http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060330/ap_on_he_me/prayer_study
In the largest scientific test of its kind, heart surgery patients showed no benefit when strangers prayed for their recovery.And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications. The researchers could only guess why.Several scientists questioned the concept of the study. Science “is not designed to study the supernatural,” said Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center.
In Kestrien’s words: “A Big DUH Comes to Mind”! How many times will they study this quackery before they realize it’s bull? Talking to air does not cure people — MEDICINE cures people, and that’s why these moronic studies should be scrapped to fund scientific research instead of mythology.Not that I’m opinionated…
For everyone scratching their heads about the UltraChrist comments this should clear it up, a previous post from the Bush pray for security thread:
When I heard about this study, I thought for sure it was a joke. The idea is just so absurd. Even if prayer did appear to work, how could it be proven that it was the prayer and not a coincidence. What a waste of money.
If prayer had any effect on human life, we would have seen the effects by now.
Someone said (I don’t remember who or where) that people were claiming that it was a miracle that certain people survived hurricane Katrina. WTF?? If there was a god, where the hell was he when so many were killed in such horrible ways.
Someone above mentioned children being raped and killed in the Super Dome. Hello?? God?? Where the f**k are you????
How can any believer explain this?
Ugh. This just infuriates me. Think people!! Use your f**king heads. There is no god.
Ok, I feel better now. *sigh*
Phree-dim says; ? we ALL have faith of some type?
What is faith anyway?
It seems that Phree-dim is endorsing relativism. I mean if we all base our beliefs on faith at some level how are we to distinguish between beliefs? However, based on his dogmatic responses I have read here, he is an absolutist.
I do not think it is faith when I put my feet on the floor every morning and expect that the floor will support my weight again today. If it is faith it is a trivial form of faith that every living creature need ?believe? in order to make it. Of course this is chicken induction; the chicken believes that the farmer will feed it every morning because that is what happened yesterday and the day before that etc.; until that one morning when chicken is on the day?s dinner menu. This is the problem of induction I believe; supposing the future will resemble the past in fundamental ways, based on that very experience yesterday.
Is this what Phree-dim means by ?we ALL have faith??
And is this really faith?
I am not sure if I have a coherent thesis for this or not but I am not sure that Phree-dim has faith. I mean it is likely he bases his beliefs on his experiences like the rest of us. It is not that he has no evidence but that he has misinterpreted the evidence (?). Before I go too far down this road?thoughts anyone?
Z.
An excellent point, also, if He did bring the Hurricane, explain to me how he can be all-loving? If He is omnipotent as well as omniscient, wouldn’t he know that humanity is flawed? Why would He condemn us for having one of our most powerful instincts (the desire to reproduce) a sin? Since most homosexuals are born into homosexuality, couldn’t He change that? I mean He says that it is an abomination. Couldn’t he destroy Satan now, insted of letting him exist and wreak havoc on the planet? Why would He torture people? How could one insignificant person, (unless they are an international terrorist) piss Him off so much, that He forces them to spend eternity in hell? Why?
[I said this to a religious guy today during lunch hour and his response was "Uh...um..." and then he changed the topic.]
-J?r?me
I can’t wait to see what excuse the Phreetard, JCC, and Goose will be able to pull out of their asses for this one.
-J?r?me
Jerome,
good questions. None of us have good answers. I could write a lot, but it would result in “I don’t know”. I’m not sure we need Satan to wreak havoc on the planet. I think we do a good enough job on our own. Little side note… a satan was earliest described as a stumbling block or an impairment to do good, not as a specific being. Elaine Pagels is a fantastic author who writes a lot about how we got to where we are as a religion. The Origin of Satan was a fascinating read. The Hebrew text only describes the serpent in the garden of eden as just that… as serpent, not satan. Only later did the Christians make the serpent into Satan, the single entity.
So now I’m just fancy talking around the real issues. Let me get right at it. Why do bad things happen? Why would God have a creation just to condemn the majority of it to hell? What good does praying do? Whew, big stuff.
