God’s Big Chance

As this historic presidential election wallows in its eleventh hour, it grows bigger with meaning. Another layer of significance has been added, this one perhaps trumping all the rest.

You see, with this election the stage has been set for the Almighty to demonstrate his existence and potency once and for all.

Who dared set the stage thus for the Omnipotent? The faithful themselves, of course. All across America, prayers are being whispered and shouted for God to put the “right man” in the Oval Office.

One Pam Olsen, co-pastor with her husband of a church in Florida, insists to her fellow believers that

[w]e have just days to pray that someone who upholds the sanctity of life and marriage between one man and one woman will win.

Olsen also urgers anyone who will listen to implore “the Lord to move in swing states”.

This puts believers (and God!) in a mildly interesting but not necessarily favorable scenario. What happens when Obama wins and perhaps goes on to push for pro-gay-marriage or pro-choice legislation? Will Olsen and her ilk come to the unavoidable conclusion that God either respects the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry and of a woman to choose or would allow this “evil” to persist, in spite of the fervent pleading of his “elect”? Either way, conservative Christianity receives another well-deserved blow.

Of course, if their greatest fears should come true, these Christians will most likely resort to their stock rationalizations, e.g., men are exercising their free will to pursue the lusts of the flesh, the End Times are coming, etc.

So if McCain wins, then this will be evidence that God is in control and the prayers were answered. But if Obama wins, then this will be evidence that – what?

That God is in control, even though the prayers were not answered?

This is another example of the non-falsifiability of religious claims. Why are they non-falsifiable? Because they are not connected in any way to the world as it really is. If they were, then it would be possible, at least in principle, to delegitimate them, even in the eyes of those who hold them most dearly.

This non-falsifiability is quite contrary to the spirit of the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, where God sent fire from the sky in a drastic, and drastically empirical, demonstration of his power. Because history is written by the winners, we have no inkling what Elijah’s response would have been if Yahweh’s offering had not been consumed but Baal’s had.

I have a feeling we’ll get an inkling when Obama gains the presidency. Furthermore, I have a feeling it will make no sense at all.