FLAW 2. The derivation of Premise 5 from 3 and 4 is invalid: an example of the Projection Fallacy, in which we project the workings of our mind onto the world, and assume that our own subjective reaction is the result of some cosmic plan to cause that reaction. The human brain sees patterns in all kinds of random configurations: cloud formations, constellations, tea leaves, inkblots. That is why we are so good at finding supposed coincidences. It is getting things backward to say that, in every case in which we see a pattern, someone deliberately put that pattern in the universe for us to see.
ASIDE: Prominent among the uncanny coincidences that figure into this argument are those having to do with numbers. Numbers are mysterious to us because they are not material objects like rocks and tables, but at the same time they seem to be real entities, ones that we can’t conjure up with any properties we fancy but that have their own necessary properties and relations, and hence must somehow exist outside us (see The Argument from Human Knowledge of Infinity, #29, and The Argument from Mathematical Reality, #30, below). We are therefore likely to attribute magical powers to them. And, given the infinity of numbers and the countless possible ways to apply them to the world, “uncanny coincidences” are bound to occur (see Flaw 1). In Hebrew, the letters are also numbers, which has given rise to the mystical art of gematria, often used to elucidate, speculate, and prophecy about the unknowable.
8. The Argument from Personal Coincidences
People experience uncanny coincidences in their lives (for example, an old friend calling out of the blue just when you’re thinking of him, or a dream about some event that turns out to have just happened, or missing a flight that then crashes).
Uncanny coincidences cannot be explained by the laws of probability (which is why we call them uncanny).
These uncanny coincidences, inexplicable by the laws of probability, reveal a significance to our lives.
Only a being who deems our lives significant and who has the power to effect these coincidences could arrange for them to happen.
Only God both deems our lives significant and has the power to effect these coincidences.
God exists.
FLAW 1: The second premise suffers from the major flaw of The Argument from Cosmic Coincidences: a large number of experiences, together with the large number of patterns that we would call “coincidences” after the fact, make uncanny coincidences probable, not improbable.
FLAW 2: Psychologists have shown that people are subject to an illusion called Confirmation Bias. When they have a hypothesis (such as that day- dreams predict the future), they vividly notice all the instances that confirm it (the times when they think of a friend and he calls), and forget all the instances that don’t (the times when they think of a friend and he doesn’t call). Likewise, who among us remembers all the times when we miss a plane and it doesn’t crash? The vast number of non-events we live through don’t make an impression on us; the few coincidences do.
FLAW 3: There is an additional strong psychological bias at work here. Every one of us treats his or her own life with utmost seriousness. For all of us, there can be nothing more significant than the lives we are living. As David Hume pointed out, the self has an inclination to “spread itself on the world,” projecting onto objective reality the psychological assumptions and attitudes that are too constant to be noticed, that play in the background like a noise you don’t realize you are hearing until it stops. This form of the Projection Fallacy is especially powerful when it comes to the emotionally fraught questions about our own significance.
9. The Argument from Answered Prayers
Sometimes people pray to God for good fortune, and, against enormous odds, their calls are answered. (For example, a parent prays for the life of her dying child, and the child recovers.)
The odds that the beneficial event will happen are enormously slim (from 1).
The odds that the prayer would have been followed by recovery out of sheer chance are extremely small (from 2).
The prayer could only have been followed by the recovery if God listened to it and made it come true.
God exists.
This argument is similar to The Argument from Miracles, #11 below, except that, instead of the official miracles claimed by established religion, it refers to intimate and personal miracles.
FLAW 1: Premise 3 is indeed true. However, to use it to infer that a miracle has taken place (and an answered prayer is certainly a miracle) is to subvert it. There is nothing that is less probable than a miracle, since it constitutes a violation of a law of nature (see The Argument from Miracles). Therefore, it is more reasonable to conclude that the conjunction of the prayer and the recovery is a coincidence than that it is a miracle.
FLAW 2. The coincidence of a person’s praying for the unlikely to happen and its then happening is, of course, improbable. But the flaws in The Argument from Cosmic Coincidences and The Argument from Personal Coincidences apply here: Given a large enough sample of prayers (the number of times people call out to God to help them and those they love is tragically large), the improbable is bound to happen occasionally. And, given the existence of Confirmation Bias, we will notice these coincidences, yet fail to notice and count up the vastly larger number of unanswered prayers.
FLAW 3: There is an inconsistency in the moral reasoning behind this argument. It asks us to believe in a compassionate God who would be moved to pity by the desperate pleas of some among us-but not by the equally desperate pleas of others among us. Together with The Argument from a Wonderful Life, The Argument from Perfect Justice, and The Argument from Suffering, it appears to be supported by a few cherry-picked examples, but in fact is refuted by the much larger number of counterexamples it ignores: the prayers that go unanswered, the people who do not live wonderful lives. When the life is our own, or that of someone we love, we are especially liable to the Projection Fallacy, and spread our personal sense of significance onto the world at large.
FLAW 4: Reliable cases of answered prayers always involve medical conditions that we know can spontaneously resolve themselves through the healing powers and immune system of the body, such as recovery from cancer, or a coma, or lameness. Prayers that a person can grow back a limb, or that a child can be resurrected from the dead, always go unanswered. This affirms that supposedly answered prayers are actually just the rarer cases of natural recovery.
10. The Argument from a Wonderful Life