Why do bad things happen? Not just of our own making, but natural disasters as well. I think most of us, if not all of us, have had some really bad things happen in our lives. If one believes in god, I think it’s only natural to wonder what god is thinking or why we have to go through what we go through. The answer, of course, is that we don’t know. As a person who has chosen to believe in god, I readily admit to not knowing why, but understanding what my understanding of my beliefs require of me to do something about it. As much criticism as there might be for faith based organizations, there were a huge number of them out there lending a hand. My requirement is that they lend a hand without requiring anything in return. In other words, do good, but don’t use it as an opportunity to cram ideas down people’s throats. Show rather than tell.
Why would god have a creation if she is going to condemn the majority of it? My response is that he doesn’t condemn the majority of it. I veered left and gave up on the idea of scaring people into belief. This question is one of the major reasons I did so much research and continue to do so. Belief, for me, is working at ideas and questions and responding with positive action as often as possible. I got a better understanding of how the Bible was written, how the creeds and canons were written and listen to people who are smarter than me. I think like all of us, I am the result of my instinct, experience, need and choice. I choose to listen to certain intelligent people more than intelligent people with a different point of view.
What good does praying do? Again, I can give you no definative answers. My experience is that I pray every night with my wife. Every night we pray for a strong marriage, we pray for other people, we pray for wisdom for leaders of the world (man, that one is REALLY not working out). I think the simple act of repeating goals and concerns for others in a ritualized way has it’s own benefits. It helps remind me of what’s important to me and it forces me to set aside time to think of other people. Can I petition the Lord with prayer to get an outcome that I want? I don’t know and I’m not sure that’s the point. From my point of view it is allowing oneself to opened up to community and in my opinion, god. I do honestly think that ritual has influenced my thinking and therefor my actions.
My intention is not to preach and I try to be very mindful of that. I don’t feel a need to “save” anyone here. I simply try to offer my very subjective opinions. I strongly object to any attempt to force beliefs on others and absolutely oppose any attempt to combine church and state. You cannot regulate a personal relationship with god. I also object to bigotry and try to stamp it out in my own life as often as possible. While I do not agree on certain issues with Phreedm (man, don’t I sometimes), JCC and Goose, I respect their beliefs as I respect you being atheist. While I understand that it’s hard to respect ideas sometimes, working at mainting respect for the person, while difficult at times, helps ensure constructive dialog.
Hmmm… it will be interesting to see if think I actually said anything.
And this is why I respect you so much, because you respect those whom I cannot at the present moment (due to mental scarring because of some evangelizing attempts). One reason I said Phreedm first is because, even though he isn’t the most…brilliant person on this board, he provides quite a bit of intertainment. The sad thing is that there are a few other people in my Biology class that make Phreedm look like an omniscient god.
-J?r?me
Anyone who studies psychiatry or psychology knows about the evolution of the human process of thought. A concrete process of thought precedes the abstract process of thought which is acquired from adolescence onwards by SOME people. Many people get stuck in the pre-abstract thought processing so it is correct to say that prayer is the evidence of a child mind.
When I first became an Atheist, the thing that made me realize that prayer is complete bunk (despite any of the benefits that Spanders mentioned, such as focusing on goals, which can be accomplished through other means) was seeing that it is merely asking God to do whatever his will is. If a prayer was not answered to the believer’s satisfaction, they would say, “well it wasn’t God’s will.” Then I asked myself, “If God is just going to do his will, then praying to God can have no effect, because even if a lot of people ask God to do something that goes against his will, he’s still just going to do whatever is his will.” So even if one believes in God, prayer is still pointless. Asking God to alter his plans for you will accomplish nothing.
Comment from: rainbows4dinosaurs [Member] ? http://www.pogoto.com
It’s amazing how so many have totally missed the real Truth of this study…
And that is? Enlighten us.
The entire framing of the experiment is flawed. Just for argument sake, or to set the ground work for this experiment, lets agree that God is real and that He is the Creator of the universe.
Who are we to assume that we can use God as a first aid kit sitting on the shelf. This concept shows our arrogance.
