five.
And sure he could give them one more.
But God already knows that they were never going to change.
God is all knowing, you know?
And even if he had let them live out another 20 years
And sent someone to share the word of God with them every day from now to whenever for the rest of their life,
They still never would have accepted it.
And they'd still end up burning in hell.
So why not now? Especially if it means someone else in that car still has a chance at redemption.
I was watching it on T.V.
And when that second plane hit...
That's what I thought.
Some of those people are with God now.
And the rest of them were on their way to hell anyway.
But none of them needed to be tested. He knows.
But for the wives and children and husbands and families of all those people.
For them, this is a test.
That's the brilliance of God. Who knows every hair on your head.
His divine mercy is pinpoint accurate.
...
You know, no one above the 80th floor got out.
Everybody below the 20th floor got out.
And the floors in-between?
Depends on their health.
Heart condition? Bad hip? Dead. Talk to the hand.
Eat right? Exercise twice a week? Office near the stairwell?
This is only a test.
The wonder of it. The sheer Artistry.
How he got all those people who needed to be to be tested to all get jobs with the same company on the third floor.
While all the people on the 110th floor who worked for that company were either totally pious. Or too far gone to bother saving. Case closed.
But the children of the people on the 110th floor. The juries still out on them. Better run a test.
But not the children of the people on the 3rd floor because those parents did come home that night.
And the timing of it.
When you think about it, he had to be watching that building constantly since 1976 waiting for just the right mix of people to fill up that building.
Plus the people on the two planes.
For just the right moment to do the maximum amount of good.
And he even made the one tower last a few minutes longer than the other.
Because somewhere on the 32nd floor there was a future Christian who needed to just barely get out.
But in the same office on the same floor of the other building, was a lesbian with two kids who was simply never going to learn.
