Please Indentify this Fallacy

[Semnae]

I saw this on Facebook today:

If God answers your prayer, He is increasing your faith.
If He delays, He is increasing your patience.
If He doesn't answer, He has something better for you!

Please do not turn this into a religion debate. I'm only interested in identifying the fallacy. Here's a list. I've looked through some of the one's I thought it might be, but after reading some examples, it doesn't really fit with any of them. I'm hoping someone on the boards knows logic well enough to know what it is off hand.

There seems to be a disjoint between causation and correlation. I think the last line might be a different fallacy from the first two. The first two lines sort of resemble post hoc ergo propter hoc, which takes the format, A occurred, then B occurred, so A caused B, except in this case A is a complete assumption and may not have occured at all. In the last line, both A and B are assumptions.

[AceHigh]

You could probably just PM Burk for an answer 

[Proin Drakenzol]

I saw this on Facebook today:

If God answers your prayer, He is increasing your faith.
If He delays, He is increasing your patience.
If He doesn't answer, He has something better for you!

Please do not turn this into a religion debate. I'm only interested in identifying the fallacy. Here's a list. I've looked through some of the one's I thought it might be, but after reading some examples, it doesn't really fit with any of them. I'm hoping someone on the boards knows logic well enough to know what it is off hand.

There seems to be a disjoint between causation and correlation. I think the last line might be a different fallacy from the first two. The first two lines sort of resemble post hoc ergo propter hoc, which takes the format, A occurred, then B occurred, so A caused B, except in this case A is a complete assumption and may not have occured at all. In the last line, both A and B are assumptions.

If you put "assuming God exists in the traditional Judeo/Christian sense then..." in front then it becomes whatever fallacy is the one for inputing motives into the actions of ineffable, all powerful beings. Otherwise it's not really a logical statement of all, simply a faith based assumption.

[Nikkoru]

I think that's begging the question -- in that it makes a rather huge conclusion that God exists and plays a role in your personal affairs.

As for the rest, it's a teleological fallacy, where random events or human actions are interpreted to be working towards a conclusion which is implicitly good. 

Though that appears to be more like an aphorism or saying than an attempt at argumentation.

[Burkingam]

Could you ask them what it's supposed to prove? Because I can see at least 4 possibilities and depending which one it is, it might not even be a fallacy.

[datora]

.
Actually, none of those are logic-based "arguments."  They are all stated as a "law" based upon no premise or source.  One could make the assumption that these are "laws" handed down from God to His followers, but as stand-alone statements they are little more than conjectures without basis.  Unless God Himself forged these "laws" and passed them on.

Also, they are virtually unique to a Judea-Christian worldview.  They would not apply to the vast majority of religious beliefs & practices of humanity.

In a sense, your post itself is based upon false premise: you begin with the assumption that these are somehow logic-based or related.  As they are, these statements are outside the purview of logic.

Try it like this:

If stop at a stop sign, it caused you to stop. (You were not caused; you made a decision)
If you stop eventually, it is teaching you how to stop. (it is not teaching you; you obey or not)
If you don't stop, then there is a better way to do it. (no ergo involved; you just refused to obey)

[Proin Drakenzol]

I think that's begging the question -- in that it makes a rather huge conclusion that God exists and plays a role in your personal affairs.

That's not the conclusion, it's the premise.

As for the rest, it's a theleological fallacy, where random events or human actions are interpreted to be working towards a conclusion which is implicitly good.

Not a fallacy. A fallacy is not a premise, nor is a premise a fallacy. It may be a false premise, but you don't know if it is or not.

[surdumil]

Yay!  A logical exercise.
Let's pull out the hidden assumptions:

If God answers your prayer, He is increasing your faith.

- God exists.
- God has gender. (This leads on to a whole different set of questions and assumptions. If it doesn't do sex, why gender?)
- God is male.
- You pray.
- God is aware of your existence.
- God noticed your prayer in this instance.
- When whatever you've prayed for happens, it happened because "God answered your prayer".
- The event increases your faith.
- Your faith increased because you got what you wanted.
- Your faith increased because you got what you wanted after praying.
- A motive of God to cause the event to happen was to increase your faith.
- God is in some way concerned about your faith.
- You have faith.
- The event caused your faith to increase.

If He delays, He is increasing your patience.

- The time taken for the event to occur is perceived as a delay to you.
- Temporal lag is experienced by you and God identically.
- God is purposefully causing the delay.
- God is so concerned that God is aware of the delay.
- God is aware of the delay and has set the delay to cause you to increase your patience.
- Your patience was deficient.  You were too impatient.
- God was aware that your patience was deficient.
- A motive of God was to improve your deficient patience.
- Delaying the event causes you to increase your deficient patience.

If He doesn't answer, He has something better for you!

- When you pray and nothing happens, it's for your own good.
- God not answering prayers is a good thing.
- You should be grateful that your prayers are not answered.
- God is entirely aware of your situation.
- God intends to do what is better for you.
- God has a better understanding of what is beneficial for you than you do.
- If you or others suffer horribly despite your prayers, its better for you.
- God is keeping something from you.
- God keeps secrets.
- If something good happens to you, it may be because God had something better for you.
- If something good happens to you, it may be because God had something better for you, thus you possibly should be grateful that your prayer had not been answered.
- If something bad happens to you, it may be because God had something better for you, and that you need the bad thing to happen.

