I'm an odd person, and when I say that I mean I don't have an issue regarding the existance of both science and faith, specifically christianic faith. This leads me to contemplate exactly how faith works in the realm of science. In a way scientists are faithful, they continue on in their work with the belief that all their current theories and laws are true, and when an object or event comes along that goes against the current theory, one of two three things happens: The theory is changed to accomidate it, or the event or object is so bizzare that it must be considered some type of anomaly, an exception to conventional rules, or perhaps it is goverened by a yet unknown rule. It is not the same thing as faith in a creator (ie: God), but similar.

Today I considered the question of prayer. What exactly does prayer do? It is a ritual that many faiths use in order to change an event or situation towards a more favorable conclusion. There are many people who say prayer works, God answers their call for help and changes things for them, and yet many prayers go unanswered. Why is this? I explored this thought in the best way that I know how.

If we, for the purposes of this question, accept that God, being the creator of everything, does exit, and that he or she is responsible for all the laws that govern this creation, then we can come to the answer. By setting the rules of his creation, which are so incredibly complex and vast that we as yet do not know them all, we know that God put a great effort into this creation of his or hers. This omnipotent being very much wants this creation to function, elsewise the laws would be far more loose, and allow much more chaos and randomness than they currently do. Even so, randomness must occur, because this creation contains cognitive beings with free will. Free will and random events go hand in hand, one cannot exist without the other. It must be concluded that the creator wanted us to have this free will, and the tradeoff is random events. Every event, when it happens often enough, must experience a change, sometimes small, sometimes radical, because it will never be exactly identical to the event before it.

Now we come to prayer, the action taken by people of faith to change events. We have established that random events must occur, and continue to occur, according to the laws set for this creation. These same laws are what allow prayer to be answered or not. Consider that by people simple having belief, and praying, are in fact, changing a random event in the future. Their breathing, mood, and thought processes all change during the act of prayer. While this is momentarily insignificant, this simple action, this changing of status, could indeed be the catalyst which changed that future event, allowing the now psuedo-random desired effect to occur.

In this way, God does indeed answer prayers, but we conclude that he or she can only do so within the confines of the laws he or she has set for this creation. Infact, simply by creating these laws, he or she has already answered every possible prayer that will happen in the future. We also established that God wants this creation to function, and this explains the lack of direct intervention. If God were to directly intervene, circumventing or even breaking the laws of this creation, then this creation could no longer function, and would cease to exist. In the same respect, if God were to suddenly change one or more of these laws of creation to allow a miracle, creation would also cease to exist as it is now, and would have to be re-created from nothingness into a new existance which complies with the new laws.

So, in order for us, this creation, to exist, God cannot directly intervene in it, save that such intervention occurs only in the confines the current set of laws.

These are the kind of thoughts I have late at night.