Second, we know from past experiences that some who go through heart surgery never make it off of the table alive. How would the researchers be able to distinguish those that God allowed to live from prayer? How do we know that those who had complications should of actually died? We don’t. How does one measure a miricle?
It’s not as if the person died and then was suddenly brought back to life.
What were the prayers? Something like, please Lord if it is your will allow “X” to come through the surgery successfully. Well, how many died?
As stated jumping on this study without examining all of the facts brings comfort to those who are non-believers.
This is not a slam, just stating facts. Just as a believer finds comfort in their prayers when a loved one survives surgery.
Comment from: Dagny2 [Member]
What a great honest statement…
This is something everyone questions. Along the lines of predestination.
Did you seek an answer to this question or did you just accept this thought and move on?
Brings comfort? Why do I need to be comforted? I don?t have any doubts about the non-existence of God. They can do all the studies and waste all the money they want. Prayer only disturbs the air. That?s a fact. There?s no one listening. Feel free to live your life in fear. The constitution guarantees you that right just as it guarantees my right not to. Fear is the bedrock of all religion.
Spanders,
Much as I respect your attitude, this points out the biggest weakness of promoting religion: it has no answers. Why did lightning burn down so many buildings, especially churches? Religion had no answer, but science did. Disease, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, plagues of locusts all have become better understood and to some extent mitigated by science, not religion. If god was the cause of all of these, then striving to become closer to and better understand god should have been the answer, but I do not see this to be the case.
But science does agree that prayer helps, at least those who do the praying. Same with belonging to a church organization. These are reasons why I am not opposed to religion. Unless I can point to something which is at least as beneficial to ordinary folk as these things, doing away with them is doing harm in the world, not helping. (Scaring people with the idea of inevitable divine retribution has also been a useful deterrent against crime).
As long as people are wasting their own time and not trying to force me to do the same, they can go talk to all the invisible friends they want.
TomSD,
when I say “we” don’t know, I mean Christians, not people in general. I do understand science helps explain why things like tsunamis or lightning fires start and have formulated was to help us deal with it. I don’t see science and religion being exclusive of one another.
My personal belief is that god did actually create the systems that we have in place. I don’t think god causes a specific lightning bolt to hit a specific tree. I’m not sure if you mean what MY answer should have been. My journey to get a better understanding of god is to study history and help where I can. Other people, perhaps scientists who are christian, endevour to understand the why of science to help them get closer to god. I’m not as interested in the answers to those questions that lead to better scientific understanding. I’m not saying they’re not important, they’re just not what I’m focused on.
CassandraCox:
“When I heard about this study, I thought for sure it was a joke. The idea is just so absurd. Even if prayer did appear to work, how could it be proven that it was the prayer and not a coincidence.”
Two groups of people suffering from the same condition are chosen (With the groups large enough that it is very unlikely that there will be a significant difference by coincidence). A test group is chosen to pray for group A, noone prays for group B and the patients are not told to which group they belong, apart from this the treatment is the same for all patients.
The condition of the patients is monitored over time and after a given period of time the statistics are compared. If group A shows any statistically significant improvement (Even a very small one) over group B then this is evidence that prayer has benefits. This is the bare minimum that is required before a “mainstream” treatment can be described as having medicinal properties and in practice pharmaceutical companies will want more than this before they start mass-producing a drug.
Comment from: pasta la vista [Member]
So you’re absolutely sure God doesn’t exist?
Spanders,
You are right, of course: there are many different paths to finding ways to benefit society. Your posts always seem to be an honest attempt at communication, which requires a serious amount of effort to understand the people you are trying to communicate to. As opposed to those here who simply express their own feelings or point of view without really thinking about the other person?s reaction. I think this is why you are such a highly respected contributor here in spite of the fact that you have a fundamentally different point of view than most. I?m still learning from you?
Phreedm –
All good points, which is why trying to scientifically measure something so totally subjective is probably a futile waste of time and money. But didn’t you, earlier in the thread, point us to some other studies that claim positive results? Could it be that you’re going to be just as quick to embrace studies that support your faith, no matter what methodologies used, while poo-pooing studies that conflict with those beliefs? And really, wasn’t that the real point of the article; that such studies are not going to convince anybody one way or the other?