This brings to mind the final musical number of Monty Python's "Life of Brian"... "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" being sung in unison by rows of crucified men.

If you believe all of the hidden assumptions, then the statements makes sense to you and are not fallacious.

If not, then every point is up for debate.
The statements are a jungle of arguable points, none (or few) of which have been established as fact.
The statements then beg many, many questions and are fallacious.

The statement set is valid for indoctrinated folk, and fallacious for others.

I dunno.  This God thing seems to be a very difficult entity to put up with, if it exists!

[Burkingam]

From my personal experience, when theists use this argument it's usually to explain away how God could answer prayers even though he doesn't answer prayers and so if it's what you're theists also want to say it would be the suppressed-correlative fallacy. Basically, the fallacy of redefining something so that it contains what it doesn't contain, in this case redefining "answering a prayer" so that it also include "not answering a prayer".

Person A: Everyone is either naked or not naked.
Person B: No because everyone is naked under their cloth so everyone is actually naked.

[megido-rev.M]

I saw this on Facebook today:

If God answers your prayer, He is increasing your faith.
If He delays, He is increasing your patience.
If He doesn't answer, He has something better for you!

Please do not turn this into a religion debate. I'm only interested in identifying the fallacy. Here's a list. I've looked through some of the one's I thought it might be, but after reading some examples, it doesn't really fit with any of them. I'm hoping someone on the boards knows logic well enough to know what it is off hand.

There seems to be a disjoint between causation and correlation. I think the last line might be a different fallacy from the first two. The first two lines sort of resemble post hoc ergo propter hoc, which takes the format, A occurred, then B occurred, so A caused B, except in this case A is a complete assumption and may not have occured at all. In the last line, both A and B are assumptions.

Piece of cake (which I just ate btw ). Assuming this is supposed to be used as support to prove existence of "God", then the obvious fallacy is Begging the Question, maybe Non Sequitur to some extent. Those three lines depend on some indefinite attribute of entity "God" in order to imply them somehow, i.e. they require that "God" exists in the first place.

[Scudworth]

It just looks like a cop out to me.
If anyone of religion denies it just change it up a bit then see if it's still an infallible truth for them.

If The Flying Spaghetti Monster answers your prayer, He is increasing your faith.
If He delays, He is increasing your patience.
If He doesn't answer, He has something better for you!

[Jarudin]

Occam's Razor.

If God answers your prayer, He is increasing your faith.
If He delays, He is increasing your patience.
If He doesn't answer, He has something better for you!

The observed behavior is: Nothing happens.
Find a theory to explain it: There's a big man in sky who knows best, but he doesn't bother to tell you.
Alternative theory: Nothing happened, there is no big man in the sky.

It's not proof of course, but the alternative theory looks a lot more simple to me, that is Occam's Razor.

[Proin Drakenzol]

[edit]I'd like to point out that this little homily is intended for those of a faith or being indoctrinated into it, it is not intended to prove or disprove God's existence; for these His existence is a given.[/edit]

From my personal experience, when theists use this argument it's usually to explain away how God could answer prayers even though he doesn't answer prayers and so if it's what you're theists also want to say it would be the suppressed-correlative fallacy. Basically, the fallacy of redefining something so that it contains what it doesn't contain, in this case redefining "answering a prayer" so that it also include "not answering a prayer".

Person A: Everyone is either naked or not naked.
Person B: No because everyone is naked under their cloth so everyone is actually naked.

I think the general response to that one is "no is also an answer." Try it some time, ask someone on the street for thirty bucks, and no looking like a hobo while you do it. Most people will tell you "no" or "fuck off;" they didn't fail to answer you, it's just the answer doesn't net you $30.

For the record, I think this is a stupid homily, but most Christian ones are in my opinion.

Occam's Razor.

If God answers your prayer, He is increasing your faith.
If He delays, He is increasing your patience.
If He doesn't answer, He has something better for you!

The observed behavior is: Nothing happens.
Find a theory to explain it: There's a big man in sky who knows best, but he doesn't bother to tell you.
Alternative theory: Nothing happened, there is no big man in the sky.

It's not proof of course, but the alternative theory looks a lot more simple to me, that is Occam's Razor.

You're assuming (potentially incorrectly) that there is no observable effect, you're also assuming the most basic premise (God exists) is false. Here's an Occam's Razor primary/alternate that's more in line with the homily:

The observed behavior is: sometimes something happens that effectively "answers your prayers."
Primary Theory: there's an omnipotent and omniscient being that occasionally grants your wishes but has reasons for not doing so all the time.
Alternate Theory: occasionally things "work out" in a way you can't really explain, the prayers are simply coincidence.

Now it comes down to whether a guiding hand or pure chance is what you believe in. Your phrasing ignores the first line (there are times "your prayers are answered") and induces huge bias towards which one "sounds better." I'm not claiming mine is completely unbiased, but at least I made the attempt.

[surdumil]

A quick paraphrase might be:

Whether shit does or does not happen, be grateful you selfish bastard!