A perilous experiment?

Here is my latest article in Humanitie. Mike (the Not Quite So Friendly Humanist) and I have both recently had experiences with religious evangelism. His is here.

Several months ago, some Mormon missionaries approached me on the street. I knew very little about their beliefs, most of it from comedians and atheist critics. So Deena and I invited them over.

I will blog later about what I learned of their particular beliefs. What I want to discuss right now is an experiment they asked us to try after our first meeting.

They asked us to pray.

I found myself facing a dilemma. On the one hand, praying feels like a betrayal of my values as a humanist. How could I sincerely ask for an answer from a god whose existence I believe to be improbable, undiscoverable, and irrelevant to living a good life? On the other hand, free thinking is at the heart of humanism. Prayer is an experience I had never tried before.

So I decided that, conducted carefully, praying would not betray my principles. I would try it - and perhaps learn something new about myself and my Mormon friends.

I had many questions heading into the experiment. Would I feel anything peculiar? How might I interpret it? Would I, in the limited but well-publicised tradition of sceptical converts, "see the light"? Would I have an unusual experience but shrug it off? Would I feel nothing at all?

I sat in a comfortable posture in a quiet room, closed my eyes, and asked aloud, "God, do you exist?"

I quieted my thoughts to make room for even the softest suggestion from an external deity. I sent my internal sceptic, who was clamouring to declare the whole exercise a farce, out to get tea.

Then I waited. I tried to be ready for any type of result - from a sudden Damascus-road conversion to quiet "promptings of the spirit".

I was so still that all I heard for several minutes was the beating of my heart and the ticking of the electric clock. There was nothing else. Nothing that could be interpreted as a message from a god - not even a little thrill of what-if.

Later, I related this experience to the Mormons. They were undeterred. They encouraged me to keep trying: "God is not always heard the first time."

Fair enough. No responsible scientist would draw a firm conclusion from just one data point.

So I continued the experiment, varying the format to get a sample of different styles of prayer: different postures, different forms of address, different questions. I prayed alone; I prayed with Deena; I even led the prayer at the end of our meetings with the Mormons once or twice. The result was the same each time: I was answered only by my own thoughts and feelings.

At a recent meeting, one of the Mormons promised, "If you keep trying, eventually you will get an answer." Well, I have tried the experiment. I have set aside my reservations and sought the truth, true to my humanist values. And I have an answer. There probably is no personal god.

Now it's time for me to move on to the next question, the next empirical adventure.

Photo credit:

Mormon temple image by user Ricardo630, accessed at Wikimedia Commons, released under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license.