Any time the sky began growing dark with threatening clouds, Babcia would always shuffle to the kitchen, light a votive candle, and place it in a plate of water.

The motivation behind the small plate of water was obvious: it was protection against an unintentional fire. The bottom of the candle could get quite hot, after all — an entirely reasonable precaution.

The candle itself, though, was to ward off the approaching storm. I’m assuming prayers accompanied the candle, but they must have been silent because the only thing I ever heard Babcia say was, “I must light a candle to keep the storm away.”

If the storm never appeared or the clouds dissipated completely, I’m sure this felt like confirmation of the ritual’s effectiveness. But it didn’t always work. What then?

Looking back on it, this is the same approach Christians take to prayer in general. When a believer prays for something and God appears to have answered the prayer, then it’s confirmation of prayer’s effectiveness. But what happens when God doesn’t seem to have answered the prayer? Most Christians simply move the goalposts.

Let’s say a young child runs out into the road after an errant ball toss and gets struck by a car. The child’s family rushes out to the child lying on the street, praying all the way. If the child gets up, the prayers were answered: God saved the child from all harm. If the child gets taken to the hospital but survived, the prayers were answered: God saved the child from serious harm. If the child ends up paralyzed because of the accident, the prayers were answered: God spared the child’s life. If the child ends up dying, the prayers were answered: God has taken the child into eternal bliss.

This type of thinking persists in the conservative Christian community, and it begins to affect how they view other things. Just look at the followers of the MAGA movement, in particular Mike Lindell and his pronouncements that soon his lawyers will present information that will change everything about the 2020 election. He gives a date by which everything will change; that date comes; nothing changes; he grows silent; after a while, he gives a new date, and the cycle repeats. He’s been doing it for nearly two years now, and those who follow him and believe him give him a pass each and every time.

What can we make of this mentality? If nothing counts against a claim, then it’s not rational in any sense. Unfalsifiable claims are meaningless, and because they’re unfalsifiable, nothing counts against them. But in the case of prayer and the My Pillow guy, they have been falsified, time and time again, and yet believers hold fast. The belief itself, the faith itself, is more important, it seems, than truth.