Praying Doesn't Help

dannywalk writes "Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina have run a study to see if praying for sick people makes any difference. Apparently it doesn't. 'Before their operations, they were randomly split into two groups, and half were prayed for by Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims. However, checks revealed they had fared no better than those not prayed for.'"

Comments

Next study: Don't pray

[ccady]

Now they need to have another study: tell patients that they are being prayed for , yet don't do it, and see how well they fare. My guess: they'll have increased recovery.

prayer is not the whole point...

[Slowping]

The prayer itself is not the point.

Remember this slash article about the pain of rejection?

What scientists should be looking at is the power of positive thought and feeling of social acceptance in improving quality of life for recovery.

Uhhh...

[cavemanf16]

I don't get it. Why try and apply the scientific method to faith? That's just silly. God isn't Santa Claus; HE IS GOD! Duh! I'm sure God is a bit wiser than us (if you have faith that he is omniscient, omnipresent, etc. - basically infinitely perfect in all things). Why a scientist would try to apply a 4 dimensional measuring system to an infinite being (God) is beyond my comprehension.

C'mon, logically, either you believe in God or you don't. You can't measure that. You can infer by a person's actions with a high amount of accuracy that they do or don't believe in God, and that miracles are or are not possible, but you can't ultimately prove it one way or another. Let me guess, this was a US GOVERNMENT funded study, wasn't it?

Re:obvious answer

[Tyreth]

From a Christian perspective there are a few thoughts, but one of them is not "do not put God to the test". If prayer really is supposed to aid most (or even a measurable percentage) people, then it should be able to be proven - whether through intentional or accidental experience. For example, someone is missing a foot - they are prayed for and the foot grows back.

It doesn't go without saying though, that God is not a neutral, unintelligent force that is manipulated by the hands of men. Many people treat prayer like a magic spell, a way we can force His hand to our will. The truth is (from a Christian perspective, obviously not from a New Ager or others who believe that all things make up God) that if a person's time to die has come, they will die. I am of an increasingly minority view in Christianity today. After the New Testament was completed, the spiritual gifts (healing, prophecy, miracles, etc) ceased. Their purpose for that time had been completed, and they ended - as had happened in times before. Then over the next 400 years, culminating with Christianity becoming the official religion of Rome, the supposed miraculous increased in number. But these were not the true gifts - they were pseudo miracles, hypnotism, trickery and deception.
This experiment confirmed what I already believed - that prayer is our chance to worship God, to make known our heartache, and pray for His intercession in ours and other's lives. We can request from Him a miracle for healing or other things. In reality, such true miracles are very rare. As someone said, for the few thousand that Jesus fed miraculously, millions still have to cook their meals every night. The miracles are a sign of His power, but by no means common.

The truth is, I don't expect God to make much of a difference for all those prayers made, regardless of whether it's a test or just a ministry, regardless of whether they are all from the "One True Religion" or not. If God has any power at all, then we are His servants, not the other way around.

Re:Seat belts

[eugene ts wong]

Seat belts do save lives

I agree.

Your parable may mislead people into thinking that prayer is as powerful as seat belts.

I would argue that it is more powerful, but not necessarily more successful. My whole point is that just because there is failure, it doesn't mean that there isn't value in the action/activity. If enough people went over cliffs with safety belts buckled, then the success rate of safety belts would drop, right? Well, I think that we can agree that there are more factors than whether or not belts are buckled. Prayer is like that too. In fact most things are like that. Just because the switch is on, it doesn't mean the computer is working.

Now, do you know what I mean?

Also, bear in mind, that I did say that it was a crude illustration. If people can't see it for what it's worth, then I can't do anything about it, because there is only so much that I can do. I'll try to be clearer next time.

I would love to see a case in which it is as powerful as seat belts.

I wish that I could give you 1. Then I'd be able to put the whole discussion to rest, for everybody. However, when you are dealing with people, it's really hard to quantify them. God is a living being according to the Bible, so even though he may have a set flow chart for how he decides who to help, it may be so complex that everything seems random.

Let's use a down to earth illustration. Most people have managers over them. The workers may be consistent & fair the whole time of their employment, but funny things happen with people, & problems occur. Sometimes we get fired through no fault of our own. I guess you could argue, "Ah, that means God fires people unfairly!". Well, that's not the point of my illustration. My point is that the world is complex, & even though there is a specific reason for everything, it is too hard to predict the outcome, based only on a few variables. I would argue that getting God to heal people physically in a measurable way is possible, but it is difficult to do because there are so many factors.

Perhaps a better example is charitable giving. There are things that they can do to increase donations. However, does that guarantee that everybody will give? Does that mean that they will give more? Does it mean that organizations will need to implement the same techniques everywhere? I don't think that they need to implement the same kind of techniques everywhere because people give through other channels, in different cultures & contexts. However, it does help overall to use the same techniques.

Looking @ it from the relationship point of view, I don't think that he wants to be ignored just because he already intends to heal some1.

I hope that helps. I don't expect my words to win souls, but rather to give a solid understanding of why my point of view is very logical & valid.

No, no, no

[GCP]

Mod points are no substitute for reasoned debate.

I'm not religious, but it seems to me that the study is a reasonable one to do. If it turned out that prayer had a measurable, salutary, repeatable effect, that would have meant that there was something going on that would be worth investigating further.

On the other hand, if there's no difference, it doesn't disprove God or prayer. Even though I'm not a believer, I know that the *theory* is that there is a God listening to the prayers who isn't an automaton but an omniscient and omnipotent being. Such a being could presumably cause the test to come out any way he chose. If his purpose is to test people's faith, that purpose would not be well served if anybody could discover the reality of God with no need for any faith at all by simple scientific experiments.

So it's just a test to see what would happen. If something did, it would be worth looking into further. If nothing happened (results uncorrelated to prayer), then it doesn't appear to prove anything more than that there is no automatic benefit or harm from prayer performed in this manner. All the Big Questions are still there.

Re:I am not Anti-christian.

[anomaly]

I use all the might of my reason to arrive to a conclusion: there is no god
With all due respect, the only way one can posit a logical negative is to have all knowledge about a certain topic. In order to assert certainly that no god exists, you would have to have all knowledge of the entirety of existence simultaneously.

This would make you omniscient - one of the qualities of the god that you contend does not exist. :)

You may choose to believe that there is no god, but it is not the only conclusion that can be reached through the might of reason.

Respectfully, Anomaly