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.

Perhaps they are missing the point.

[MarvinMouse]

Being a somewhat slacking Roman Catholic, I look at the people who pray for various things, (especially other people's health), and I've realized that while I have no idea whether the prayer helps the person prayed for or not, it does definitely help the person praying. Sometimes people feel helpless, like there is nothing they can do when someone they love is dying, and prayer gives them some hope that they are doing something to help out.

As well, prayer research studies are hard to rate because there will always be questions of faith of those in the study, whether connectedness is important, and what the one "true faith" is. All of which will alway make is easy to discount/support any conclusions.

Personally, I take prayer from a very sociological and psychological viewpoint. It provides some form of hope to people who feel otherwise helpless. It gives them the opportunity to feel that they can do something, anything to change what they feel needs to be changed.

Whether it works or not, in the end, is irrelevant.