Ok, so I’m going to do a bit of a Q&A scenario between an Atheist (A) and a Theist (T).
The true story behind this Q&A is essentially that the Theist prayed for an Atheist to pass an exam. The Atheist passed with a good score. This Atheist also put in a lot of study time as well, yet feared that they might fail the course.
When the Atheist passed with the highest grade in the class, the Theist, basically stated: “See I believe in my Lord, I knew he would intervene, even though, I know you don’t believe, he never leaves those who believe in him, behind.”
Ok, so obviously this success was due to god’s intervention per the believer. Now granted that the Q&A below are one of many possible paths it can take, the main purpose of it, is the purpose of query, of rational thought, of finding the evidence for the statement above, so that it can be irrefutable if it were true, otherwise it isn’t a solid base or argument.
This is the post hoc ergo proper hoc fallacy.
A: Is what god does perfect?
T: Yes (we know that Theists believe that god’s actions and thoughts are perfection themselves)
A: So we know that a perfect score is 100% and what I received was a 92%, so either god can’t do something perfect or he had nothing to do with this.
T: Even though you received a 92%, that was done perfectly by god.
A: So this actually begs a few more questions. Firstly, human standard which is what god is trying to affect for the benefit of the receiver is 100% and god’s help can only help raise my score up to 92%, a lower standard than human standard.
Can he reach the human standard or just merely, or doesn’t feel like it, doesn’t want to, what does the evidence show? Why 92% & not the passing grade of 82% instead, if it is not going to be the perfect standard?
What if every time the theist prayed, the score would be 100%, would it not signify that there is some divine intervention? Because, by god! It’s happening every time!
Would theists take advantage of a situation like that & point to it as irrefutable proof of divine intervention?
Or would theists argue, God shouldn’t be so obvious & should instead allow people to arrive at faith by just believing? Hence an imperfect 92%.
There usually comes the occasion wherein the fault lies with the human, so the excuse added is: “you need to help yourself first before god helps you.” Well, nah no duh! It is established that the human is working towards their goal; there may be some who do want a free ride. But it would be an insult to the majority who do put an effort.
This just begs the question:
Where do we draw the line between what god does and what our effort is?
Then there is the god “escape clause”: so essentially if the test taker were to have failed this exam then, the fault would be due to her or his lack of faith or because it’s an endeavor that’s not “god’s plan” so it couldn’t go into fruition.
A farther yet related question is:
If everything that happens is god’s will , then why try anything? Afterall that would be god’s will too.