“If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it” – John 14:14

“Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” – Mark 11:24

I’m participating in this weeks 2nd most popular Facebook topic to conduct an experiment. For the number one most popular thing I see is in regards to the lottery now passing $500 million dollars.

I aim to combine them in an experiment that should last no more then a day.

Thanks for playing along.

Seventy percent of America believes in God, about 30% are dedicated Christians that adhere to the standards laid out by what they believe to be are the earthly spiritual leaders of God Himself.   This is in spite  of the fact that there does not appear to be a uniform standard even though they all share the same “infallible” text books. If the quoted scriptures above are true – and they are the literal unshakable word of God, then logic dictates that about 20% to 30% of our population should have drawn the same winning lottery numbers tonight and will share equally in God answering their prayers.

If instead, God is supremely prejudicial in answering prayers, then the most devout, the one with the most sincere prayers and the one who has lived a most deserved life will become a very rich person while all others will be subjugated to being valued members of a his infantile children’s club.

If instead a third outcome takes place and some one off group or individual wins the lottery who other then the tribal response to such things, lets out a “thank you Jesus!”, then one of two things will have happened. Either the scriptures are not the literal word of God or God is a liar.

If either of those two outcomes make you feel uncomfortable, there is a third option. In contrast to Genesis, we made God in our own image to serve our own needs and to make ourselves feel good.

Nearly every fight for equality in this country has found its most staunch and arbitrary resistance in biblical reference throughout our history. This has been reinforced by the false interpretation that we where founded as a Christian nation much as modern Iran was founded to be an Islamic nation. We, America, was not and the founding fathers went to some lengths to annotate that fact for posterity while being somewhat encumbered by a lack of literary vernacular, historically removed far enough from clutches of centuries of church based rule.

As we are now coming to mandate the teaching of creationism with absolutely no foundation save for the “literal word of God” in our classrooms, we should pause. As we continue to deny sexual equality for no other reason save for the literal interpretation of a few cherry picked old testament passages that lie in conflict with the New Testament, we should pause.

There is no historical precedent for the faithful having any form of edge in picking winning lottery numbers, just as there are exceptionally few incredibly wealthy and retired fortune tellers.

We should use caution when applying doctrine as justification for law. While there are a number of anecdotal stories of relevance, there are no infallible truths in the bible. The earth is not flat, it never flooded, it is older than six thousand years, and Adam and Eve were not the origin of mankind.

I’ll not deny the benefit of prayer as an indirect tool in living less mindlessly. If praying about winning the lottery makes you more mindful of your budget and the value of charity – great. But I refute unequivocally the suggestion that a magical extraterrestrial mystery dude is going to help anyone win the lottery – or answer a single prayer.   Ever.

Tonight we find out.