I’m not sure, since miracles are supposed to be contrary to natural processes, and every so-called miracle I’ve ever heard of has been explainable through natural processes. Of course, if your personal theology dictates that the natural processes are the miracles, then the conversation changes significantly.
Exactly. We never see that, at least not without the aid of modern medicine. We certainly never see a Lazarus event, where someone has been stone-cold dead for several days and then is miraculously brought back to life. I guess it takes the right magician (or the right liar.)
Comfort? Seems to me that it would be more ‘comforting’ if one actually could pray their way out of a situation. No, I think it has more to do with all the believers who constantly make a point to tell us things like “science has shone that prayer works” or “they’ve found the Ark on Mount Ararat, I saw it on the internet” or “mathematics proves evolution false.” I think that for many atheists this most recent study is just more proof that believers are barking up the wrong tree when they look to science for vindication of their unreasonableness.
Which is exactly why people keep praying. It may not be real, but the feeling that it is real, when things do go for the better, is all that is needed for the meme to perpetuate. The downside is that when things go for the worse those people may have to deal with feelings of victimhood, guilt, and disillusionment.
It’s a double edge sword.
Pretty lame attempt at sowing the seeds of doubt phreedm. Letting them take root=fear in full bloom. Like I said, I don?t have any doubts. I don?t know why I even respond to your rhetoric. It?s really hard to let some of your comments go un-answered. I?m sure a lot of people here can relate to that. Now I?m going to go and kick my own ass.
Phreetard,
So you’re absolutely sure that Zeus doesn’t exist?
What if the ancient Greeks are right and you’re wrong? Can you take that chance? If you are right and the Greeks are wrong then you have nothing to worry about but if you are wrong and the Greeks are right then you better be worried.
Alex.
TomSD,
I appreciate your words. One of the ways I attempt to stamp out bigotry is by listening and learning. And, of course, I’m still learning from you (you TomSD and you – all the other people posting)…
Speaking of learning from people, Rainbows… I picked up a few more resources after your suggestion for web development. Did you ever see this service? http://www.browsercam.com/... it allows you to test for EVERY browser all in one place. Seems fairly interesting. Sorry, off topic.
i never understand how humans can turn to prayer to solve all their problems. i had the misfortune a couple of years ago to find out that my friends who, for some stupid reason, i thought were intelligent said about some tragedy in their lives that they’ll just pray and god will take care of it. well, i’ve never been of the mind to leave it up to someone else, whether imaginary or real, to take care of my shit. why can’t people get off their asses and solve their problems instead of being fucking dogs and hoping it’ll resolve itself. sticking my head under the sand until a problem goes away has never worked for me, nor for anyone else i’ve ever met.
I heard about this study on “Good Morning America.” They presented the story with a very pro-religious slant. They had their resident medical expert – Dr. Tim whatever-his-last-name-is. They said he would present both sides of the issue because he is a medical doctor AND a minister!
He said as a scientist he thought the study was flawed, because the patients weren’t screened enough for all possible pre-existing conditions, blah, blah, blah.
I’ll bet that if the study had shown better results for the “prayed-for” group, Dr. Tim would have been praising the study!
Then their news person (Robin Roberts or something like that) said, “Well haven’t we been taught that we have to pray on faith?”
Grrr! I really hate that attitude that “WE ALL” believe something. Why is it assumed that we ALL share the same beliefs???
My DH had they same opinion as many of you – that the money spent on this study could have been better spent on actual medical research!
‘He said as a scientist he thought the study was flawed, because the patients weren’t screened enough for all possible pre-existing conditions, blah, blah, blah.’
Yeah, that ‘doctor’ sounds like an idiot. It is irrelevant if the patient had a pre-existing condition. So, praying does work for the heart problems but not on other ‘pre-existing conditions’? So the imaginary blood god of the bible is up sitting in some throne above the ‘firmament’ listening to these prayers but only healing those patients that don’t have pre-existing conditions? How stupid. Is it too difficult for him/her/it to heal all medical conditions at once? Or were people praying only for the specific heart problem? I can hear it now, “Oh heavenly father, please heal the heart of Charles S. But only heart condition ‘blah blah’ please and nothing else for sake of this study. Amen.”
The Power of Prayer
Said patient to Doc “Pain’s a lot”,
Said Doctor “All pray for his clot”.
So the flock bruised their knees,
With their wailing and pleas,
Still he died; showing prayer don’t do squat.
Man, you’re on fire today
“Comment from: phreedm [Member]
Comment from: pasta la vista [Member]
“I don?t have any doubts about the non-existence of God.”
So you’re absolutely sure God doesn’t exist?
04/01/06 @ 18:43 “.
Which is exactly the kind of comment that points to the non-existence of the omnipotent.
Why?
Well, because any deity,
of any potence at all,
would kick phreedm’s whiny ass from here to, at most, purgatory.
Eternity would be asking to too much.
HeatheNZ, do you ever listen to NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” limerick listener challenge? You should absolutely call in and get Carl Castle’s voice on your answering machine.
Spanders,
I’ve heard “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me”. I can usually get the puch word – but I’m sure I’d freeze under pressure.
Thanks for the vote of confidence though.
I have to tell you, my family like my limericks – but hate the subject and tone
Of course you can’t measure prayer.
You cannot catch it in a test tube and measure it. Neither can you measure God.
What God would that be that lets Himself be treated as a lab rat?
Moreover, it would mess with you free will to choose/not choose God if it could be scientifically proven that God exists/prayer works.
The result of the study is exactly what one would expect from a theological point of view. God will not allow himself to be reduced to hard numbers.
God won’t let himself be controlled by prayer.
Bush and Prayer
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46938
Love The Onion!
Alex
GooseHenry,
Your blood god supposedly made himself known to many people in that fictional piece of crap you call the bible. So, a bunch of barbaric, uneducated Jews can be visited by your god but he/she/it can’t let him/her/itself known to us? That’s pure insanity and you are simply making up excuses for the inactivity of your mythical god. If your god existed, and was all good and all powerful and wanted us to worship it (why an all powerful, all knowing god would want to be worshipped by a bunch of ignorant humans is beyond me) then he would show everyone clearly that he exists and hand everyone their own personal bible to follow (one they can understand). That’s what a good god would do. A god that is all good and all powerful that doesn’t show itself can not exist.
GooseHenry:
wow. you have an insane excuse for everything that proves your religion wrong, don’t you? you must have come up with some interesting excuses for why you didn’t do your homework in school. let me guess, were they something like: well, miss ______, i was going to do my homework last night, but then i had to educate all those heathen atheists about the good lord, and the good lord told me that educating others is more important than doing my homework.
I agree with Island57, Fundies will find a way to debunk this “study” regardless of whether or not we think this “study” is a waste of resources just like they’ve “debunked” evolution. No matter how much proof-positive evidence you present to them, they always find some religious backing to keep supporting their fantasies. They just don’t want to hear it.
Greetings!
What I’ve observed: my devout (to the extreme) MIL has, throughout her adult life, suffered (1) post-partum depression, after which she found Jesus, prayed and was “cured” (2) bipolar disorder, for which she constantly prays and remains un”cured” (3) kidney disease, for which she prayed and was saved by a kidney transplant (4) breast cancer, for which she prayed and was “cured” with (a) arthritis (b) frozen shoulder (c) fibromyalgia and a dozen or so complications. She also prayed during my FIL’s cancer and he died (age 51).
I don’t know what to make of this. My MIL believes that prayer has made her life better but all I can see is one tragedy after another. I mean, if God can inflict upon a “pure” soul such unbelievable suffering, what is He likely to do to a piddling little atheist such as myself?
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prayer for gods kingdom blessing forgivness and holy spirit miracles and truth=prayer for everyone and for comfort and blessing-in jesus amen